1.
Berlin
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Berlin is the capital and the largest city of Germany as well as one of its constituent 16 states. With a population of approximately 3.5 million, Berlin is the second most populous city proper, due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one-third of the area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers. Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world, following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all-Germany. Berlin is a city of culture, politics, media. Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations. Berlin serves as a hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination, significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction and electronics. Modern Berlin is home to world renowned universities, orchestras, museums and its urban setting has made it a sought-after location for international film productions. The city is known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts. Since 2000 Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene, the name Berlin has its roots in the language of West Slavic inhabitants of the area of todays Berlin, and may be related to the Old Polabian stem berl-/birl-. All German place names ending on -ow, -itz and -in, since the Ber- at the beginning sounds like the German word Bär, a bear appears in the coat of arms of the city. It is therefore a canting arm, the first written records of towns in the area of present-day Berlin date from the late 12th century. Spandau is first mentioned in 1197 and Köpenick in 1209, although these areas did not join Berlin until 1920, the central part of Berlin can be traced back to two towns. Cölln on the Fischerinsel is first mentioned in a 1237 document,1237 is considered the founding date of the city. The two towns over time formed close economic and social ties, and profited from the right on the two important trade routes Via Imperii and from Bruges to Novgorod. In 1307, they formed an alliance with a common external policy, in 1415 Frederick I became the elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which he ruled until 1440. In 1443 Frederick II Irontooth started the construction of a new palace in the twin city Berlin-Cölln
2.
Oberbaum Bridge
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The Oberbaum Bridge is a double-deck bridge crossing Berlins River Spree, considered one of the citys landmarks. It links Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg, former boroughs that were divided by the Berlin Wall, the lower deck of the bridge carries a roadway, which connects Oberbaum Straße to the south of the river with Warschauer Straße to the north. The upper deck of the bridge carries Berlin U-Bahn line U1, the bridge appears prominently in the 1998 film Run Lola Run. The bridge is built on the boundary of the municipal area with its rural environs. A wooden drawbridge was built as part of the wall, it served as a gate to the city, the name Oberbaumbrücke stemmed from the heavy tree trunk, covered in metal spikes, that was used as a boom to block the river at night to prevent smuggling. At 154 meters it was Berlins longest, but was no longer adequate to the amount of crossing it. Plans began to be drawn up for a new stone construction, the Siemens & Halske company, which was planning to build the Berlin U-Bahn, insisted on a combined crossing for road vehicles, pedestrians, and the new rail line. The new bridge opened in 1896 after two years of construction, in time for the Berlin Trades Exhibition, the two towers were inspired by the Middle Gate Tower in the northern Brandenburg city of Prenzlau. Although purely cosmetic, they served as a reminder that the site was once Berlin’s river gateway, in 1902 the first segment of the U-Bahn opened. Its inaugural journey, carrying 19 passengers, ran from Stralauer Thor, at the end of the bridge. Stralauer Thor was dismantled after being damaged in a 1945 air raid, after Berlin absorbed several other municipalities in 1920, the Oberbaum Bridge became the crossing between the new boroughs of Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg. In April 1945 the Wehrmacht blew up the section of the bridge in an attempt to stop the Red Army from crossing it. After the war ended, Berlin was divided into four sectors, the Oberbaum Bridge crossed between the American and Soviet sectors. Until the mid-1950s, pedestrians, motor vehicles, and the city tramway were able to cross the bridge without difficulty, the West Berlin U-Bahn line was forced to terminate at Schlesisches Tor. Beginning on 21 December 1963, the Oberbaum Bridge was used as a border crossing for West Berlin residents only. It opened to pedestrians and traffic on 9 November 1994, the anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall. The U-Bahn line to Warschauer Straße station was reopened a year later, since 1997, a neon installation entitled Stone - Paper - Scissors by Thorsten Goldberg has adorned the bridge. Due to their higher turnout and the armament, the Friedrichshain detachments have won the water battle on a regular basis
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
5.
States of Germany
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Germany is a federal republic consisting of sixteen federal states. Since todays Germany was formed from a collection of several states, it has a federal constitution. The remaining 13 states are called Flächenländer, the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 was through the unification of the western states created in the aftermath of World War II. West Berlin, while not part of the Federal Republic, was largely integrated and considered as a de facto state. In 1952, following a referendum, Baden, Württemberg-Baden, in 1957, the Saar Protectorate rejoined the Federal Republic as the Saarland. Federalism is one of the constitutional principles of Germany. After 1945, new states were constituted in all four zones of occupation, in 1949, the states in the three western zones formed the Federal Republic of Germany. This is in contrast to the development in Austria, where the Bund was constituted first. The use of the term Länder dates back to the Weimar Constitution of 1919, before this time, the constituent states of the German Empire were called Staaten. Today, it is common to use the term Bundesland. However, this term is not used officially, neither by the constitution of 1919 nor by the Basic Law of 1949, three Länder call themselves Freistaaten, Bavaria, Saxony, and Thuringia. He summarizes the arguments for boundary reform in Germany. The German system of dual federalism requires strong Länder that have the administrative and fiscal capacity to implement legislation, too many Länder also make coordination among them and with the federation more complicated. But several proposals have failed so far, territorial reform remains a topic in German politics. Federalism has a tradition in German history. The Holy Roman Empire comprised many petty states numbering more than 300 around 1796, the number of territories was greatly reduced during the Napoleonic Wars. After the Congress of Vienna,39 states formed the German Confederation, the new German Empire included 25 states and the imperial territory of Alsace-Lorraine. The empire was dominated by Prussia, which controlled 65% of the territory, after the territorial losses of the Treaty of Versailles, the remaining states continued as republics of a new German federation
6.
Central European Summer Time
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It corresponds to UTC + two hours. Other names which have been applied to Central European Summer Time are Middle European Summer Time, Central European Daylight Saving Time, and Bravo Time. Since 1996 European Summer Time has been observed between 1,00 UTC on the last Sunday of March and 1,00 on the last Sunday of October, the following countries and territories use Central European Summer Time. In addition, Libya used CEST during the years 1951–1959, 1982–1989, 1996–1997, European Summer Time Other countries and territories in UTC+2 time zone Other names of UTC+2 time zone
7.
Vehicle registration plate
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A vehicle registration plate, also known as a number plate or a license plate, is metal or plastic plate attached to a motor vehicle or trailer for official identification purposes. The registration identifier is a numeric or alphanumeric ID that uniquely identifies the owner within the issuing regions database. The first two letters indicate the state to which the vehicle is registered, the next two digit numbers are the sequential number of a district. Due to heavy volume of vehicle registration, the numbers were given to the RTO offices of registration as well, the third part indicates the year of registration of the vehicle and is a 4 digit number unique to each plate. In some countries, the identifier is unique within the entire country, whether the identifier is associated with a vehicle or a person also varies by issuing agency. In the vast majority of jurisdictions, the government holds a monopoly on the manufacturing of vehicle registration plates for that jurisdiction. Thus, it is illegal for private citizens to make and affix their own plates. Alternately, the government will merely assign plate numbers, and it is the owners responsibility to find an approved private supplier to make a plate with that number. In some jurisdictions, plates will be assigned to that particular vehicle for its lifetime. If the vehicle is destroyed or exported to a different country. Other jurisdictions follow a policy, meaning that when a vehicle is sold the seller removes the current plate from the vehicle. Buyers must either obtain new plates or attach plates they already hold, as well as register their vehicles under the buyers name, a person who sells a car and then purchases a new one can apply to have the old plates put onto the new car. One who sells a car and does not buy a new one may, depending on the laws involved, have to turn the old plates in or destroy them. Some jurisdictions permit the registration of the vehicle with personal plates, in some jurisdictions, plates require periodic replacement, often associated with a design change of the plate itself. Vehicle owners may or may not have the option to keep their original plate number, alternately, or additionally, vehicle owners have to replace a small decal on the plate or use a decal on the windshield to indicate the expiration date of the vehicle registration. Plates are usually fixed directly to a vehicle or to a frame that is fixed to the vehicle. Sometimes, the plate frames contain advertisements inserted by the service centre or the dealership from which the vehicle was purchased. Vehicle owners can also purchase customized frames to replace the original frames, in some jurisdictions licence plate frames are illegal
8.
Boroughs and neighborhoods of Berlin
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Berlin is both a city and one of Germany’s federal states. Since a 2001 administrative reform, it has made up of twelve boroughs or districts, each with its own local government, though all boroughs are subject to Berlin’s city. Each borough is governed by a council with five councillors and a borough mayor, the borough council is elected by the borough assembly. The borough governments power is limited, and subordinate to the Berlin Senate, the borough mayors form a council of mayors, which advises the Senate. Each borough is made up of several officially recognized subdistricts or neighborhoods, the neighborhoods do not have their own governmental bodies, but are recognized by the city and the boroughs for planning and statistical purposes. Berliners often identify more with the neighborhood where they live than with the borough that governs them, the neighborhoods are further subdivided into statistical tracts, which are mainly used for planning and statistical purposes. The statistical tracts correspond roughly but not exactly with neighbourhoods recognized by residents, by 2000, Berlin comprised 23 boroughs, as three new boroughs had been created in East Berlin. Today Berlin is divided into boroughs, reduced from 23 boroughs before Berlins 2001 administrative reform. An administrative reform in 2001 merged the existing boroughs into the current 12 boroughs, the power of the borough governments is limited and their performance of assigned tasks is subject to a regulatory supervision by the Senate. The BVV assembly is elected by the boroughs population and therefore acts as a borough parliament. It elects the members of the council, checks its daily administration and is able to make applications and recommendations. The twelve borough mayors regularly meet in the Council of Mayors, led by the citys Governing Mayor, the localities have no local government bodies, and the administrative duties of the former locality representative, the Ortsvorsteher, were taken over by the borough mayors. Only the unchanged boroughs of Neukölln, Reinickendorf and Spandau havent changed their field, the coat of arms of Pankow was created with a new design in 2008, having been the only district without an emblem for 7 years. As of 2012, the boroughs are made up of a total of 96 officially recognized localities. Almost all of them are subdivided into several other zones. The largest Ortsteil is Köpenick, the smallest one is Hansaviertel, the most populated is Neukölln, the least populated is Malchow
9.
