Neukölln (locality)

Neukölln (), formerly Rixdorf (), from 1899 to 1920 an independent city, is a large inner-city quarter of Berlin in the homonymous borough of Neukölln, and evolved around the historic village of Rixdorf. With 162,548 inhabitants (2025) the quarter has the second-largest population of Berlin after Prenzlauer Berg. Since the early 13th century, the local settlements, villages and cities down to the present day have always been a popular destination for colonists and immigrants. In modern times, it was originally shaped by the working class and '' gastarbeiters'', but western immigration since the turn of the millennium has led to gentrification and a rejuvenation of the quarter's culture and night life.

Geography

Neukölln is on the North European Plain, which is typically characterized by low-lying marshy woodlands with a mainly flat topography. The quarter lies on the geological border between the shallow Weichselian Warsaw-Berlin '' Urstromtal'' glacial valley and the northernmost edge of the Teltow young drift ground moraine plateau, specifically the ''Rollberge'',Lit. ''rollende Berge'', i.e. ''sanft geschwungene Berge'' ("rolling hills") in the figurative meaning of ''rollen'' as ''fließen'' ("to flow") or ''wogen'' ("to wave"); one of Neukölln's neighborhoods was named after the ''Rollberge'' range (''see below''). ''See also'' the ''Kreuzberg'', Berlin's most prominent glacial hill (and highest natural inner-city hill) which, together with the ''Rollberge'' and the slopes near the former ''Mühlenberg'' in Schöneberg, forms the larger northern Teltow range called ''Tempelhofer Berge''. a small range of glacial hills rising to the south of Hermannplatz and the street Hasenheide, and to the west of Rixdorf and the street Karl-Marx-Straße. Neukölln's average natural elevation is above NHN, ranging from to ,Neukölln's highest point is on the Teltow in the central Schillerkiez approximately at Schillerpromenade 27/28; the quarter's lowest point is in the glacial valley near the eastern border to Plänterwald along the Heidekampgraben near Kiefholzstraße (Köllnische Heide); cf. i.a
"Geoportal Berlin"
s.v. "Karten → Fachkarten → INSPIRE-transformiert → II 01 Höhe → Höhenlage im INSPIRE-Datenmodell (Digitales Geländemodell)", ''Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung, Bauen und Wohnen'', Berlin. with the highest man-made elevation at achieved by the '' Rixdorfer Höhe'', a '' trümmerberg'' in the Volkspark Hasenheide.The ''Rixdorfer Höhe'' has the highest elevation in the southern part of Berlin's inner city within the '' Ringbahn'', surpassed only by a few ''trümmerberg'' deposits in the north near the Barnim like the '' Humboldthöhe'' in the Volkspark Humboldthain ( Gesundbrunnen); ''see also'' Liste von Erhebungen in Berlin. Neukölln's tallest building structure, on the other hand, is the Estrel Tower at , which is Berlin's tallest skyscraper and Germany's tallest hotel tower; ''see also'' List of tallest buildings in Berlin. Neukölln's geographical center, based on a minimum bounding box, is located east of Richardstraße 101 near Kirchgasse at a linear distance of approximately to the river Spree with an elevation of .

Location

Neukölln forms the lower east side of Berlin's city center within the Ringbahn, and is the northernmost quarter in the homonymous borough of Neukölln, with the borough stretching all the way to Berlin's southern border with Brandenburg. The quarter is officially an ''Ortsteil'', and the borough a ''Verwaltungsbezirk'' (administrative district), in Berlin designated ''Bezirk'' (district).The use of the shortened term ''Bezirk'' has legal reasons, because Berlin's boroughs are only ''partially'' administrative districts: Berlin is a single municipality (''Einheitsgemeinde''), so its boroughs have limited power, acting only as agencies of Berlin's state and city governments, as laid out in the 1920 Greater Berlin Act; the boroughs are financially dependent on state donations, as they neither possess any taxation power nor own any property. (This is in contrast to municipalities and counties in other German states, which are territorial corporations, so-called ''Gebietskörperschaften'', with autonomous functions and property.) Furthermore, a borough's district office, while in charge of most administrative matters affecting its borough's residents, can be overruled by the Berlin Senate, which is the agent of Berlin's ''Hauptverwaltung'' (central administration); ''see also'' Boroughs and quarters of Berlin § Administration and politics. Different from the borough, the smaller ''quarter'' of Neukölln has no mayor or representative assembly of its own. To distinguish the quarter from the borough, the latter is sometimes informally called ''Groß-Neukölln'' ("Greater Neukölln"), while the quarter is also called ''Berlin-Neukölln''Over the years there have been several petitions to reestablish the historical name ''Rixdorf''; Kai Ritzmann
"Aus (Nord-)Neukölln soll wieder Rixdorf werden"
1 July 2019, ''B.Z.''. or ''Nord-Neukölln''.Other alternative toponyms for the quarter are ''Neukölln-Nord'', ''Nordneukölln'' and ''Neukölln 44''. The number 44 had been part of the quarter's old postal code (1000 Berlin 44, ''Neukölln 1'') and is still in informal cultural use after the introduction of the new postal codes in Germany on 1 July 1993. (Neukölln's modern postal codes, which range from 12043 to 12059, therefore still include the local number 44; however, only the codes with odd terminating numbers are currently in use.) Aside from its use to distinguish the quarter from the borough, the old postal code 44 has i.a. become part of local youth and music culture, adopted e.g. by native hip hop musicians such as Nashi44, Doni44, 44Grad and Kalazh44.

The quarter Neukölln is adjacent to the quarter Britz in the south, which is also part of greater Neukölln, to the SO 36 and Kreuzberg 61 neighborhoods of the quarter Kreuzberg in the north and north-west (in the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough), and to the quarter Tempelhof in the west (in Tempelhof-Schöneberg). In the east and north-east, Neukölln borders on the quarters Alt-Treptow, Plänterwald and Baumschulenweg, which are all part of the Treptow-Köpenick borough.

Neukölln is separated from Kreuzberg by the park Volkspark Hasenheide, the Landwehr Canal, and the streets Kottbusser Damm and Hasenheide as far as the city square Südstern, which conforms to Berlin's historical '' Weichbildgrenze'' (1861–1919). Neukölln shares part of the Tempelhofer Feld with Tempelhof, the vast field of the former Tempelhof Airport, now a popular recreation area. The green corridor ''Heidekamppark'' with the trench Heidekampgraben, the Kiefholzstraße and several urban streets in the Harzer Kiez separate Neukölln from the quarters of Treptow-Köpenick in former East Berlin. Finally, the Stadtring motorway with the Carl-Weder-Park, streets like Britzkestraße, Juliushof and Grenzallee, as well as the southern end of the Neukölln Ship Canal and the Britz Canal, form the administrative border with the Britz quarter.

The Teltow Canal, on the other hand, forms the geographical and demographic border within the borough Neukölln. The canal separates the dense urban areas of Neukölln and northern Britz with their higher share of immigrants and lower-income citizenry from the borough's southern residential areas, which, with the exception of Gropiusstadt, are mainly characterized by a larger number of family homes and middle-class households.The continuing growth of Neukölln's urbanized sphere, however, is slowly expanding the northern demographics southward, for example into Britz' Hufeisensiedlung and some city blocks north of Blaschkoallee.

Subdivisions

Neighborhoods

Neukölln has nine primary neighborhoods ('' Kieze''), administratively called ''Ortslagen'', among them the historical sites of Neukölln's foundation south-east of the quarters's geographical center, Richardplatz-SüdAlso known as ''Richardkiez''; the original ''Richarsdorp'', later ''Ricksdorf'', ''Rixdorf'' and ''Deutsch-Rixdorf''; named after an unknown historical ''Richard'', probably in the 13th century, and possibly after a local knight or administrator, or after a prominent historical person like Richard of Chichester, Richard of Cornwall or Richard de Bures (''see below''). to the south and south-east of the central plaza Richardplatz, and Böhmisch-RixdorfAlso known as ''Böhmisches Dorf'' (Bohemian Village); among the Bohemian settlers, it was called ''Český Rixdorf'' ( Czech Rixdorf) until the early 20th century. to the north and north-west, which together are commonly referred to as ''Rixdorf'' or ''Alt-Rixdorf'' ("Old Rixdorf"). The other primary neighborhoods are (from north to south):
* Reuterkiez,Also known as ''Reuterquartier''; named after the central localities ''Reuterstraße'' and ''Reuterplatz'', themselves named after novelist Fritz Reuter; in Berlin's LOR framework (''see below''), the Reuterkiez is part of a larger region called ''Reuterstraße'', which also includes the secondary neighborhoods ''Donaukiez'' and ''Harzer Straße''.
* Flughafenkiez,Often called ''Flughafenstraße'', seldomly ''Flughafenstraßenkiez''; the name derives from the central street Flughafenstraße, which refers to the former Tempelhof airport nearby.
* Schillerkiez,Also called ''Schillerpromenade''; named after the neighborhood's main street, the Schillerpromenade, itself named after Friedrich Schiller; in Berlin's LOR framework, ''Schillerpromenade'' is the name of a much larger region that also includes three additional secondary neighborhoods to the north and south of the actual Schillerkiez.
* Rollberg,Also called ''Rollbergkiez'', ''Rollbergviertel'' or ''Rollbergsiedlung''; named after the ''Rollberge'', a range of glacial hills (''see above''); not to be confused with the ''Rollberge'' estates, which is the alternative name for the Schwarzwaldsiedlung in Berlin Reinickendorf.
* Weiße Siedlung,Lit. "white estates"; named after the white faces of most of the neighborhood's high-rise buildings; not to be confused with the World Heritage Site '' Weiße Stadt'' in Berlin Reinickendorf; the Weiße Siedlung is often lumped together with (and even called) the Dammwegsiedlung, even though the latter is a distinct 1920s settlement further south (''see below''); in Berlin's LOR framework, the two neighborhoods are combined as the planning area ''Weiße Siedlung'', which additionally comprises the eastern Neukölln docklands, the Treptow freight yards, which, despite their name, are part of Neukölln (''see below''), and major recreational spaces at the eastern outskirts, mostly a large area of privately leased garden allotments at the site of the former Cölln Heath.
* Körnerpark,Sometimes referred to as ''Körnerkiez''; named after the Körnerpark, itself named after Franz Körner, the former owner of the gravel quarry, in which the park was created; Körner gifted the quarry to the city of Rixdorf under the condition that the planned park would bear his name. and
* High-Deck-Siedlung.Named after the architectural concept of using a close network of pedestrian skyways between the estate buildings; also called ''Sängerviertel'' ("Singers' Quarter") due to several street names, e.g. the Michael Bohnen beltway.

