These French refugees are said to have named their new residence in reference to the Biblical description of the Israelites in the country of Moab, where they stayed before being allowed to enter Canaan.

In the 13th century the waste area along the road to Spandau known as Grosse Stadtheide ("great city heath") was a hunting ground of the electors of Brandenburg.

1716 saw the formation of the colony of Old Moabit by the Huguenots, who were meant to cultivate white mulberry trees for silkworms, but failed because of the low soil quality.

The industrialization started in 1820 when, with the financial support of court counsellor Baillif, a simple bridge was built to connect the island to the Berlin mainland.

All of that activity resulted in an exponential growth of the population and the subsequent construction of tenements in Moabit and neighbouring Wedding, facilitating the spread of a smallpox epidemic.

A teaching hospital from 1920 on, the Krankenhaus Moabit employed notable physicians like the Nobel Laureate Werner Forssmann, Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner and the resistance fighter Georg Groscurth.

On 11 April 1928, during the Weimar Republic, the 20-year-old Communist activist Olga Benário and several of her comrades managed to break into Moabit's prison and free the incarcerated Otto "Li De" Braun, a prominent party member and at the time Benario's lover.

Despite being hotly hunted, the two lovers succeeded in escaping to Moscow and later rose (separately) to prominence in the International Communist movement (in Brazil and China respectively).

Post-reunification, Moabit has faced problems such as drug trafficking and abuse (especially around Kleiner Tiergarten), poverty (most notably in its Western parts), and crime.

[2][3] Similar to neighbouring Wedding, lower rents have recently attracted artists and young people, and there are first unmistakable signs of gentrification.