East Berlin
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East Berlin existed between 1949 and 1990 and consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors became West Berlin, strongly associated with West Germany, from 13 August 1961 until 9 November 1989, East Berlin was separated from West Berlin by the Berlin Wall. In East German official usage, it widespread in the 1970s to refer to the Western part of the city as Westberlin. In May 1945, the Soviet Union installed a city government for the city that was called Magistrate of Greater Berlin. After the war, the Allied Forces initially administrated the city together within the Allied Kommandatura, however, in 1948 the Soviet representative left the Kommandatura and the common administration broke apart during the following months. In the Soviet sector, a city government was established. When the German Democratic Republic was formed in 1949, it immediately claimed East Berlin as its capital - a claim that was recognized by all Communist countries, nevertheless, its representatives to the Peoples Chamber were not directly elected and did not have full voting rights until 1981. In June 1948, all railways and roads leading to West Berlin were blocked, however, more than one-thousand East Germans were escaping to West Berlin each day by 1960. In August 1961, the East German Government tried to stop that from happening by building the Berlin Wall and it was very dangerous for illegal migrants to cross because of the presence of armed guards that were trained to shoot people in such cases. East Germany was a socialist republic, but there was not complete economic equality, privileges such as prestigious apartments and good schooling were given to members of the ruling party and their family. Eventually, Christian churches were allowed to operate without restraint after years of harassment by authorities, in the 1970s wages of East Berliners rose and working hours fell. The United States Command Berlin, for example, published detailed instructions for U. S. military, in fact, the three Western commandants regularly protested against the presence of the East German National Peoples Army in East Berlin, particularly on the occasion of military parades. Nevertheless, the three Western Allies eventually established embassies in East Berlin in the 1970s, although they never recognized it as the capital of East Germany, treaties instead used terms such as seat of government. On 3 October 1990, West and East Germany and West and East Berlin were reunited, after reunification, the East German economy suffered significantly. Many East German factories were shut due to inability to comply with West German pollution and safety standards. Because of this, an amount of West German economic aid was poured into East Germany to revitalize it. This stimulus was part-funded through a 7. 5% tax on income, despite the large sums of economic aid poured into East Berlin, there still remain obvious differences between the former East and West Berlin. East Berlin has a visual style, this is partly due to the greater survival of prewar façades and streetscapes
10.
Mitte
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Mitte is the first and most central borough of Berlin. It was created in Berlins 2001 administrative reform by the merger of the districts of Mitte proper, Tiergarten and Wedding. It is one of the two boroughs which comprises former West and East Berlin districts, note that when Berliners speak of Mitte, they usually refer to the smaller locality and not to the larger borough. Mitte is located in the part of Berlin along the Spree River. It borders on Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf in the west, Reinickendorf in the north, Pankow in the east, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg in the southeast, in the middle of the Spree lies Museum Island with its museums and Berlin Cathedral. The central square in Mitte is Alexanderplatz with the prominent Fernsehturm, Germanys highest building, juni to the Victory Column and the centre of former West Berlin in Charlottenburg, or Karl-Marx-Allee from Alexanderplatz to Friedrichshain and the eastern suburbs. The former Mitte district had established by the 1920 Greater Berlin Act and comprised large parts of the historic city around Alt-Berlin. Brandenburg Gate was the exit at the Berlin city boundary until 1861. Between 1961 and 1990, Mitte was the part of East Berlin, however at the same time it was surrounded by the Berlin Wall at its north, south. The immigrant community is diverse, however, Turks, Africans, Eastern Europeans. Kerület, Budapest, Hungary since 2005 Central Administrative Okrug, Moscow, Russia since 2006 Berlin Mitte Official homepage Official homepage of Berlin
11.
Prenzlauer Berg
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Prenzlauer Berg is a locality of Berlin, forming the southerly and most urban part of the district of Pankow. Since its founding in 1920 until 2001, Prenzlauer Berg was a district of Berlin in its own right, however, that year it was incorporated into the greater district of Pankow. It was an important site for the revolution that brought down the Berlin Wall in 1989. In the 1990s the borough was home to a vibrant squatting scene. It has since experienced rapid gentrification, Prenzlauer Berg is a portion of the Pankow district in northeast Berlin. To the West and Southwest it borders Mitte, to the South Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, to the East Lichtenberg, geologically, the borough straddles the southernmost edge of the Barnim glacial deposit formed during the last Ice Age. Prenzlauer Berg was always seen as a hill by the inhabitants of historic Berlin situated to the South in the valley along the river Spree. Until the 20th century the area was referred to as Windmill Hill. Today, the highest point of the district is 91 meters above sea level in the northwest of Volkspark Prenzlauer Berg. This hill consists of the rubble from the houses that were destroyed in World War II during allied air raids. Prenzlauer Berg is characterized by Wilhelmine buildings, that were erected at the turn of the 20th century, over 80% of all housing in this area was constructed before 1948, with the oldest building still standing being from 1848 at 77 Kastanienallee. Though substantial, there was less war-related destruction here than in parts of the city. At the time of German Reunification the boroughs residential areas were characterized by dilapidated grey facades that had not seen a coat of paint since the 1930s. In the 1990s the buildings who belonged to state-owned housing associations were sold to investors who had them renovated and raised the rents. Most of the original inhabitants were not able to afford the increased costs and have since moved away. In the 21st century the many empty lots that were sites for the street culture integral to the character of the borough were filled by high-class condominiums. Today, Prenzlauer Berg forms a nearly homogeneous historic building area, over 300 buildings remain protected as historic monuments, like the municipal swimming pool at Oderberger Straße and the breweries on Milastraße and Knaackstraße. The borough is famous for its restaurants and bars, the nightlife concentrates around the U-Bahn station Eberswalder Straße
12.
Kreuzberg
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Kreuzberg, a part of the combined Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough located south of Mitte since 2001, is one of the best-known areas of Berlin. The borough is known for its large percentage of immigrants and descendants of immigrants. As of 2006,31. 6% of Kreuzbergs inhabitants did not have German citizenship, the counterculture tradition of Kreuzberg led to a plurality of votes for the Green Party, which is unique among all Berlin boroughs. The local MP Hans-Christian Ströbele is the only Green politician directly elected to the federal Bundestag parliament, Kreuzberg is bounded by the river Spree in the east. The Landwehrkanal flows through Kreuzberg from east to west, with the Paul-Lincke-Ufer running alongside it, other characteristics are the old U-Bahn line of the present-day U1, the Görlitzer Park in SO36 and the Viktoriapark on the slope of the Kreuzberg hill in SW61. Kreuzberg is divided into 2 zones, Östliches Kreuzberg, Westliches Kreuzberg, in contrast to many other areas of Berlin, which were villages before their integration into Berlin, Kreuzberg has a rather short history. It was formed on 1 October 1920 by the Greater Berlin Act providing for the incorporation of suburbs, on 27 September 1921 the borough assembly of Hallesches Tor decided to rename the borough after the homonymous hill. Kreuzberg, literally meaning cross hill, is the point of highest elevation in the Kreuzberg locality, the hill is traditionally a place for weekend trips. It received its name from the 1821 Prussian National Monument for the Liberation Wars by Karl Friedrich Schinkel within the Viktoriapark, except for its northernmost part, the quarter Friedrichstadt, todays Kreuzberg was a very rural place until well into the 19th century. This changed when, in the 1860s, industrialization caused Berlin to grow rapidly and this called for extensive housing – much of which was built exploiting the dire needs of the poor, with widespread land speculation. Many of Kreuzbergs buildings originate from that time and they were built on the streets laid out in the Hobrecht-Plan in an area that came to be known architecturally as the Wilhelmine Ring. Far into the 20th century, Kreuzberg was the most populous of Berlins boroughs even in numbers, with more than 400,000 people, although it was. As a result, with more than 60,000 people per square kilometer, in addition to housing, Kreuzberg was also one center of Berlins industry. Both of these quarters were almost entirely destroyed by air raids during World War II. In remembrance of the old tradition, the Axel Springer press company erected its German headquarters at Kochstraße again, after World War II, Kreuzbergs housing rents were regulated by law which made investments unattractive. As a result, housing was of low quality, but cheap, starting in the late 1960s, increasing numbers of students, artists, and immigrants began moving to Kreuzberg. Enclosed by the Berlin Wall on three sides, the area famous for its alternative lifestyle and its squatters, especially the SO36 part of Kreuzberg. Starting in 1987, there have been violent riots in SO36 on Labour day, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Kreuzberg suddenly found itself in the middle of the city again
13.
Volkspark Friedrichshain
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Volkspark Friedrichshain is a large urban park on the border of the Berlin neighborhoods of Friedrichshain and Prenzlauer Berg. The oldest public park in Berlin, at 52 hectares, it is also the fourth-largest, after Tempelhofer Park, Tiergarten, the park was constructed on the space of a former vineyard, and officially opened in 1848 with an area of 46 hectares. The size, shape, and layout of the park have changed over the intervening years, one of the earliest changes was due to the construction of Berlins first urban hospital, Krankenhaus im Friedrichshain, which was built in 1868 to 1874 in the southeast part of the park. The hospital, which was designed by Martin Gropius and Heino Schmieden, was directed by the notable Rudolf Virchow. An element of the park that survived the destruction wrought during the Second World War is the Fairy Tale Fountain, designed in 1913 by Berlins city building director, Ludwig Hoffmann, the fountain contains 106 stone sculptures representing characters from traditional German fairy tales. The fountain was created for the children of Berlin, during a time in which rickets, the Second World War had a dramatic impact upon the rest of the park. The Nazi military made use of the park, constructing flak towers in 1941, as well as bunkers, at the end of the war Berlin was divided into four parts by the Allied Powers, and the Volkspark resided in the Soviet Sector. The reconstruction of the park was undertaken by the German Democratic Republic. A plan was devised by Reinhold Linger, the GDR director of landscape and park architecture, in 1946 the bunkers were destroyed, filled, and covered by over two million cubic meters of rubble from the ruins of destroyed buildings. The larger of the two became known as both Mont Klamott and Große Bunkerberg, the tall bunker mountain, and is 78 meters tall. The smaller hill, Kleine Bunkerberg, the small mountain, has a height of 48 meters. With the passage of time and the growth of greenery, the hills now appear to be natural features. The park continued its evolution during the cold war, an open air theater was constructed in 1950, and after recent renovation remains open today. Two pools were constructed during the period from 1949–1951, a 5-meter deep pool for diving, in 1989, a Japanese Pavilion which included a Peace Bell dedicated to unity against nuclear war was constructed in between the two Schuttberge as a gift from Japan to East Berlin. The swimming pools built in the GDR period have been replaced by a complex for beach volleyball, rock climbing, skateboarding. The Volkspark is a leisure location in Berlin, and is open 24 hours. In addition to the amenities mentioned earlier, the park has playgrounds, many large Liegewiese, a pond, tennis courts, a wading pool. It is also crisscrossed with paths appropriate for jogging at several difficulty levels, the Park is easily accessible using Bus number 200 from Unter den Linden, Alexanderplatz, etc
14.