Other sites

Several commonly recognized secondary neighborhoods exist in Neukölln. The most important and oldest central urban community is the Donaukiez along Donaustraße between Sonnenallee and Karl-Marx-Straße, including Hermannplatz at its western end.South of Reuterkiez and part of the LOR region ''Reuterstraße''; named after the river ''Donau'', the German name for the Danube. The oldest suburban community is the historically important Dammwegsiedlung just south of the Weiße Siedlung, an early modern housing estate from the 1920s.Also called ''Siedlung am Dammweg''; named after an old ''Dammweg'' (path on a dam) across the historical '' Cöllnische Heide'' (Cölln Heath) to the former landing stages at the river Spree; administratively part of the planning area ''Weiße Siedlung'', itself part of the LOR region ''Köllnische Heide''. A recently evolved neighborship of cultural importance is the Weserkiez with its famous party mile around Weserstraße north of Sonnenallee.Part of both Reuterkiez and Rixdorf, with the Wildenbruchstraße forming the official border; named after the river Weser. Due to urban development and expansion, many other ''kiez'' communities have formed over the decades, sometimes distinguished in the city's official LOR framework (''see below'') or the focus of current or former neighborhood management,Examples are:
* Ganghoferstraße around the border between Donaukiez and Böhmisch-Rixdorf south of Sonnenallee; named after German author Ludwig Ganghofer; in Berlin's LOR framework, the Ganghoferstraße neighborhood belongs solely to the ''Rixdorf'' region and is a fairly large area stretching all the way to Thiemannstraße;
* Warthekiez around Wartheplatz; part of Schillerpromenade, and including the cemetery park ''Neuer St. Jacobi Friedhof''; named after the river ''Warthe'', the German name for the Warta;
* Harzer Straße, a residential area north of the Neukölln Ship Canal, also called ''Harzer Kiez'', Bouchéstraße or ''Bouchékiez''; nominally part of both Reuterkiez and Rixdorf, with the Wildenbruchstraße forming the official border, but also closely connected with the ''Kungerkiez'' in Alt-Treptow nearby; named after the local streets Harzer Straße and Bouchéstraße respectively, themselves named after the Harz region and German politician Johann Bouché (1759–1846); in Berlin's LOR framework, the Harzer Kiez is split into two areas, the small residential area ''Bouchéstraße'' in the west and ''Treptower Straße Nord'', a larger partially industrial area in the east;
* areas south of the Berlin Hermannstraße and Berlin Neukölln stations like Glasower Straße, also called ''Glasower Kiez'' (south of Körnerpark and named after the Glasow neighborhood in the town of Mahlow), and Silbersteinstraße, also called ''Silbersteinkiez'' (part of Schillerpromenade, and named after German politician Raphael Silberstein); the Glasower Kiez also includes the westernmost parts of Neukölln's industrial park Lahnstraße;
* Hasenheide, a western secondary neighborhood north of the Schillerkiez with fewer residential infrastructure, but large recreational spaces and parks; it evolved from the old ''Hasenheide'' forest of Rixdorf, now a park, literally "hares' heath"; in Berlin's LOR framework, Hasenheide is part of the larger region ''Schillerpromenade'';
* Schulenburgpark south of Dammwegsiedlung, a small neighborship close to High-Deck-Siedlung; named after the Schulenburg dynasty; in Berlin's LOR framework, ''Schulenburgpark'' is the name of a large planning area, which is part of ''Köllnische Heide'', Neukölln's largest region, and comprises the actual Schulenburgpark neighborship, the High-Deck-Siedlung, and many of the industrial sites southeast of the Berlin Ringbahn. while an outlier is ''Kreuzkölln'', which is a meta-neighborhood and loosely defined cultural sphere, described by a modern jocular toponym,Portmanteau of "''Kreuz''berg" and "Neu''kölln''"; the short hands ''X-Kölln'' and especially ''Xkölln'' are also in use; compare ''Xhain'', short for ''Kreuzhain'', a similar local portmanteau for the borough Friedrichs''hain''-''Kreuz''berg. which since the mid-2000s has often been used for the northern parts of the quarter and the surrounding regions of Kreuzberg. The toponym originally stood for the western part of the Reuterkiez, excluding the neighborhoods Donaukiez and Harzer Straße, and comprising the LOR areas Maybachufer, Reuterplatz and Weichselplatz, which are geographically wedged between the adjacent city blocks of the quarter Kreuzberg, whose neighborhoods SO 36 and Kreuzberg 61 border to the north and west respectively. After many years of gentrification, the toponym ''Kreuzkölln'' today describes the western part of the Reuterkiez together with the adjacent city blocks of Kreuzberg, more precisely the ''Graefekiez'' and the ''Reichenberger Kiez'', also known as ''Wiener Kiez'', which together have now formed an almost fully integrated, albeit gentrified, social and urban sphere (Johannes Schneider
"Sagt endlich Kreuzkölln!"
''Tagesspiegel'', 12 April 2016).

Urban planning

Berlin's official urban planning framework, on the other hand, divides Berlin's boroughs and quarters into so-called ''Lebensweltlich orientierte Räume'' ("lifeworld-oriented regions"). In this LOR framework, the quarter of Neukölln, non-administrative district 10 in borough 08, as of 2025, is divided into five regions, each of them further compartmentalized into a total of 21 LORs, also called ''Planungsräume'' (planning areas).

Nature

As of 2024, Berlin ranks among the greenest cities in Germany with only 44.48% of sealed ground, an average of of vegetation, and a 48% share of surface area with green space or water bodies, which provides a cooler urban climate and many options for natural habitats and urban recreation. Similarly, the borough of Neukölln has 45.64% of sealed ground, mainly due to its extensive recreational parks. However, due to the absence of large-scale true forests (''see below''), the borough only has an average of of vegetation. Nevertheless, from 2019 to 2024 this was still enough to ensure an average maximum summer midday surface temperature of , more than one degree Celsius (two degrees Fahrenheit) lower than Berlin's hottest borough of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, which measured . Together with Pankow, this makes Neukölln one of the coolest boroughs in Berlin's inner city, and places it slightly below the class of boroughs that is categorized by an above-average risk of heat exposure for its residents.

Parks and forests

The borough of Neukölln, like the homonymous quarter, is densely populated and urbanized, and only has 3.1% (2019) of natural land and forested areas, second to last before the borough Tempelhof-Schöneberg. However, the lack of true forests, which in Neukölln are only 0.1% of the overall surface area, is offset by many green plazas, parks and other vegetated recreational areas, not counting active cemeteries,Still, due to their old age, many of Neukölln's cemeteries now double as recreational parks or tourist locations during opening hours; the most famous and oldest ones are the 1751 Moravian cemetery, the small '' Böhmischer Gottesacker'' in Rixdorf, and the 1813 ''Friedhof hinter der Hasenheide'', later renamed ''Garnisonfriedhof'' (garrison cemetery), today called '' Friedhof Columbiadamm'', while the largest one, situated between the neighborhoods Rollberg and Körnerpark, is a cemeterial ensemble consisting of ''St. Thomas'', ''Neue Luisenstadt'' and ''St. Michael'', of which the former is one of Neukölln's historical garden monuments, originally built in 1872. Four additional active or former cemeteries are now historical monuments, namely the 1888 ''Emmauskirchhof'' in the far south, ''St. Jacobi'' on Karl-Marx-Straße (1852), the 1866 Turkish cemetery on Columbiadamm (''see below''), and the western part of ''St. Thomas'' (1872), present-day Anita-Berber-Park. which actually make Neukölln one of the greenest of all Berlin boroughs, even taking the city's top spot with 19.9% of parks and meadows."So grün sind die Berliner Bezirke"
''B.Z.'', 9 June 2016. Neukölln also has one of Berlin's 76 remaining natural boglands spanning or , primarily the ''Erlenbruch'', which, together with two smaller bogs, has persisted at the brook '' Rudower Fließ'' in the borough's far south; Hildburg Bruns
"Moor-Krimi in Köpenick! Versunkener See freigelegt"
''B.Z.'', 29 May 2025. Recultivated boglands and a herd of water buffalo are found further east in Neukölln's landscape park Rudow-Altglienicke.

Green space in the quarter Neukölln is dominated by small to medium-sized parks, but the two major parks in the western part of Neukölln, the Volkspark Hasenheide and the Tempelhofer Feld, more than make up for the lack of large green areas in other spots. Smaller parks are found in all neighborhoods, many of which are among Neukölln's historical garden monuments, for example the Anita-Berber-Park (Schillerpromenade), a former cemetery, and the stadium park of the Werner Seelenbinder sporting grounds, both of which connect to the Tempelhofer Feld, the recently decommissioned cemetery ''Neuer St. Jacobi Friedhof'' (Schillerpromenade), now mostly used as a park, with parts under management by the '' Prinzessinnengärten'' gardening project, Lessinghöhe and Thomashöhe (Körnerpark), the Körnerpark itself, a former gravel quarry, with the Rübelandpark connecting Thomashöhe and Körnerpark, the Comenius Garden (Rixdorf), Herbert-Krause-Park and Von-der-Schulenburg-Park near High-Deck-Siedlung, and extensive stretches of garden allotments like ''Helmutstal'' and ''Märkische Schweiz'' close to the quarter's eastern border, including the Heidekamppark, a long green corridor adjacent to the trench ''Heidekampgraben''. On the southern and south-western borders to the quarters Britz and Tempelhof respectively is the Carl-Weder-Park, a stretched park above the underground ''Stadtring'' autobahn west of the Britzer Damm. Immediately adjacent to the north is the ''Emmauswald'', a former cemetery and Neukölln's only true forest, with the ''Emmauskirchhof'', a still active graveyard, connecting to the east. Furthermore, several inner-city squares and building complexes have been designed with green stretches.Examples are monuments like the Reuterpark on Reuterplatz or the Richardpark on Richardplatz, smaller parks like Trusepark, green plazas like Hertzbergplatz, dedicated plaza parks like Weichselpark on Weichselplatz and Wildenbruchpark on Wildenbruchplatz, as well as special places like the atrium of Neukölln's '' Stadtbad'' (public bath house), or the neighborhood garden ''Silent Rixdorf'' in Böhmisch-Rixdorf.

Water bodies

In the borough Neukölln, water bodies make up 1.6% of the whole surface area, with the northern quarter trailing behind Rudow and especially Britz, two of Neukölln's four other quarters. Like its parks and forests, with the exception of the ''Emmauswald'', all of Neukölln's water bodies are man-made. Several of the quarter's parks contain artificial lakes and ponds, for example the Volkspark Hasenheide (''Rixdorfer Teich''), the Comenius Garden (''Weltenmeer''), the Karma Culture Garden in Rixdorf, and the Von-Der-Schulenburg-Park (High-Deck-Siedlung). Neukölln's prominent waterway is the Neukölln Ship Canal, which connects the Teltow and Britz Canals with the Landwehr Canal and (through Kreuzberg) the river Spree. The Neukölln Harbor, consisting of an upper and lower basin and connected via the '' Neukölln Watergate'', was built in tandem with the Britz Harbor north of the Teltow Canal. Smaller landing stages are located along the Neukölln Ship Canal until Kiehlufer, and these ''Neukölln Docklands'' are currently subject to extensive redevelopment.

Wildlife

Like all of inner-city Berlin, Neukölln, despite its high level of urbanization, has a diverse and thriving population of urban wildlife. The quarter's large share of vegetation, parks and other green areas (''see above'') not only provides a cooler urban climate, but also promotes the settlement of wildlife. Wild species in Neukölln have usually found their safe retreats along the waterways and in the bigger parks and cemeteries, while using migration routes into the central neighborhoods along train tracks and through the interconnected park and cemetery areas, for example from Tempelhofer Feld to Lessinghöhe. Greener quarters adjacent to Neukölln in the south and east also promote migration into the quarter.

Neukölln's nature and wildlife are primarily managed by rangers from Berlin's '' Stiftung Naturschutz'' (Charity for Nature Conservation). Political measures over the past years have improved natural habitats and the ecological component of Berlin's path toward a more sustainable development. Among them are a strict urban tree planting and replacement policy, an emphasis on discreetly controlled rank growth, both in parks and on median strips, protected nature areas in larger parks, and more neighborhood-oriented action like roof gardens, for example the ''Kranichgarten'' at the ''Neukölln Arcaden'', vegetated and partially fenced '' Baumscheiben'' around road trees instead of tree grates, as well as vegetated parklets. The Tempelhofer Feld is home to several protected and endangered plant and animal species like the Italian locust and the wood white butterfly. Almost half of the vast park's bird species are on the list of highly endangered species, among them the whinchat and the wheatear.

Generally, Neukölln's wildlife is no different from that of other inner-city quarters of Berlin, so red foxes, rabbits and smaller rodent species like the red squirrel and several muroidea as well as urban birds like doves, crows and (on the quarter's canals) swans, geese and ducks are almost ubiquitous. Less noticeable species include the badger, the beech marten, the hedgehog, bats, the true toad and other species of frog. In recent years, otters and beavers have also made a comeback in Neukölln, for example at the Landwehr Canal. To date, no sightings of wild boar have been recorded for the quarter Neukölln."Schriftliche Anfrage der Abgeordneten Danny Freymark (CDU) und Stephan Schmidt (CDU) vom 01. März 2018 zum Thema 'Wildschweinplage in Berliner Bezirken' und Antwort vom 14. März 2018"
''Abgeordnetenhaus Berlin'', 14 March 2018. However, an average of 50–100 kills of wild boar are usually registered every year in the ''borough'' of Neukölln. Generally, boars only seldomly migrate into Berlin's inner-city quarters, which would need to be directly interconnected with the large forests in Berlin's periphery, for example like the western parts of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf; for sightnings of wild boar on the Kurfürstendamm, see e.g. Cay Dobberke
"Wildschweinplage: Schweine am Ku'damm"
''Tagesspiegel'', 25 March 2011.

