History of Berlin - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

The history of Berlin such as it is treated here also approaches the prehistoric and ancient period settlement of the area around. Testimonys on this first phase of occupation are essentially exposed with the museum of prehistory and old story of Berlin ( Museum für VOR und Frühgeschichte ), and of the alive reconstitutions are proposed at the Museum-village of Düppel. One also sees techniques of medieval craft industry there.

Origins

First occupants of the site

The cut Flints and the tools in bones found at the time of excavations make it possible to make go up the human presence in the area of Berlin with 60.000 front J. Chr. At that time, most of the north and of the east of the current Germany is covered by the glaciers of the last glaciation, which extends from 70.000 to 8.000 front J. Chr. The southernmost point of the Inlandsis is then to 75 km right in the south of Berlin, where a Glaciated valley occurs, “Baruther Urstromtal”. The habitat is confined with the high plates saved by the ices. Towards -18.000 the last glaciers dig by withdrawing since Frankfurt-on-the Oder the valley of “Berliner Urstromtal”, which comprises a Sandur very thick. Towards -16.000, the site of Berlin, free of ices, is a Moraine. A river, the Spree, establishes now its course in the glaciated valley, with the downstream a Toundra covered with Pinède S. In the west, wet depressions and marshy zones confer its aspect on the whole valley.

The withdrawal of the ices creates folds of the relief, giving rise to the chain of Müggelberge, whose culminating point is the Grossen Müggelberg . The plates of Barnim and Teltow are parallel to formed the course downstream of Spree. With the passing of the ices, the Renne yields the place to the stag, the dash and the Sanglier. The tribes of hunters are sédentarisent little by little. With the thousand-year-old IXe front J. - C., Chasseur S Pêcheur S, which one found arrowheads, Racloir S and flint axes, are established along Spree, of the Dahme and the brook of Bäke. One also found a mask of the thousand-year-old VIIe front J. - C., which was undoubtedly useful for the Rituel S before hunting.

German and Slavic: the Walk of Brandebourg

The Culture of twisted ceramics appears with the thousand-year-old IIIe front J. - C. with agriculture, the breeding and the first Grenier S. To the VI E, towards the end of the Danish Bronze Age, the presence of Germanic tribes is reinforced gradually in the area: the historical sources make them go up at the time of the immigration of Semnons (a tribe of the people suève) and Burgondes.

Between of our era, the Germanic tribes give up most of the plains between Havel and Spree to be established in the higher valley of the the Rhine, in Souabe. Brandebourg is depopulated, but remained a territory populated of German until at the 6th century, of the Slavic people immigrate by successive waves in Lusace; they reach the high valley of Spree in 720, occupy the old German villages and found new villages by all the country.

The Slavic period is then completed in 1157 with the foundation of the Marche of Brandebourg by Albrecht the Bear after it inflicted to the Slavic prince Jaxa de Copnic, at the top of its force, a decisive defeat. The construction of the first districts of Berlin coincides with the foundation of the Margraviat of the Maison of Ascanie in Teltow, and it is marked by a policy of skilful colonization (with the integration of the former Slavic aristocracy) and an active collaboration with the monks Cisterciens of the monastery of Lehnin. The district of Zehlendorf, in the south of Berlin, and with beyond the Slavic village of Slatdorp on the lake of Slatsee (auj. Schlachtensee) ressortissaient ecclesiastical field of Lehnin.

Foundation of Berlin

Between the plates of Teltow and Barnim, the drained banks of a ford of marshy Urstromtal are initially colonized. Some of the suburbs which will become later districts of Berlin are mentioned as of this time: Spandau in 1197, Köpenick 1209, Cölln in 1237 and Berlin in 1244. Tempelhof indicates a commandery of Templiers. Cölln is an island of Spree, while Berlin extends on Right Bank. Spandau and Köpenick are preexistent Slavic villages with the conquest. Spandau obtains a communal charter in 1232, and Berlin most probably at the same date. Berlin and Cölln are amalgamated in 1307. The unified city Berlin-Cölln, thanks to the privilege granted by the bicephalous government of the Margrave S Othon III of Brandebourg and Jean Ier de Brandebourg, can from now on be essential economically on the conquered cities of Spandau and Köpenick.

Brandebourg, of Wittelsbach to the edict of Potsdam

When with the death of Henri II of Brandebourg in 1320 the Maison of Ascanie died out, the uncle of the last descendant, the emperor Louis IV, of the dynasty of the Wittelsbach, transmitted in 1323 the succession of the Walk of Brandebourg to his oldest son, Louis de Brandebourg. The accession with the capacity of Wittelsbach to the head of Brandebourg was marked from the start by great tensions with the population. In 1325, the middle-class men of Berlin and Cölln beat with dead and burned the provost Guelfe Nicolas von Bernau, who had lined up at the sides of the pope against the Emperor. The pope reacts by striking Berlin of Excommunication.