Nazism
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National Socialism, more commonly known as Nazism, is the ideology and practice associated with the 20th-century German Nazi Party and Nazi Germany, as well as other far-right groups. Nazism subscribed to theories of racial hierarchy and Social Darwinism, identifying Germans as part of what Nazis regarded as an Aryan or Nordic master race and it aimed to overcome social divisions and create a homogeneous society, unified on the basis of racial purity. The term National Socialism arose out of attempts to create a nationalist redefinition of socialism, the Nazi Partys precursor, the Pan-German nationalist and anti-Semitic German Workers Party, was founded on 5 January 1919. By the early 1920s, Adolf Hitler assumed control of the organisation, following the Holocaust and German defeat in World War II, only a few fringe racist groups, usually referred to as neo-Nazis, still describe themselves as following National Socialism. The full name of Adolf Hitlers party was Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, the shorthand Nazi was formed from the first two syllables of the German pronunciation of the word national. The term was in use before the rise of the NSDAP as a colloquial and derogatory word for a peasant, characterizing an awkward. It derived from Ignaz, being a version of Ignatius, a common name in Bavaria. Opponents seized on this and shortened the first word of the name, Nationalsozialistische. The NSDAP briefly adopted the Nazi designation, attempting to reappropriate the term, the use of Nazi Germany, Nazi regime, and so on was popularised by German exiles abroad. From them, the spread into other languages and was eventually brought back to Germany after World War II. In English, Nazism is a name for the ideology the party advocated. The majority of scholars identify Nazism in practice as a form of far-right politics, far-right themes in Nazism include the argument that superior people have a right to dominate over other people and purge society of supposed inferior elements. Adolf Hitler and other proponents officially portrayed Nazism as being neither left- nor right-wing, but the politicians of the Right deserve exactly the same reproach. It was through their miserable cowardice that those ruffians of Jews who came into power in 1918 were able to rob the nation of its arms, a major inspiration for the Nazis were the far-right nationalist Freikorps, paramilitary organisations that engaged in political violence after World War I. The Nazis stated the alliance was purely tactical and there remained substantial differences with the DNVP, the Nazis described the DNVP as a bourgeois party and called themselves an anti-bourgeois party. After the elections in 1932, the alliance broke after the DNVP lost many of its seats in the Reichstag, the Nazis denounced them as an insignificant heap of reactionaries. The DNVP responded by denouncing the Nazis for their socialism, their violence. Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was pressured to abdicate the throne and flee into exile amidst an attempted communist revolution in Germany, there were factions in the Nazi Party, both conservative and radical
15.
Horst Wessel
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He rose to command several SA squads and districts. On 14 January 1930, he was shot in the head by two members of the Communist Party of Germany, Albrecht Ali Höhler was arrested and charged with his murder. He was initially sentenced to six years in prison, but was taken out of jail. Wessels funeral was given attention in Berlin, with many of the Nazi elite in attendance. After his death, he became a major Nazi propaganda symbol in the Third Reich, the march he had written the lyrics to was re-named the Horst-Wessel-Lied, and became the official anthem of the Nazi Party. After Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, the became the co-national anthem of Germany. Wessels mother, Bertha Luise Margarete Wessel, also came from a family of Lutheran pastors, Wessels parents were married on 1 May 1906. He grew up alongside his sister Ingeborg Paula Margarethe and his brother Werner Georg Erich Ludwig, on 19 April 1926, Wessel enrolled in Friedrich Wilhelm University to study law. Near the end of time, he also founded his own youth group, the Knappschaft. He soon became a leader, engaging in street battles with youth members of their adversarial groups, such as the Social Democratic Party. The Viking League and the Olympia Association were banned in Prussia in May 1926, Wessel, realizing that the League would not achieve its self-defined mission, resigned from it on 23 November 1926. The party comrades clung to him with great devotion, the SA would have let itself be cut to pieces for him. Goebbels – he was like Hitler himself, Goebbels – he was our Goebbels. For a few years, Wessel lived a life, as a middle-class university law student, and as a member of the primarily working-class SA. The anti-Semitic Krasnov accepted as fact The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, according to Wessels sister, Krasnovs book was tremendously influential with her brother. In August 1927, Wessel traveled in a group of fifty SA men to the Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg, joining other Berlin-based Nazis to make a group of 400, at the time, the SA was banned in Berlin. When they returned, the brownshirts were arrested, Wessel did this despite SA rules forbidding its members from working for the party. In 1929, Wessel became the Street Cell Leader of the Alexanderplatz Storm Section of the SA, in May, he was appointed district leader of the SA for Friedrichshain where he lived, SA-Sturm 5
16.
Gentrification
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Gentrification is a process of renovation of deteriorated urban neighborhoods by means of the influx of more affluent residents. This is a common and controversial topic in politics and in urban planning, conversations surrounding gentrification have evolved, as many in the social-scientific community have questioned the negative connotations associated with the word gentrification. Gentrification is typically the result of increased interest in a certain environment, early gentrifiers may belong to low-income artist or boheme communities, which increase the attractiveness and flair of a certain quarter. In addition to these benefits, gentrification can lead to population migration. The term gentrification has come to refer to a phenomenon that can be defined in different ways. Historians say that gentrification took place in ancient Rome and in Roman Britain, the word gentrification derives from gentry—which comes from the Old French word genterise, of gentle birth and people of gentle birth. In England, Landed gentry denoted the social class, consisting of gentlemen and this change has the potential to cause displacement of long-time residents and businesses. When long-time or original neighborhood residents move from an area because of higher rents, mortgages. Gentrification is a housing, economic, and health issue that affects a communitys history and culture and it often shifts a neighborhoods characteristics, e. g. racial-ethnic composition and household income, by adding new stores and resources in previously run-down neighborhoods. German geographers have a more distanced view on gentrification, actual gentrification is seen as a mere symbolic issue happening in a low amount of places and blocks, the symbolic value and visibility in public discourse being higher than actual migration trends. Gerhard Hard assumes that urban flight is more important than inner city gentrification. Volkskunde scholar Barbara Lang introduced the term symbolic gentrification with regard to the Mythos Kreuzberg in Berlin, Lang assumes that complaints about gentrification often come from those who have been responsible for the process in their youth. When former students and bohemians started raising families and earning money in better paid jobs, especially Berlin is a showcase of intense debates about symbols of gentrification, while the actual processes are much slower than in other cities. The citys Prenzlauer Berg district is, however, a child of the capitals gentrification. This leads to mixed feelings amidst the local population, the neologism Bionade-Biedermeier was coined about Prenzlauer Berg. It describes the milieu of the former quartier of the alternative scene. There are several approaches that attempt to explain the roots and the reasons behind the spread of gentrification, bruce London and J. John Palen compiled a list of five explanations, demographic-ecological, sociocultural, political-economical, community networks, and social movements. The first theory, demographic-ecological, attempts to explain gentrification through the analysis of demographics, population, social organization, environment and this theory frequently refers to the growing number of people between the ages of 25 and 35 in the 1970s, or the baby boom generation
17.
Greater Berlin Act
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Berlin had been part of the Province of Brandenburg since 1815. On 1 April 1881, the city became Stadtkreis Berlin, a city district separate from Brandenburg, the Greater Berlin Act was passed by the Prussian parliament on 27 April 1920 and came into effect on 1 October of the same year. With this, the act was an important foundation for the rise of Berlin to a centre of Europe in the 1920s. Apart from minor changes, the city boundary defined in the law is still the same as today, since the reunification of Germany it is the border between the German states of Berlin and Brandenburg
18.
Referendum
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A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to vote on a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new law, in some countries it is synonymous with a plebiscite or a vote on a ballot question. Some definitions of plebiscite suggest that it is a type of vote to change the constitution or government of a country, however, some other countries define it differently. For example, Australia defines referendum as a vote to change the constitution, the addition of the verb sum to a gerundive, denotes the idea of necessity or compulsion, that which must be done, rather than that which is fit for doing). This determines the form of the plural in English, which according to English grammar should be referendums, the use of referenda as a plural form in English is thus insupportable according to the rules of both Latin and English grammar alike. The Latin plural gerundive referenda, meaning things to be referred, compare also, Agenda those matters which must be driven forward, from ago, to drive, Memorandum, that matter which must be remembered, from memoro, to call to mind, etc. The name and use of the referendum is thought to have originated in the Swiss canton of Graubünden as early as the 16th century. Today, a referendum can also often be referred to as a plebiscite, for example, Australia defines referendum as a vote to change the constitution, and plebiscite as a vote that does not affect the constitution. In contrast, Ireland has only held one plebiscite, which was the vote to adopt its constitution. Of that which has most definitely already occurred and this is in line with Eamon De Valeras oft stated belief that the people do not have the right to do wrong which in this context means to reject his new Eire constitution. The term referendum covers a variety of different meanings, a referendum can be binding or advisory. In some countries, different names are used for two types of referendum. From a political-philosophical perspective, referendums are an expression of direct democracy, however, in the modern world, most referendums need to be understood within the context of representative democracy. Australia ranked second with dozens of referendums, a referendum usually offers the electorate a choice of accepting or rejecting a proposal, but this is not necessarily the case. In Switzerland, for example, multiple choice referendums are common and this question can be resolved by applying voting systems designed for single winner elections to a multiple-choice referendum. Swiss referendums get around this problem by offering a separate vote on each of the options as well as an additional decision about which of the multiple options should be preferred. In the Swedish case, in both referendums the winning option was chosen by the Single Member Plurality system, in other words, the winning option was deemed to be that supported by a plurality, rather than an absolute majority, of voters. In the 1977, Australian referendum, the winner was chosen by the system of preferential instant-runoff voting, the 1992 New Zealand poll, was counted under the two-round system, as were polls in Newfoundland and Guam, for example
19.
