Next to Lichterfelde West, Dahlem and Westend, it is part of the affluent Berlin "Villenbogen", a row of suburbs completely made up of 19th century mansions.

The name derives from the Grunewald hunting lodge of 1543, the oldest preserved castle in Berlin, which is, however, officially located within the adjacent Dahlem locality.

It was erected in an Early Renaissance style by order of Elector Joachim II Hector of Brandenburg and named Zum Gruenen Wald, the umlaut spelt with a following "e" instead of a diacritic as depicted above the main entrance.

On 24 June 1922 Foreign Minister of Germany Walther Rathenau was assassinated by ultra-nationalist radicals of the Organisation Consul in a curve of the main street called Koenigsallee.

Between October 1941 and February 1945 more than 50,000 Jews were deported by German Nazis to extermination camps from the Grunewald freight railway station and murdered.