History before the founding of the city

From the foundation to the edict of Potsdam

Prussian kingdom and German empire

The Weimar Republic and the Third Reich

The postwar time, partition, reunion and the presence


by Christian Kopf


In 1701 the electoral prince Friedrich 3rd crowned himself to king Friedrich 1st king in Prussia. In 1708 he was uniting cities Berlin, Cologne, Friedrichswerder and Dorotheenstadt. The united city was called Berlin and became the capital.

In 1713 Friedrich Wilhelm 1st became king in Prussia. The usually very avaricious man builds up Prussias military force. At the same time the city of Berlin was growing fast. In 1755 it had about 100.000 inhabitants, 26.00 were soldiers.

Berlin ca. 1730 A.D.

In 1740 Friedrich 2nd became king. He made a centre for the ideas of the age of enlightenment. His successor Friedrich Wilhelm 2nd was an enemy of these ideas and established censorship in the state that led to a decrease of development.

In 1806 Napoleon Bonaparte conquers Berlin. Democratic reformation came to the city. A first city parliament was elected in 1809. 1810 the Berlin university was founded, which is today the Humboldt university. Daily newspapers were established and repression against Jews stopped. After Napoleon lost in 1814 there were no further reformations.

In the 19th century the industrialisation came and population of Berlin grew massively. With 400.000 inhabitants Berlin was the fourth biggest city in Europe, just London, Paris and St. Petersburg were bigger. The first rail road was build between Potsdam and Berlin and finished in 1838. Berlin soon became a city with a lot of rail roads.

In 1848 king Friedrich Wilhelm 4th was able to stop an uprising of the population and as a result he was limiting the privileges of the population, only 5% were able to vote from now on.

In 1861 Wilhelm 1st ascended the throne. He builds the town hall of Berlin and united Berlin with several cities around it. Also he fostered the development of the area around the new bigger Berlin. In 1862 the whole further development of the area was planed completely detailed.

Otto von Bismark

In 1871 the war against of Germany against France which was led by Prussia came to an end. Wilhelm the first was crowned emperor of Germany and the German Empire is founded. Chancelor of the e was Otto von Bismark. Berlin became capital of the new empire. Berlin grew even faster and it came to problems with the capacity of the infrastructure. In 1894 the construction of the underground and the rail roads to the cities around Berlin started. Around the inner rail road circle big apartment-buildings with up to 8 backyards were build to fit the high demand for cheap housing space. In contrast to those poor worker homes, the upper middle class and the upper class started building big mansions in the south west and west of Berlin.

In 1909 the first airport of Germany is opened close to Berlin. In order to gain better control over the development all the villages directly around Berlin were organised in a federation called Big Berlin in 1911.

The First World War (1914-1918) led to hunger and poverty in Berlin. In 1916/17 the situation was so bad it came to strikes. In 1918 at the end of the war the emperor has to resign.