Frederick the Great
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Frederick II was King of Prussia from 1740 until 1786, the longest reign of any Hohenzollern king. Frederick was the last titled King in Prussia and declared himself King of Prussia after achieving full sovereignty for all historical Prussian lands, Prussia had greatly increased its territories and became a leading military power in Europe under his rule. He became known as Frederick the Great and was affectionately nicknamed Der Alte Fritz by the Prussian, in his youth, Frederick was more interested in music and philosophy than the art of war. Upon ascending to the Prussian throne, he attacked Austria and claimed Silesia during the Silesian Wars, winning acclaim for himself. Near the end of his life, Frederick physically connected most of his realm by conquering Polish territories in the First Partition of Poland and he was an influential military theorist whose analysis emerged from his extensive personal battlefield experience and covered issues of strategy, tactics, mobility and logistics. Considering himself the first servant of the state, Frederick was a proponent of enlightened absolutism and he modernized the Prussian bureaucracy and civil service and pursued religious policies throughout his realm that ranged from tolerance to segregation. He reformed the system and made it possible for men not of noble stock to become judges. Frederick also encouraged immigrants of various nationalities and faiths to come to Prussia, some critics, however, point out his oppressive measures against conquered Polish subjects during the First Partition. Frederick supported arts and philosophers he favored, as well as allowing complete freedom of the press, Frederick is buried at his favorite residence, Sanssouci in Potsdam. Because he died childless, Frederick was succeeded by his nephew, Frederick William II, son of his brother, historian Leopold von Ranke was unstinting in his praise of Fredericks Heroic life, inspired by great ideas, filled with feats of arms. Immortalized by the raising of the Prussian state to the rank of a power, Johann Gustav Droysen was even more extolling. However, by the 21st century, a re-evaluation of his legacy as a great warrior, Frederick, the son of Frederick William I and his wife, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, was born in Berlin on 24 January 1712. The birth of Frederick was welcomed by his grandfather, Frederick I, with more than usual pleasure, with the death of his father in 1713, Frederick William became King of Prussia, thus making young Frederick the crown prince. The new king wished for his sons and daughters to be educated not as royalty and he had been educated by a Frenchwoman, Madame de Montbail, who later became Madame de Rocoulle, and he wished that she educate his children. However, he possessed a violent temper and ruled Brandenburg-Prussia with absolute authority. As Frederick grew, his preference for music, literature and French culture clashed with his fathers militarism, in contrast, Fredericks mother Sophia was polite, charismatic and learned. Her father, George Louis of Brunswick-Lüneburg, succeeded to the British throne as King George I in 1714, Frederick was brought up by Huguenot governesses and tutors and learned French and German simultaneously. Although Frederick William I was raised a Calvinist, he feared he was not of the elect, to avoid the possibility of Frederick being motivated by the same concerns, the king ordered that his heir not be taught about predestination
20.
Industrialisation
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As industrial workers incomes rise, markets for consumer goods and services of all kinds tend to expand and provide a further stimulus to industrial investment and economic growth. Later commentators have called this the First Industrial Revolution, the invention of the assembly line gave this phase a boost. Coal mines, steelworks, and textile factories replaced homes as the place of work, by the end of the 20th century, East Asia had become one of the most recently industrialised regions of the world. The BRICS states are undergoing the process of industrialisation, there is considerable literature on the factors facilitating industrial modernisation and enterprise development. The concentration of labour into factories has increased urbanisation and the size of settlements, to serve, workers have to either leave their families or bring them along in order to work in the towns and cities where these industries are found. The family structure changes with industrialisation, the sociologist Talcott Parsons noted that in pre-industrial societies there is an extended family structure spanning many generations who probably remained in the same location for generations. In industrialised societies the nuclear family, consisting of parents and their growing children. Families and children reaching adulthood are more mobile and tend to relocate to where jobs exist, extended family bonds become more tenuous. Currently the international development community endorses development policies like water purification or primary education and Co-Operation amongst third world communities, the relationships among economic growth, employment, and poverty reduction are complex. Higher productivity is argued to be leading to lower employment, division of labour Newly industrialised country Idea of Progress Chandler Jr. Alfred D. The Visible Hand, The Management Revolution in American Business, belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Hewitt, T. Johnson, H. and Wield, D. industrialisation and Development, Oxford University Press, hobsbawm, Eric, The Age of Revolution. Kemp, Tom Historical Patterns of Industrialisation, Longman, London, ISBN 0-582-09547-6 Kiely, R industrialisation and Development, A comparative analysis, UCL Press, London. The Unbound Prometheus, Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present, Cambridge, New York, Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. Pomeranz, Ken The Great Divergence, China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy by Tilly, industrialization as an Historical Process, European History Online, Mainz, Institute of European History,2010, retrieved,29 February 2011
21.
Frankfurt (Oder)
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Frankfurt is a town in Brandenburg, Germany, located on the Oder River, on the German-Polish border directly opposite the town of Słubice, which was part of Frankfurt until 1945. At the end of the 1980s, it reached a peak with more than 87,000 inhabitants. The number dropped below 70,000 in 2002 and was just above 60,000 in 2010, the official name Frankfurt and the older Frankfurt an der Oder are used to distinguish it from the larger city of Frankfurt am Main. The town of Frankfurt received its charter in 1253 at the Brandendamm, the early settlers lived on the western banks of the Oder, later the town was extended to the eastern bank. In the late Middle Ages, the town dominated the trade between Breslau and Stettin. In 1430, Frankfurt joined the Hanseatic League, but was a member for only a short time, in April 1631, during the Thirty Years War, Frankfurt was the site of the Battle of Frankfurt an der Oder between the Swedish Empire and the Holy Roman Empire. After a two-day siege, Swedish forces, supported by Scottish auxiliaries, the result was a Swedish victory. The city was occupied by the Russian Imperial Army during the Seven Years War, in August 1759. With the dissolution of the Margraviate of Brandenburg during the Napoleonic Wars, in the 19th century, Frankfurt played an important role in trade. There was no fighting for the town in 1945 during World War II even though the town was declared a fortress in an attempt to block the Red Armys route to Berlin, the nearly empty town was burned down. The postwar German-Polish border ran along the Oder, separating the Dammvorstadt on the eastern bank - which became the Polish town of Słubice - from the rest of Frankfurt, while part of communist East Germany, Frankfurt was administered within Bezirk Frankfurt. It became part of the state of Brandenburg with German reunification in 1990. Today, Frankfurt and Słubice have friendly relations and run several common projects, Poland joined the European Union on 1 May 2004, and implemented the Schengen Agreement on December 21,2007 leading to the removal of permanent border controls. In the post-communist era, Frankfurt has suffered high unemployment. Its population has fallen significantly from around 87,000 at the time of German reunification in 1990, FC Viktoria Frankfurt is the towns local football team. In March 2008, the Jewish community of Frankfurt celebrated its first Torah dedication since the Holocaust, the procession of the new Torah scroll began from the spot where the towns Frankfurter Synagogue stood prior to World War II,500 meters from Germanys current border with Poland. Celebrants marched with the scroll into the towns Chabad-Lubavitch centre, where they danced with the Torah, the Margraviate of Brandenburgs first university was Frankfurts Alma Mater Viadrina, founded in 1506 by Joachim I Nestor, Elector of Brandenburg. An early chancellor, Bishop Georg von Blumenthal, was an opponent of the Protestant Reformation
22.
Berlin Ostbahnhof
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Berlin Ostbahnhof is a main line railway station in Berlin, Germany. It is located in the Friedrichshain quarter, now part of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough and it was known as Berlin Hauptbahnhof from 1987 to 1998, a name now applied to Berlins new central station. The station opened on 23 October 1842 as Frankfurter Bahnhof, the terminus of a 81 km railway line to Frankfurt via Fürstenwalde, in 1845 the previously independent Berlin–Frankfurt railway merged into the Niederschlesisch-Märkische-Eisenbahngesellschaft, aiming at the extension of the line from Frankfurt to Breslau. After the NME lines were taken over by the Prussian state in 1852, in 1867 the Old Ostbahnhof, the terminus of the Prussian Eastern Railway line was opened, located slightly north of the present Ostbahnhof station. The Stadtbahn was completed in 1886, two of the four tracks later came to one of the main routes of the Berlin S-Bahn suburban railway. The Ostbahnhof has never had a link to the Berlin U-Bahn subway, as the terminus of both the Silesian and the Eastern Railway line, Schlesischer Bahnhof quickly developed to Berlins Gate to the East. Until World War I, trains ran from the German capital via Königsberg to Saint Petersburg and to Moscow as well as to Vienna, Budapest and Constantinople via Breslau and Kattowitz. During the Anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire, numerous Jewish refugees arrived here to travel on to the harbors in Hamburg. The station was damaged by strategic bombing in World War II and had to be completely rebuilt by the East German railway. In 1950 it was renamed Berlin Ostbahnhof, as upon the implementation of the Oder–Neisse line, following the division of Germany, the station was, together with Berlin-Lichtenberg, one of two major railway stations in East Berlin. The wall ran only 200 m away from the station, today that part is the East Side Gallery, express trains ran from Ostbahnhof to Leipzig, Halle and Dresden. The station was served by international trains like the Vindobona to Vienna. In 1987 the postwar building was demolished and the station began to be rebuilt as East Berlin’s main station, the plan called for a hotel and a large reception area for arriving Soviet bloc dignitaries. However, only part of the work was complete by the time of German reunification in 1990, a partially built staircase to the underground car park from this period in front of the station remains unfinished and fenced off. A partly constructed hotel was demolished in the early 1990s, the name Hauptbahnhof remained long after the division of Berlin ended, until 1998, when the station was re-renamed Berlin Ostbahnhof. One year later, work began to demolish the station and rebuild it once again, little remains of the 1980s structure except for an administrative block, some façade elements, and parts of the platform structure. The station has 11 tracks and 9 platforms,5 platforms are used for main line and 4 for S-Bahn. In the film, Jason Bourne is seen parking his car here, entering the station and leaving a bag in a locker, East Side Gallery Maria am Ostbahnhof Deutsche Bahn Sibirjak S-Bahn Berlin B. V. G
23.
Knorr-Bremse
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Knorr-Bremse is a manufacturer of braking systems for rail and commercial vehicles that has operated in the field for over 110 years. In 2015, the Groups workforce of over 24,000 achieved worldwide sales of EUR5. 8billion, the Group has over 100 locations in 30 countries. Engineer Georg Knorr established Knorr-Bremse GmbH in 1905 in Boxhagen-Rummelsburg, Neue Bahnhofstraße and its production of railway braking systems derived from a company founded in 1883. In 1911 the company merged with Continentale Bremsen-GmbH to found Knorr-Bremse Aktiengesellschaft, from 1913 onwards a second manufactoring plant, new headquarters, a heating plant and other annex buildings were erected. The Knorr Druckluft-Einkammerschnellbremse - a compressed-air brake - and its derivatives offered considerably enhanced safety performance compared with traditional systems, in the early twentieth century, train guards still had to operate brakes by hand, from so-called brake vans. The first pneumatic brakes were of a design, but before long. See History of rail transport in Germany for an overview, there was no further interest in motor engines for aircraft and automobiles. The engine construction and the company name BMW were sold in 1922 to financier Camillo Castiglioni to be combined with the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke AG, for details see History of BMW and BFW/Messerschmitt. The second main area of activity emerged in 1922, when Knorr moved into pneumatic braking systems for road vehicles. The company was the first in Europe to develop a system that applied the brakes simultaneously to all four wheels of a truck as well as its trailer, the resultant reduction in braking distances made a significant contribution to improving road safety. A small number of the Swedish light MG35/36 machine gun were also manufactured by Knorr for the German forces in the 1940s, the company is relocated at the Süddeutsche Bremsen-AG plant in Munich, the former sites in the eastern part of Berlin being expropriated after 1945. In 2016 Vossloh Electrical Systems was acquired, Knorr-Bremse not only produces complete braking systems for all types of rolling stock but also door systems, toilets, air conditioning, couplings and windscreen wipers. In 2000, it purchased British manufacturer, Westinghouse Brakes, from Invensys, since 2002, Knorr-Bremse has been working on variable gauge systems for more efficient solutions to break of gauge problems. Knorr-Bremse has been developing and manufacturing braking systems for commercial vehicles since 1920, for trucks and semi-trailer tractor units over 6 tonnes, buses, new York Air Brake Robert Bosch GmbH Westinghouse Air Brake Company Knorr-Bremse Website Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems LLC
24.
