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History of Berlin

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Berlin is the capital city of reunited Germany. Berlin is a young city by European standards, founded in the 13th century.

Large coat of arms of Berlin - 1839.
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Large coat of arms of Berlin - 1839.

Contents

Early history

For the history of the Brandenburg area from here on, see Brandenburg#History.

13th–14th century

Throughout these events, the area of today's Berlin contained small fishing and farming villages.

Not much is left of these ancient communities, although some remainders can be seen in the Nikolaiviertel near the Rotes Rathaus, and the Klosterkirche, close to today's Alexanderplatz. Unfortunately, the great town center fire of 1830 damaged most written records of those early years.

15th–17th century

Map of Berlin and Cölln (1652, East above)
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Map of Berlin and Cölln (1652, East above)

Berlin around 1688 (Drawing of 1835)
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Berlin around 1688 (Drawing of 1835)

Kingdom of Prussia

Unter den Linden, Humboldt University, Berlin Cathedral and the Fernsehturm
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Unter den Linden, Humboldt University, Berlin Cathedral and the Fernsehturm

Friedrichstadt, today the site of many government offices.

1848: As in other European cities, 1848 was a revolutionary year in Berlin. Friedrich Wilhelm IV (1840-1861) managed to suppress the revolution. One of his reactions was to raise the income condition to partake in the elections, with the result was that only 5% of the citizens could vote. This system would stay in place until 1918.

German Empire

Berlin in 1912
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Berlin in 1912

Prussia was the dominant factor in the unification of Germany. When the German Empire was established in 1871, Wilhelm I became emperor, Bismarck chancellor, and Berlin the capital.

In the meantime, Berlin had become an industrial city with 800,000 inhabitants. Improvements to the infrastructure were needed; in 1896 the construction of the subway (U-Bahn) began and was completed in 1902. The neighborhoods around the city center (including Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain and Wedding) were filled with tenement blocks.

Weimar Republic

The overall impression one gets when visiting Berlin today is one of great discontinuity, visibly reflecting the many ruptures of Germany's difficult history in the 20th century. Although it was the residence of the Prussian kings, Berlin's population did not greatly expand until the 19th century, mainly after becoming the capital of the German Empire in 1871. It remained Germany's capital during the Weimar Republic and under the Nazis' Third Reich. 1920s Berlin was a very exciting and interesting city to live and work during the post-World War I period.

The economic situation was bad. Germany had to pay large sums of reparation money after the Treaty of Versailles, and the government reacted by printing so much money that inflation was enormous. Especially workers and pensioners were the victim of this policy. At the worst point of the inflation one dollar was worth about 4.2 trillion marks. From 1924 onwards the situation became better because of newly arranged agreements with the allied forces, American help, and a sounder fiscal policy. The heyday of Berlin began. It became the largest industrial city of the continent. People like the architect Walter Gropius, physicist Albert Einstein, painter George Grosz and writers Arnold Zweig, Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Tucholsky made Berlin the cultural center of Europe. Night life was blooming in 1920s Berlin.

In 1922, the railway system, that connected Berlin to its neighboring cities and villages was electrified and transformed into the S-Bahn, and a year later Tempelhof airport was opened. Berlin was the second biggest inland harbour of the country. All this infrastructure was needed to transport and feed the over 4 million Berliners.

But not all was well. Even before the 1929 crash, 450,000 people were unemployed. In the same year Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party won its first seats in the city parliament. On July 12, 1929, the Prussian government under Otto Braun in Berlin was ousted by a military coup. The republic was nearing its breakdown, under the influence of extreme forces from the right and the left. On January 30, 1933, Hitler became Chancellor, after doing away with the Social Democrats.

Third Reich

Berlin during the Nazi era.
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Berlin during the Nazi era.

Berlin had never been a center of the National Socialist (Nazi) movement, which had its roots in Bavaria. As the capital of the Weimar Republic, it constituted what the Nazis were fighting. But now it became the capital of the Third Reich.

On February 27, 1933 the Reichstag building was set on fire. The fire gave Hitler the opportunity to set aside the constitution: for details, see "Reichstag fire".

