Founded in 1910, Frohnau was created whole as a planned community, corresponding to the early twentieth-century idea of a garden city.

Frohnau was founded in the Stolper Heath, which had been bought for the Berlin Terrain Commission by Count Guido Henckel von Donnersmarck in 1907.

The architects responsible for the typical mansions include Walter and Johannes Krüger (the Church of St. John), Hart and Lesser (train station and casino tower), Max Meyer (Buddhist house), Paul Poser, Max Scheidling, and Heinrich Straumer (better known for his work on Berlin's radio tower, Funkturm).

Frohnau includes one of the tallest buildings in Germany: The Richtfunkmast (microwave radio tower) measures 358.6 m (1177 ft) in height and was built between 1977 and 1979.

This was built between 1970 and 1973, and had 18 m (66 ft) diameter parabolic antennae to enable radio connection beyond the horizon to Lower Saxony until 1995.