Hobrecht-Plan
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The Hobrecht-Plan is the binding land-use plan for Berlin in the 19th century. It is named after its main editor James Hobrecht who was serving for the urban planning police. The finalized plan Bebauungsplan der Umgebungen Berlins was resolved in 1862, the plan did not only cover the area around the cities of Berlin and Charlottenburg, but it did describe also a spatial regional planning on a large perimeter. Thus it also prepared the city and its municipalities for the Greater Berlin Act of 1920. The Hobrecht-Plan inspired new urban plans after 1990 by construction senator Hans Stimmann and his colleagues, so the then divided Berlin would grow together. The industrial revolution led to a rural exodus at the beginning of the 19th century. Berlin as the Prussian capital was the target of many emigrants resulting in a rapid growth. After the Napoleonic Wars the city grew by 10,000 new inhabitants every year accelerating in the middle of the century so that the area would reach the millions at the end of the century. There had been already some urban planning on the city before Hobrecht and this includes proposals from Karl Friedrich Schinkel and planning maps from Johann Carl Ludwig Schmid dating to 1825 and 1830. Peter Joseph Lenné proposed a regional planning in 1840 named Projektierte Schmuck- und Grenzzüge von Berlin mit nächster Umgebung. All the persons were well-renowned landscape architects, Hobrecht was instead a geodesist who had just extended his formation with a civil engineer examination on transportation planning in 1858. Soon after entering the royal Prussian urban planning police he was commanded in 1859 to head the commission on creation of a plan for Berlin. He traveled to Hamburg, Paris and London in 1860 to learn about the development status in urban planning especially their sewer systems. In the 1860s the Berlin Customs Wall was removed and there were plans to amalgamation of the suburbs of Berlin on 1 January 1861. Based on the just finished land surveys and existing land-use proposals James Hobrecht constructed a map showing a possible land-use for a city at a size of 1.5 to 2 million inhabitants. It incorporated the land between the Customs Wall and a line being constructed to encircle the city, the area came to be known architecturally as the Wilhelmine Ring. That Hobrecht-Plan did show two large ring roads encircling both of Berlin and Charlottenburg with dozens of arterial roads entering the city, the area between these were divided into rectangular spaces. Unlike the urban planning of Paris, Hobrecht did respect the existing roads, villages, the map was resolved on 18 July 1862 and it would influence the urban structure of Berlin for the centuries to come
25.
Wilhelmine Ring (Berlin)
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The Wilhelmine Ring is the name for a belt of distinctive multi-occupancy rental housing blocks constructed in the second half of the 19th century around the historic city center of Berlin. It is characterized by a settlement pattern with four- to five-story residential buildings with side. The designation reflects the period of origin of this town planning solution under the German monarchs Wilhelm I, the Wilhelmine Ring comprises large parts of the Berlin subdistricts Wedding, Gesundbrunnen, Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg, Neukölln, Schöneberg, Tiergarten, Moabit and Charlottenburg. It arose primarily in the undeveloped area between the Berlin Customs Wall, which was removed in the 1860s, and a railway line constructed between 1867 and 1877 to encircle the city. Living accommodations for this rapid influx of workers were needed in the vicinity of the new factories. In 1861 a large scale incorporation of neighboring settlements had expanded the area of Berlin by some 70 percent, according to census figures,547,571 people lived in the city in that year. The rear wing apartments, by contrast, were smaller and plainer, harder to ventilate, without views. These back apartments were rented by working-class families, who in turn sublet rooms to supplement their modest income. In the Wilhelmine Ring the population density was over 1000 per hectare, only in 1887 did a new regulation impose stricter constraints on property developers. For example, the eaves or lower edge of the roof could not be higher than 22 meters, wherever it was not badly destroyed in World War II the Wilhelmine Ring is still very present in today’s Berlin and a distinctive feature of the city. Although the ring is still characterized by high density construction and a scarcity of open spaces, in the course of urban redevelopment, renovation and modernization, inner courtyards were sometimes expanded by removing rear or side wings. In other cases the size of the apartments was considerably increased by combining them into larger units
26.
Horst-Wessel-Lied
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Horst-Wessel-Lied, also known by its opening words, Die Fahne hoch, was the anthem of the Nazi Party from 1930 to 1945. From 1933 to 1945 the Nazis made it an anthem of Germany. The lyrics to Horst-Wessel-Lied were written in 1929 by Sturmführer Horst Wessel, Wessel wrote songs for the SA in conscious imitation of the Communist paramilitary, the Red Front Fighters League, to provoke them into attacking his troops, and to keep up the spirits of his men. Several of these agitations were only minor altercations, but one place outside the tavern which the local German Communist Party used as its headquarters. As a result of that melee, five Communists were injured, Wessel took up with an ex-prostitute, Erna Jänicke, in a room on Grosse Frankfurter Strasse in the house of the widowed Frau Salm, whose husband had been a Communist. When conflicts arose between the couple and the landlady, she appealed to the Communists for help, shortly thereafter, on 14 January 1930, Wessel was shot by two Communist Party members, one of whom was Albrecht Ali Höhler. Seriously wounded, Wessel died in hospital on 23 February from blood poisoning he contracted during his hospitalisation, Höhler was tried in court and sentenced to six years imprisonment for the shooting. Three years later, after the Nazi accession to power in 1933, Höhler was taken out of prison under false pretenses by the SA and executed. Goebbels attempted to spin this into an assassination by Communists, but the evidence showed it to have been suicide. Thus, Goebbels put considerable effort into mythologizing Wessels story, even as the man lay dying. He met with Wessels mother, who told him her sons life story, his hope for a better world, Goebbels saw Wessel as an idealistic dreamer. Wessel himself had undergone an operation at St. Josephs Hospital which stopped his internal bleeding, Wessel was brought to his mothers home to die. In his diary, Goebbels described Wessels entire face as being shot up and his features distorted, after a period where his condition stabilized, Wessel died on 23 February. Goebbels consulted with Hermann Göring and others in the party on how to respond to Wessels death and they declared a period of mourning until 12 March, during which party and SA members would avoid amusements and Wessels name would be invoked at all party meetings. Wessels unit was renamed the Horst Wessel Storm Unit 5, from a mashup of fact and fiction, Goebbels created what became one of the Nazi Partys central martyr-figures. He officially declared Wessels march, renamed as the Horst-Wessel-Lied, to be the Nazi Party anthem, the Horst Wessel Song was sung by the SA at the funeral, and was thereafter extensively used at party functions, as well as sung by the SA during street parades. When Nazi Führer Adolf Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany in January 1933, the following year, a regulation required the right arm be extended and raised in the Hitler salute when the first and fourth verses were sung. Nazi leaders can be seen singing the song at the finale of Leni Riefenstahls 1935 film Triumph of the Will, Hitler also mandated the tempo at which the song had to be played
27.
Propaganda
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Propaganda is information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view. Propaganda is often associated with material prepared by governments, but activist groups, in the 2010s, the term propaganda is associated with a manipulative approach, but propaganda historically was a neutral descriptive term. Propaganda is a modern Latin word, the form of propagare, meaning to spread or to propagate. Originally this word derived from a new body of the Catholic church created in 1622, called the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide. Its activity was aimed at propagating the Catholic faith in non-Catholic countries, from the 1790s, the term began being used also to refer to propaganda in secular activities. The term began taking a pejorative or negative connotation in the mid-19th century, primitive forms of propaganda have been a human activity as far back as reliable recorded evidence exists. The Behistun Inscription detailing the rise of Darius I to the Persian throne is viewed by most historians as an example of propaganda. During the era of the American Revolution, the American colonies had a network of newspapers and printers who specialized in the topic on behalf of the Patriots. During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic era, propaganda was widely used, abolitionists in Britain and the United States in the 19th century developed large, complex propaganda campaigns against slavery. The first large-scale and organised propagation of government propaganda was occasioned by the outbreak of war in 1914, after the defeat of Germany in the First World War, military officials such as Erich Ludendorff suggested that British propaganda had been instrumental in their defeat. Adolf Hitler came to echo this view, believing that it had been a cause of the collapse of morale. Later, the Nazis adapted many British propaganda techniques during their time in power, most propaganda in Germany was produced by the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Joseph Goebbels was placed in charge of this ministry, the 1930s and 1940s, which saw the rise of totalitarian states and the Second World War, are arguably the Golden Age of Propaganda. Leni Riefenstahl, a filmmaker working in Nazi Germany, created one of the propaganda movies. US war films in the early 1940s in the United States were designed to create a patriotic mindset, the West and the Soviet Union both used propaganda extensively during the Cold War. Both sides used film, television, and radio programming to influence their own citizens, each other, george Orwells novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four are virtual textbooks on the use of propaganda. During the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro stressed the importance of propaganda, Propaganda was used extensively by Communist forces in the Vietnam War as means of controlling peoples opinions. During the Yugoslav wars, propaganda was used as a strategy by governments of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Croatia
28.