In 1380, a large fire devastated the city, reducing of ashes the town hall and almost all the churches.

The lord Hohenzollern Frederic Ier de Brandebourg became in 1415 voter of the walk of Brandebourg and preserved this function until 1440. The princes of the line of the Hohenzollern were to reign without interruption in Berlin until 1918, initially as a Margrave S of Brandebourg, then as kings in Prussia, kings of Prussia and finally German emperors. The Berliners did not always appreciate these successive changes: at the time of the riots of the Berliner Unwillen in 1448, they raised against the construction of the new castle of the voter Frederic II with-the-tooth-of-iron. This riot turned however to their disadvantage, and the middle-class men left a good part of their political and economic freedoms there.

When in 1451 Berlin became the seat of the margraves and voters of Brandebourg, it had to give up its statute of free city of the Hanse. The economic activity, at one time turned towards the trade and export, evolved to the production of goods of luxuries for the court. The population increased at a vertiginous speed, reaching 12.000 inhabitants about 1600, a movement accompanied by an increasing impoverishment. One accused the Juifs: 100 of them were shown into 1510 to have flown and profaned Hostie S. 38 of them were condemned to the Bûcher, two of them (which had converted with Christianity) were decapitated, all the other Jews of Berlin were expelled. When after a thirty years exile the proof of their innocence could be established, they could be reinstalled in Berlin (after payment of a fine); but the charges began again in 1573, and this time they were condemned to the exile percent years.

Joachim II, duke of Prussia and voter of Brandebourg, imposed the Réforme in the area in 1539 and, within the framework of the Sécularisation, ordered the seizure of the ecclesiastical goods. The money thus piled up enabled him to conclude several large building sites, like the layout of a boulevard, the Kurfürstendamm, connecting its hunting lodge of the forest of Grunewald to its palate, the Berliner Stadtschloss . It organized in 1567 a Naumachie three days between Berlin and Spandau, spectacle which was to end in the programmed victory of the Berliners; but the champions of Spandau did not support the defeat, and made use of the bludgeons with which they were equipped for rosser the Berliner crew.

The War Thirty Year old, during first half of the 17th century, had for Berlin, as for many German cities, of the disastrous consequences: a third of the houses was damaged, and the population decreased by half. Frederic Guillaume, known as the Large-voter, began again in 1640 the succession of his/her father to the head of a ruined and depopulated area. Inspired by the policy of the United Provinces, where it had grown, it set in motion a religious Tolérance and immigration policy. It followed a strong urban development, resulting in the foundation of the new suburbs of Friedrichswerder, Dorotheenstadt and Friedrichstadt. In 1671, it lodged 50 Jewish families fleeing Austria. By the Edict of Potsdam in 1685, Frederic-Guillaume accommodated the Huguenot S French in Brandebourg: more than 15.000 French made the voyage, 6.000 of them settling in Berlin.

Towards 1700,20% of the Berliner population was of French origin, and their cultural influence was considerable. Among the other immigrants, the majority came from Bohemia, of Poland and the area of Salzburg. Frederic-Guillaume also set up a Professional army.

The kingdom “of” Prussia

In reward of its rallying to the Austrian cause at the beginning of the War of succession of Spain, the voter Frederic III obtained the rise in sound Margraviat with the row of kingdom. It was made crown in 1701 in Königsberg, capital of Prussia, under the name of Frederic Ier king in Prussia (and not of Prussia, because it was not sovereign of all historical Prussia, a part being still in Poland). Frederic Ier was a sovereign who saw himself mainly like the servant of his State. He made build the Château of Charlottenburg in the west of Berlin, and this castle was promoted in 1707 with the row of royal residence. A few months after the abdication of Frederic Ier the January 18th 1709, the five towns of Berlin, Cölln, Friedrichswerder, Dorotheenstadt and Friedrichstadt were gathered in only one and even city, Berlin, “capital and royal residence” (decree of January 1st, 1710): Königsberg, capital of historical Prussia, was thus finally évincée, marking an anchoring of the kingdom more in the west. Already, of new suburbs started to extend to the doors from the new capital.

The son of Frederic, Frederic-Guillaume Ier of Prussia, which exerted only the power as from 1713, was a frugal prince who made of Prussia a military power of foreground. Whereas in 1709, Berlin counted 55.000 inhabitants, of which 5.000 were useful in the army, since 1755 it could be enorgueillir of 100.000 inhabitants, including 26.000 soldiers. Frederic Guillaume made moreover draw up around city of the barriers out of wooden bored of 14 doors, indicated thereafter under the name of Barrière of granting of Berlin.

