50 Fun Facts About Berlin

Berlin's name probably comes from a West Slavic word meaning what?

Swamp is the likely meaning: the name derives from the Old Polabian stem berl-/birl-, 'swamp', and several boroughs, such as Pankow and Spandau, carry Slavic-derived names.

What year is considered the founding date of Berlin?

1237 is Berlin's conventional founding date, the year Cölln, its twin settlement on today's Museum Island, was first documented; Berlin itself is first recorded in 1244.

Which river was Berlin built along?

The Spree runs through central Berlin and joins the Havel in the western borough of Spandau; the medieval twin towns of Berlin and Cölln grew on its banks.

Berlin's three UNESCO World Heritage Sites are Museum Island, the Potsdam palaces and parks, and what?

The Modernism Housing Estates, six 1920s social-housing projects by Bruno Taut and others, were inscribed by UNESCO in 2008.

Which dynasty ruled Berlin from the 15th century until 1918, ending as German emperors?

The Hohenzollerns ruled as electors of Brandenburg from 1415, became kings in Prussia in 1701 and ended with Kaiser Wilhelm II's abdication in 1918.

The Great Elector's Edict of Potsdam in 1685 offered asylum to which persecuted group?

The French Huguenots, Protestants fleeing Louis XIV's revocation of the Edict of Nantes, were welcomed; by 1700 about 30 percent of Berliners were French, and the Französischer Dom is their legacy.

Which conqueror marched into Berlin in 1806 and carried the Brandenburg Gate's Quadriga off to Paris?

Napoleon Bonaparte took the Quadriga to Paris after defeating Prussia in 1806; it returned in 1814, when its goddess became Victory and gained an Iron Cross.

The Brandenburg Gate's design was based on which ancient monument?

The Propylaea of the Acropolis was the model: Carl Gotthard Langhans built the gate 1788–1791 for Frederick William II with twelve Doric columns, six per side, forming five passageways.

Berlin became capital of the newly founded German Empire in which year?

1871 saw Berlin become capital of the new German Empire under Kaiser Wilhelm I; it had been the Prussian royal capital since 1701.

The Greater Berlin Act of 1920 expanded the city's area from 66 km2 to how much?

883 km² is the area after the 1920 Greater Berlin Act merged surrounding towns and villages; the population nearly doubled to about four million.

Who proclaimed the Weimar Republic from the Reichstag building on 9 November 1918?

Philipp Scheidemann, an SPD leader, proclaimed the republic from a Reichstag window; Karl Liebknecht declared a rival socialist republic from the Berlin Palace the same afternoon.

Hitler and Albert Speer planned to rebuild Berlin as a 'World Capital' under what name?

Germania, or Welthauptstadt Germania, was Speer's plan for a monumental north–south axis crowned by a Great Hall some 290 m high; the war halted it before construction got far.

The 1936 Berlin Olympics introduced which ceremony that became a permanent Olympic tradition?

The torch relay from Olympia was first run in 1936, devised by organiser Carl Diem; the flame was carried by relay from Greece to Berlin, and the Games were the first to be televised.

At its April 1949 peak, how much did the airlift deliver in one day?

13,000 tons, precisely 12,941, landed on 16 April 1949, the record 'Easter Parade' day; over the whole airlift about 2.3 million tons arrived, nearly two-thirds of it coal.

What did the airlift's 'raisin bombers' drop for German children?

Candy: Operation Little Vittles, started by pilot Gail Halvorsen, floated chocolate and gum down to children on tiny handkerchief parachutes.

On what date did East Germany begin building the Berlin Wall?

13 August 1961: overnight East German troops sealed the border with barbed wire while Walter Ulbricht, who had signed the order at a garden party that evening, kept his guests at Döllnsee.

Which West Berlin mayor coined the term 'Wall of Shame'?

Willy Brandt, West Berlin's governing mayor from 1957 to 1966, coined 'Wall of Shame' (Schandmauer); the East called it the 'Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart'.

On which date did the Berlin Wall fall?

9 November 1989: after spokesman Günter Schabowski mistakenly announced at a press conference that travel was allowed 'immediately', crowds forced the checkpoints open that night.

What were the Cold War Geisterbahnhofe, or 'ghost stations', on the Berlin metro?

They were Eastern platforms Western trains passed without halting: the U6, U8 and north–south S-Bahn dipped under East Berlin, their sealed stations guarded by armed border police.

Soviet and American tanks faced off in October 1961 at which crossing point?

'Charlie' was simply the third letter of the NATO alphabet, after Checkpoints Alpha and Bravo on the autobahn.

Kennedy delivered his 'Ich bin ein Berliner' speech in June 1963 from the steps of which building?

He spoke to 120,000 people; the story that he called himself a jelly doughnut is an urban legend from two decades later.

Why is the 'jelly doughnut' reading of Kennedy's 1963 Berlin speech mistaken?

Berliners call that pastry a Pfannkuchen, so 'ein Berliner' could only mean a citizen; the doughnut legend surfaced about two decades after the 1963 speech.

The Berlin Fernsehturm, completed in 1969, is how tall?

368 m is the height after the antenna was replaced in 1997; the tower opened in 1969 at 365 m as the GDR's showpiece on Alexanderplatz.

Berliners nicknamed the cross of light reflected on the TV tower's dome what?

The Pope's Revenge (Rache des Papstes) mocked the atheist state: sunlight on the stainless-steel sphere forms a cross, read as payback for the GDR's removal of crosses from churches.

Which architect gave the Reichstag its walk-in glass dome in the 1990s?

Norman Foster's rebuild, finished in 1999, added the glass dome with its spiral ramps; just before work began, Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped the building in fabric in 1995.

What inscription was placed above the Reichstag's facade in 1916, to Kaiser Wilhelm II's displeasure?