Joseph Goebbels
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Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. He advocated progressively harsher discrimination, including the extermination of the Jews in the Holocaust, Goebbels, who aspired to be an author, obtained a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Heidelberg in 1921. He joined the Nazi Party in 1924, and worked with Gregor Strasser in their northern branch and he was appointed as Gauleiter for Berlin in 1926, where he began to take an interest in the use of propaganda to promote the party and its programme. After the Nazi Seizure of Power in 1933, Goebbels Propaganda Ministry quickly gained and exerted controlling supervision over the media, arts. He was particularly adept at using the new media of radio. Topics for party propaganda included antisemitism, attacks on the Christian churches, as the war drew to a close and Nazi Germany faced defeat, Magda Goebbels and the Goebbels children joined him in Berlin. They moved into the underground Vorbunker, part of Hitlers underground bunker complex, Hitler committed suicide on 30 April. In accordance with Hitlers will, Goebbels succeeded him as Chancellor of Germany, the following day, Goebbels and his wife committed suicide, after poisoning their six children with cyanide. Paul Joseph Goebbels was born on 29 October 1897 in Rheydt, both of his parents were Catholics with modest family backgrounds. His father Fritz was a clerk, his mother Katharina was ethnically Dutch. Goebbels had five siblings, Konrad, Hans, Maria, Elisabeth, and Maria, in 1932, Goebbels published a pamphlet of his family tree to refute the rumors that his grandmother was of Jewish ancestry. During childhood, Goebbels suffered from ill health, which included a bout of inflammation of the lungs. He had a right foot that turned inwards, due to a congenital deformity. It was thicker and shorter than his left foot and he underwent a failed operation to correct it just prior to starting grammar school. Goebbels wore a metal brace and special shoe because of his shortened leg and he was rejected for military service in World War I due to his deformity. Goebbels was educated at a Christian Gymnasium, where he completed his Abitur in 1917 and he was the top student of his class and was given the traditional honor to speak at the awards ceremony. His parents initially hoped that he would become a Catholic priest and he studied literature and history at the universities of Bonn, Würzburg, Freiburg, and Munich, aided by a scholarship from the Albertus Magnus Society. By this time Goebbels had begun to distance himself from the church, historians, including Richard J. Evans and Roger Manvell, speculate that Goebbels lifelong pursuit of women may have been in compensation for his physical disabilities
29.
Strategic bombing during World War II
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Strategic bombing during World War II was the sustained aerial attack on railways, harbours, cities, workers housing, and industrial districts in enemy territory during World War II. Strategic bombing is a strategy which is distinct from both close air support of ground forces and tactical air power. As the war continued to expand, bombing by both the Axis and the Allies increased significantly, in September 1940, the Luftwaffe began targeting British cities in The Blitz. From 1942 onward, the British bombing campaign against Germany became less restrictive and increasingly targeted industrial sites and eventually, when the United States began flying bombing missions against Germany, it reinforced these efforts and controversial firebombings were carried out against Hamburg, Dresden, and other German cities. In the Pacific War, the Japanese bombed civilian populations throughout the war, the effect of strategic bombing was highly debated during and after the war. Both the Luftwaffe and RAF failed to deliver a blow by destroying enemy morale. The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which address the codes of conduct on land. Despite repeated diplomatic attempts to update international humanitarian law to include aerial warfare, many reasons exist for the absence of international law regarding aerial bombing in World War II. Most nations had refused to ratify laws or agreements because of the vague or impractical wording in treaties such as the 1923 Hague Rules of Air Warfare. Also, the major powers possession of newly developed advanced bombers was a military advantage. Article 25 of the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions on Land Warfare also did not provide a guideline on the extent to which civilians may be spared. Consequently, cyclical arguments, such as advanced by Italian general and air power theorist Giulio Douhet. Before World War II began, the pace of aviation technology created a belief that groups of bombers would be capable of devastating cities. For example, British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin warned in 1932, when the war began on 1 September 1939, Franklin D. If the Luftwaffe confined attacks to purely military targets, the RAF should launch an attack on the German fleet at Wilhelmshaven, the first RAF raid on the interior of Germany took place on the night of 15/16 May 1940 while the Battle of France was still continuing. During the German invasion of Poland, the Luftwaffe engaged in air raids against Polish cities, bombing civilian infrastructure such as hospitals. Notably, the Luftwaffe bombed Warsaw, Wieluń, and Frampol, in his book, Eyes on the Sky, Wolfgang Schreyer wrote, Frampol was chosen as an experimental object, because test bombers, flying at low speed, werent endangered by AA fire. Also, the centrally placed town hall was an orientation point for the crews
30.
Urban warfare
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Urban warfare is combat conducted in urban areas such as towns and cities. Urban combat is very different from combat in the open at both the operational and tactical level, complicating factors in urban warfare include the presence of civilians and the complexity of the urban terrain. Fighting in urban areas negates the advantages that one side may have over the other in armour, heavy artillery, some civilians may be difficult to distinguish from combatants such as armed militias and gangs, and particularly individuals who are simply trying to protect their homes from attackers. The United States Armed Forces term for urban warfare is UO, the previously used U. S. military term MOUT, an abbreviation for military operations in urban terrain, has been replaced by UO, although the term MOUT Site is still in use. The British armed forces terms are OBUA, FIBUA, or sometimes FISH, or FISH, israel Defense Forces calls urban warfare לשב, a Hebrew acronym for warfare on urban terrain. LASHAB in the IDF includes large-scale tactics, CQB training for fighting forces, the IDF has a special large and advanced facility for training soldiers and units in urban warfare. Urban military operations in World War II often relied on large quantities of artillery bombardment, in some particularly vicious urban warfare operations such as Stalingrad and Warsaw, all weapons were used irrespective of their consequences. However, when liberating occupied territory some restraint was often applied, Military forces are bound by the laws of war governing military necessity to the amount of force which can be applied when attacking an area where there are known to be civilians. Until the 1970s, this was covered by the 1907 Hague Convention IV – The Laws, sometimes distinction and proportionality, as in the case of the Canadians in Ortona, causes the attacking force to restrain from using all the force they could when attacking a city. In other cases, such as the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of Berlin, when Russian forces attacked Grozny in 1999, large amounts of artillery fire were used. Fighting in an environment can offer some advantages to a weaker defending force or to guerrilla fighters through ambush-induced attrition losses. The attacking army must account for three dimensions more often, and consequently expend greater amounts of manpower in order to secure a myriad of structures, and mountains of rubble. Ferroconcrete structures will be ruined by heavy bombardment, but it is difficult to demolish such a building totally when it is well defended. The characteristics of a city include tall buildings, narrow alleys, sewage tunnels. Defenders may have the advantage of detailed knowledge of the area, right down to the layout inside of buildings. The buildings can provide excellent sniping posts while alleys and rubble-filled streets are ideal for planting booby traps, defenders can move from one part of the city to another undetected using underground tunnels and spring ambushes. Meanwhile, the attackers tend to more exposed than the defender as they must use the open streets more often, unfamiliar with the defenders secret. During a house to search the attacker is often also exposed on the streets
31.
Battle of Berlin
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The Battle of Berlin, designated the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, was the final major offensive of the European theatre of World War II. Following the Vistula–Oder Offensive of January–February 1945, the Red Army had temporarily halted on a line 60 km east of Berlin, on 9 March, Germany established its defence plan for the city with Operation Clausewitz. The first defensive preparations at the outskirts of Berlin were made on 20 March, under the newly appointed commander of Army Group Vistula, General Gotthard Heinrici. When the Soviet offensive resumed on 16 April, two Soviet fronts attacked Berlin from the east and south, while a third overran German forces positioned north of Berlin. Before the main battle in Berlin commenced, the Red Army encircled the city after successful battles of the Seelow Heights, on 23 April General Helmuth Weidling assumed command of the forces within Berlin. The garrison consisted of several depleted and disorganized Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS divisions, along with poorly trained Volkssturm, over the course of the next week, the Red Army gradually took the entire city. Before the battle was over, Hitler and a number of his followers committed suicide. Starting on 12 January 1945, the Red Army began the Vistula–Oder Offensive across the Narew River, and, from Warsaw, an operation on a broad front. On the fourth day, the Red Army broke out and started moving west, up to 30 to 40 km per day, taking East Prussia, Danzig, and Poznań, drawing up on a line 60 km east of Berlin along the Oder River. The newly created Army Group Vistula, under the command of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, attempted a counter-attack, the Red Army then drove on to Pomerania, clearing the right bank of the Oder River, thereby reaching into Silesia. In the south the Siege of Budapest raged, three German attempts to relieve the encircled Hungarian capital city failed, and Budapest fell to the Soviets on 13 February. Adolf Hitler insisted on a counter-attack to recapture the Drau-Danube triangle, the goal was to secure the oil region of Nagykanizsa and regain the Danube River for future operations, but the depleted German forces had been given an impossible task. By 16 March, the German Lake Balaton Offensive had failed, on 30 March, the Soviets entered Austria, and in the Vienna Offensive they captured Vienna on 13 April. Between June and September 1944, the Wehrmacht had lost more than a million men, and it lacked the fuel and armaments needed to operate effectively. On 12 April 1945, Hitler, who had decided to remain in the city against the wishes of his advisers. No plans were made by the Western Allies to seize the city by a ground operation, the major Western Allied contribution to the battle was the bombing of Berlin during 1945. The Soviet offensive into central Germany, what later became East Germany, had two objectives, but the overriding objective was to capture Berlin. The two goals were complementary because possession of the zone could not be won quickly unless Berlin were taken, another consideration was that Berlin itself held useful post-war strategic assets, including Adolf Hitler and the German atomic bomb programme
32.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
33.
Allied-occupied Germany
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The four powers divided Germany into four occupation zones for administrative purposes, into what is collectively known now as Allied-occupied Germany. This division was ratified at the Potsdam Conference, in Autumn 1944 the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union had agreed on the zones by the London Protocol. The Final German Peace Treaty would result in the westward of Polands borders back to approximately as they were before 1722. In the closing weeks of fighting in Europe, United States forces had pushed beyond the boundaries for the future zones of occupation. The so-called line of contact between Soviet and American forces at the end of hostilities, mostly lying eastward of the July 1945-established inner German border was temporary. After two months in which they had areas that had been assigned to the Soviet zone. All territories annexed by Germany before the war from Austria and Czechoslovakia were returned to these countries, the Memel Territory, annexed by Germany from Lithuania before the war, was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945 and transferred to the Lithuanian SSR. All territories annexed by Germany during the war from Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Poland, the American zone consisted of Bavaria and Hesse in Southern Germany, and the northern portions of the present-day German state of Baden-Württemberg. The ports of Bremen and Bremerhaven were also placed under American control because of the American request to have certain toeholds in Northern Germany, the headquarters of the American military government was the former IG Farben Building in Frankfurt am Main. Beginning in May 1945, many of the American combat troops and airmen in, Army, the Army Air Forces, and the U. S. Navy upon their return home. The Canadian Army was tied down in surrounding the Netherlands until the Germans there surrendered on 5 May 1945 – just two days before the surrender of the Wehrmacht in Western Europe to U. S. Then in July 1945, the British Army withdrew from small slices of Germany that had previously agreed to be occupied by the Soviet Army. Within the British Zone of Occupation, the CCG/BE re-established the German state of Hamburg, also in 1947, the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen became an exclave of the American Zone of Occupation located within the British Zone. In 1946, the Norwegian Brigade Group in Germany had 4,000 soldiers in Hanover, despite its being one of the Allied Powers, the French Republic was at first not granted an occupation zone in Germany. This created a French zone of occupation in the westernmost part of Germany and it consisted of two barely contiguous areas of Germany along the French border that met at just a single point along the Rhine River. It included the Saargebiet, which was disentangled from it on 16 February 1946, by 18 December 1946 customs controls were established between the Saar area and allied occupied Germany. The French zone ceded further adjacent municipalities to the Saar, included in the French zone was the town of Büsingen am Hochrhein, a German exclave separated from the rest of the country by a narrow strip of neutral Swiss territory. The Swiss government agreed to limited numbers of French troops to pass through its territory in order to maintain law
34.
