Berlin : Germany

A capital with a turbulent past.

Within just a few centuries, Berlin - today’s capital of Germany - grew from a fishing village and trading center at a crossing point on the Spree River into the Prussian capital city and royal residence. The town of Colin was first mentioned in a document dating from 1237. It later merged with its sister city Berlin, profited from Prussia’s rise to the rank of a great power, and after the founding of the German Empire in 1871 became the political, industrial, scientific, academic and cultural center of Germany.

In the year 1939, following the incorporation of numerous surrounding communities, the German capital had a population of more than four million. The Second World War unleashed by the National Socialists had catastrophic consequences for Berlin, resulting in its nearly total destruction and its division into four sectors by the victorious powers. In 1948 the Soviet Union imposed a blockade of the land routes to Berlin in an unsuccessful attempt to bring the people of Berlin to their knees and force the Western Allies to withdraw from the city. To stem the mass exodus of people from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the eastern part of Berlin, the GDR communist leadership began construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. It fell in 1989 when the communist bloc collapsed. On 3 October 1990 the unification of Germany was consummated in Berlin with a state ceremony. Since then, united Berlin has once again been the capital of unified Germany.