Frederic II, called Frederic Large the , was crowned king in 1740. It was called also the king-philosopher , because it had been also made known by its correspondence with writers like Voltaire and D' Alembert. Berlin became under its reign one of the centers of the Ère of the Lights. The most famous Berliner philosopher of the time was Moses Mendelssohn. The Prussian capital however was not saved by the ceaseless wars carried out by Frederic II to preserve Silesia. At the time of the War Seven Year old, after one year 1759 catastrophic, the Russian and Austrian armies occupied Berlin on October 9th, 1760, before the providential intervention of the tsar Pierre III of Russia does not save Prussia of the disaster. On the other hand, the reign of the successor of Frederic II, Frederic Guillaume II remains in the history like one dull period, the Militarisme of the Prussian State overriding the marketing activities and cultural. Frederic Guillaume II itself was opposed to the Lights: he exerted a Censure less subtle than his predecessor and practiced openly the Répression on the occasion. In this end of 18th century, it made rebuild the ramparts of the city, of which one of the access is very famous the Porte of Brandebourg.

At the conclusion of the campaigns of the Fourth coalition, Napoleon Bonaparte made a triumphal entry in Berlin in 1806. The French occupation marked the one era beginning of reforms aiming at making of Prussia a liberal State, Berlin being seen as for it equipped with an autonomous administration. Under the impulse of the minister vom Stein, the first elections of the Berliner Parliament, with the Vote censitaire, were held in 1809. The university of Berlin opened its doors in 1810, with like first Recteur the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte. The first newspapers of opinions, like the Berliner Abendblätter of Heinrich von Kleist, appeared in Berlin between 1810 and 1811. As from 1812, the Juifs could reach all employment.

But the defeat of the French Armies in 1814 marked for several decades the end of the administrative reforms; however, economic development was going to take the step and to force the movement.

The Industrial revolution gained the German States during first half of the 19th century, being accompanied by a massive rural migration: the population of Berlin passed in a few decades from 200.000 to 400.000 inhabitants, the capital of Prussia joining London, Paris and Saint Petersbourg in the group of the four most populated cities Europe. The first line of Railroad of Prussia, the Berlin-Potsdamer Eisenbahn , entered in service since 1838. The inauguration of the station of Potsdam marked the beginning of the fast development of the Eisenbahnstadt Berlin .

Like other European metropolises, Berlin was in prey with the riots of liberal inspiration at the time of the days of 1848, remained under the name of “ Journées of March” (for this reason, the period of the Restauration is indicated in the German-speaking countries like the “Period of Vormärz”). Frederic-Guillaume IV finally managed to repress the revolt, which was translated in Berlin even by the Journée of the barricades . The calm income, it restricted the autonomy of the city, by raising in particular the Cens authorizing the citizens to be voted: this measurement authorized practically nothing any more but 5% of the population to be taken part in the poll, a quota which remained in force until the autumn 1918.

Guillaume I {{er}} reached the throne of Prussia in 1861. The beginnings of its regency let hope for a Libéralisation awaited a long time in the country. Guillaume Ier named indeed ministers of liberal reputation and made set up the Rote Rathaus , the Town hall of Berlin. The agglomeration of the capital was wide administratively in 1861 in new suburbs: Wedding, Moabit, Tempelhof and Schöneberg.

The surge of labor coming from the campaigns towards Berlin since the suppression of the Servage quickly makes increase the population so that between 1860 and 1870 the Berliner population passes from 493.000 to 826.000 inhabitants making increase closely 50% the rents. What creates an serious attack of housing, more than 70.000 Berliners live in the street and much of others in obscure and unhealthy houses. The center starts has to lose little by little its inhabitants with the profit of the offices, trade, and administrations. The limits of the city are pushed back to include the villages of Moabit, Gesundbrunnen, Wedding and part of Tempelhof and Schoneberg which become districts. In echo with all these upheavals, a plan is elaborate from the point of view of “reorganization of the capital” under consideration by the Prussian State, which will transform the urban landscape. Named plane Hobrecht , of the name of its initiator James Hobrecht, it parcellise grounds to be built in pieces of 150 meters length and 75 meters broad. On these grounds are built rental barracks - famous Mietkasernen. Unhealthy and over-populated, they are built on these in-depth pieces. The law of the time not making it possible to build higher than the width of the street, one built the barracks by adding a court after the other, which also makes it possible to avoid the tax according to the width of the frontages. The courses interior are quickly filled of wings and buildings seedy character, where poverty accumulates as one is inserted in the piece. There had already been in several alteration work of the city, before the Hobrecht plan, including one great part come from Peter Josef Lenné, like the creation of the park of Friedrichshain and the installation of zoological gardens in part of Tiergarten as well as the installation of new boulevards and of a green belt around the city. But C `is especially the construction of the Canal of Landwehr which was its most important project. It makes it possible to divert the traffic of the Spree. It makes 11,5 km, leaves the industrial districts of Treptow and joined Spree to the height of Charlottenburg. It is inaugurated in 1850. It will also be used as water level for the food of the city out of drinking water.