Around 1933, some 160,000 Jews were living in Berlin: one third of all German Jews, 4% of the Berlin's population. A third of them were poor immigrants from Eastern Europe, who lived mainly in the Scheunenviertel near Alexanderplatz. The Jews were persecuted from the beginning of the Nazi regime. In March, all Jewish doctors had to leave the Charité hospital. In the first week of April, Nazi officials ordered the German population not to buy at Jewish shops.

The 1936 Summer Olympics were held in Berlin and used as a showcase for Nazi Germany (though the Games had been given to Germany before 1933). In order to not alienate the foreign visitors, the "forbidden for Jews" signs were temporarily removed.

Nazi rule destroyed Berlin's Jewish community, which numbered 160,000 before the Nazis came to power. After the pogrom of Kristallnacht in 1938, thousands of the city's Jews were imprisoned. Around 1939, there were still 75,000 Jews living in Berlin. The majority of german Jews in Berlin were taken to the Grunewald railway station in early 1943 and shipped in stock cars to death camps such as Auschwitz, where most were murdered in the Holocaust. Only some 1200 Jews survived in Berlin by hiding.

Thirty kilometers northwest of Berlin, near Oranienburg, was Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where mainly political opponents and Russian prisoners of war were incarcerated. Tens of thousands died there. Sachsenhausen had subcamps near industries, where the prisoners had to work. Many of these camps were in Berlin.

Nazi plans for postwar Berlin

In the pre-World War II period Adolf Hitler and his subordinates had great plans to transform Berlin, because he thought that Berlin was one of the ugliest cities in the world, and he hated it. (Berlin was and is a center of left-wing political activity in Germany, and its residents largely opposed the Nazis' rise to power.) Therefore he and his architect Albert Speer made enormous plans for the new Berlin, the so-called Welthauptstadt Germania.

On the site of today's Parliamentary offices (Paul-Löbe-Haus) adjacent to the Reichstag, Speer planned to construct the Volkshalle (The Great Hall), 250 m high, seven times higher than St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and with an enormous copper dome. It was planned to be large enough to hold 170,000 people. (After the war, Speer admitted that the plan was unviable due to a meteorological problem - namely, that the body heat and perspiration produced by this large amount of people inside would generate clouds and even precipitation (rain) inside the dome.) From The Great Hall, a southbound avenue was planned, the Avenue of Victory, 23 m wide and 5.6 km long. At the other end there would have been the new railway station, and next to it Tempelhof Airport. Additionally, halfway down the avenue there would have been a huge arch 117 m high, so large that the Arc de Triomphe in Paris would fit inside it. It was projected to be a monument commemorating those fallen during World War I and World War II. The project was to finish in 1950, and Berlin was to be re-named "Germania" on that occasion. But the construction never started, as Hitler decided it would be madness to start such a project during a war. Hitler also thought the Allied airstrikes very practical, mostly because it made demolishing the old Berlin so much cheaper.

Today only a few structures bear witness to the large-scale plans of Germania. Hermann Göring's Reichsluftfahrtministerium (National Ministry of Aviation), Tempelhof International Airport, Olympiastadion, and a series of street lights on the East-West Axis on Kaiserdamm and Straße des 17 Juni are all that remain. Hitler's Reich Chancellery was demolished by Soviet occupation authorities: red marble from the Chancellery was used to renovate the adjacent war-damaged U-Bahnhof Mohrenstraße subway station and the remaining rubble was used in the construction of the Soviet War Memorial at Treptower Park in Berlin.

The war comes to Berlin

In this Soviet photograph from 2 May 1945, Red Army soldiers are raising the Soviet flag on the roof of the Reichstag
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In this Soviet photograph from 2 May 1945, Red Army soldiers are raising the Soviet flag on the roof of the Reichstag

Destruction of buildings and infrastructure was nearly total in parts of the inner city business and residential sectors. The outlying sections suffered relatively little damage. This averages to one fifth of all buildings (50% in the inner city) for overall Berlin.