While the plain and unadorned surfaces of modern architecture have all but pushed out traditional urban bird species like the common swift and the house martin, Berlin, unlike other German cities, is still a safe haven for many others. A prominent example is the sparrow, and Berlin is now regarded as the "sparrow capital" of Germany. Predatory birds, though common to Berlin, are not native to the quarter of Neukölln, but sometimes intrude from other peripheral areas, for example the common kestrel from the borough's southern quarters. Rank growth and gardening policies have been the basis for a slight revival of the urban insect population, including endangered or almost extinct species like the vine weevil, which also reattracts bird species to the urbanized areas. Furthermore, Neukölln is now home to 300 species of wild bees.

Like all cities in today's globalized world, Berlin and Neukölln are also home to several invasive species like the raccoon or the Himalayan balsam. Neukölln in particular has a fairly large population of nutria and muskrat. Several foreign species of fish and crustaceans have settled in Berlin's waterways, and have markedly shifted the balance of indigenous species. Especially the population of red swamp crayfish has risen sharply in the past decade, including in the Landwehr Canal, and the reintroduction of eels into Berlin's waterways is planned as a countermeasure.

Etymologies

Rixdorf: Richard's village

At the time of its official foundation in 1360 as a Knights Hospitaller '' angerdorf'', Rixdorf was called ''Richarsdorp'' (''Richardsdorf'', "Richard's Village"), while a proposed earlier toponym for the preceding Knights Templar hamlet is ''*Richardshof''Heike Schroll, ''Das Landesarchiv Berlin und seine Bestände: Übersicht der Bestände aus der Zeit bis 1945 (Tektonik-Gruppe A)'', Berliner Wissenschaftsverlag, Berlin, 2003, p. 134; in Low German the toponym would have been ''Richarshove''; compare Tempelhof as ''Tempelhove''. A potential date for the emergence of this hypothetical toponym is the rededication of the military stronghold as an access yard (ca. 1245); however, the Templar yard could as well have been called ''Richarsdorp'' from the beginning, as that was already its toponym at the time of the village's official foundation in 1360. ("Richard's Court"). Two alternate Low German spellings, ''Richarstorp'' and ''Richardstorff'', are already present in the foundational charter. The village's name was usually pronounced with mostly elided or shifted consonants (). Alternate spellings of the 14th century were ''Richardsdorp'' and ''Richardstorpp'', while the 15th century introduced ''Reicherstorff'', ''Richerstorp'' and ''Rigerstorp'' (1435).

From the 16th century onward, vernacularly contracted forms took hold.Compare e.g. engl. ''Richard'' or ''Rickard'' → ''Rick''. ''Ricksdorf'' (1525) became a widely accepted spelling for two centuries, with many alternate forms appearing in historical records, for example ''Reichstorff'' (1541), ''Richstorff'', ''Rigstorff'' (1542) and ''Richsdorf'' (1543), and in the 17th and 18th century ''Rechsdorff'', ''Rechsdorp'', ''Risdorf'', ''Reichsdorp'', ''Rieksdorf'', ''Riecksdorff'' (1693) and ''Riechsdorf'' (1737). The earliest known source for ''Rixdorf'' is from the year 1709, and it became the official modern High German spelling in 1797.

The mainstream theory on the etymology of ''Richardsdorf'', and therefore of ''Rixdorf'', assumes an eponymous individual called ''Richard'',Main contemporary spellings were e.g. ''Richart'' and ''Rikard'' or latinized variants ''Ricardus'' and ''Richardus''. Generally, the name ''Richard'' means "strong ruler" and stems from the Proto-Germanic roots ''*rīk-'' ("ruler", "leader") and ''*hardu-'' ("hardy", "strong"), originally from PIE ''*reg-'' ("to move in a straight line", "to lead", "to rule") and ''*kar-'' ("hard"). The syllable ''-dorp'' (''Dorf'', Old English ''thorp'', "village") stems from the Proto-Germanic root ''*thurpa-'' ("pen", "compound", "fenced area"), and possily from PIE ''*treb-'' ("dwelling"). Taking into account the proposed older toponym ''*Richardshof'', the word ''Hof'' (''hove'') is a cognate of ''Hufe'' ("oxgang") from Proto-Germanic ''*hōfaz'' and the root ''*hōfa-'' ("hoof"), possibly originating from PIE ''*kop-'' ("to beat", "to strike"). allegedly a local Knight Templar, bailiff or commander of the Tempelhof commandery, or even the original administrator or chief settler ('' Lokator'') of *Richardshof in the early 13th to 14th century. However, no ''Richard'' is mentioned in historical sources in connection with the Templar villages of the Teltow, let alone an actual Knight Templar ''per Alemanniam et Slaviam'', so alternate etymologies were eventually propagated,A prominent contemporary Richard with at least indirect connections to the Templar Order was Richard of Cornwall (died 1272), who in 1241 during the Barons' Crusade negotiated a proper burial for the Templars killed at the Battle at Gaza, and who also transferred sovereignty over Ascalon castle to the German king Frederick II, who had already laid the groundwork for the German colonization of the Teltow region after the Northern Crusades (''see below''); Richard became King of the Romans (and therefore of Germany) in 1257, however against the vote by Brandenburg's Margrave John I. The only prominent contemporary Knight Templar called Richard was Richart (Richardus) de Bures ( Richard de Bures), who, at the time when Rixdorf's original Templar stronghold was rededicated as an access yard (ca. 1245, ''see below''), served as Templar grand master after the death or capture of his predecessor Armand de Périgord in 1244, and who himself died a Templar martyr on 9 May 1247 during the battle at Lake Tiberias, which was followed by the destruction of Tiberias. However, only the former of these two Richards has ever been proposed in ''Richardsdorf'' etymologies. while exaggerating folk etymologies also emerged and tried to connect the toponym to important historical or canonized Richards.Among them were nobleman and Christian saint Richard the Pilgrim (died 720), famous crusader king Richard the Lionheart (died 1199), and primarily bishop Richard of Chichester (died 1253), who was canonized in 1262 and eventually became a popular saint in Europe, but possibly too late to have influenced the toponym ''Richarsdorp''. In modern times, alternate spellings like ''Reichsdorp'' spawned secondary folk etymologies different from ''Richard'', namely from ''Reich'' ("empire") or the surname ''Reich'', but without taking the documented earlier variants and vernacular contractions into account.The latter hypothesis was propagated by Friedrich Nicolai in his work ''Beschreibung der königlichen Residenzstädte Berlin und Potsdam'' (1779), alleging an origin from the ''Ryke'' (''Reiche'') family, one of Cölln's and Berlin's old patrician dynasties; ''see also'' Rykestraße. In 1344, Johannes Ryke, a patrician citizen of Cölln, had been given the '' schultheiß'' court of Marienfelde south of Tempelhof by ''Herrenmeister'' (Lord of the Knights) Hermann von Werberg, bailiff and ''Statthalter'' (Governor) of Brandenburg, who in turn would play an important role in the foundation of Richardsdorf (''see below''), which is why it was theorized that the family name ''Reiche'' (''Ryke'') is the origin of ''Reichsdorp'' and other variants of ''Rixdorf'', similar to the etymology of Schleswig-Holstein's Rixdorf Manor (''Gut Rixdorf''), which probably originated from a documented local knight called Hinrich von Ryckestorp. However, for the theories on Neukölln's ''Rixdorf'', no primary sources exist that would refute the ''Richard'' etymology and corroborate a clear distinction between the later contracted form ''Rixdorf'' and its sufficiently documented toponymic origin as ''Richarsdorp''.

Neukölln: the new colony

In the 12th and early 13th centuries, during the time of Albert the Bear's and his successors' foundational advances into the region of modern-day Brandenburg and Berlin, Latin had been the administrative ''lingua franca'' of the Mediaeval Holy Roman Empire. The immigrating colonists mostly spoke dialects of the German common language,''See also'' Theodiscus; ''Deutsche'', unlike the English or French terms ''Germans'' or ''Allemands'' seem to suggest, was never an ethnic term, and instead denoted the (common) people who spoke ''theodiscus'' (''deutsch''), the language "of the people"; to this day, the individual term for a German is therefore ''Deutscher'' ("common person", "person who speaks the ommon''deutsche'' language"), derived from the original adjective ''deutsch'' ( O.H.G. ''diutisc''), not from the later noun and toponym ''Deutschland'' as ''*Deutschländer'' ("citizen of ''Deutschland''"). while the Hevelli and Sprevane, the Slavic tribes who had replaced the original Germanic natives of the region, spoke West Slavic languages, for example Old-Polabian. For this reason, the toponyms of many of Berlin's localities have a Slavic origin, including Berlin itself, whose name, in spite of the early latinization as ''Berolinum'',See also the city's female personification as '' Berolina''. possibly stems from Proto-Slavic ''*berl-/*brl-'', an obscure root which is usually interpreted as "bog", "moor" or "swamp".The Old-Polabian toponym ''Berlin'' or ''Birlin'' ("swamp area") was also used with a definite article as ''der Berlin'' ("the Berlin"), which strongly suggests a Slavic plot name, e.g. "the swamp", instead of a preceding Slavic settlement; cf. Arnt Cobbers, ''Kleine Berlin-Geschichte – Vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart'', Berlin 2008, p. 14; ''see also'' etymology of ''Berlin''.

The name ''Neukölln'', however, is in many ways an exception to Berlin's toponymic rules. When Rixdorf was rechristened ''Neukölln'' in 1912, the city's new name was a catch-all term. It logically referenced several places in the vicinity, namely the Cölln Heath to the east, as well as Cölln itself, Alt-Berlin's historical twin city, which had been Rixdorf's feudal parent city for several generations (''see below''). The primary reference, however, was to the ''Neucöllner Siedlungen'' (Neucölln Estates), which had been constructed on the ''Berlinische Wiesen'' north of the old Rixdorf in the decades before the renaming. The estates' name recalled the meadows' old name ''Cöllnische Wiesen'' (Cölln Meadows), and thereby, whether intentionally or not, imitated Neu-Cölln, an old district south of the medieval part of Berlin and Cölln proper. This historical Neu-Cölln, sometimes written ''Neu-Cöln'' or ''neu Cölln'', was at first also called ''Neu-Cölln am Wasser'' ("New Cölln by the water").The "water" referenced both Neu-Cölln's southern military moat, which was later filled, and the historical ''Cöllnischer Stadtgraben'' ("Cölln Moat") between Cölln and Neu-Cölln, which later became the Spree Canal west and south of Spree Island; ''see also'' Fischerinsel, the southern neighborhood on Spree Island. It was built in 1662 as the southern military extension of the city of Cölln, and remained a small district of Berlin until the Greater Berlin Act of 1920, when it was dissolved in the new Mitte quarter of the homonymous borough.This means that from 1912 to 1920, the region had two localities that bore virtually the same name, Berlin's small district ''Neu-Kölln'' and vis-à-vis the city ''Neukölln''. Today, the area of the historical Neu-Cölln is part of the Luisenstadt neighborhood (named after the historical Luisenstadt), and it is almost never called by its historical name, but places like the Köllnischer Park, originally a military bastion in Neu-Cölln (''Bastion VII''), still point to the origin of the toponym ''Neukölln''.