James Hobrecht starts again, while taking as a starting point the plans by Lenné, the realization of a belt of boulevards and green areas. But this idea will be taken up only in 1920 and it will be carried out in the southern part of the city by building a series of large arteries bearing the names of the heroes of the war. But the railway lines which penetrates until the center of the city prevent the completion of the Hobrecht plan.

Capital of the German empire

Under the aegis of the Prussia, the States of Germany of north federated at the conclusion of the war of 1870 according to “D Solution small-allemande”; the German empire was proclaimed with the preliminary Traité of peace of February 26th, 1871, with the king of Guillaume Ier of Prussia like sovereign, Otto von Bismarck like Chancelier and Berlin like capital.

Berlin was now an industrial city of 800.000 inhabitants. However the infrastructures had not followed the growth of the population. One undertook finally in 1873 the construction of the sewerage system, which was completed in 1893. The economic Décollage of the Industrial revolution succeeded the consecutive Krach the German Unité, a crisis related to the massive contribution of liquidities corresponding to the payment of the French war indemnity. The urban extension remained a discussed subject. January 1st, 1876, Berlin was seen entrusting by the State the bridges and the boulevards of the city. Sign times, the Prussian magistrates, at the time of the lawsuit of Kreuzberg (1882), made Jurisprudence by giving wrong to the town planning services against a private individual who had seen himself refusing a Permis to build: the court decided that the State was qualified only as regards Public safety, not out of esthetic and landscape matter.

The Reichstag, whose construction had started in 1884, was inaugurated ten years later, on December 5th, 1894.

To rebalance the strong growth of the traffic downtown, the construction of the Berliner subway ( U-Bahn ) and of the lines of suburban train ( S-Bahn ) was decided in 1896. In the districts of the downtown area (Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain and Wedding), gathered under the term of “Wilhelminischer Boxing ring”, the authorities made build social housing to allow the housing of the workmen. While in the south-west of Berlin, compact and very wide suburban suburbs had developed since 1850, of new residential districts transfer the day in the west at the end of the 19th century. Between 1904 and 1908, a collection of guides entitled Großstadt-Dokumente (51 numbers) was devoted exclusively to the Berliner life. A bridge-with-asses of research in town planning in the German-speaking countries with the Belle Time was the opposition of the sprawling town which was Berlin with Vienna, town of history and culture. The first Aérodrome of Germany opened in 1909 with Johannisthal. In 1911, association “ Zweckverband Groß-Berlin ” was given for task to coordinate the development of the services in a city with the explosive growth. It obtained in 1920 the creation of the urban community of “Large Berlin” (Large-Berlin); another design, always current, of this association is that of green Coulée.

The First World War caused the famine in Berlin. During the winter 1916-17, one counted already 150.000 people suffering from hunger, and the strikes started to multiply. When the armistice was signed at the end of 1918, the emperor Guillaume II abdicated. At the conclusion of the revolution of November, the Socialist Philipp Scheidemann and the Communist Karl Liebknecht called with the republic. In the months which followed, Berlin was the theater of multiple riots of streets opposing spartakists and irregular forces.

The Weimar Republic

The German Communist party (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands or KPD) was founded in Berlin at the end of December 1918. Through the Insurrection spartakist, it tried to seize the power in the month of January 1919, but the revolution failed, and the army loyal supporter carried out on January 15th the two leaders, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. In March 1920, it was with the turn of the Parti the German Patriots ( Deutsche Vaterlandspartei ) carried out by Wolfgang Kapp, to try to reverse the government. The garrisons of Berlin united this time at the rioters, and the governmental palates were occupied (the government of the Weimar Republic had already left the capital). But a General strike put a term at the coup d'etat.

The community of agglomeration of Large-Berlin ( Large-Berlin ) was founded by the law of October 1st, 1920. Old man-Berlin was thus increased by absorption of seven neighbouring cities (Charlottenbourg, Köpenick, Lichtenberg, Neukölln, Schöneberg, Spandau and Wilmersdorf), 59 rural communes and 27 districts. The unit represented 3.804.048 inhabitants then.

