Berlin, Germany

Berlin is the capital and largest city of the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as one of sixteen länder, or states, that comprise modern Germany. Since 1990, Berlin has been the national capital and a German state unto itself. Split during the Cold War, along with the entire country of Germany, Berlin has since been reunified, but the city still struggles with its tumultuous history and the lingering complications of being divided for almost thirty years.

Landscape

Berlin has a total area of 891 square kilometers (344 square miles). It is surrounded by the state of Brandenburg, of which it was formerly the capital. Berlin is primarily a low-lying city, situated on the northern German plains. Several of the city’s sparse hills are artificial formations, created from the remains of prewar Berlin.

The Spree and Havel Rivers meet in the western Spandau district of Berlin. Several lakes throughout the city are joined by networks stemming from these two rivers. Berlin is also home to the Grunewald Forest, which dominates the southwestern portion of the city.

Potsdamer Platz has been the center of Berlin since the city’s reunification in 1990. The square, once a bustling hub in the city, was destroyed in World War II and ignored throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. After reunification, city officials sought to rebuild the square, which lies near the former site of the Berlin Wall, in order to symbolically and literally reunify the city.

Berlin has several distinct neighborhoods. Museum Island, in Mitte, the historical center, is home to several important museums. Tiergarten, once a royal hunting park, is now the city’s governmental center, home to the Reichstag, where Germany’s parliament meets.

The city is officially divided into twelve boroughs, each of which is governed by a Bezirksamt, or borough council, which include five councilors (Bezirksstadträte) and a borough mayor (Bezirksbürgermeister). The Bezirksamts’ powers are limited, however, and they are subordinate to the Berlin Senate.

People

Berlin’s population is 3.571 million (2022). The Kreutzberg neighborhood, in the south end of the city, is home to many of Berlin’s Turkish immigrants, representing approximately 5.5 percent of the city’s population. In fact, Berlin has the largest Turkish community outside of Turkey.

About 71 percent of Berlin’s 3.563 million residents are ethnic Germans, compared to over 90 percent in the country as a whole. The majority of Berliners (60 percent) declare no religion, while Protestants make up the next largest group, with 19 percent of the population, followed by Catholics at 9 percent. Muslims make up 8 percent of the population, while Jews, who were once a large part of Berlin’s population, now account for only 0.4 percent.

The eastern and western halves of the city maintain distinctive architecture, reflecting the differing ambitions of East Germany and West Germany during the division of the country from 1949 to 1990. Even prior to the division, the eastern boroughs of Berlin tended to be home to more working-class residents and were eventually associated with slums. The Prenzlauer Berg in East Germany had a negative reputation; however, the area has become more developed since reunification. The western boroughs of the city, on the other hand, tended to house wealthy Berliners in upscale residential developments.

During the city’s split, West Berliners became known as Wessis and East Berliners became known as Ossis. Often, these terms were used pejoratively by members of the opposing groups but have come into common usage since the reunification. Some Ossis were unhappy about rising crime and unemployment rates following the reunification, and some Wessis were unhappy about greater taxes following the reunification. Nevertheless, most Berliners agreed that reunification strengthened and improved the city.

Economy

Tourism is an important industry for Berlin. Although much of Berlin’s manufacturing industry was hurt by the reunification, the industry has rebounded and is still important to the city’s economy overall. Manufactured products include textiles, metals, clothing, ceramics, bicycles, chemicals, and machinery. Berlin’s other major industries are food production and mechanical and electrical engineering. More recently, Berlin has been focusing on scientific and technological advances, including developments in the transportation technology, biotechnology, medical technology, and information technology fields.

Berlin’s geography effectively makes it a bridge between Eastern and Western Europe, which has improved the city’s existing status as a trading center, and which also contributed to its division during the Cold War. During the years of division, West Germany provided many economic subsidies to East Berlin to aid its struggling economy. When these subsidies were phased out after the reunification, Berlin’s economy struggled, leaving the city with an unemployment rate well above the national average.

Landmarks

Berlin’s best-known landmark is the Brandenburg Gate, which has also become a symbol of Germany as a whole. The gate serves as the main entrance to the city and was modeled after the entryway to the Acropolis in Athens. The gate’s Room of Silence, located in one of the former guard houses, is meant for visitors to ponder Germany’s turbulent history.

The ultimate symbol of divisiveness is the Berlin Wall, which fell in 1989. The reunified government reconstructed a 70-meter (230-foot) portion of the wall out of steel and fragments from the original wall. The Berlin Wall Memorial allows visitors to peer through slits to experience the feeling of separation felt by Germans for almost thirty years.

The Berlin Zoo, founded in 1844 as a royal menagerie, once hosted thousands of animals, boasting the most species of any zoo in the world. Most of them were killed during World War II, so that after the war, fewer than 100 were left. The zoo has since had a rebirth, however, and has become a popular tourist attraction once again.