The etymology of ''Cölln'', and therefore of ''Neukölln'' ("New Cölln"), is from imperial Latin ''colonia'' ("colony", "settlement", "colonial town"),From Latin ''colonus'' (i.a. "settler in a foreign land") and ''colere'' (i.a. "to cultivate", "to inhabit"), originally from the PIE root ''*kwel-'' (i.a. "to dwell"). and the colonial town in Brandenburg was at first called ''Colonia'' (1237)In a reference to a priest as ''Symeon plebanus de Colonia'' (28 October 1237). and ''Colonia juxta Berlin'' (1247, "colony near Berlin"). In the same manner as the toponym of modern-day ''Köln'' (Cologne), the former Roman Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (50 CE) and ''Colonia Agrippina'' (322), was gradually germanized from post-Roman ''Colonia'' (since 450) to its Mediaeval names ''Colne'', ''Coellen'', and ''Cölln'', so was Brandenburg's Holy Roman ''Colonia'', first partially to ''Colne prope Berlin'' (1344, "Colne near Berlin"), then to ''Collen'' (1440), before settling on ''Cölln'' in later centuries.Manfred Niemeyer (ed.), ''Deutsches Ortsnamenbuch'', Berlin/Boston 2012, p. 60 s.v. "Berlin: II, III"; id., p. 323 s.v. "Köln: III, IV"; cf. Winfried Schich, "Das mittelalterliche Berlin (1237–1411)", in: Wolfgang Ribbe, ''Geschichte Berlins'' 1, München 1988, p. 146–206. A direct adoption of Cologne's Latin name (Joachim Herrmann 937in: id. ''et al.'', ''Berlin. Ergebnisse der heimatkundlichen Bestandsaufnahme, Reihe "Werte unserer Heimat"'' 49/50, Berlin 1987, p. 143 sq.) is therefore less likely than a new Holy Roman colony next to (the) Berlin receiving its toponym ''Colonia'' independently, which was then gradually germanized like its counterpart on the Rhine. An even older hypothesis, which mirrored Berlin's etymology and tried to postulate a Slavic origin of the new colony's name, surmised an obscure base form ''*Kol'no'' from ''*kol'' ("stake, spigot"); cf. Emil Stutzer, ''Die Deutschen Großstädte – Einst und Jetzt'', Berlin/Braunschweig/Hamburg 1917; this is an unlikely etymology, especially given the fact that no remnants of a Slavic settlement preceding the new ''colonia'' were ever found, but still cannot be completely ruled out; cf. Manfred Niemeyer (ed.), ''Deutsches Ortsnamenbuch'', Berlin/Boston 2012, p. 60 s.v. "Berlin: II, III". Older treatises had disregarded a potential Slavic in favor of a Latin origin as a ''sui generis'' name for a ''colonia nova'' (new colony), but left open the possibility that the colonists had been inspired by Cologne's Latin name; cf. i.a. Jan Hendrik Regenbogen, ''Commentatio de Bello Sacro'', Leiden 1819, p. 245 sq.: "Coloniam ad Spream quoque ea aetate conditam fuisse, ita nominatum vel a Colonia nova, vel ab advenis, e Colonia Agrippina oriundis, admodum est verisimile ��" Latin literature kept referring to Cölln as ''Colonia''. To distinguish it from Cologne, toponym extensions were often applied, for example ''Marchiae'' ("of the March randenburg), or ''ad Spream'', ''ad Spreeam'' or ''ad Spreham'' ("on the iver Spree"), or ''Brandenburgica'' (" Brandenburgian"). Even though neither ''Neukölln'' nor the historical ''Neu-Cölln'' were ever officially called '' Nova Colonia'',Similar to '' Berolina'', the name of Berlin's historical personification, the ahistorical toponym ''Nova Colonia'' is used occasionally by associations and companies in the Neukölln quarter and borough, for example the chamber choir ''Capella Nova Colonia'', while the variant ''Colonia Nova'' is the name of an event venue and congress center in northern Rixdorf, situated very close to the area of the historical ''Neucölln Estates''. etymologically ''Neukölln'' still translates as "New Colony", which was a fitting new name for a city that since the first German colonists of the early 13th century until today has always been a prominent destination for settlers and immigrants.

History

Timelime

Historical maps

Prehistory

Archeological finds on the Rixdorf lot point to a Germanic prehistory of Neukölln,Prehistorical overview and historical chronology, settlement history and monuments i.a. in ''Berlin-Neukölln, seine Geschichte und Denkmale: Rixdorf'', Bezirksamt Neukölln, Berlin 1999
online copy
; for more detailed annals of Rixdorf and Neukölln from its inception to 1999, cf. Manfred Motel, ''Chronik von Rixdorf'', Berlin 1999

. with evidence of a settlement since the late Neolithic age, like early flint tools, potsherds from the Bronze Age on Richardplatz, or Iron Age burial urns in the ''Hasenheide''. Finds from the era of the Roman Empire were ubiquitous in Berlin, which includes West-Germanic terps and ceramics on the Richardplatz, a Gordianic bronze coin on the ''Rollberge'',Originally minted in Singidunum, it was either a coeval monetary import or reused in more recent times as a pendant. and nearby the important '' Reitergrab von Neukölln'' (equestrian tomb) south-west of Richardplatz at the Körnerpark, which stems from the onset of the Merowingian era in the first half of the 6th century.I.a. Albert Kiekebusch, "Ein germanisches Reitergrab aus der späten Völkerwanderungszeit von Neukölln (Rixdorf) bei Berlin", ''Praehistorische Zeitschrift'' IV 3/4, 1912. Today, the ''Reitergrab'' is on display at the Märkisches Museum.

The original tribes that lived in the Berlin region belonged to the Elbe-Germanic Suevian Semnones. They eventually migrated southwestward during the era of the Barbarian InvasionsStarting in the third century CE, almost all of the Semnonic tribes migrated from ''Germania Magna'' across the '' limes'' to the Upper Rhine region and became part of the wider and partially Romanized Alemannic culture; ''see also'' Swabia and Alamannia. In a twist of historical irony, a significant number of Swabians, the modern-day descendants of the ancient Suevi, have been return-migrating to Berlin since the late 1980s, leading to pronounced anti-Swabian sentiments, especially in the alternative culture of former central East Berlin, with the term ''Schwabe'' (Swabian) eventually having morphed into a '' pars pro toto'' koinonym for all modern Western immigrants perceived as the drivers of gentrification. and were superseded by the West Slavic Sprevane and Hevelli, historically called the '' Wends'', but archeological traces pertaining to a successive Sprevane settlement were never found in the area of modern-day Neukölln.The same is true for the historical centers of Berlin and Cölln; the Slavic tribes had mostly settled on the plateaus surrounding Berlin's glacial valley, i.e. the Sprevane on the Teltow and Barnim, and on the rivers Spree and Dahme, e.g. in Trebow and Copnic, and the Hevelli in the Havelland and the Zauche, and on the rivers Havel and Nuthe, e.g. in Spandow and Poztupimi; cf. Horst Ulrich, Uwe Prell, Ernst Luuk, "Besiedlung des Berliner Raums", in: ''Berlin Handbuch'', Berlin 1992, p. 127 sq. From the early era of post-Germanic German colonization, only scanty potsherds were excavated, and the remnants of mediaeval chain mail were typical of the 13th or 14th century, the times when the Knights Templar and Hospitaller already ruled over nascent Neukölln.

Early history

After four centuries of colonization, the region around modern-day Berlin came under lasting Holy Roman rule in the 12th century as part of the Ascanian Margraviate of Brandenburg, founded by Albert the Bear in 1157.In the wake of the Northern Crusades, Albert was appointed margrave of the Northern March, including the Teltow, in 1134 by Lothair III after a testamentary contract between Albert and Hevellian prince Pribislav-Henry (1129). When Pribislav-Henry died in 1150, Albert became his successor and proclaimed the new margraviate in 1157. The region was situated near the borders to the Principality of Copnic, ruled by Sprevan prince Jaxa of Köpenick,In a short war of succession against Albert, Jaxa laid claim to Brandenburg and occupied the region in 1157, but retreated without a fight in the same year after transfer negotiations. Pomerania became part of Brandenburg only decades later (''see below''). and the Duchy of Pomerania-Demmin, ruled by Casimir I, which had all fought for dominance during the colonization of the Teltow and the formation of Brandenburg. Albert's successor Otto I defeated Casimir I in 1180, and following the rule of Otto II, margrave Albert II managed to secure a large part of the Teltow until 1212, but lost the Duchy of Pomerania again to the House of Griffin. His two sons, margraves John I and Otto III, jointly ruled Brandenburg from 1220 to 1266/67, secured the remaining parts of the Teltow, established many new towns, and are regarded as the ''conditores'' (framers) of ''Colonia'' (Cölln) and the old town of Berlin.Archeological finds pertaining to the construction of a trading place at the river Spree were dated to the 1170s, and the oldest discovered burials in Cölln to the 1160s (Gisela Graichen & Matthias Wemhoff, ''Gründerzeit 1200: Wie das Mittelalter unsere Städte erfand'', Berlin 2024); however, both the parochial establishment and the foundation of Berlin's and Cölln's royal court fall into the reign of the so-called ''Stadtgründer'' (founders of cities) John I and Otto III.

Knights Templar stronghold

Around the year 1200, a military hamlet, at some point possibly called ''Richarshove'' (''*Richardshof'',Proposed toponym; cf. Heike Schroll, ''Das Landesarchiv Berlin und seine Bestände: Übersicht der Bestände aus der Zeit bis 1945 (Tektonik-Gruppe A)'', Berliner Wissenschaftsverlag, Berlin, 2003, p. 134. "Richard's Court"), was establishedTempelhof and other (sometimes Slavic) villages were founded or conquered around 1190, and the surrounding Teltow region was incorporated in two planned-out phases between 1190 and 1230; cf. Winfried Schich, "Das mittelalterliche Berlin (1237–1411)", in: Wolfgang Ribbe (ed.), ''Veröffentlichung der Historischen Kommission zu Berlin: Geschichte Berlins. 1. Band'', München, 1987, p. 157. *Richardshof was probably part of the second colonization wave, beginning with the year 1200. While Ascanian rule over the Teltow is well attested for that time, there is still debate over who had actually initiated the foundation of the Teltow villages, whether the House of Ascania, or their direct rivals, the bishops of Magdeburg, e.g. Ludolf von Kroppenstedt, or the dukes of Silesia, e.g. Bolesław I the Tall, or the House of Wettin, which would imply a later conquest by the Ascanians and Knights Templar; cf. Ulrich Waack, "Die frühen Herrschaftsverhältnisse im Berliner Raum. Eine neue Zwischenbilanz der Diskussion um die 'Magdeburg-Hypothese'", in: ''Jahrbuch für brandenburgische Landesgeschichte'' 54, 2005, pp. 7–38. together with two unnamed folwarksThe closest folwark was probably situated approximately southeast of the hamlet near the corner of modern-day Niemetzstraße and Braunschweiger Straße north of the Ringbahn (''see'' 1857 map); the second and more important folwark was established east-northeast at the border of the Tempelhof dominion on the eastern shore of the river Spree across from Stralow in Slavic Trebow, known until the 19th century as the ''Burgwall'' ("hill fort"), in modern-day Berlin situated in the Treptower Park on the grounds of the '' Gasthaus Zenner''; cf. Heinz-Dieter Heimann, Klaus Neitmann, Winfried Schich (eds.)
''Brandenburgisches Klosterbuch – Handbuch der Klöster, Stifte und Kommenden bis zur Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts''
Berlin 2007, Vol. 2, p. 1276. at the foot of the Teltow on the edge of the grasslands later known as ''Cöllnische Wiesen'' (Cölln Meadows)In later centuries renamed ''Berlinische Wiesen'' (Berlin Meadows); these grasslands were the north-western part of the ''Mirica'', a forest region later known as '' Cöllnische Heide'' (Cölln Heath). on the road to nearby Slavic Trebow and Copenic as an eastern Knights Templar stronghold,After the era of Jaxa, one of the remaining adversaries of the Ascanian margraviate in the eastern Teltow periphery was the House of Wettin, which had ruled over Copenic since (depending on the source) 1178 or 1210, which required a military presence in *Richardshof. Therefore, the Templar stronghold was established somewhere between 1190 and 1210. During this time, the Order was under the sovereignty of four consecutive grand masters, Robert IV of Sablé (1191–93), Gilbert Horal (1193–1200), Philippe du Plessis (1201–08) and William of Chartres (1208–19). administered by the neighboring '' Commandery Tempelhof'' ( Tempelhove),A reference to a Templar commander called Hermann (''magister Hermannus de Templo'', "master ommanderHermann of the nightsTemplar") dated 29 April 1247 underlines the order's command over Tempelhof and the Teltow region; cf. i.a. Hans Eberhard Mayerm, "Zum ''Itinerarium peregrinorum'' – Eine Erwiderung", in: id. (ed.): ''Kreuzzüge und lateinischer Osten'' 3, London 1983, p. 210 sq. However, no records exist of the Knights' direct involvement in the ''foundation'' of any of the Teltow settlements, including Merghenvelde and Mergendorp, but the 1247 record and later transfer of ownership implies at least their lasting sovereignty. which had developed during the early days of the Holy Roman Empire along the old '' Via Imperii''.The imperial road ''Via Imperii'' was mainly a trade route and an extension of the ancient Roman '' Via Raetia'' through Cölln and Alt-Berlin to Stettin on the Baltic Sea, but it also functioned as one of the Medieval European St. James pilgrims' ways: within the southern parts of modern-day Berlin, it ran from the old central town of Cölln, now Fischerinsel in Mitte, either through Friedrichswerder, Friedrichstadt, and south along the Lindenstraße, or through Neu-Cölln am Wasser and Luisenstadt, passing the Sebastian Church, and south-west roughly along Alte Jakobstraße; both potential routes then followed the Lindenstraße to Hallesches Tor, and further south through Tempelhof, Mariendorf, Marienfelde, Teltow and Stahnsdorf in the direction of Beelitz and Wittenberg. The Templar functioned as a neutral institution, and after the primary conflicts had ended in 1231,Following the victory over the Danes at the second battle of Bornhöved (1227), Brandenburg secured their claim on Pomerania, which Frederick II gave as a suzerainty to the (at this time still dependent) Ascanian margraves, followed by a 1231 treaty between Barnim I of Pomerania-Stettin, due to his young age represented by his regent Samboride mother Miroslava of Pomerelia, and the margraves John I and Otto III, which legally confirmed the Ascanians' dominion i.a. over the Barnim and Teltow, and therefore *Richardshof, with the region's transfer following in 1237 after the Treaty of Kremmen; at the time the Templar Order was under the sovereignty of grand master Armand de Périgord (1232–44). The subsequent Ascanian-Pomeranian conflicts had no recorded effect on the Tempelhof commandery and the village's political status. the stronghold was at some point abandoned by the military and rededicated as a Templar access yard, probably after the end of the Teltow and Magdeburg Wars between the Houses of Ascania and Wettin (1239–45), which definitively ended the major regional conflicts of the '' Ostsiedlung'' era.At this time, the Templar Order was under the sovereignty of Richard de Bures, who served as grand master after the capture or death of Armand de Périgord from 1244/45 until his own death on 9 May 1247 during the battle at Lake Tiberias; Marie Luise Bulst-Thiele, ''Sacrae domus militiae Templi Hierosolymitani magistri – Untersuchung zur Geschichte des Templerordens 1118/19–1314'', Göttingen 1974, pp. 211–16 s.v. "17. Richardus (Richart) de Bures. 1144/45 – 9. Mai 1247"; Christian Vogel, ''Das Recht der Templer'', Berlin 2007, pp. 101, 109–11, 118, 124, 353.