Dem deutschen Volke ('To the German People'), in letters designed by Peter Behrens, was mounted in 1916 during the First World War; Wilhelm II had long resisted its democratic overtones.

On 20 June 1991 the Bundestag voted to move the capital from Bonn to Berlin; when was the move completed?

Some ministries stayed behind in Bonn, which kept the title 'federal city'.

Which Berlin boulevard runs east from the Brandenburg Gate to the Schlossbrücke?

Unter den Linden, the lime-tree-lined boulevard laid out in the 17th century, runs about 1.5 km from Pariser Platz at the Brandenburg Gate east to the Schlossbrücke and Museum Island.

Which building on Museum Island displays the bust of Queen Nefertiti?

The Neues Museum, reopened in 2009 after David Chipperfield's restoration, displays the Nefertiti bust in its own domed room; Ludwig Borchardt's team found it at Amarna in 1912.

The Berlin Zoological Garden, opened in 1844, holds what distinction?

Oldest surviving zoo in Germany: it opened in 1844 as the country's first, and with about 1,380 species ranks among Europe's most visited; polar bear Knut was its star in 2007.

What is the East Side Gallery?

Murals on the longest surviving stretch of the Wall: 1,316 m along Mühlenstraße, painted by international artists in 1990, including Dmitri Vrubel's Brezhnev–Honecker kiss.

What did Berlin do with Tempelhof Airport after it closed in 2008?

Tempelhofer Feld opened in 2010 and is the world's largest inner-city open space; the vast terminal has been called 'the mother of all airports'.

Berlin Brandenburg Airport finally opened in October 2020; when had construction begun?

Construction began in 2006 with an opening planned for 2011; nine years of delays and cost overruns followed before BER finally opened on 31 October 2020, replacing Tegel.

Currywurst was invented in 1949 by Herta Heuwer using ingredients from whom?

British soldiers stationed in West Berlin supplied the ketchup and curry powder; on 4 September 1949 Herta Heuwer first sold the sauce over sausage at her stand in Charlottenburg.

The modern doner kebab sandwich evolved in Berlin in which decade?

The 1970s: Turkish guest workers, among them Kadir Nurman near Bahnhof Zoo in 1972, began serving döner meat in flatbread as a takeaway sandwich for Berlin's lunch crowd.

Which Berlin department store, opened in 1907, stands on Wittenbergplatz?

KaDeWe, the Kaufhaus des Westens, opened on Wittenbergplatz on 27 March 1907, founded by Adolf Jandorf; its sixth-floor food hall is its best-known feature.

The Berlin International Film Festival's top prize is called what?

The Golden Bear, echoing the bear on Berlin's coat of arms, has been the Berlinale's top prize since the festival's founding in 1951; it has run every February since 1978.

By the end of 2025, how many times had the marathon world record fallen in Berlin?

Thirteen: nine men's records from Ronaldo da Costa in 1998 to Eliud Kipchoge's 2:01:09 in 2022, and four women's from Christa Vahlensieck in 1977 to Tigist Assefa's 2:11:53 in 2023.

Berliners nickname the bomb-damaged Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church what?

The hollow tooth (hohler Zahn): the spire was wrecked in an air raid on 23 November 1943 and kept as a ruin beside Egon Eiermann's modern church, finished in 1963.

The Berlin U-Bahn opened in which year?

1902: the first stretch, an elevated line between Stralauer Tor and Potsdamer Platz built by Siemens & Halske, opened in February 1902.

Which conductor led the Berlin Philharmonic from 1955 to 1989?

Herbert von Karajan was chief conductor for 34 years, from 1955 until shortly before his death in July 1989; he succeeded Wilhelm Furtwängler and was followed by Claudio Abbado.

The Charite, Europe's largest university hospital, traces its origins to which year?

1710: Frederick I ordered a plague house built outside the city walls; it became a hospital for the poor in 1727, named Charité, and later Robert Koch and Paul Ehrlich worked there.

The Love Parade, first held in West Berlin in 1989, celebrated which music genre?

Techno: the first Love Parade, on 1 July 1989, drew about 150 dancers behind a single float along the Kurfürstendamm; by 1999 it drew well over a million to the Tiergarten.

What distinction does Babelsberg, on Berlin's edge in Potsdam, hold in film history?

World's first large-scale movie studio complex: filming began at Babelsberg in 1912, and Metropolis (1927) and The Blue Angel (1930) were shot there.

With 3.7 million inhabitants, Berlin has the highest population within city limits of any city where?

London and Moscow are larger but outside the EU; the wider Berlin-Brandenburg region has about 6 million people.

The Berlin Wall around West Berlin ran for roughly how many kilometres in total?

More than 140 km: about 155 km in all, of which 43 km divided East from West Berlin and the remaining 112 km sealed West Berlin off from the surrounding GDR countryside.

How many boroughs (Bezirke) is Berlin divided into?

12 boroughs since a 2001 reform merged the previous 23; each is run by a five-member council (Bezirksamt) headed by a borough mayor, and five bear Slavic-derived names such as Pankow and Spandau.

West Berlin's first sister-city partnership, signed in 1967, was with which US city?

Los Angeles signed the partnership with West Berlin in 1967, the city's first; East Berlin's separate twinnings were cancelled at reunification in 1990.

The Straße des 17. Juni, Berlin's central east-west axis, commemorates uprisings in which year?

It links the Brandenburg Gate with Ernst-Reuter-Platz and passes the Großer Stern roundabout with its Victory Column.

Which Berlin bridge, built in brick Gothic style, links Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg and carries the U1 line?

The Oberbaumbrücke, completed in 1896 with its twin neo-Gothic towers, was a Cold War pedestrian crossing; U1 trains returned in 1995 after the line across it was restored.