Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg annexed it as a counterpart to the much larger Großer Tiergarten as the city of Berlin grew and usurped the former hunting grounds.

In the year 1790, the park was replanted; further redesign took place in 1835 in connection with the newly built St. John's Church (Berlin) [de] designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel.

After the city of Berlin took over the administration of the area in 1876, landscape architect and horticultural director Johann Heinrich Gustav Meyer redesigned the park to contain benches, lanterns, and a spring.

Khangoshvili had just left a local mosque where he regularly attended Friday prayers and was walking along a wooded path in Kleiner Tiergarten when a man rode up to him on a bicycle and shot him twice in the head[1] with a silenced gun.

[1] On 15 December 2021, a Berlin court found Vadim Krasikov guilty of murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment without automatic parole.