On 21 November 1261, margrave Otto III gifted the forest region ''Mirica'', parts of which would later belong to Rixdorf and Neukölln, to the city of Cölln in what is also the first historical mention of Berlin's '' aula''. Soon after, the heath would be known as ''Cöllnische Heide'', and its western marshes and grasslands as ''Cöllnische Wiesen''. The windmills of Cölln and Alt-Berlin along the river Spree were mentioned for the first time in a document dated 2 January 1285, which also refers to a royal domain office, the '' Amt Mühlenhof'', which would administrate the Bohemian colony ''Böhmisch-Rixdorf'' for most of the 18th and 19th century.

When the Knights Templar became too powerful, the order was proscribed and effectively dissolved in 1312 by Pope Clement V under accusations of apostasy, but different from other Templar possessions, the Tempelhof commandery including *Richardshof did not immediately transfer into Hospitaller ownership, probably because the remaining Knights Templar offered resistance. Instead, the estate was fiducially held by Waldemar the Great for six years, and legally transferred to the Knights Hospitaller only in 1318.The Johannite Hospitaller history of the commandery was expressly documented for the first time in 1344; after the Reformation, the Catholic Brandenburg Hospitallers evolved into the Protestant Order of Saint John (''Johanniterorden''), which still exists today.

Richardsdorf

When first mentioned in its foundational charter of 26 June 1360, the only known foundational charter for a Brandenburg village, the '' angerdorf'' south-east of Cölln and Alt-Berlin around the present-day Richardplatz,Due to the fire of 1578 (''see below''), the exact locations of the village's original buildings could never be archeologically determined. and approximately from the river Spree, was already called ''Richarsdorp'' (''Richardsdorf'', , "Richard's Village"), signifying decades of development from yard (''hove'') to village (''dorp''), now officially recognized under the sovereignty of Knights Hospitaller grand master Roger de Pins and the joint Electors of Brandenburg Otto VII and Louis II, and under the regional authority of Hermann von Werberg, ''Statthalter'' (Governor) and first ''Herrenmeister'' (Lord of the Knights) of the Brandenburg bailiwick.In the charter, the ultimate (earthly) authorities are only named indirectly as ''mit Vollmacht unserer Oberen'' ("authorized by our superiors"); beside Hermann von Werberg ("Werberge"), the charter also names other representatives of the regional Hospitaller authorities, namely co-founder Dietrich von Sasar, ''Komtur'' (Commander) of Tempelhof, Jacob von Detz, the incumbent priest at Tempelhof, as advisor and attestor, as well as other witnesses, e.g. Hans Schuler, the ''Küster'' ( Sexton) at Tempelhof. The charter already mentions a '' schultheiß'', a municipal magistrate, to be inaugurated. The size of the new village's allocated area was 25 ''Hufe'', i.e. or , and it offered a home to 14 families of mostly farmers with (depending on the source) 50 to 100 residents; e.g
"Chronik und Geschichte Neuköllns"
''Bezirksamt Neukölln''. The historical document containing the Richardsdorf charter, itself a mid-15th century copy of the original deed, has been lost since World War II, but its contents have been preserved,Cf. e.g. thi
translation
One striking sentence in the charter foreshadows Rixdorf's and Neukölln's diverse, ephemeral and changeful history; nds.: ''Alle ding, dy geschyen jn der tydt, dy vorgan mit der tydt. Hirumme ist id not, dat man sy stetige vnd veste met briuen vnd hantuestigen''; ger.: ''Alle Dinge, die in der Zeit geschehen, vergehen mit der Zeit. Darum ist es notwendig, sie stetig zu machen und zu festigen mit Urkunden und Handfestigen''; eng.: "All things which occur through time, vanish with time. Therefore, it is necessary to make them steady, and to cement them, in deeds and tangible form". and 26 June 1360 has since been commemorated as the official date of Neukölln's foundation,Cf. e.g. the 650-years anniversary editio

of ''Mitteilungen des Vereins für die Geschichte Berlins'' (Vol. 3, 2010). Other important (and officially recognized) historical festivals are the foundation of Rixdorf's Bohemian village on 31 May 1737, and Rixdorf's independence on 1 April 1899 (''see below''). even though the quarter's history dates back at least another 150 years.

The village with its twelve farmers was mentioned again in 1375 as ''Richardstorpp'' in the '' Landbuch der Mark Brandenburg''.The number of farmers is not referenced directly, but was calculated from the appended tribute register. Around the beginning of the 15th century, Richardsdorf erected its first official chapel.Richardsdorf's chapel is first mentioned in the 1435 contract between the Hospitallers and the cities of Cölln and Alt-Berlin (''see below''). The original 1360 charter and later documents attest that the Richardsdorf farmers still belonged to the Tempelhof parish, and the ''Landbuch'' does not mention a chapel for the year 1375 either; furthermore, before 1400 the village had to pay tributes to the priest at Tempelhof, which also rules out a separate parish in Richardsdorf during these early times. This would refute a vague secondary source that the chapel already stood long before and even received its church bell as early as 1322; cf. ''Rixdorf – Britz zur Zeit des Ministers Graf Ewald Friedrich von Hertzberg 1753–1795'', Berlin 1949, s.v
"4: Die alte deutsche, jetzt böhm. Kirche auf dem Richardplatzarchived
. On the other hand, the foundational charter explicitly ''orders'' Richardsdorf's farmers to adhere to the Tempelhof parish; this suggests that the farmers had already constructed their church as a '' Flurkapelle'' ("field chapel"), which had never been officially recognized by the parochial authorities. After ongoing border disputes and an ill-fated armed conflict,The new leadership over the Teltow by the Johannite Knights Hospitaller perpetuated the Templar rule of force, which i.a. led to continuous strife along the northern border at the ''Schafgraben'', later known as ''Müllen-Graben'', modern-day Landwehr Canal; in 1435 the Hospitaller were accused of having secretly moved boundary stones in the area around the ''Johannistisch'', in modern-day Kreuzberg near the road Am Johannistisch, which prompted the so-called ''Tempelhofer Fehde'' (Feud of Tempelhof), as the Hospitaller under the command of Nickel von Colditz launched a military attack against Cölln and Berlin at the ''Köpenicker Tor'' near the Roßstraßenbrücke south of Cölln, but their battalion was quickly repelled at the city gates under heavy bombardment, so the Hospitaller decided to retreat toward Richardsdorf, pursued by Cölln's forces, but were ambushed from behind by Cölln's and Berlin's cavalry in the area of modern-day Lausitzer Platz, so they fled across the ''Schafgraben'' or the ''Schlangengraben'' into their own domain, possibly into the western part of the Richardsdorf lot, where they were defeated before dusk; cf. Frank Eberhardt
"Verziert mit Ross und Meerjungfrauen: Die Roßstraßenbrücke im Bezirk Mitte"
''Berlinische Monatsschrift'' 4, p. 11 sq., Berlin 2001; Werner von Westhafen

''Kreuzberger Chronik'' 174, November 2015. the Knights Hospitaller were forced to sell their possessions into permanent fiefdom to the cities of Alt-Berlin and Cölln on 23 September 1435, including Richardsdorf.With 2,440 schock Prague groschen (approx. $500,000 in 2024), the selling price was rather high, but it calmed regional relations and enabled the Hospitaller to purchase the lands around the village of Schwiebus.

Ricksdorf

The village was mentioned again in deeds of 1525 as ''Ricksdorf'', for the first time officially in its modern contracted form. On 1–2 November 1539, margrave Joachim II converted to the teachings of Martin Luther, and the Reformation was introduced in Ricksdorf.Already in 1521, the councils, guilds and schools of Berlin had absented themselves from Roman processions like Corpus Christi. Disputes over Ricksdorf continued between Cölln and Berlin,Cölln and Berlin had formed an administrative unity in 1432, but the despotism of Margrave Frederick Irontooth in the 1440s with the ensuing '' Berliner Unwille'' (lit. "the reluctance of Berlin") had resulted i.a. in the annulment of the shared administration, which soured relations over many generations, and complicated their joint fiefdom over Richardsdorf (Ricksdorf). and with a compromise settlement Ricksdorf became the sole fief and a '' kämmereidorf'' (treasury village) of Cölln on 24 August 1543.The contract was signed on 4 January 1543; Herbert Schwenk, 2001
"Alle ding… vorgan mit der tydt – Die Verwandlungen von Rixdorf und Neukölln"
''Berlinische Monatsschrift'' 4, pp. 43–50, Berlin 2001. The documents of 1543 already mention a tavern at the crossing of the postal and trade road through Ricksdorf to Mittenwalde and the ''Ricksdorfscher Damm'', modern-day Kottbusser Damm, which in 1737 became Rixdorf's famous tavern '' Rollkrug'' at Hermannplatz. On 2 February 1546, the right to inaugurate priests in Tempelhof and Ricksdorf was transferred to the parishes of Cölln and Berlin. On 14 April 1578, a fire destroyed most of the village's original infrastructure. Ricksdorf then created ''Die alte Kufe'' ("the old trough"), a small pond on the central meadow on Richardplatz, which was not only used as a horse pond, but primarily as a ''Feuerkufe'', a reservoir for the new fire hose.