The divided city

The occupied sectors of Berlin
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The occupied sectors of Berlin

By the end of the Second World War, up to 33% of Berlin had been destroyed by concerted Allied air raids and street fighting. The so called "Stunde Null" marked a new beginning for the city. Greater Berlin was divided into four sectors by the Allies under the London Protocol of 1944, one each for:-

The Soviet victors of the Battle of Berlin immediately occupied all of Berlin. They handed the American, British and French sectors (later known as West Berlin) to the American and British Forces in July 1945: the French occupied their sector a little later. The Soviets used the period from May 1945 to July 1945 to dismantle industry, transport and other facilities in West Berlin, including removing railway tracks, as reparations for German war damage in the Soviet Union. This practice also continued in East Berlin and the Soviet occupation zone after 1945.

Berlin's unique situation as a city half-controlled by Western forces in the middle of the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany made it a natural focal point in the Cold War. Though the city was initially governed by a Four Power Allied Control Council with a leadership that rotated monthly, the Soviets withdrew from the council as East-West relations deteriorated and began governing their sector independently. The council continued to govern West Berlin, with the same rotating leadership policy, though now only involving France, Great Britain, and the United States.

East Germany chose Berlin (in practice, East Berlin) as its capital when the country was formed from the Soviet occupation zone in October 1949; however, this was rejected by the western allies, who continued to regard Berlin as an occupied city that was not legally part of any German state. Although half the size and population of West Berlin (which the East German authorities generally referred to as "Westberlin"), it included most of the historic center.

West Germany, formed on 23 May 1949 from the American, British, and French zones, had its seat of government and de facto capital in Bonn, although Berlin was symbolically named as the de jure West German capital in the West German Basic Law (Grundgesetz).

West Berlin de jure remained under the rule of the Western Allies, but for most practical purposes was treated as a part of West Germany.

Blockade and airlift

In response to Allied efforts to fuse the American, French, and British sectors of western Germany into a federal state, American refusal to grant the Soviets war reparations from industrial areas of western Germany, and to a currency reform undertaken by the western powers without Soviet approval, the Soviets blocked ground access to West Berlin on 26 June 1948, in what became known as the "Berlin Blockade", in the hope of gaining control of the whole of Berlin. The Western Allies undertook a massive logistical effort to supply the western sectors of the city through the Berlin Airlift, known by the West Berliners as "die Luftbrücke" (the Air Bridge). The blockade lasted almost a year, ending when the Soviets once again allowed ground access to West Berlin on 11 May 1949.

As part of this project, US Army engineers expanded Tempelhof Airport. Because sometimes the deliveries contained sweets and candy for the children, the planes were also nicknamed "Raisin bombers".

The June 17th Uprising

60 construction workers building the showpiece Stalin-Allee in East Berlin went on strike on 16 June 1953, to demand a reduction in recent work-quota increases. They called for a general strike the next day, 17 June. The general strike and protest marches turned into rioting and spread throughout East Germany. The East German police failed to quell the unrest. It had to be suppressed by Soviet troops, who encountered stiff resistance from angry crowds across East Germany, and responded with live ammunition. At least 153 people were killed in the suppression of the uprising.

The continuation of the street "Unter den Linden" on the western side of the Brandenburg Gate was renamed Straße des 17. Juni in honor of the uprising, and 17 June was proclaimed a national holiday in West Germany.

Berlin Wall

East German construction workers building the Berlin Wall, 1961-11-20
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East German construction workers building the Berlin Wall, 1961-11-20

On August 13, 1961 the communist East German government started to build the Berlin Wall, physically separating West Berlin from East Berlin and the rest of East Germany, as a response to massive numbers of East German citizens fleeing into West Berlin as a way to escape to the west. The East German government called the Wall the "anti-fascist protection wall". The tensions between east and west were exacerbated by a tank standoff at Checkpoint Charlie on 27 October 1961. West Berlin was now de facto a part of West Germany, but with a unique legal status, while East Berlin was de facto a part of East Germany.

The eastern and western sectors of Berlin were now completely separated. It was possible for Westerners to pass from one to the other only through strictly controlled checkpoints. For most Easterners, travel to West Berlin or West Germany was no longer possible. During the Wall's existence there were around 5,000 successful escapes into West Berlin; 192 people were killed trying to cross and around 200 were seriously injured. The sandy soil under the Wall was both a blessing and a curse for those who attempted to tunnel their way to West Berlin and freedom. Although it was fast and easy to dig through, it was also more prone to collapse.

