The Greater Berlin Act (german: Groß-Berlin-Gesetz), officially Law Regarding the Creation of the New Municipality of Berlin (german: Gesetz über die Bildung einer neuen Stadtgemeinde Berlin), was a law passed by the
Prussian state government in 1920, which greatly expanded the size of the Prussian and
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
capital of
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
.
History
Berlin had been part of the
Province of Brandenburg
The Province of Brandenburg (german: Provinz Brandenburg) was a province of Prussia from 1815 to 1945. Brandenburg was established in 1815 from the Kingdom of Prussia's core territory, comprised the bulk of the historic Margraviate of Brandenburg ...
since 1815. On 1 April 1881, the city became
Stadtkreis Berlin, a city district separate from Brandenburg. The Greater Berlin Act was passed by the
Prussian Parliament
The Landtag of Prussia (german: Preußischer Landtag) was the representative assembly of the Kingdom of Prussia implemented in 1849, a bicameral legislature consisting of the upper House of Lords (''Herrenhaus'') and the lower House of Represent ...
on 27 April 1920 and came into effect on 1 October of the same year.
The new Prussian province then termed ''Greater Berlin'' acquired territories from the Province of Brandenburg and consisted of the following:
* The city of Berlin (''Alt-Berlin'');
* 7 towns that surrounded Berlin:
Charlottenburg
Charlottenburg () is a Boroughs and localities of Berlin, locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Established as a German town law, town in 1705 and named after Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, Queen consort of Kingdom ...
,
Köpenick
Köpenick () is a historic town and locality (''Ortsteil'') in Berlin, situated at the confluence of the rivers Dahme and Spree in the south-east of the German capital. It was formerly known as Copanic and then Cöpenick, only officially adopt ...
,
Lichtenberg
Lichtenberg () is the eleventh borough of Berlin, Germany. In Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it absorbed the former borough of Hohenschönhausen.
Overview
The district contains the Tierpark Berlin in Friedrichsfelde, the larger of Berlin ...
,
Neukölln/Rixdorf,
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 Tempelh ...
,
Spandau
Spandau () is the westernmost of the 12 boroughs () of Berlin, situated at the confluence of the Havel and Spree rivers and extending along the western bank of the Havel. It is the smallest borough by population, but the fourth largest by land ...
and
Wilmersdorf
Wilmersdorf (), an inner-city locality of Berlin, lies south-west of the central city. Formerly a borough by itself, Wilmersdorf became part of the new borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf in Berlin's 2001 administrative reform.
History
The vi ...
;
* 59 rural communities and 27 estate districts from the surrounding districts of
Niederbarnim
Barnim () is a district in Brandenburg, Germany. It is bounded by (from the east and clockwise) Poland, the district of Märkisch-Oderland, the city state of Berlin and the districts of Oberhavel and Uckermark.
History
The name "Barnim" emerge ...
,
Osthavelland and
Teltow
Teltow [] is a town in the Potsdam-Mittelmark district, in Brandenburg, Germany.
Geography
Teltow is part of the agglomeration of Berlin. The distance to the Berlin city centre is , while the distance to Potsdam is .
The Teltow Canal links the ...
;
* and the grounds of the
Berliner Stadtschloss, which had curiously formed an estate district in its own right.
The Act increased the area of Berlin 13 times from to and the population doubled from approximately 1.9 million to near 4 million, with almost 1.2 million of the new inhabitants coming from the 7 surrounding towns alone.
Greater Berlin was then subdivided into 20
boroughs
A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely.
History
In the Middle Ag ...
(''Verwaltungsbezirke''):
* from Alt-Berlin:
Mitte
Mitte () is the first and most central borough of Berlin. The borough consists of six sub-entities: Mitte proper, Gesundbrunnen, Hansaviertel, Moabit, Tiergarten and Wedding.
It is one of the two boroughs (the other being Friedrichshain-Kreuzb ...
,
Tiergarten,
Wedding
A wedding is a ceremony where two people are united in marriage. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes. Most wedding ceremonies involve an exchange of marriage vo ...
,
Prenzlauer Berg
Prenzlauer Berg () is a locality of Berlin, forming the southerly and most urban district of the borough of Pankow. From its founding in 1920 until 2001, Prenzlauer Berg was a district of Berlin in its own right. However, that year it was incorp ...