In 1624 the population had grown to 150,The village's tax register lists 12 farmers, 8 cotters (''Kossäten''), a herdsman and his serf, a blacksmith, and two pairs of domestic serfs. and the village had built a forge for traveling blacksmiths, which after several renovations and enlargements remains in operation to this day as Berlin's oldest forge, the '' Schmiede am Richardplatz''. During the Thirty Years' War (1618–48)See also Swedish Pomerania. Ricksdorf was mostly depopulated, with buildings and parts of the chapel destroyed by fire.The chapel's roof and spire were destroyed in 1639, but rebuilt the same year; in 1912 the chapel was renamed ''Bethlehem Church''. Many parts of today's church building have preserved the original late Gothic architecture of 15th century Margraviate churches. At the end of the war, the village was also plagued by the Black Death, and in 1652 only seven farmers and cotters (''Kossäten'') and their relatives remained. In 1650, the Great Elector Frederick William gifted Ricksdorf its first windmill. In 1678, he created a hares' garden in the forest Hasenheide. The first mention of a village tavern (''Dorfkrug'') at the central Richardplatz is found in the town's oldest preserved court report from 29 January 1685.The tavern was located at Richardplatz 16, later known as ''Zum Goldenen Adler'' (1840) and ''Winkelmanns Salon'' (1872), and also functioned as a venue for the '' Friedrich-Wilhelm-Städtisches Theater'', until the original building was torn down in 1889; a newer ''Gründerzeit'' building was constructed in its place, which now houses the bar ''Herr Lindemann'' (2024). The first mention of a school in Ricksdorf is from the year 1688, when the local authorities deposed the schoolmaster.The school building was situated on Richardplatz, next to the village pond ''Die alte Kufe''. On 26 June 1693, Ricksdorf's chapel left the Tempelhof parish and joined the Britz parish, and the village's first parish register was opened by incumbent priest Johann Guthke. On 29 November 1700, the first official brewery concession and distribution rights were granted to Johann Wolfgang Bewert, the proprietor of Ricksdorf's ''schultheiß'' court.

Rixdorf

On 17 January 1709, the old city of Cölln merged with Alt-Berlin, Friedrichswerder, Friedrichstadt and Dorotheenstadt, forming the ''Königliche Haupt- und Residenzstadt Berlin'' (Royal Capital and Seat Berlin). At the time, Ricksdorf was already spelled ''Rixdorf'' in several documents, and when Berlin's new municipal constitution came into effect on 1 January 1710, Rixdorf became a treasury village of the Berlin magistracy. In 1712, the new postal, trade and military road from Berlin to Dresden, the ''Dresdener Heerstraße'', today's Hermannstraße, opened south of Hermannplatz as an extension of the ''Ricksdorfscher Damm''. On 28 September 1717, the royal administration introduced general compulsory schooling in Berlin, Rixdorf and the rest of Prussia. Rixdorf financed the construction of its first windmill in 1729,It joined the preexisting windmill, which had been gifted to the village by the Crown (''see above''), with another royal gift to the Bohemian village following in 1765 (''see below''). All in all, Rixdorf would have 16 windmills, two royal gifts, the 1729 windmill, and 13 additional windmills constructed between 1737 and 1865, two of them in today's Reuterkiez, and the rest on the Rollberge. and five years later the population had grown to 224.

Deutsch-Rixdorf and Böhmisch-Rixdorf

In 1737, King Frederick William I of Prussia invited 18 families of Hussite Moravian Protestants, who had been driven out of Bohemia, to settle near the village,Bohemia became primarily catholic again after the Battle of White Mountain, which led to persecutions of the Protestant minorities, many of whom subsequently left the country. Most of Rixdorf's Hussite settlers were part of a group of 700 refugees, 500 of whom had originally fled to Saxon Gerlachsheim near Marklissa, modern-day Gmina Leśna, from the regions around the villages of Landskron, Leitomischl, Rothwasser and Hermanitz in Roman northern Moravia and north-eastern Bohemia; when Joseph Wenzel I, the Regent of Liechtenstein, guardian of Prince Johann Nepomuk Karl and manorial lord of Rothwasser as part of the '' Gundakarian Majorat'', demanded the repatriation of his serfs, to which the Saxon government consented, 300 Bohemians fled again to Prussian Cottbus in the winter of 1736/37 under the guidance of their priest Augustin Schulz; when the landlord of Gerlachsheim confiscated the possessions of the 200 Bohemians, who had stayed behind, as compensation for the loss of much of his workforce, the remaining Bohemians migrated to Cottbus in February 1737, where they eventually met up with 200 more Bohemian refugees; their settlement in the Berlin region including Rixdorf was granted shortly afterwards at the behest of Bohemian priest Johann Liberda, who in the same year had managed to flee to Berlin from Waldheim Prison, where he had been incarcerated for sedition since late 1732. Liberda had already been a central figure of the first Bohemian immigration wave; as leader of a Bohemian delegation in the fall of 1732, he had managed to persuade the (initially reluctant) King to grant asylum to the first 500 refugees, who had originally fled to Großhennersdorf near Herrnhut in Upper Lusatia, ruled by lady of the manor Baroness Catharina von Gersdroff, who was an early patroness of the Moravian Church of Herrnhut, but were suffering from harsh serfdom and diminishing income due to subsequent immigration; after experiencing the Bohemians' proficiency, the King's mistrust changed into consistent support, which paved the way for Rixdorf's Bohemian settlement. Cf. Otmar Liegl, "250 Jahre Böhmen in Berlin", ''Mitteilungen des Vereins für die Geschichte Berlins'' 79 (1), Berlin 1983, pp. 2–15 (5 sq.). where they built new houses, industrial infrastructureThe ''Königliche Domänenverwaltung'' (Royal Domain Administration) bought five ''Hufe'' of farmland including Rixdorf's fiefdom court of the '' schultheiß'' and the yard belonging to Adolph Manitius, the court's proprietor (1704–37); the plots were then assigned as emphyteutic leases and transferred to the new settlers for later services to Berlin's industrialists; the Crown also provided construction materials and the necessary industrial and agricultural equipment free of charge, and helped in the construction of nine duplex houses with barns for the families, whereas each two families received between 12 and 14 '' morgen'' of land for gardening and agriculture; many of the barns received chambers for later subtenant worker families. The Bohemian settlers were exempt from military service, received immunity from taxes for five years, and the Crown carried their rents for two years; they were granted free citizenship and the right to master craftsmanship. The court of the ''schultheiß'' remained under Bohemian administration until 1874. and eventually their own chapelsOverall, the Bohemian immigrants formed three distinct parishes, a traditional Moravian, a Bohemian-Lutheran, and a Reformed Bohemian Protestant, whose relations were at times strained by religious controversies, especially in the early 19th century. Construction of a Moravian oratory on the Kirchgasse began in 1750 and was finished in 1761 ('' Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine''), but the building was destroyed in World War II and reopened as a late-modernist oratory and parish hall, inaugurated by bishop Otto Dibelius on 13 May 1962; church services in the oratory were held in the Czech language until shortly before World War I. The Reformed Protestant parish settled on Richardstraße with the inauguration of their first priest Johann Theophil Elsner on 23 October 1747. The original chapel in Deutsch-Rixdorf east of Richardplatz remained the main church of both Rixdorf villages; it was at first used by both the original German Catholics and newly immigrated Bohemian Protestants, and only later became an exclusively Protestant church. off the village center along the road to Berlin, today called ''Richardstraße''. 31 May 1737 is regarded as the official date of the Bohemian village's foundation, although the first settlers had already arrived in Rixdorf on 25 March of the same year. Twenty more colonists were granted their own land and construction rights in 1748. Already in 1751, the new settlement received its own cemetery, the '' Böhmischer Gottesacker''. In 1753, the oldest school building of Neukölln was constructed on the Bohemian ''Kirchgasse'',The Kirchgasse was originally called ''Mala ulicka'', Czech for "narrow alley", a name in use until 1909. The old school is one of the few buildings that survived the fire of 1849. A representation of the Hussite Protestants' common chalice can be found in the building's pediment. Today, the building houses a museum of local history. which from 1797 onward also housed the village's assembly hall. Rixdorf suffered from destruction and pillaging by Austrian and Russian troops during the second year of the Seven Years' War (1756–63), but this did not prevent its subsequent development. In 1760, Berlin statesman Ewald Friedrich von Hertzberg became the proprietor of Rixdorf's ''Schulzengericht'' ('' schultheiß'' court). The original village of Rixdorf was further expanded in 1764 with new residential buildings and a brickyard, and since 1801 it was mostly called ''Deutsch-Rixdorf''. In 1765, Frederick the Great gifted Böhmisch-Rixdorf its first windmill. In spite of its expansion, Deutsch-Rixdorf at first remained the smaller of the two villages, with roughly 200 residents in 1771, while the new Bohemian village '' Böhmisch-Rixdorf''The Czech-speaking Moravian refugees and their descendants called it ''Český Rixdorf''; the Czech lingual culture in Böhmisch-Rixdorf remained prominent until the beginning of the 19th century. had counted 300 residents already in 1747.

In 1797, Böhmisch-Rixdorf was granted its own administration, and the two villages settled on the official modern spelling ''Rixdorf'', which had been in use since 1709. In the same year, Deutsch-Rixdorf acquired the forge on Richardplatz and sold it to a local resident, who was therefore allowed to operate the forge permanently, which until then had been prevented by the Berlin blacksmiths' guild to stifle competition. The French Army under Napoleon occupied Rixdorf in 1806. The overall population in 1809 was 695. In 1811, Germany's first public outdoor gymnasium was established in the ''Hasenheide'' forest by ''Turnvater'' Jahn. The Hasenheide itself temporarily became a ''Regierungsbezirk'' of Berlin ( governmental district) from 1816 to 1821, before coming under Rixdorf's jurisdiction. Rixdorf residents fought in the 1813 Wars of Liberation, for example at the Battle of Großbeeren, and the subsequent sovereign and political liberty, also gained from the Prussian abolition of serfdom on 11 November 1810, laid the foundation for Rixdorf's rapid development and industrialization, which began in the early second half of the 19th century. In 1827, the street to Berlin was paved, and by 1830 Rixdorf had already become the largest village of the Berlin periphery with more than 2,000 inhabitants. On 28 April 1849, more than a quarter of the buildings in both Rixdorf villages were destroyed in a firestorm,Almost all of Rixdorf's buildings suffered damage, but the worst destruction was to the Bohemian part; the fire started, when a worker named Karl Kuschke unsuccessfully tried to shoot a pair of storks nesting on the rooftop of a farmer's barn, which ignited the thatched roof, and the fire spread through the village in a matter of hours; Kuschke was acquitted only because the town, already burdened by the costs of reconstruction, would have had to support the perpetrator's family
"Knapp daneben: Was im Böhmischen Dorf als Inferno endete"
''Facetten-Magazin Neukölln'', 28 April 2016; cf. Manfred Motel, "Das Böhmische Dorf in Berlin", ''Studia Comeniana et historica'' 38 (79), 2008, pp. 635–656 (645 sq.). and reconstruction lasted until 1853.Two other large fires had already occurred in 1803 (on Richardplatz) and 1827, all of which accelerated the ''Gründerzeit'' development phase; conversely, many older places were forever lost to history, especially most of the older Bohemian settlement; ''see below'' for the Reuterkiez firestorm of 1886.

On 1 January 1853, the parish of Deutsch-Rixdorf was declared an independent parish by the Berlin Evangelical Consistory. In 1854, the first horsebus connection was established between Berlin and the two Rixdorf villages, followed by the first regular bus line from Hermannplatz to Berlin since 1 May 1860, the '' Ringbahn'' launch on 17 July 1871, and an additional bus line from Bergstraße, today's Karl-Marx-Straße, to Hallesches Tor in 1876. Meanwhile, the construction of new streets, plazas and residential estates in the Berlin periphery had been set in motion as part of the 1862 Hobrecht-Plan, which created what would come to be known architecturally as the Wilhelmine Ring. In 1866, the Rixdorf villages were hit by epidemics of cholera and smallpox with at least 170 fatalities. In 1867, Deutsch-Rixdorf had a population of approximately 5,000, and Böhmisch-Rixdorf of 1,500. In 1870 the villages received their first train station, the ''Bahnhof Rixdorf'', which still exists today as Neukölln station.It was constructed together with a pedestrian overpass, which the people called ''Der Galgen'' ("the gallows"); the overpass was eventually torn down in November 1895 as part of the station's reconstruction. On 10 August 1872, the original ''Jahndenkmal'' memorial for ''Turnvater'' Jahn was inaugurated in the Hasenheide forest. On 13 December 1872, Berlin's administration merged both Rixdorf villages and the commune Britz into the 24th ''Amtsbezirk'' ( bailiwick).

