History & Prussia

From the twin trading towns on the Spree to the Hohenzollern capital of Prussia and the German Empire — the foundations of the city that would shape a continent.

Part of Berlin

20 moments in this segment.

1. 1237 — Cölln & Berlin founded. The twin trading towns of Cölln and Berlin on the Spree — first documented 1237 and 1244 — that would merge into one city.
2. 1415 — Hohenzollerns take Brandenburg. Frederick I becomes Elector of Brandenburg in 1415, beginning five centuries of Hohenzollern rule over Berlin.
3. 1660 — The Great Elector. Frederick William, who rebuilt Brandenburg after the Thirty Years' War and laid the foundations of Prussian power.
4. 1685 — The Huguenots of Berlin. Thousands of French Protestant refugees welcomed after 1685 — they reshaped Berlin's crafts, language and the French Cathedral.
5. 1700 — The Berlin City Palace. The Hohenzollern Stadtschloss, baroque seat of the electors, kings and emperors of Prussia and Germany.
6. 1701 — Prussia becomes a kingdom. In 1701 Frederick I crowns himself King in Prussia at Königsberg; Berlin becomes a royal capital.
7. 1730 — The Zeughaus. Berlin's grand baroque arsenal on Unter den Linden, now the German Historical Museum.
8. 1740 — Frederick the Great. The soldier-king and enlightened despot who made Prussia a great power and Berlin a capital of the Enlightenment.
9. 1747 — Sanssouci Palace. Frederick the Great's rococo summer retreat at Potsdam — the 'Prussian Versailles' of vineyards and terraces.
10. 1770 — Unter den Linden. Berlin's grand boulevard of linden trees, lined with palaces, the opera and the university.
11. 1806-10-27 — Napoleon enters Berlin. After Jena-Auerstedt, Napoleon marches through the Brandenburg Gate in 1806 and ships the Quadriga to Paris.
12. 1810-10 — Humboldt University founded. Wilhelm von Humboldt's 1810 university — the model of the modern research university, home to Hegel, Einstein and Planck.
13. 1818 — The Neue Wache. Schinkel's neoclassical guardhouse of 1818, now the central memorial to the victims of war and tyranny.
14. 1830 — Schinkel rebuilds Berlin. Karl Friedrich Schinkel's neoclassical vision — the Altes Museum, the Konzerthaus, the Friedrichswerder church.
15. 1848-03-18 — The 1848 Revolution. Barricades in the streets of Berlin during the March Revolution as Germans demand unity and a constitution.
16. 1871-01-18 — Bismarck and unification. The Iron Chancellor unites Germany under Prussia in 1871; Berlin becomes the imperial capital.
17. 1894-12-05 — The Reichstag rises. Paul Wallot's monumental parliament building completed 1894, inscribed "Dem Deutschen Volke".
18. 1895 — Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. The neo-Romanesque church on the Kurfürstendamm, later left as a bombed ruin and memorial.
19. 1900 — The age of the great digs. Berlin's archaeologists bring Pergamon, Babylon and Egypt to the Spree — the museum-building fever of the Empire.
20. 1909 — AEG Turbine Hall. Peter Behrens' 1909 turbine factory — a landmark of industrial modernism in the workshop of the world.