Krumme Lanke

Krumme Lankeⓘ is a lake in the south west of Berlin, in the Steglitz-Zehlendorf borough of the city and on the edge of the Grunewald forest.

Unlike other lakes in the area, which contain eels, tench, pike, carp, catfish and perch, the Krumme Lanke is home only to asp.

Having already bought the then villages of Zehlendorf, Schlachtensee and Nikolassee in 1242, the monks of the influential Cistercian Lehnin Abbey sought nine years later to expand their estate further north into Teltow.

In 1251, they bought the village of Crumense by the Krumme Lanke for one hundred and fifty marks from the Ascanian Margraves Johann I and Otto III, who ruled the area together.

As excavations in the abandoned site have uncovered remnants of Slavic pottery, it is thought the settlement was originally a Slavonic foundation.