In 1922, the Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau was assassinated in Berlin. The city was in state of shock, and nearly a half-million townsmen ravelled with his burial.

The economic situation was catastrophic. The Traité of Versailles condemned Germany to pour heavy war reparations. To face the situation, the government made turn the board to tickets. This practice, which was superimposed on a depressed economy, led to a Hyperinflation, supported mainly by the proletarians, the employees and the small shareholders. The situation started to improve as from 1924 following a renegotiation with the Allies, at American funds of assistance like to a more rigorous financial policy. It was the beginning of the Mad years in Berlin, one period ostentation called in German “ die Goldene Zwanziger ”. Berlin became more the industrial big city in Europe. Thanks to personalities like the architect Walter Gropius, the physicist Albert Einstein, the painter George Grosz, the writers Arnold Zweig, Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Tucholsky, and of the actors and scenario writers like Marlene Dietrich, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and Fritz Lang, Berlin was the arts center of Europe. The night life of this time found its more famous expression in the film Cabaret .

The airport of Tempelhof was inaugurated in 1924. This same year, the international fair of the broadcasting of Berlin, one of the oldest industrial living rooms of Germany, was held for the first time with the Exhibition site of Berlin ( Messegelände ). Berlin was the second larger port river of the country. The railway lines of subway, suburbs and belt, electrified since 1924, were federate in 1930 under the name of S-Bahn . This infrastructure had become essential to a population of 4 million inhabitants. At the time of the 3rd International fair of radiophony in 1926, one inaugurated the Berliner Funkturm. From 1930 to 1933, the Aerospace Association , whose future engineer Wernher von Braun was member, carried out the first tests of shootings of rockets on the Raketenflugplatz of Berlin in the northern suburb of Tegel.

This short period of prosperity ended with the Economic crisis of 1929. This same year, the Nazi party of Adolf Hitler gained its first seats at the Parliament. The Prussian regional government directed by Otto Braun was deposited on July 20th, 1932 at the time of a Coup d'etat, known under the name of Preussenschlag : the republic started to yield under the combined blows of carried out the extremists of right-hand side and left.

Third Reich

Its party having gained the new legislative elections, Hitler was selected as chancellor by the president von Hindenburg on January 30th, 1933. Berlin was never an active center of the Nazism, political movement which found its roots in Bavaria. Capital of the Weimar Republic, Berlin was even what the Nazis honnissaient; but it was however the capital of IIIe Reich.

The Reichstag was burnt on order of the Nazis on February 27th, 1933, in order to temporarily suspend the work of the democratic institutions of the Weimar Republic.

It there had in Berlin in 1933 approximately 160.000 Jews, that is to say a third of the Jews of Germany, and 4% of the population of the agglomeration. A third of them was immigrants of Eastern Europe, massed in the district of Scheunen close to the Alexanderplatz . Main target of the new mode, they had to give up the most prestigious employment: as of March 1933, all the Jewish doctors exerting at the hospital “Charity” had to resign. During the first week of April, the militants Nazis organized the “boycott of the Jews”, preventing the Berliners from attending the stores held by Jews.

The Olympic Games were to be held in the capital in 1936, and the Nazis took again on their account this decision, recalling that the Plays of 1916, which should have been held in Berlin, had been cancelled due to war. Not to politically isolate Berlin from the other large capitals, they proceeded to a setting in scene consisting in temporarily removing the panels of prohibition and proscription anti-Jews, the such posters “ Für Juden verboten ” (“Prohibited with the Jews”). The 700 years jubilee of Berlin, the following year, again made it possible propaganda Nazi to be expressed downtown.

In the town-planning, the Nazis also sought to give to Reich a capital with its measurement, and imagined to make of Berlin a Germania in the colossal style. According to the plans of the official architect Albert Speer, it acted, while making with the need to disappear the historical quarters from the city, to bore the town of rectilinear boulevards of disproportionate width (for the processions), punctuated by monumental buildings of which the new chancellery, comprising a dome an extraordinary height. Though the majority of these projects were not born because of war and of the economic restrictions suitable for the Nazi regime, there remains vestiges of the first constructions of Speer, that one can still see today. An exposure their was recently devoted.

At the time of the Night of crystal from November 9th to 10th 1938, a national Pogrom involved the fire of the synagogs, the destruction of the stores and the houses inhabited by Jews, and several arrests. In 1939, there were 75.000 more Jews living in Berlin. October 18th, 1941, the first of a series of 63 convoys left station of Grunewald, transporting Jews to the old suburb of Litzmannstadt, marking the beginning of the holocaust. One off-set in this concentration camp 50.000 people, the majority there being carried out. The district of Wannsee was the seat of the conference of 1942 pronounced by the chief of the central Office of the Safety of Reich, the S Reinhard Heydrich, fixing the organization of the Final solution . A little more than 1.200 Jews managed to survive in hiding-place to Berlin.

