Schöneberg

Schöneberg is a locality of Berlin, Germany. Until Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it was a separate borough including the locality of Friedenau. Together with the former borough of Tempelhof it is now part of the new borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg.

History

The village was first documented in a 1264 deed issued by Margrave Otto III of Brandenburg. In 1751 Bohemian weavers founded Neu-Schöneberg also known as Böhmisch-Schöneberg along northern Hauptstraße. During the Seven Years' War on 7 October 1760 Schöneberg and its village church were completely destroyed by a fire due to the joint attack on Berlin by Habsburg and Russian troops.

Alt & Neu Schöneberg were not combined as one entity until 1874 and received town privileges in 1898. In the following year it was disentangled from the Kreis Teltow and became a Prussian Stadtkreis (independent city). Many of the former peasants gained wealth by selling their acres to the settlement companies of growing Berlin and built luxurious mansions on Hauptstraße. The large town hall Rathaus Schöneberg was completed in 1914. In 1920 Schöneberg became a part of Greater Berlin. Subsequent to World War II the Rathaus served as the city hall of West Berlin until 1991 when the administration of the reunited City of Berlin moved back to the Rotes Rathaus in Mitte.

Neighbourhoods

The locality of Schöneberg includes the neighbourhoods of Bayerisches Viertel (an affluent residential area with streets named after Bavarian towns) and Rote Insel (Red Island) as well as the Südgelände (South Grounds) and Lindenhof areas outside the Ringbahn circle.

Main sights

• Dorfkirche (village church), 1766
• Rathaus Schöneberg, 1914 at John-F.-Kennedy-Platz, where on June 26, 1963 U.S. President John F. Kennedy held his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech.
• Headquarters of the RIAS Berlin (Radio in the American Sector) from 1948–1993, then headquarters of DeutschlandRadio Berlin from 1994 until the station was renamed Deutschlandradio Kultur in 2005. The building was erected in 1941 by the IG Farben conglomerate
• Former headquarters of the BVG Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (Berlin Public Transportation Company) on Potsdamer Straße.
• KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens), the largest department store in continental Europe, at Wittenbergplatz
• The Heinrich-von-Kleist-Park, first laid out in 1656 by Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg as a nursery, later Berlin's Botanical Garden, which in 1910 moved to Dahlem. In 1913 the Kammergericht appellate court building was erected within the park, together with two colonnades by Carl von Gontard from 1780, which had been moved here from the Alexanderplatz. On August 8, 1944 it was the site of the Volksgerichtshof show trial of members of the July 20 plot led by judge-president Roland Freisler. From 1945 on the building served as the seat of the Allied Control Council in Berlin. When the Soviet representatives left the Council in 1948 the Berlin Air Safety Center remained as the only four-power-organization (beside Spandau Prison), while the rest of the building was empty. Today it again serves as the seat of the Kammergericht court.
• Pallasstraße hochbunker, built in 1943 by forced laborers. The large social housing estate across the street was the site of the Berlin Sportpalast, where Joseph Goebbels held his 1943 "Total War" speech. The building was demolished in 1973. The present housing estate is known to Berliners as the Sozialpalast ("Social Palace").
• The Lutherkirche at Denewitzplatz, which now houses the American Church in Berlin

Notable people

Born in Schöneberg

• Blixa Bargeld, musician, born January 12, 1959
• Marlene Dietrich, actress, born December 27, 1901, Sedanstraße 65 (today: Leberstraße 65), Rote Insel, died May 6, 1992 in Paris, buried in the Städtischer Friedhof III cemetery, Friedenau
• Gisèle Freund, photographer, born December 19, 1908, Bayerisches Viertel, died March 31, 2000 in Paris
• Wilhelm Furtwängler, conductor, born January 25, 1886, Maaßenstraße 1 at Nollendorfplatz, died November 30, 1954 in Ebersteinburg, Baden-Baden
• Alfred Lion, co-founder of the Blue Note jazz record label, born April 21, 1909, Gotenstraße 7, died February 2, 1987 in New York City
• Helmut Newton, photographer, born October 31, 1920, Innsbrucker Straße 24, died January 23, 2004 in West Hollywood, buried in the Städtischer Friedhof III cemetery, Friedenau
• Nelly Sachs, writer, holder of the 1966 Nobel Prize for Literature, born December 10 1891, Maaßenstraße 12, died May 12, 1970 in Stockholm
• Willi Stoph, politician, born July 9, 1914, Rote Insel, died April 13, 1999 in Berlin

Lived in Schöneberg

• Hans Baluschek, painter lived at the Ceciliengärten housing estate 1929-1933
• August Bebel (1840–1913) Hauptstraße 97.
• Gottfried Benn (1886–1956) Bozener Straße 20.
• David Bowie (Born 1947) and Iggy Pop (Born 1947) Hauptstraße 155.
• Paul Burridge (Born 1959) lived at Winterfeldt Straße 83 from June 2006 - October 2008.
• Ferruccio Busoni (1866–1924) Viktoria-Luise-Platz 11. Buried in Städtischer Friedhof III cemetery, Friedenau
• Albert Einstein (1879–1955) Haberlandstraße 5.
• Hans Fallada (1893–1947) Luitpoldstraße 11.
• Sepp Herberger (1897–1977) Bülowstraße.
• Hilde Hildebrand (1897–1976) (Actress) Voßbergstraße 2 (1930-32).
• Christopher Isherwood (1904–1986) Nollendorfstraße 17.
• Klaus Kinski, actor, lived on Wartburgstraße 3 1930-1944
• Hildegard Knef, actress lived on Sedanstraße 68 (Rote Insel).
• Else Lasker-Schüler (1869–1945) Motzstraße 7.
• Friedrich Luft (1911-1990) (Theatre Critic, Author and Broadcaster) Maienstraße 4.
• Friedrich Naumann (1860-1919) Naumannstrasse
• Annemarie Renger (1919-2008) (President of the Bundestag 1972 -1976) Bülowstrasse
• Rudolf Steiner and Marie Steiner-von Sivers Motzstraße 30 1903-1923
• Claire Waldoff, singer, born October 21, 1884 in Gelsenkirchen, died January 22, 1957 in Bad Reichenhall lived at Bamberger Straße, Starnberger Straße 2, Landshuter Straße 14, Regensburger Straße 33 1919–1933, Haberlandstraße 7
• Billy Wilder (1906–2002) Viktoria-Luise-Platz 11 from (1927 to1928).
• Paul Zech Naumannstraße 78

Gay Centre

The area around Nollendorfplatz has been a centre of gay life in Berlin since the 1920s and early 1930s during the Weimar Republic. The Eldorado Night Club on Motzstraße was closed down by the Nazis on coming to power in 1933. The painter and printmaker Otto Dix used patrons of this establishment as subjects for some of his famous works. Christopher Isherwood lived just around the corner on Nollendorfstraße. This apartment was the basis for his book Goodbye to Berlin (1939) and later the musical Cabaret (1966) and the film Cabaret (1972) and is commemorated by a historic plaque on the building.

External links

• [1] Berlin Tourist Information
• [2] Gay Berlin Tourist Information
• [3] Map of Schöneberg in 1897
• [4] Map of Schöneberg in 1939