Unification

Both villages were united as ''Rixdorf'' on 1 January 1874 by royal decree of 11 July 1873,The decree was first published on 31 July 1873; cf
''Amtsblatt der Königlichen Regierung zu Potsdam und der Stadt Berlin''
Potsdam 1873, p. 230, s.v. No. 130. For many decades Böhmisch-Rixdorf had resisted plans for unification; the ''Gesetz über die Landgemeinde-Verfassungen'' (Law on the Constitution of rural Communes) of 14 April 1856 created the legal basis for the 1871 establishment of the two Rixdorf municipal councils, which paved the way for more cooperation and eventually unification. The principal municipal magistrate in charge of Böhmisch-Rixdorf, who had conducted the unification affairs on the Bohemian side, was Carl Friedrich Barta, who had been in office since the formation of the councils in 1871, and he remained a municipal magistrate under Boddin from 1874 to 1882; the Bartas had been one of Neukölln's most prominent families, among the very first Bohemian settlers of 1737. and the new town became a municipality of the Kreis Teltow. On 4 February 1874, Hermann Boddin became the first principal municipal magistrate (''Amts- und Gemeindevorsteher'') of the unified Rixdorf.Beside Carl Barta, the Bohemian aldermen Wilhelm Jansa and Daniel Maresch, both municipal administrators, functioned as Boddin's deputies. For the next decades, Boddin would conduct Rixdorf's evolution into the fastest-growing and eventually largest village of the Prussian monarchy with 90,000 residents already in 1895, which also created a poverty gap and social problems. Boddin's responsibilities were immense, and he soon fought for an equalization of burdens, and for Rixdorf's admission into the Greater Berlin city alliance. He became known as an upright and resilient, though also dominant and self-centered patriarch, but was still venerated by Rixdorf's officials and citizens alike.

The inaugural meeting of Rixdorf's municipal committee commenced on 27 April 1874 at the old ''schultheiß'' court on Richardplatz. In 1874, Rixdorf had 12,300 inhabitants, growing to 15,328 the next year, mainly due to thousands of new residents, who since 1870 had been immigrating from Pomerania, Silesia and other primarily Eastern regions of the German Empire as far as East Prussia, looking for work in the town's growing industry, a migration wave that would not significantly weaken until the year 1910. One of the more important early ordinances of 1874 was to revoke the herding warrant for the ''Berlinische Wiesen'', formerly called ''Cöllnische Wiesen'', which created a large area for residential developments, among them the ''Neucöllner Siedlungen'' (Neucölln Estates), whose name later inspired the city's renaming to ''Neukölln''.

Rixdorf's first daily newspaper, the ''Gemeinnütziger Anzeiger'' (Charitable Gazette), was published since 1874, later reestablished as ''Rixdorfer Zeitung'' (Rixdorf Newspaper) by editor-in-chief Wilhelm Hecht in 1882. The city's first telegraph station opened the same year. On 1 October 1874, the ''Vereinsbrauerei'', which had been founded in 1872 and would later become Berlin's Kindl brewery, opened to the public in Rollberg after almost a year of unofficial pourage. Urbanization quickly took off with new residential estates, schools, churches, infrastructure, paved streets with sewers, and an increasing number of industrial settlements. The first '' Kremser'' horsebus line to Berlin started its operations on 2 July 1875 under private management. The city's first gasworks and the original ''Amtshaus'' (administrative building) were built in 1878, the first municipal court (''Amtsgericht'') in 1879, which was quickly replaced in 1901 by the new municipal court and prison, and the city's new telegraph office in 1882. Rixdorf's first public open-air bath opened in 1883 south of the ''Ringbahn'', but had to close again in 1913, when Neukölln's harbor and docklands were built. On 14 August 1884, Richardplatz was hit by a large fire. On 6 November 1884, Rixdorf sold its old village chapel to the Bohemian-Lutheran parish for 6,300 silver mark, approximately $31,800 (2024).

In 1873, Rixdorf had already had 8 paved streets, and 24 in 1876, which grew exponentially in the following decade, enabling additional bus lines to Berlin, followed by the introduction of the first tram lines, beginning in 1884 with the so-called '' Pferde-Eisenbahn'' from Rollberg to Spittelmarkt in Berlin, and a communal line from the ''Rollkrug'' tavern at Hermannplatz to Knesebeckstraße near Kurfürstendamm a year later, which formed the basis for the '' Straßenbahnen der Stadt Berlin'' (SSB), the first communal public transportation company of Berlin, which was established with grants from the Rixdorf citizenry. On 20 March 1892, the first issue of the daily newspaper ''Rixdorfer Tageblatt'' (Daily Rixdorf) was published, renamed ''Neuköllner Tageblatt'' in 1912. The city's infrastructure continued to grow with the introduction of a telephone network in 1885, the first public telephone installation at Rixdorf's post office in 1886, a new water network connection to the Charlottenburg waterworks in 1887–88, a new sewage system and drainage facility between 1891 and 1895, the building of a new inner-city hospital, a community hall and a poorhouse in 1893, the 1895 reconstruction of Rixdorf station, and the 1899 opening of Hermannstraße station on the '' Ringbahn''. On 9 February 1899, the first electric tram line began its operation.

Independence

Rixdorf's 1899 independence was executed in two legal steps. On 1 April, the town was chartered as an independent city and released from the ''Kreis Teltow'',Voted on by the Brandenburg Provincial Assembly on 30 January 1899; the sum of acquittance to the Kreis Teltow was 1 million gold mark (approx. $27.8 million in 2024). Today, Rixdorf's independence day is still regarded as an important date in Neukölln's history. and Hermann Boddin immediately transitioned into his new office as the city's mayor. Rixdorf then declared itself a free city ('' Kreisfreie Stadt'') on 1 May, and Boddin received the official title ''Erster Bürgermeister auf Lebenszeit'' (First Mayor for Life) from district president Robert Earl Hue de Grais on 4 May. On 1 November, the city obtained its own police force and law enforcement agency, including a criminal investigation unit, with the first precinct established on Hermannstraße south of Hermannplatz. At year's end, Rixdorf's population stood at 90,422.

Rixdorf's first professional association football and sports club, the Rixdorfer TuFC Tasmania 1900, was founded on 2 June 1900.It is unknown, whether the club was a continuation of the ''Berliner FC Tasmania 1890'', an earlier Rixdorf football club, which had been founded in 1890; Tasmania 1900 was rebranded several times, to Rixdorfer FC Tasmania 1900 in 1907, Neuköllner SC Tasmania (1912), SG Neukölln-Mitte (1946), and finally to SC Tasmania 1900 Berlin in 1949 until its dissolution in 1973 (''see below''). On 17 December of the same year, the last '' Pferde-Eisenbahn'' of Rixdorf was converted to electric operation, while the omnibus lines continued to be horse-drawn at first. The new city received its coat of arms in 1903, and its population quickly grew to 237,289 in 1910. It was during this boomtown era that the architect Reinhold Kiehl was called on by Rixdorf's assembly to further upgrade the city's infrastructure, which led to some of the quarter's most iconic buildings and locations being constructed, such as the city hall (''Rathaus Neukölln'') between 1905 and 1908, which gradually replaced the older ''Amtshaus'',The original ''Amtshaus'' was eventually destroyed in World War II; Susanne Schilp
"Das Rathaus hatte einen Vorläufer, der von einer Bombe getroffen wurde"
''Berliner Woche'', 17 March 2018. the 1912 ''Stadtbad Neukölln'', a public bath house, and many more after 1912 like the Körnerpark and its orangerie. The Rixdorf Harbor in the southern part of the city was built between 1900 and 1906 together with the Teltow Canal, the Britz Canal and the Britz Harbor. The first stage of the harbor's watergate was constructed in 1902, at first used as part of a drainage facility for the surrounding wetlands. In the north, the Landwehr Canal was extended eastward between 1902 and 1905 with the ''Rixdorfer Stichkanal'' (Rixdorf Branch Canal) to the city's new gasworks, replacing the old ''Wiesengraben'' (Meadow Trench), which had originally been called ''Schlangengraben'' (Snake Trench). The year 1909 saw the inauguration of Rixdorf's first municipal hospital (''Rixdorfer Krankenhaus''), situated outside of the city near modern-day Buckow.The new hospital was built to relieve Teltow's preexisting hospital in Britz, and the two eventually merged in the 1990s.

Early neighborhood formation

It was during the 1850s when construction of the first residential areas began in the western part of the ''Berlinische Wiesen'' in what is today the Reuterkiez. After the completion of the Landwehr Canal in 1850 near the location of the older ''Müllen-Graben'' (''Mühlengraben'', Mill Trench),Before the first windmills were constructed, it was known as ''Schafgraben'' (Sheep's Trench) at least since the early 15th century, later also as ''Floßgraben'' ( Timber Raft Trench) and ''Landwehr-Graben'' ( Land defense Trench); the new Landwehr Canal roughly also followed the western stretch of Rixdorf's old ''Wiesengraben'' (Meadow Trench), formerly known as ''Schlangengraben'' (Snake Trench), before turning north toward the river Spree. industry and workshops began to settle along its shores in the marshes and meadows south of the Berlin Customs Wall,On some historical maps, this part of the ''Berlinische Wiesen'', originally called ''Cöllnische Wiesen'', is named ''Niederländer Wiesen'' (lowland meadows). on and near today's Maybachufer. The ''Cottbuserdamm'' ( Kottbusser Damm)Named after the city of Cottbus; it was built sometime between 1850 ('' terminus post quem'') and 1874 (''terminus ante quem'') as a replacement for the old elevated road through the ''Cöllnische Wiesen'' into Cölln and Alt-Berlin via present-day Kottbusser Tor, originally called ''Ricksdorfscher Damm'' and ''Ricksdorfsche Straße'', which had existed there since the 16th century. It was part of the old road from Cölln via present-day Hermannplatz and through Rixdorf along present-day Karl-Marx-Straße to Mittenwalde (Brandenburg), later extended to Cottbus; in 1712, a second southern extension of the Ricksdorfscher Damm to Dresden along present-day Hermannstraße had been built as a postal, trade and military road, the ''Dresdener Heerstraße'', which was often used as a '' pars pro toto'' name for the ''Ricksdorfscher Damm'' before its renaming in the 19th century. and several parallel streets like the Friedelstraße,Named after Ernst Friedel (1837–1918), a Berlin politician, jurist and historian. It was originally a forest and meadow trail, next to a small creek later redeveloped as a drainage channel, that had existed since at least the mid-17th century and connected the ''Rollkrug'' tavern and southern Ricksdorfscher Damm with a bathing place on the canal and a windmill nearby. Before its development, the Friedelstraße was designated ''Straße 12 c'' ("12th Street c"), based on the original '' Hobrecht-Plan''; parts of the southern section were named ''Friedelstraße'' already in 1895, while the northern section was originally called ''Wiebestraße'' before 1900, named after Hermann Wiebe, engineer, millwright and president of the Berlin Bauakademie (building academy). an important street in Berlin's first communal electric tram network,''See'' Tramway of the city of Berlin (''Straßenbahnen der Stadt Berlin'', SSB); until then, Rixdorf's own tram lines had been horse-drawn (''Pferde-Eisenbahn''), and the electric tram network development had been managed by the Südliche Berliner Vorortbahn (SBV). were built shortly afterwards.Today, the Friedelkiez, the area around the Friedelstraße, which is mainly part of the LORs Maybachufer and Reuterplatz, is of central significance with regard to gentrification in the north of Neukölln's Reuterquartier, and forms an urban cultural hub between the Weserkiez and Kreuzberg's SO 36 neighborhood, which is accessible via the Hobrechtbrücke across the Landwehr Canal. Between 1871 and 1905, the population increased, as several '' Gründerzeit'' apartment blocks were erected, often with industrial backyards that are still typical of Berlin today. Construction was temporarily set back due to a devastating fire in 1886 that destroyed nearly all of the city block between Kottbusser Damm, Maybachufer and Schinkestraße. Different from other neighborhoods of northern Rixdorf, most residential development in the Reuterkiez had from the beginning always been aimed at more affluent residents and a higher quality of living, but except for the ''Reuterplatz'' forgone any development of green urban plazas. Due to the marshy substrate, the new neighborhood was at first only developed between Kottbusser Damm and Weichselstraße, and was instead extended southward into and beyond the modern Donaukiez of the Flughafenstraße neighborhood. In the decades that followed, Rixdorf, the new Reuterkiez and Donaukiez were expanded west- and southward respectively, forming Neukölln's younger neighborhoods of Schillerpromenade, Körnerpark and the historical Rollberg.