The Concentration camp of Sachsenhausen, established for 30 km in the North-West of Berlin close to the royal residence of Oranienburg, was intended for the detention of the political prisoners and the Russian prisoners of war. Tens of thousands of prisoners perished there. Sachsenhausen served several camps of forced labor installed around the arms factories, of which several were in Berlin even.

Berlin becomes during the Second world war a priority target of the Bombardement S Alliés. The Bataille of Berlin with the Soviet forces is keen and the damage is considerable: of 1939 with 1945, the population falls from 4,3 to 2,8 million inhabitants; the city is mainly destroyed, the downtown area a desert of ruins, disencumbered by the “Femmes of the ruins”.

However Berlin is not, contrary to an generally accepted idea, the most destroyed city Germany. In 1945, 20% of the residences are known as " inhabitables" , which is a relatively low rate compared to others target of British aviation, like Dresden, Frankfurt or Cologne. The Bombardement S Alliés concentrated on the central districts, but saved voluntarily zones close to the Aéroport S which one wished to use after the end of the hostilities. Moreover, the weak density of Berlin, (less than half of that of Paris), the width of the boulevards, the many green areas prevented many ammunition from achieving a goal. Finally the allied bombardments most fatal and most destroying were those, of disaster report, Hamburg and Dresden, because of mixed techniques, mixing explosive and torches flamers, with the combined effects devastators. These formulas never succeeded in Berlin.

The divided city

At the conclusion of the Conference of Yalta, held from February 2nd to 11th 1945, the Allies agreed to divide not only Germany into four sectors of occupation, but also the old capital of Reich, Berlin: the four occupying powers, responsible each one for a sector, would be: the the United States of America, the Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. The Soviet forces thus evacuated during the summer the 1945 western districts of Berlin, where they had fought the last pockets of resistance Nazi to spring, and that although still in May, they had invested a first magistrate with their balance in the person of Arthur Werner as well as a provisional government made up former members of German KPD dissolves. In spite of the official division of Berlin, the Allies chose a single government of the three sectors under their responsibility. The political dissensions between the Allies and the Soviet Union were not long in rising: the creation of the Bizone and the Tri-Zone; the subsequent creation of a new German State, the FRG; finally the unilateral proclamation of a monetary Réforme in the western sectors, which followed of an surge of Reichsmark S devalued in the Soviet zone of occupation, is as many initiatives as the Russian authorities interpreted like distorsions with the agreements of Yalta. One can however look them like the logical consequence of the refusal of the Soviets to extend the Marshall plan to their sector of occupation, refusal which translated finally already the search for a way separated in the East, which was in oneself unacceptable. Thus, while in the sector Is, one still spoke about war reparations at the expense of Germany, the economy of the West Germany and western districts of Berlin was given to flood by the Marshall plan and was liberalized.

The first municipal elections of Large-Berlin were held on October 20th, 1946 in the four sectors of occupation and showed a clear victory of SPD in front of the CDU and communist SED. It followed an increasing political opposition as well in the daily administration of the city as in the deliberations of the municipal council, going until riots and occupations of buildings in the western sectors, an agitation repudiated officially by the elected officials of the SED.

A new poll was to be held on December 5th, 1948, but it was organized only in the western sectors, the Soviet authorities having prohibited it in the sector which they managed. The elected officials of the SED had organized besides on their side as of on November 30th a “council of the representatives of district” in which took part of alleged delegations of the factories of the zone East, which reinvests in its functions the first magistrate loyal supporter, and who appointed Friedrich Ebert (the proper son of late the president of the Republic) mayor of the agglomeration of Large Berlin.

Blockade and the airlift

During the Cold war, Berlin constitutes a point of discord between the two blocks and the the USSR of Stalin who seeks starting from June 24th, 1948 to make pressure on the block of the West by organizing a blockade. The Americans answer it as of the following day by an airlift which lasts until the end of the blockade in May 1949, transporting nearly a million nine hundred and thousand tons of supply (including coal 80%).

Berlin and the foundation of both Allemagnes

The constitutional law of May 23rd, 1949 which created the the Federal Republic of Germany from the three zones of American occupation, British and French, made by its article 23 of Large-Berlin a federal Land. The next October 7th, a similar law created the German Democratic republic: the original drafting of this last text qualified Germany of “indivisible republic”, in the sense that there would be only one German nation whose capital would be Berlin. There is no doubt that in the spirit of the authors of this text, Berlin meant here also Large-Berlin, since, according to the East-German point of view, all the territory of the agglomeration was in Soviet zone of occupation, western sectors being simply managed by the forces of NATO… Ainsi two new States asserted Berlin entirely, without never managing before October 3rd, 1990 to exert their authority on all the agglomeration.