West Berlin
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West Berlin was an enclave which comprised the western part of the city of Berlin during the Cold War. It was formally controlled by the Western Allies and formed a de facto part of West Germany, and was entirely surrounded by the Soviet-controlled East Berlin and East Germany. West Berlin had great significance during the Cold War, as it was widely considered by westerners as an island of freedom. A wealthy city, West Berlin was noted for its liberal and cosmopolitan character. With about two million inhabitants, West Berlin had the biggest population of any city in Cold War Germany and it was 100 miles east of the Inner German border and only accessible by land from West Germany by narrow rail and highway corridors. It consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors established in 1945 and was de facto part of West Germany and it had a special and unique legal status because its administration was formally conducted by the Western Allies. East Berlin, de jure occupied and administered by the Soviet Union, was the de facto capital of East Germany, the Berlin Wall, built in 1961, physically divided West Berlin from its East German surroundings until it fell in 1989. The Potsdam Agreement established the framework for the occupation of Germany in the wake of World War II. The territory of Germany, as it existed in 1937, would be reduced by most of Eastern Germany thus creating the former territories of Germany. The remaining territory would be divided into four zones, each administered by one of the allied countries, according to the agreement, the occupation of Berlin would end only as a result of a quadripartite agreement. The Western Allies were guaranteed three air corridors to their sectors of Berlin, and the Soviets also informally allowed road, at first, this arrangement was intended to be only a temporary administrative structure, with all parties declaring that Germany and Berlin would soon be reunited. However, as the relations between the allies and the Soviet Union soured and the Cold War began, the joint administration of Germany. Soon, Soviet-occupied Berlin and western-occupied Berlin had separate city administrations, in 1948, the Soviets tried to force the Western Allies out of Berlin by imposing a land blockade on the western sectors—the Berlin Blockade. The West responded by using its air corridors for supplying their part of the city with food, in May 1949, the Soviets lifted the blockade, and West Berlin as a separate city with its own jurisdiction was maintained. Following the Berlin Blockade, normal contacts between East and West Berlin resumed, however, in cases this proved only temporary. In 1952, the East German government began sealing its borders, as a direct result the electrical grids were separated and phone lines were cut. However, the culmination of the schism did not occur until 1961 with the construction of the Berlin Wall. From the legal theory followed by the Western Allies, the occupation of most of Germany ended in 1949 with the declaration of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic
35.
Berlin Wall
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The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and was completed in 1992, the barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area that contained anti-vehicle trenches, fakir beds and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc claimed that the Wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the will of the people in building a socialist state in East Germany. In practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that had marked East Germany, the West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the Wall of Shame—a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt—while condemning the Walls restriction on freedom of movement. Between 1961 and 1989, the Wall prevented almost all such emigration, during this period, around 5,000 people attempted to escape over the Wall, with an estimated death toll ranging from 136 to more than 200 in and around Berlin. After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany, crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the Wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, euphoric people and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the Wall, contrary to popular belief the Walls actual demolition did not begin until the summer of 1990 and was not completed until 1992. The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, the capital of Berlin, as the seat of the Allied Control Council, was similarly subdivided into four sectors despite the citys location, which was fully within the Soviet zone. Within two years, political divisions increased between the Soviets and the occupying powers. Property and industry was nationalized in the East German zone, if statements or decisions deviated from the described line, reprimands and punishment would ensue, such as imprisonment, torture and even death. Indoctrination of Marxism-Leninism became a part of school curricula, sending professors. The East Germans created a political police apparatus that kept the population under close surveillance. In 1948, following disagreements regarding reconstruction and a new German currency, Stalin instituted the Berlin Blockade, preventing food, materials and supplies from arriving in West Berlin. The United States, Britain, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several countries began a massive airlift, supplying West Berlin with food. The Soviets mounted a public campaign against the Western policy change. Communists attempted to disrupt the elections of 1948, preceding large losses therein, in May 1949, Stalin lifted the blockade, permitting the resumption of Western shipments to Berlin. The German Democratic Republic was declared on 7 October 1949, by a secret treaty, the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs accorded the East German state administrative authority, but not autonomy. The Soviets permeated East German administrative, military and secret police structures and had full control, East Germany differed from West Germany, which developed into a Western capitalist country with a social market economy and a democratic parliamentary government
36.
Stalinallee
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The Karl-Marx-Allee is a monumental socialist boulevard built by the GDR between 1952 and 1960 in Berlin Friedrichshain and Mitte. Today the boulevard is named after Karl Marx, the boulevard was named Stalinallee between 1949 and 1961, and was a flagship building project of East Germanys reconstruction programme after World War II. The avenue, which is 89 m wide and nearly 2 km long, is lined with monumental eight-storey buildings designed in the wedding-cake style, at each end are dual towers at Frankfurter Tor and Strausberger Platz designed by Hermann Henselmann. The buildings differ in the revetments of the facades which contain often equally, most of the buildings are covered by architectural ceramics. It remained there until 1961 when it was removed in an operation in the course of de-Stalinization. On June 17,1953 the Stalinallee became the focus of an uprising which endangered the young states existence. Builders and construction workers demonstrated against the communist government, leading to a national uprising, the rebellion was quashed with Soviet tanks and troops, resulting in the loss of at least 125 lives. De-Stalinization led to the renaming of the street, after the founder of Marxism, since the collapse of Eastern European communism in 1989/1990, renaming the street back to its prewar name Große Frankfurter Straße has periodically been discussed, so far without conclusive results. The boulevard later found favour with postmodernists, with Philip Johnson describing it as city planning on the grand scale, while Aldo Rossi called it Europes last great street. Since German reunification most of the buildings, including the two towers, have been restored, after its completion in the 1950s, the boulevard was very popular with Berliners and visitors alike. Taking the E line to the shops on Stalin Boulevard was not only a catchy slogan, people could find things they would not see elsewhere, and the shopping facilities set an example for the whole of the GDR. The shops offered great variety and were attractively decorated, the boulevard soon developed into a shoppers paradise in the GDR. It also served the function of introducing visitors to the culture of its socialist sister states. Shopping was an experience for visitors from the West. In the West, the rate was 1,8 but most restaurants. Subsequently, several media outlets reiterated this claim, no alternative verification for the term was given, making it a self-referential claim. In 1963 the tiled facades of buildings were falling off. Stalinist architecture Seven Sisters The Straße der Pariser Kommune connects with Karl-Marx-Allee Media related to Karl-Marx-Allee at Wikimedia Commons Homepage A photo tour of Karl-Marx-Allee
37.
Stalinist architecture
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Stalinist architecture is associated with the socialist realism school of art and architecture. As part of the Soviet policy of rationalization of the country, each was divided into districts, with allotments based on the citys geography. Projects would be designed for whole districts, visibly transforming a citys architectural image, the interaction of the state with the architects would prove to be one of the features of this time. The same building could be declared a formalist blasphemy and then receive the greatest praise the next year, as happened to Ivan Zholtovsky, the Vysotki or Stalinskie Vysotki, high-rises are a group of skyscrapers in Moscow designed in the Stalinist style. The English-language nickname for them is the Seven Sisters and they were built officially from 1947 to 1953 in an elaborate combination of Russian Baroque and Gothic styles and the technology used in building American skyscrapers. In terms of methods, most of the structures, underneath the wet-stucco walls, are simple brick masonry. Exceptions were Andrei Burovs medium-sized concrete block houses and large buildings like the Seven Sisters which necessitated the use of concrete. The masonry naturally dictated narrow windows, thus leaving a large area to be decorated. Fireproof terra cotta finishes were introduced during the early 1950s, though this was used outside of Moscow. Most of the roofing was traditional wooden trusses covered with metallic sheets, about 1948, construction technology improved – at least in Moscow – as faster and cheaper processes become available. Houses also became safer by eliminating wooden ceilings and partitions, ideologically they belong to mass housing, an intermediate phase before Khrushchevs standardized buildings known as Khrushchyovka. Stalinist architecture does not equate to everything built during Stalin’s era and it relied on labor-intensive and time-consuming masonry, and could not be scaled to the needs of mass construction. This inefficiency largely ended Stalinist architecture and resulted in construction methods which began while Stalin was still alive. Although Stalin rejected Constructivism, completion of constructivist buildings extended through the 1930s, industrial construction, endorsed by Albert Kahn and later supervised by Victor Vesnin, was influenced by modernist ideas. It was not as important to Stalins urban plans, so most industrial buildings are not part of the Stalinist category, even the first stage of the Moscow Metro, completed during 1935, was not scrutinized by Stalin, and so included substantial constructivist influence. Before 1917, the Russian architectural scene was divided between Russky Modern, and Neoclassical Revival and these people would eventually become Stalinisms architectural elders and produce the best examples of the period. Another school that began after the Revolution is now known as Constructivism, some of the Constructivists were young professionals who had established themselves before 1917, while others had just completed their professional education or didnt have any. They associated themselves with groups of artists, compensating for lack of experience with public exposure
38.
