The historic town lies in the center of the Berlin Urstromtal meltwater valley, on an island at the confluence of the Dahme and Spree rivers.

While Albert the Bear had taken the Slavic city of Brenna in 1157, which was renamed Brandenburg, and thus formed the nucleus of what would eventually become the synonymous margraviate, the area around Köpenick was conquered from the south and thus initially became part of the March of Lusatia.

The old Cöpenick consisted of three distinct parts that co-existed for centuries on the three banks of the Frauentog, a bight in the river Dahme: the castle with its garrison, the German-settled town of artisans, peasants and merchants, and the for still some time Sorbic-speaking Kietz, a hamlet containing the fishermen.

In 1631, the emissaries of George William, Elector of Brandenburg met at Cöpenick the approaching army of Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, in a vain effort to stop the ongoing devastation of the margraviate during the Thirty Years' War.

In 1906, Wilhelm Voigt, a shoemaker and drifter, masqueraded as a Prussian officer and commandeered a squad of soldiers to follow him to Cöpenick to take control of the town hall.

In the months that followed the Nazi's rise to power, SA storm troops abducted and brutally tortured residents they considered political adversaries.

In June 1933 the terror culminated in the Week of Blood, that left at least 24 Nazi opponents across the political spectrum dead and many more maimed.

[2] During World War II, Köpenick was the location of a subcamp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, mostly for Polish women, but also Czechoslovak, French, Greek, Belgian and Soviet, including of Romani descent.

The palace (Schloss Köpenick) was originally built in 1558 as a hunting lodge by order of Elector Joachim II Hector of Brandenburg.

In 1631 it served as the headquarters of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, where in vain he beseeched his brother-in-law Elector George William for assistance to his doomed campaign during the Thirty Years' War.

In 1730 Frederick II of Prussia, then Crown Prince, and his friend Hans Hermann von Katte faced court-martial for desertion at Schloss Köpenick.

The Dahme links to the Oder-Spree Canal at nearby Schmöckwitz, thus providing a navigable connection to Eisenhüttenstadt, the Oder river and thus the Baltic Sea and Silesia.