The world's first commercially successful electrified tram line, the Gross-Lichterfelde tramway, opened between the Lichterfelde-Ost railway station and the Hauptkadettenanstalt in 1881.

During this same period, the anti-Nazi Kreisau Circle resistance group surrounding Count Peter Yorck von Wartenburg and Helmuth James Graf von Moltke held their secret meetings inside Wartenburg's apartment on Hortensienstraße 50, Lichterfelde-West, during the Third Reich.

While Lichterfelde-Ost was in parts badly damaged during World War II, Lichterfelde West is still largely intact and today one of the prime residential areas of Berlin.

Its 19th-century commercial area is centered around the Lichterfelde West railway station, which also serves nearby Free University of Berlin in neighboring Dahlem.

Lichterfelde Süd was developed in the 1960s and 1970s and is large made up of suburban housing estates, being a significant architectural deviation from the older mansion settlements.

The Otto Lilienthal Memorial Park with the artificial conical hill, from which he started many of his flight attempts, is located in Lichterfelde Süd.