Uprising of 1953 in East Germany
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The Uprising of 1953 in East Germany started with a strike by East Berlin construction workers on 16 June 1953. It turned into an uprising against the German Democratic Republic government the next day. In Germany, the revolt is often called Peoples Uprising in East Germany, in remembrance of it,17 June became a national holiday of West Germany, prevailing until reunification. The uprising in East Berlin was violently suppressed by tanks of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, in spite of the intervention of Soviet troops, the wave of strikes and protests was not easily brought under control. Even after 17 June there were demonstrations in more than 500 towns, in July 1952 the second party conference of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany took place in East Berlin. The party was acting on demands made by Soviet premier Joseph Stalin and this meant for example the division of the five Länder into 14 regions plus East Berlin. This decision was made amid the background of the economic situation in the country. In the course of the militarisation pushed by Soviet authorities, direct and indirect military expenditures rose, together with reparation payments, this totalled over 20% of the budget. Electricity was turned off in factories and public buildings at the onset of every evening. The dramatic increase of emigration in the first half of 1953, already high since the establishment of the GDR, constituted a serious economic, another factor that contributed to an already complicated political situation was the high number of political prisoners in the GDR. Suppression of the illegal organisation Junge Gemeinde, wrongly perceived as the youth organisation of the Evangelical Church. Ecclesiastic recreation centres were closed and taken over by the FDJ, high school students who belonged to a church were often expelled by the school authorities, sometimes even shortly before school graduation. Within this complicated background, the decision to raise the work norms was perceived as a provocation and these changes were coming into force by 30 June 1953, Ulbrichts 60th birthday. The decision was taken on 13–14 May 1953, and the Council of Ministers approved it on 28 May, following Stalins death in March 1953 and the massive increase in emigration the new Soviet government decided to ease the policies Stalin had demanded. On 4 June 1953, the Soviet government, alarmed at reports of unrest, georgy Malenkov warned them that if policy direction were not corrected immediately, there would be a catastrophe. After intense discussion the East German party eased policies and publicly admitted that mistakes had been made, however, according to the historian of East Germany, Manfred Wilke, that admission may have had the unintended effect of inflaming public opinion rather than easing tensions. Their numbers quickly swelled and a strike and protests were called for the next day. Early on 17 June 40,000 protesters had gathered in East Berlin, many protests were held throughout East Germany with at least some work stoppages and protests in virtually all industrial centers and large cities in the country
39.
East Germany
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East Germany, formally the German Democratic Republic, was an Eastern Bloc state during the Cold War period. The Soviet zone surrounded West Berlin, but did not include it, as a result, the German Democratic Republic was established in the Soviet Zone, while the Federal Republic was established in the three western zones. East Germany, which lies culturally in Central Germany, was a state of the Soviet Union. Soviet occupation authorities began transferring administrative responsibility to German communist leaders in 1948, Soviet forces, however, remained in the country throughout the Cold War. Until 1989, the GDR was governed by the Socialist Unity Party, though other parties participated in its alliance organisation. The economy was centrally planned, and increasingly state-owned, prices of basic goods and services were set by central government planners, rather than rising and falling through supply and demand. Although the GDR had to pay war reparations to the USSR. Nonetheless it did not match the growth of West Germany. Emigration to the West was a significant problem—as many of the emigrants were well-educated young people, the government fortified its western borders and, in 1961, built the Berlin Wall. Many people attempting to flee were killed by guards or booby traps. In 1989, numerous social and political forces in the GDR and abroad led to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the following year open elections were held, and international negotiations led to the signing of the Final Settlement treaty on the status and borders of Germany. The GDR was dissolved and Germany was unified on 3 October 1990, internally, the GDR also bordered the Soviet sector of Allied-occupied Berlin known as East Berlin which was also administered as the states de facto capital. It also bordered the three sectors occupied by the United States, United Kingdom and France known collectively as West Berlin. The three sectors occupied by the Western nations were sealed off from the rest of the GDR by the Berlin Wall from its construction in 1961 until it was brought down in 1989, the official name was Deutsche Demokratische Republik, usually abbreviated to DDR. West Germans, the media and statesmen purposely avoided the official name and its abbreviation, instead using terms like Ostzone, Sowjetische Besatzungszone. The centre of power in East Berlin was referred to as Pankow. Over time, however, the abbreviation DDR was also used colloquially by West Germans. However, this use was not always consistent, for example, before World War II, Ostdeutschland was used to describe all the territories east of the Elbe, as reflected in the works of sociologist Max Weber and political theorist Carl Schmitt
40.
Karl-Marx-Allee
–
The Karl-Marx-Allee is a monumental socialist boulevard built by the GDR between 1952 and 1960 in Berlin Friedrichshain and Mitte. Today the boulevard is named after Karl Marx, the boulevard was named Stalinallee between 1949 and 1961, and was a flagship building project of East Germanys reconstruction programme after World War II. The avenue, which is 89 m wide and nearly 2 km long, is lined with monumental eight-storey buildings designed in the wedding-cake style, at each end are dual towers at Frankfurter Tor and Strausberger Platz designed by Hermann Henselmann. The buildings differ in the revetments of the facades which contain often equally, most of the buildings are covered by architectural ceramics. It remained there until 1961 when it was removed in an operation in the course of de-Stalinization. On June 17,1953 the Stalinallee became the focus of an uprising which endangered the young states existence. Builders and construction workers demonstrated against the communist government, leading to a national uprising, the rebellion was quashed with Soviet tanks and troops, resulting in the loss of at least 125 lives. De-Stalinization led to the renaming of the street, after the founder of Marxism, since the collapse of Eastern European communism in 1989/1990, renaming the street back to its prewar name Große Frankfurter Straße has periodically been discussed, so far without conclusive results. The boulevard later found favour with postmodernists, with Philip Johnson describing it as city planning on the grand scale, while Aldo Rossi called it Europes last great street. Since German reunification most of the buildings, including the two towers, have been restored, after its completion in the 1950s, the boulevard was very popular with Berliners and visitors alike. Taking the E line to the shops on Stalin Boulevard was not only a catchy slogan, people could find things they would not see elsewhere, and the shopping facilities set an example for the whole of the GDR. The shops offered great variety and were attractively decorated, the boulevard soon developed into a shoppers paradise in the GDR. It also served the function of introducing visitors to the culture of its socialist sister states. Shopping was an experience for visitors from the West. In the West, the rate was 1,8 but most restaurants. Subsequently, several media outlets reiterated this claim, no alternative verification for the term was given, making it a self-referential claim. In 1963 the tiled facades of buildings were falling off. Stalinist architecture Seven Sisters The Straße der Pariser Kommune connects with Karl-Marx-Allee Media related to Karl-Marx-Allee at Wikimedia Commons Homepage A photo tour of Karl-Marx-Allee
41.
Frankfurter Allee
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The Frankfurter Allee is one of the oldest roads of Berlin, the capital city of Germany. It extends the Karl-Marx-Allee from Frankfurter Tor in the direction of the city of Frankfurt and it is part of Bundesstraße 1 and has a length of 3.6 kilometres. Line U5 of the citys U-Bahn runs beneath the length of Frankfurter Allee, the U-Bahn stations of Frankfurter Tor, Samariterstraße, Frankfurter Allee, Magdalenenstraße and Lichtenberg are all under or adjacent to the street. Frankfurter Allee and Lichtenberg stations are served by the citys S-Bahn
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Die Wende
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It encompasses several processes and events which later have become synonymous with the overall process. The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 following a conference held by the Politbüro during which Günter Schabowski announced the opening of the border checkpoints. The transition to democracy in East Germany following the Peaceful Revolution, in hindsight, the German word Wende then took on a new meaning, the phrase seit der Wende, literally since the change, means since reunification or since the Wall fell. This period is marked by West German aid to East Germany, to some extent, Germany is still in the midst of the Nachwendezeit, differences between East and West still exist, and a process of inner reunification is not yet finished. This fundamental change has marked the reunification of Germany, the term was first used publicly in East Germany on 18 October 1989 in a speech by interim GDR leader Egon Krenz. Films and photos from private collections
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East German general election, 1990
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Legislative elections were held in the German Democratic Republic on 18 March 1990. It was the first and only free election in the GDR. Four hundred deputies were elected to the Volkskammer, the largest bloc was the Alliance for Germany, led by the East German branch of the Christian Democratic Union and running on a platform of speedy reunification with the West. The runner-up was the East German branch of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, the former Socialist Unity Party of Germany, renamed the Party of Democratic Socialism, ran in a free election for the first time ever and finished in third place. The AfD came up just short of the 201 seats needed to govern alone, on 5 April 1990, the new Volkskammer elected the CDUs Sabine Bergmann-Pohl as its president. As the State Council was at the same time dissolved, she became East Germanys interim head of state, between them, the three main partners in the coalition commanded a two-thirds supermajority in the Volkskammer, enough to pass amendments to the constitution. The treaty took effect on 3 October
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German reunification
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The end of the unification process is officially referred to as German unity, celebrated on 3 October. Following German reunification, Berlin was once designated as the capital of united Germany. The East German regime started to falter in May 1989, when the removal of Hungarys border fence with Austria opened a hole in the Iron Curtain and it caused an exodus of thousands of East Germans fleeing to West Germany and Austria via Hungary. The united Germany is the continuation of the Federal Republic. For political and diplomatic reasons, West German politicians carefully avoided the term reunification during the run-up to what Germans frequently refer to as die Wende, after 1990, the term die Wende became more common. The term generally refers to the events led up to the actual reunification, in its usual context. When referring to the events surrounding unification, however, it carries the connotation of the time. However, anti-communist activists from Eastern Germany rejected the term Wende as it was introduced by SEDs Secretary General Egon Krenz, the capital city of Berlin was divided into four occupied sectors of control, under the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Germans lived under such imposed divisions throughout the ensuing Cold War, into the 1980s, the Soviet Union experienced a period of economic and political stagnation, and they correspondingly decreased intervention in Eastern Bloc politics. In 1987, US President Ronald Reagan gave a speech at Brandenburg Gate challenging Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down this wall that had separated Berlin. The wall had stood as an icon for the political and economic division between East and West, a division that Churchill had referred to as the Iron Curtain. In early 1989, under a new era of Soviet policies of glasnost, perestroika and taken to more progressive levels by Gorbachev. Further inspired by images of brave defiance, a wave of revolutions swept throughout the Eastern Bloc that year. In May 1989, Hungary removed their border fence and thousands of East Germans escaped to the West, however, events rapidly came to a head in early 1990. First, in March, the Party of Democratic Socialism—the former Socialist Unity Party of Germany—was heavily defeated in East Germanys first free elections. A grand coalition was formed under Lothar de Maizière, leader of the East German wing of Kohls Christian Democratic Union, on a platform of speedy reunification, second, East Germanys economy and infrastructure underwent a swift and near-total collapse. While East Germany had long been reckoned as having the most robust economy in the Soviet bloc, the East German mark had been practically worthless outside East Germany for some time before the events of 1989–90 further magnified the problem. Discussions immediately began for a merger of the German economies
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German pronunciation (help·info)) is a district of the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough in Berlin, Germany. From its creation in 1920 until 2001, it was a freestanding city borough. Formerly part of East Berlin, it is adjacent to Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg, Kreuzberg and Lichtenberg.
Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf
Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg
Lichtenberg
Marzahn-Hellersdorf
Mitte
Neukölln
Pankow
Reinickendorf
Spandau
Steglitz-Zehlendorf
Tempelhof-Schöneberg
Treptow-Köpenick