Steinstücken

The exclave originated in 1787, when farmers of the nearby village of Stolpe acquired 61 hectares (151 acres) of land outside of their municipality, which included part of the Potsdam Forest.

When Wannsee became part of the Zehlendorf borough with the incorporation of Greater Berlin in 1920, Steinstücken (with the exception of the Potsdam Forest section) was included, although it was not physically connected to the city.

After the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, Steinstücken became the focus of several escape attempts; as a tiny exclave within East German territory it was demarcated only by barbed wire barriers.

To alleviate the enormous inconvenience of daily border crossings, a road connecting Steinstücken to Kohlhasenbrück, the most adjacent neighborhood of Wannsee, was built in 1972.

A connecting road, Bernhard-Beyer-Straße, was then built on this sliver, allowing Steinstücken residents to cross unimpeded to the rest of West Berlin.

[citation needed] Another complication was the fact that railway tracks bisected Steinstücken, and residents used the Stahnsdorfer Straße bridge at the northern edge of the neighborhood to cross from one side to the other.