History of Berlin

After 1900 Berlin became a major world city, known for its leadership roles in science, the humanities, music, museums, higher education, government, diplomacy and military affairs.

The meaning of the root is somewhat obscure, lacking clear cognates in other languages, but is usually interpreted as "bog, swamp", due to similar and obviously Slavic toponyms in Eastern Germany.

As early sources mention the name with a definite article ("der Berlin"), it appears to have referred originally to a specific piece of land.

The city was now mainly a garrison and an armoury, for the crown heavily subsidised arms manufacturers in the capital, laying the foundations for the mechanics, engineers, technicians, and entrepreneurs who were to turn Berlin into an industrial powerhouse.

The imperial government and the military establishment expanded dramatically, bringing together the landed junker nobility, the rich bankers and industrialists, and the most talented scientists and scholars.

A British expert in 1906 concluded that Berlin represented "the most complete application of science, order and method of public life," adding "it is a marvel of civic administration, the most modern and most perfectly organized city that there is.

Berlin dominated the German theater scene, with the government-supported Opernhaus and Schauspielhaus, as well as numerous private playhouses included the Lessing and the Deutsches theatres.

They concentrated on wages, hours and control of the workplace, and gave little support to national organizations such as the Allgemeine Deutsche Arbeiterverein (ADAV) founded in 1863.

Germany had universal manhood suffrage after 1871, but the government was controlled by hostile forces, and Chancellor Otto von Bismarck tried to undermine or destroy the union movement.

One professor testified to a "great single feeling of moral elevation of soaring of religious sentiment, in short, the ascent of a whole people to the heights.

"[20] At the same time, there was a level of anxiety; most commentators predicted the short victorious war – but that hope was dashed in a matter of weeks, as the invasion of Belgium bogged down and the French Army held in front of Paris.

Morale of both civilians and soldiers continued to sink but using the slogan of "sharing scarcity" the Berlin bureaucracy ran an efficient rationing system nevertheless.

Daily life involved long working hours, poor health, and little or no recreation, as well as increasing anxiety for the safety of loved ones in the Army and in prisoner of war camps.

The coup failed and at the end of the month right-wing Freikorps forces killed the Communist leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht.

People like the architect Walter Gropius, physicist Albert Einstein, painter George Grosz and writers Arnold Zweig, Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Tucholsky made Berlin one of the major cultural centers of Europe.

In 1922 the railway system that connected Berlin to its neighboring cities and villages was electrified and transformed into the S-Bahn, and a year later Tempelhof airport was opened.

The majority of German Jews in Berlin were taken to the Grunewald railway station in early 1943 and shipped in stock cars to death camps such as the Auschwitz, where most were murdered in the Holocaust.

Causes for their survival include bureaucratic infighting, hospital director Dr. Walter Lustig's relationship with Adolf Eichmann, the Nazis' bizarre system for classifying persons of partly Jewish ancestry, German leader Adolf Hitler's ambivalence about how to handle Jews of German descent, and the fact that the Nazis needed a place to treat Jews.

[26] Thirty kilometers (19 mi) northwest of Berlin, near Oranienburg, was Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where mainly political opponents, Jews, Poles, Russian prisoners of war, etc.

The prisoners were of various nationalities, including Polish, Jewish, French, Belgian, Czechoslovak, Russian, Ukrainian, Romani, Dutch, Greek, Norwegian, Spanish, Luxembourgish, German, Austrian, Italian, Yugoslavian, Bulgarian, Hungarian.

[37] Berlin's unique situation as a city half-controlled by Western forces in the middle of the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany made it a natural focal point in the Cold War after 1947.

It started when 60 construction workers building the showpiece Stalin-Allee in East Berlin went on strike on 16 June 1953, to demand a reduction in recent work-quota increases.

It was forcibly suppressed by Soviet troops, who encountered stiff resistance from angry crowds across East Germany, and responded with live ammunition.

Loshitzky depicts the role of the Berlin Wall as a symbol of the Cold War, détente, and the collapse of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe.

[44] Much Cold War espionage and counter-espionage took place in Berlin, against a backdrop of potential superpower confrontation in which both sides had nuclear weapons set for a range that could hit Germany.

On the morning of 9 November 1989, SED member Günter Schabowski announced at a press conference that border restrictions would be lifted between East and West Berlin.

Although the conditions of the press release had been intended to be only temporary, Schabowski gave the impression that all restrictions would be lifted immediately, leading to large crowds forming on the eastern side of the border.

[56] Today, Berlin has become a global city for international affairs, young business founders, creative industries, higher education services, corporate research, popular media and diverse cultural tourism.

[61] Potsdamer Platz which had been a central traffic and commerce hub in the 1920s but heavily impacted by the wall during partition became one of Europe's biggest building sites and is now once again one of Berlin's most representative addresses.

The Palast der Republik, the former seat of East Germany's parliament was torn down to make way for the Humboldt Forum, a reconstruction of the former Stadtschloss (City Palace) on that site.