Another important landmark in Berlin is the Jewish (Judisches) Museum Berlin, which covers the long history of German Jews. The most poignant part of the museum deals with the Holocaust, during which more than 200,000 German Jews (and about 6 million Jews across Europe as a whole) were murdered. A section of the museum called the Holocaust Void consists of a dark, windowless room meant to evoke all that was lost during the darkest hour in Germany’s history.

History

Archeological evidence suggests that Berlin was an inhabited settlement as early as the Stone Age, when many tribes settled on the banks of the city’s two rivers. Berlin’s name likely comes from the Slav word “birl,” meaning swamp. When Germanic peoples and Slavic tribes settled in Berlin in 1244, much of the area was marshland, making the name an apt description of the new settlement. The Berlin settlement eventually joined with a settlement called Cölln (located on present-day Museum Island), forming a lucrative trading partnership.

After nearly a century of dispute over control of Berlin-Cölln and its trade routes, Frederick of Hohenzollern took over in the early fifteenth century. He eventually designated the merged town as the capital of the German state of Brandenburg and was installed as “elector” by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund in 1415. He is known to history as Frederick I (1371–1440), Elector of Brandenburg. Frederick’s family would remain in power in the city until 1918.

The ideas of the Protestant Reformation, initiated by the German theologian Martin Luther, quickly spread to Berlin, and brought strife with them. The Catholic Church attempted to quell the Reformation’s influence through force, beginning what became known as the Thirty Years War, between the Holy Roman Empire and the Protestant armies. By the end of the war, half of Berlin’s population had been killed. Eventually Frederick William of Hohenzollern (1620–88), a descendent of Berlin’s first elector, took control of the city in 1640. Known as the “Great Elector,” Frederick William encouraged immigration, resulting in the influx of many Austrian Jews and French Huguenots.

In 1701, Frederick III (1657–1713), Elector of Brandenburg, declared himself King Frederick I of Prussia. He united Berlin, Cölln, Friedrichswerder, Dorotheenstadt, and Friedrichstadt under the name “Royal Capital and Residence of Berlin,” and had two new palaces constructed. He was also concerned with the cultural edification of his kingdom, founding an Academy of Arts in 1696 and an Academy of Sciences in 1700. Frederick II (1712–86), known as Frederick the Great, carried on his grandfather’s dedication to cultural advancements, encouraging Enlightenment thinkers in Berlin, eventually turning it into a hive of philosophers, artists, and scientists.

In the next century, Napoleon Bonaparte’s armies took much of Berlin’s priceless works of art during the 1806 French occupation. However, when Napoleon was eventually defeated in 1815, Prussia found itself in possession of the Rhineland and Westphalia territories, which provided Berlin with many of the raw materials necessary for its burgeoning industrial revolution. By World War I, Berlin had been named the capital of the German Empire, and had grown significantly, in both population and power, due in large part to the tremendous reparations paid to Germany by France after its 1871 defeat in the Franco-Prussian War.

As Germany’s intellectual center, Berlin was generally unreceptive to the otherwise charismatic Adolf Hitler, who gained influence during Germany’s postwar economic downturn. Three-quarters of Berliners voted against him in the 1932 election, but his Nazi Party managed to take power anyway. Despite the city’s initial opposition to Nazism, Berlin, like the rest of Germany, discriminated against Jews, and eventually was the site of one of the first public violent acts against Jews. “Kristallnacht” is the name given to the night of November 9, 1938, when gangs of Nazis marched through Berlin, beating up Jews and breaking the windows of Jewish-owned stores.

In the wake of World War II, the Soviet Union and the Western Allies (The United States, Britain, and France) struggled over the question of Germany. The Soviet Union occupied what became known starting in 1949 as East Germany, while the Allies occupied what became West Germany. The city of Berlin was entirely within East Germany, but its western portions were nonetheless administered by the American, British, and French governments. As Cold War tensions worsened, on August 13, 1961, the communist East German government erected a barbed wire fence (eventually replaced with a concrete wall) that hardened the division of the city into East Berlin and West Berlin. The stated purpose of the Berlin Wall was to protect the East against fascism, but it also served to prevent defections from East to West Germany.

The Berlin Wall divided both the city and the country for twenty-eight years. During this time, the already devastated city was stripped of many of its factories and other industrial constructs in the name of reparations for the damage inflicted by Germany during the war. East Berlin became the capital of East Germany. West Germany and the Western Allies did not recognize Berlin as a free city at all; although West Berlin served as the symbolic capital of West Germany, the official capital was moved to Bonn.

In 1989, with communism’s influence in Europe waning, Berliners began to publicly decry the existence of the Berlin Wall. Amid confusion, guards opened the wall in November 1989 and let several East Berliners through. The wall was never closed after that, and many Berliners took it upon themselves to take down the wall. With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990, the remains of the wall were demolished, and in 1991, a reunified Berlin became the capital of Germany once again. In 1999, the German parliament finally moved back into the Reichstag, the traditional seat of government in Berlin.

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