The constitution was applied unilaterally in 1950 to West Berlin . At the end of article 2 subparagraph 1st of the constitution, Berlin was thus until 1990 a Land of the German federal republic (i.e. of this portion of Germany indicated under the name of West Germany), but this article remained without effect, the occupying forces of West Berlin while having deferred the application. The first legislative elections took place in West Berlin on December 3rd, 1950.

The riot of June 17th in GDR

June 17th, 1953, of the workmen of the building (an about sixty at the beginning) expressed in the streets of East Berlin, demonstration which one described thereafter as popular rising. It was in the beginning only one protest against the measures adopted recently by the government of GDR to increase the labor productivity (cf Stakhanovisme). The procession then finished boulevard Stalin (“Stalinallee”, auj. Karl-Marx-Alley ) in construction. The clandestine radio RIAS-Berlin (which emitted since the American sector) being made the echo of this demonstration, of many Berliners of the East joined the procession. Then the rows of the Berliners who engaged on the Potsdamer Platz enlarged many townsmen of the western suburbs. The movement gained even some provinces of GDR, resulting in sick leave and demonstrations.

The East-German government, fearing to lose the control of the situation, asked for the intervention of the Soviet troops. The demonstration degenerated soon into a street battle, in which the soldiers drew at sight on disarmed citizens. Repression made at least 153 victims. The participation of workmen of western Berlin, the implication of RIAS-Berlin by the means of its official statements, the catch with part of East-German police officers by the demonstrators as well as the fire of a warehouse (the Columbushaus ) provided as many pretexts to the government of GDR to qualify this rising of counter-revolutionary and to allot for it the responsibility to the authorities for occupation for the western sector. The government reconsidered however unpopular measurements prudently that it was on the point of engaging, and on suspicion set up a Milice made up of volunteers reliable and faithful to the mode, in order to avoid in the future having to resort to the services of the Soviet army.

The construction of the wall

During the autumn 1958, several political officials of the Soviet block (Walter Ulbricht, Khrouchtchev, Gomulka) publicly called into question the international statute of Berlin. In unison, the European communist press started in its turn a campaign in this direction, so that the November 27th 1958, the general secretary of the Soviet Communist party, Nikita Khrouchtchev, dispatched a note with the three Western occupants like with the government of the German Federal republic.

Protesting against the recent remilitarization of the FRG, the First Secretary of the USSR noted that the quadripartite statute of the old capital of Reich was null and void; it required the complete demilitarization of Berlin, all sectors confused, and proposed to equip it with a clean government guaranteed by an independent authority.

Urban and political development of Berlin

The western part of Berlin was massively subsidized by the FRG, in order to promote, by this “window of the western world”, a against-governmental propaganda in GDR. The contractors accepted considerable assistances: the “premium Zitter”, a loan with 6% guaranteed, was supposed to mitigate the chronic lack of labor. In a symmetrical way, in East Berlin, 50% of the installations of residences were financed by the East-German State.

While West Berlin was restructured around the Kurfürstendamm, East Berlin set up the Alexanderplatz in new downtown area. The western half obtained as of 1948 with a clean establishment of higher education with the free Université Berlin (East Berlin being given the responsability D-to open worthy the university Humboldt). Among the other significant projects which transfer the day in the west, let us quote the highway by-pass, the Philharmonie of Berlin, Europa-Center and the new opera. During years 1970, the East-German authorities rebuilt old districts while launching a vast program of housing construction to moderate rents.

1968 in the West

Left the Free University and the district of Charlottenburg, the student's revolt of 1968 gained the head office of the editions Springer in the Kochstrasse of the district of Kreuzberg. This conflict around the choices of company ignited soon all the population. As in France, there was violent one confrontations between students and police officers.

The event at the origin of this movement is the death of the pacifist student Benno Ohnesorg , killed by the police force the June 2nd 1967 close to the opera whereas it expressed against the visit of the Shah from Iran in Berlin.

May 68 and terrorism in western Berlin

With the beginning of the year 1970, Berlin was the theater of several terrorist attacks. In addition to some members of the Red Army Fraction, the activists of the Mouvement of June 2nd (date birthday of died of Benno Ohnesorg) struck in West Berlin. November 10th, 1974 the president of the Parliament Günter von Drenkmann was assassinated and in 1975 it was the turn of the president of Berliner CDU, Peter Lorenz.