,
Kreuzberg
Kreuzberg () is a district of Berlin, Germany. It is part of the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough located south of Mitte. During the Cold War era, it was one of the poorest areas of West Berlin, but since German reunification in 1990 it ha ...
and
Friedrichshain
Friedrichshain () is a quarter (''Ortsteil'') of the borough of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg in Berlin, Germany. From its creation in 1920 until 2001, it was a freestanding city borough. Formerly part of East Berlin, it is adjacent to Mitte, Prenz ...
;
* one borough for each of the 7 previously independent towns:
Charlottenburg
Charlottenburg () is a Boroughs and localities of Berlin, locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Established as a German town law, town in 1705 and named after Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, Queen consort of Kingdom ...
,
Köpenick
Köpenick () is a historic town and locality (''Ortsteil'') in Berlin, situated at the confluence of the rivers Dahme and Spree in the south-east of the German capital. It was formerly known as Copanic and then Cöpenick, only officially adopt ...
,
Lichtenberg
Lichtenberg () is the eleventh borough of Berlin, Germany. In Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it absorbed the former borough of Hohenschönhausen.
Overview
The district contains the Tierpark Berlin in Friedrichsfelde, the larger of Berlin ...
,
Neukölln
Neukölln () is one of the twelve boroughs of Berlin. It is located in the southeastern part from the city centre towards Berlin Schönefeld Airport. It was part of the former American sector under the Four-Power occupation of the city. It featu ...
,
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 Tempelh ...
,
Spandau
Spandau () is the westernmost of the 12 boroughs () of Berlin, situated at the confluence of the Havel and Spree rivers and extending along the western bank of the Havel. It is the smallest borough by population, but the fourth largest by land ...
and
Wilmersdorf
Wilmersdorf (), an inner-city locality of Berlin, lies south-west of the central city. Formerly a borough by itself, Wilmersdorf became part of the new borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf in Berlin's 2001 administrative reform.
History
The vi ...
;
* 7 new boroughs created from the remaining added areas, each named after the largest village in the area at the time:
Pankow
Pankow () is the most populous and the second-largest borough by area of Berlin. In Berlin's 2001 administrative reform, it was merged with the former boroughs of Prenzlauer Berg and Weißensee; the resulting borough retained the name Pankow. P ...
,
Reinickendorf
Reinickendorf () is the twelfth borough of Berlin. It encompasses the northwest of the city area, including the Berlin Tegel Airport, Lake Tegel, spacious settlements of detached houses as well as housing estates like Märkisches Viertel.
Subdivi ...
,
Steglitz
Steglitz () is a locality of the Steglitz-Zehlendorf borough in Southwestern Berlin, the capital of Germany. is a Slavic name for the European goldfinch, similar to the German .
Steglitz was also a borough from 1920 to 2000. It contained the ...
,
Tempelhof
Tempelhof () is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg. It is the location of the former Tempelhof Airport, one of the earliest commercial airports in the world. The former airport and surroundings are now a park called ...
,
Treptow
Treptow () was a former Boroughs of Berlin, borough in the southeast of Berlin. It merged with Köpenick to form Treptow-Köpenick in 2001.
Geography
The district was composed by the localities of Alt-Treptow, Plänterwald, Baumschulenweg, Nie ...
,
Weißensee and
Zehlendorf
Through that law, it became possible to implement integrated
town planning
Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...
across the whole of Greater Berlin. The Act was an important foundation for the rise of Berlin to a cultural centre of Europe in the
1920s
File:1920s decade montage.png, From left, clockwise: Third Tipperary Brigade Flying Column No. 2 under Seán Hogan during the Irish War of Independence; Prohibition agents destroying barrels of alcohol in accordance to the 18th amendment, whic ...
.
Apart from minor changes, the city boundary defined in the law is still the same as today even though its character has changed several times over the years. Originally a mere municipal boundary, it became a demarcation line between
occupation zones
Germany was already de facto occupied by the Allies from the real fall of Nazi Germany in World War II on 8 May 1945 to the establishment of the East Germany on 7 October 1949. The Allies (United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and France ...
after 1945 and part of the
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was the political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its s ...
after 1949, with the
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government ...
on some of its length between 1961 and 1990. Since the
Reunification of Germany
German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...
, it is the border between the
German states of Berlin and
Brandenburg
Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a states of Germany, state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an ar ...
.
References
External links
Verfassungen.de text of the law
{{coord, 52.517, N, 13.408, E, display=title, source:dewiki
1920 in law
1920 in Germany
Government of Berlin
Prussian law
1920s in Berlin
Mergers of administrative divisions
Provinces of Prussia