History of Berlin as a Prussia capital city

In 1244 Berlin was founded as a trading post. It was merged with Colln in 1307, into a single town for reason of power and security.

Berlin comes under the rule of the Hohenzollern dynasty, the ruling house of Brandenburg in 1415. In the beginning, Brandenburg was one of seven electoral states of the Holy Roman Empire.

There was a territory encompassing some 40,000 square kilometers and centered on the city of Berlin.

This was the heartland of the state that would later known as Prussia.

Prussia did not become a kingdom till the year 1701. Previous to that time it was governed by dukes. Its ancient inhabitants were called Borussi, from whom the country took the name of Prussia.

Frederick Wilhelm ruled Brandenburg form 1640 to 1688 and he took several steps that help chart Brandenburg’s rise to the status of a European powerhouse.

His first order of business was to increase Berlin’s safety by turning it into a garrison town encircled by fortifications with 13 bastions. He also levied a new sales tax using, the money to build new neighborhood.

In 1701, his son Freidrich III, crowned himself as Friedrich I, King in Prussia. He made Berlin a royal residence and the capital of the new state of Prussia.

The capital Berlin situated on the river Spree, a river by the way, with a very merry name. It has a splendid palace, where the king resides, a fine University, where a great many young men are educated, and several places of public amusement.

Friedrich I was succeeded by Friedrich William, who reigned until 1740. Under these rulers Berlin city became a city of increasing importance and Prussia began its rise, culminating in its dominance of Germany. 

In 1740, Freidrich II, known as Frederick the Great came to power. Berlin became, under the rule of ‘philosopher on the throne’, a center of Enlightment thinkers like Moses Mendelssohn.

On September 1806, Berlin was occupied by French troops. French occupation was uneventful, interrupted only by a minor and unsuccessful military rebellion and ending with the collapse of Napoleon’s empire.

On March 18, 1848 citizens gathered outside his place to present their demands. The soldiers who dispersed them accidentally fired two shots and the demonstration became a revolution.

In 1871, Berlin became capital of the newly founded German Empire.
History of Berlin as a Prussia capital city

Construction of Berlin Wall

Following World War II, the eastern portion of Germany was ceded to Russian for its contributions of winning the war for the Allies.

The former Germany became two Germanies : East and West, Communist and democratic.

When East Germany shut its border with West Germany in 1952, it also cleared an area 3 miles wide along the 860 mile border.

In this area, the East Germans strung barbed wire fences and buried land mines. Barbed wire fenced p to six feet high were put during the night and Berliners woke up in the morning to find themselves living in a divided city.

On August 13, 1961 at 1.11 am the East German government closed the border between East and West Berlin, halting cars and trams in their tracks.

The construction of the Berlin Wall marked a new phase in the division of Germany and Berlin.

The day the Wall’s construction began became known as Barbed Wire Sunday. As reported by Agence France-Presse:

Overnight on August 12, tens of thousands of guards, soldiers and police hastily erected checkpoints and barbed wire, imprisoning their own people and cementing – literally - the Cold War division of Europe.

Over the next thirty years, minefield, automatic machine guns and other additional made the Berlin Wall impassible.

When this wall came down, on 10 November 1989 it fall marked a new era in Germany and world history.
Construction of Berlin Wall