The movement of the squatters

In reaction to a housing shortage combined with an unrestrained real estate speculation while multiplied the unoccupied residences, the end of the year 1970 was marked in the district of Kreuzberg (old postal district SO 36), by the emergence of a movement of Sans-abris particularly massive and undertaking. This movement reached its paroxysm in July 1981 with 165 residences occupied downtown. Of these clandestine occupations, 78 could be regularized until November 1984 by beams of hiring, exploitation or sale contracts; the others were evacuated. As of the month of December 1980, new attempts at squat led to serious confrontations between the homeless people and the police force (the brawls of Frænkelufer ). The militant squatter Klaus-Jürgen Rattay found death at the time of a demonstration against the expulsion of eight families, whereas it had taken refuge under a bus of public transport Berliner at the time of a load of police force.

A new movement of homeless people was to be born later ten years (1989), this time in the districts of Friedrichshain and Prenzlauer Berg of East Berlin: this initiative, encouraged by the passivity of the police force of the people , finished when in July 1990 the legal authorities were taken again in hand by the Parliament of West Berlin. There were then violent riots in particular during expulsions of the Mainzer Strasse . Again, one ends up regularizing in a way or the another clandestine occupations. The last squats, which one had tolerated in the context of the Berliner Linie , were evacuated between 1996 and 1998 on order of the adviser to public safety Jörg Schönbohm.

750 years festivities of Berlin

From 1982 to 1986, the two cities (East Berlin and West Berlin) undertook great work of embellishment to celebrate the 750 years of the city. While in West Berlin one rebuilt the Breitscheidplatz , in the east the Nikolaiviertel was reconstituted with imitations of the old buildings to make a new downtown area of it. On the two sides of the Wall, one rehabilitated the stations of suburbs and subway.

Reunification

In the month of October 1989, at the time of the festivities commemorating in East Berlin the 40e birthday of GDR, the guest of honor, Mikhaïl Gorbatchev, a speech pronounced in which it implied that it would not support any more the policy of oppression which the government of GDR practiced against the defectors, which at that time fled the country via the Hungary and the Czechoslovakia. November 9th, the frontier guards of the Bornholmer Strasse , misused by an incorrect interpretation of a short speech of Günter Schabowski , member of the Politbüro of the Socialist party unified of Germany, left the passage to the crowd which had massed in front of them: they believed that the Politbüro had decided the opening of the borders, although no decision had really been made on this subject. Since the resignation of the chief of the socialist party Erich Honecker in October, the authorities of GDR were delivered to themselves.

Close to the Door of Brandebourg, several Berliners climbed on the Wall and danced above. This time, there was not any more an intervention of armoured tanks. The wall was again passable and soon was dismantled here and there, several inhabitants empoignant hammer and graver to detach from the cement glares of the wall, in order to make memories of them: these collectors were called Mauerspechte .

The mayor of East Berlin Tino Schwierzina and its counterpart of the West, Walter Momper worked consequently in close cooperation, to channel the efforts of citizens filled with enthusiasm by the hope of an imminent reunification. The duet of these two mayors was greeted in the media by the friendly Sobriquet S of Schwierzomper or Mompzina .

October 3rd, 1990, Germany, and Berlin with it, was reunified. By the recognition of the treaty of Reunification, the Allies gave up in their rights on Berlin which was up to that point only one territory of the FRG. It followed on December 2nd the first elections of the city council men of Berlin reunified. Berlin became in 1991 the federal capital of the République of Germany. September 7th, 1999, the Bundestag is established in Berlin, follow-up on September 29th, 2000 by the Bundesrat.

The referendum for the integration of Berlin to the Brandebourg, in 1996, was pushed back by the voters of Brandebourg.

Since the reunification, the interruption of the majority of the subsidies of Länder and, since 1997, the scandal of the Banking company of Berlin, put the city and the Land of Berlin in enormous financial problems, which limit the capacity of investment of the authorities. Berlin pleads since in front of the federal constitutional Tribunal the Surendettement, to obtain a contribution complementary to 35 billion euros in order to reduce the debt. These circumstances led to a vote of disavowal in 2001 against the mayor in exercise, Eberhard Diepgen. Its successor, Klaus Wowereit was elected by an assembly of majority SPD - Grünen and with the abstention from PDS. After the failure of the negotiations for a “great coalition”, the re-election of the House of Commons, on October 21st, 2001, led to a government of union of the Left.

The majority of the important monuments, damaged since the war, were rebuilt or restored, especially since 1989, most of the hitherto being historical heritage with " Berlin-Est". Thus, following the example Munich, the current face of Berlin changed much less compared to before war than that of other German cities.

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