History of Berlin I: Beginnings
Berlin, possibly named from the common word for “bear” in German (or also just possibly from a different word, which meant “swamp”), was officially founded in 1237 A.C.E., but like all great cities, its birth date is probably more apocryphal than accurate. Unlike such places as Rome and Athens, however, Berlin’s official date is more likely late than early, since parts of houses dating to 1174 were found in 2012 in an excavation in Berlin Mitte, the heart of the city (which also contained the famous “Checkpoint Charlie” during the Soviet Era).
In 1307, the two cities of Berlin and Cölln, which lay on opposite banks of the river Spree, formed a partnership governing trade and political matters. Over the next hundred years, the combined population of the two cities rose to about eight thousand people. Regrettably, many records of those formative years are missing: in particular, a great fire swept through the centers of both cities in 1380, destroying many, perhaps most, of the records and damaging many of those which remained.
Once a free city of the Hanseatic League, Berlin remembered it’s libertarian roots well enough to rebel in the famous “Berlin Indignation” in 1448, a protest against the decision, by Elector Frederick II Irontooth, to build a new royal residence in the city. Sadly, the protest failed of its purpose, and in reaction, the citizens of Berlin lost many of the political and economic freedoms they had previously enjoyed.
In 1451, after the failure of the Indignation, Berlin became the official, royal residence of the Electors of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, and the city’s focus shifted from external trade to mostly internal production of luxury goods and services for the royal household. This shift, along with the loss of free city status, was what the protest had been about in the first place: trade is much more profitable for the people involved in it than “hewing wood and drawing water.”
Berlin was not a tranquil place in these early years, after the ascension of the House of Hohenzollern, although that family would rule Berlin until 1918. In 1510, over a hundred Jewish Berliners were accused of desecrating the hosts and other religious crimes, resulting in 38 of them being put to death by fire (many other people accused on religious grounds were burned all over Europe, beginning in 1480 and not ending until the 1700’s).
In 1539, the Brandenberg Electors—and thus the city they ruled—became officially Lutheran; and the very next year, Joachim II embranced the Protestant Reformation in Brandenburg and secularized church property. Jochim used the money for several of his projects, such as building an avenue, the Kurfürstendamm, between his palace and his hunting castle, Grunewald. He also built the Berliner Stadtschloss.
By 1600, Berlin and Cölln between them had reached a population of 12,000, even with the Black Death having claimed over 4,000 lives in the cities twenty-four years earlier.
Despite these formative troubles, great things lay ahead for Berlin under the House of Hohenzollern: Berlin was destined to become mistress of an empire.
The rich history of Berlin, and indeed all of Germany, cans only e fully appreciated by learning the equally rich language which that history is written in.