When the first stone blocks were laid down at the Potsdamer Platz in the early hours of August 13, US troops stood ready with ammunition issued and watched the wall being built, stone by stone. The US Military with West Berlin police kept Berliners 300 meters away from the border. President Kennedy and the United States Congress decided not to interfere and risk armed conflict, but instead sent protest notes to Moscow. Massive demonstrations took place in West Berlin for a long time.

John F. Kennedy gave a speech about the Berlin Wall in which he said, "Ich bin ein Berliner" -- "I am a Berliner" -- which meant much to a city that was a Western island in Soviet satellite territory.

Much Cold War espionage and counter-espionage took place in Berlin, against a backdrop of potential superpower confrontation in which both sides had nuclear weapons set for a range that could hit Germany. In 1971, the Four-Power Agreement on Berlin was signed. While the Soviet Union applied the oversight of the four powers only to West Berlin, the Western Allies emphasized in a 1975 note to the United Nations their position that four-power oversight applied to Berlin as a whole. The agreement guaranteed access across East Germany to West Berlin and ended the potential for harassment or closure of the routes.

As many businesses did not want to operate in West Berlin due to its physical and economic isolation from the outside, the West German government subsidized any businesses that did operate in West Berlin.

Student movement

In the 1960s, West Berlin became one of the centers of the German student movement. West Berlin was especially popular with young German left-wing radicals, as young men living in West Berlin were exempted from the obligatory military service required in West Germany proper: the Kreuzberg district became especially well-known for its high concentration of young radicals.

The Wall afforded unique opportunities for social gatherings. The physical wall was set some distance behind the actual sector border, up to several meters behind in some places. The West Berlin police were not legally allowed to enter the space between the border and the wall, as it was technically in East Berlin and outside their jurisdiction: many people took the opportunity to throw loud parties in this space, with the West Berlin authorities powerless to intervene.

In 1968 and the following years, West Berlin became one of the centers of the student revolt; in particular, the Kreuzberg borough was the center of many riots.

Reunification

Germans dancing on the Berlin Wall, November 1989
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Germans dancing on the Berlin Wall, November 1989

At the 40th anniversary celebration of East Germany in East Berlin in October 1989, guest of honor Mikhail Gorbachev gave a speech indicating that he would not support hard-line positions by the East German regime, millions of whose citizens were trying to flee to West Germany across the weakening Iron Curtain in Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

On 9 November 1989, after a misleading press statement by Politburo member Günter Schabowski, border guards gave in and allowed crowds from East Berlin across the frontier at the Bösebrücke. The guards believed that the authorities had decided to open the wall, but in reality no firm decision was taken and events gathered steam on their own. The East German leadership was in disarray following the resignation of party chieftain Erich Honecker in October.

People of East and West Berlin climbed up and danced on the wall at the Brandenburg Gate in scenes of wild celebration broadcast worldwide. This time no Soviet tanks rolled through Berlin. The wall never closed again, and was soon on its way to demolition, with countless Berliners and tourists wielding hammers and chisels to secure souvenir chunks.

The Reichstag is the traditional site of the German parliament
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The Reichstag is the traditional site of the German parliament

On Christmas Day December 25, 1989, the American conductor Leonard Bernstein shared with East and West Berliners and the world in the Ode to Joy (which he had reworded Ode to Freedom) his unforgettable Berlin Celebration Concert in order to celebrate the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

A performance of Pink Floyd's The Wall took place in Potsdamer Platz in 1990, led by old Pink Floyd member, Roger Waters.

After the breakdown of Communism in Europe, on 3 October 1990 Germany and Berlin were both reunited. By then the Wall had been almost completely demolished, with only small sections remaining.

In June 1991 the German Parliament, the Bundestag, voted to move the (West) German capital back from Bonn to Berlin. Berlin once more became the capital of a unified Germany.

In 1999 federal ministries and government offices moved back from Bonn to Berlin, but the most employees in the ministries still work in Bonn. Besides, about 20 government authorities moved from Berlin to Bonn, as planned in the compensation agreement (Berlin-Bonn-Law) of 1994.

Historical population

See also

 

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