Starting in 1875 after the approval of a new development plan, construction of the ''Neucöllner Siedlungen'' (Neucölln Estates) began in the northern parts of the Rixdorf lot. Equally important, construction also began in the areas immediately west of Rixdorf. Present-day Rollberg and the remainder of Flughafenstraße, were developed first, with Rollberg mainly as working-class outskirts with backyard manufacturing and larger industries,Due to Berlin's unusually high ground water level, much of the older industry had to settle to the north and south of the glacial valley on the Barnim and Teltow plateaus to be able to construct deep basements for manufacturing and storage, especially attracting breweries like Rixdorf's ''Vereinsbrauerei'' (association brewery) of the ''Berliner Gastwirte Aktiengesellschaft'' (Berlin Innkeepers joint-stock company), the predecessor of the Kindl-Brauerei, which needed large underground fermentation vaults. tightly packed tenements, small apartments and tiny residential backyards.Due to redevelopment in the late 20th century, most of these early structures were eventually torn down (''see below''). To this end, and to also furnish raw material for construction in the rest of Berlin, most of the rolling agricultural hills of the ''Rollberge'' range were excavated and leveled, and Rixdorf's sixteen windmills torn down,Rixdorf's first windmill from 1650 had already been torn down on 12 April 1848, while the Bohemian windmill was dismantled in 1886 and reconstructed in Jüterbog. with the last windmill dismantled in 1899. In the first wave, four new parallel streets as well as the Kopfstraße between Bergstraße, present-day Karl-Marx-Straße, and Hermannstraße were constructed together with the crossways Falk- and Morusstraße on the flattened ''Rollberge'' slopes. The working-class tenements, even in the front buildings, were small and overcrowded,The rents were comparatively high, so most of the regular tenants had to sublet to additional '' Schlafgänger'' (part-time lodgers). sunless and unaerated, and unsanitary without personal water closets or rooms for hygiene, which promoted diseases and epidemics, infant and child mortality, violence and crime, but also ignited the spark that changed Rixdorf and Neukölln into a Socialist heartland, fueling the city's widespread support for the November Revolution, the class struggles of the 1920s and '30s, and later also the quarter's potent resistance movement against the Nazis (1933–45). However, the financial crises and wars in early 20th century Germany prevented any contemporary redevelopment in Rollberg until the 1960s and '70s.

Schillerpromenade and parts of Körnerpark, on the other hand, followed the Reuterkiez model with apartment buildings for wealthier residents, and the two neighborhoods still have a large ''Gründerzeit'' architectural foundation with broad streets and sidewalks, and Berlin's usual grid plan street layout that originated mostly in this era.Cf. Mark Twain
"The Chicago of Europe"
'' Chicago Daily Tribune'', 3 April 1892, with relevant parts emphasized: "Berlin ��is newer to the eye than is any other city, and also blonder of complexion and tidier; no other city has such an air of roominess, freedom from crowding; no other city has so many straight streets; and with Chicago it contests the chromo for flatness of surface and for phenomenal swiftness of growth. Berlin is the European Chicago. The two cities have about the same population—say a million and a half. ��But now the parallels fail. Only parts of Chicago are stately and beautiful, whereas all of Berlin is stately and substantial, and it is not merely in parts but uniformly beautiful." For the Körnerpark neighborhood, this development was a natural evolution due to its proximity to Alt-Rixdorf, though the street blocks further south were for the most part developed in the 1920s and '30s, so the area has not evolved as uniformly. Schillerpromenade benefited from its location on even farmland adjacent to the Tempelhofer Feld, which was better suited than the area on the ''Rollberge'' slopes. Construction of the new ''residential park'' in present-day Schillerkiez began with Rixdorf's 1901 development plan. The ambitious ''Gründerzeit'' estates, the broad promenade parallel to Hermannstraße and the circular central plaza (Herrfurthplatz) with the Genezareth Church were markedly aimed at wealthier settlers, as a counterpoint to the older Rollberg neighborhood of ill repute. In 1905, residential construction was in full swing, schools and an academy were built, and main development ended around 1914 except for the westernmost city blocks at Oderstraße, which were developed only in 1927 by Bruno Taut according to modern reformist ideals. The large sports grounds in the neighborhood's south-western corner (''Sportpark Tempelhofer Feld''), today the Werner-Seelenbinder-Sportpark, opened in 1928.

Neukölln

Rixdorf had become notorious across Germany for its taverns, amusement sites and red-light districts, which dampened investments, economic development and the immigration of wealthier citizens, exacerbated by the enduring popularity of the 1889 proletarian song '' Der Rixdorfer''. So in 1912 the local authorities took up former mayor Boddin's earlier plan, which until then had been consistently rejected, to get rid of this reputation by assuming a new name. Voting against Boddin's original proposal, the city officials chose ''Neukölln'',Apart from the infamy and economic disadvantages, some representatives had different and more ordinary reservations regarding the city's name, arguing that the last syllable ''-dorf'' ("village") had become unbefitting of Prussia's largest town, while some had even taken offense at the unaesthetic sound of the first syllable ''Rix-''. The alternative name, originally proposed by first mayor Boddin in an act of self-approval, had been ''Hermannstadt'' (Herbert Schwenk
"Alle ding… vorgan mit der tydt – Die Verwandlungen von Rixdorf und Neukölln"
''Berlinische Monatsschrift'' 8, p. 43, Berlin 2001; Fabian Friedmann
"Der Patriarch"
''Neukoellner'', 19 September 2012). which referenced both Rixdorf's historical parent city Cölln and the '' Cöllnische Heide'' (Cölln Heath) to the east, but was mainly derived from the ''Neucöllner Siedlungen'' ("Neucölln Estates") north of Rixdorf,Construction of these estates had begun in 1875 in the ''Berlinische Wiesen'' (Berlin Meadows), formerly known as ''Cöllnische Wiesen'' (Cölln Meadows), after Hermann Boddin's 1874 ordinance to revoke the herding warrant (''see above''). whose name, whether intentionally or not, imitated '' Neu-Cölln'', a historical district south of the medieval part of Berlin and Cölln proper. The renaming was primarily lobbied for by real estate speculators, local industrialists in fear of market losses, and the Crown, represented by a group of imperial supporters, and was swiftly adopted by the conservative council majority against the dissenting populace and social democrats, who, much to the dismay of the conservatives, had gained a lot of political traction in the years before.Across Germany, the renaming scheme was mostly viewed as a farce, and the ensuing satirical ridicule spread as far as the United Kingdom; Gunda Bartels
"Wie aus Rixdorf Neukölln wurde: Der Ruf war ruiniert"
''Tagesspiegel'', 26 January 2012. The renaming was then petitioned ''pro forma'' by mayor Curt Kaiser and eventually granted by Emperor William I on 27 January 1912. At the time, Neukölln's population stood at 253,000.

In 1913, the city of Neukölln bought the Spree island ''Abteiinsel'', today's '' Insel der Jugend'' (Youth Island), which had originally been owned by one of Rixdorf's citizens,Emil Heinicke had bought the unappropriated island, then called ''Rohr-Insel'' ("Canebrake Island"), ''Treppbruch'' and ''Treptower Bruch'' ("Treptow Swamp"), from the town of Deutsch-Rixdorf in 1860; the Treptow mainland (including the ''Rohr-Insel'') had historically been part of the Richardsdorf lot within the Tempelhof dominion, and also the location of the ''Burgwall'', a former Templar folwark (''see above''); ownership of the island, which was later also known as ''Neu-Spreeland'' ("New Spreeland"), changed hands many times until Neukölln's purchase in 1913. and constructed the '' Abteibrücke'' between the exclave and the mainland of Alt-Treptow, one of Germany's first reinforced concrete bridges.The price for Neukölln's new island was 500,000 mark, approximately $2.5 million (2024); after the formation of Greater Berlin in 1920, the island became part of Alt-Treptow. Neukölln's bath house opened to the public on 10 May 1914. From 1912 to 1913, the Rixdorf Branch Canal became the '' Neukölln Ship Canal'', further extended southward to the Neukölln Harbor and the Teltow Canal. Construction of the second stage at the '' Neukölln Watergate'' concluded in 1914, and the canal officially opened on 1 April of the same year. 6,600 of Neukölln's residents fell serving at the frontlines in World War I (1914–18). Despite the war years, urban development had continued unabated at first, and Rixdorf had become one of the most important suburban cities outside of Berlin. From 1 October 1917, waste management services were provided directly by the city.

At the end of the war, the November Revolution led to the formation of the city's Workers' and Soldiers' Council. On 8 November 1918, the first soldiers who were stationed at Mahlower Straße in the Schillerkiez, joined the new revolutionary movement. One day later, the council seized power in Neukölln, dissolved the city's assembly, and disempowered Lord Mayor Curt Kaiser. The ruling council, consisting of 24 SPD members, 24 independents, who were mostly Spartacists, and 24 soldiers, now decided on all political issues from executive orders to decrees on food rationing. On 25 November, the socialist council voted to abolish all of Neukölln's municipal authorities, take over the city's banks, and declare all private real estate as communal property, while threatening to expropriate uncooperative local industrialists without indemnity. However, a faction of the Prussian Army's 17th infantry division, presumably ordered by the provisional government and Gustav Noske, deployed in January 1919 and laid siege to Neukölln, eventually occupying and dissolving the Workers' and Soldiers' Council. The counter-putsch angered the populace, and many of Neukölln's workers, employees and officers threatened a general strike, forcing the troops to reinstate the council and retreat. The SPD, however, was barred from the reformed council, as the party was blamed for the short-lived counter-putsch. Shortly before their executions at the hand of the '' Freikorps'', revolutionaries Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht found refuge in Neukölln, probably in the Weisestraße (Schillerkiez), before relocating to Wilmersdorf, where they were captured by the local militia (''Bürgerwehr''). Alfred Scholz ( SPD), whose wife Gertrud had been the only female member of Neukölln's Workers' and Soldiers' Council, was elected mayor in April 1919, while Neukölln's Lord Mayor Curt Kaiser stayed in office until the end of his term on 1 November 1919. The revolutionary councils eventually disbanded after the inauguration of the Weimar National Assembly in 1919, and Neukölln's council was dissolved on 7 November 1919, which resulted in riots at City Hall. Even though the councils were short-lived, Neukölln's prominent and early role in the November Revolution sustainably mainstreamed socialist ideals in local politics.

During the Kapp Putsch (13–17 March 1920), which aimed to undo the German Revolution and overthrow the new Weimar Republic, parts of Neukölln were temporarily occupied by the '' Reichswehr'', until the coup d'état was aborted after 100 hours.

Berlin-Neukölln

The newly forming societies and infrastructures of Berlin and its periphery created problems and threatened to thwart further development, because the disparity between the different communities, which naturally aimed to expand beyond the old municipal boundaries, now created cross-border administrative conflicts and gridlock. Therefore, the Greater Berlin Act was passed by the Prussian parliament in the spring of 1920, and the city of Neukölln ceased to exist on 1 October 1920 after only two decades of independence, when it was incorporated as a part of Greater Berlin together with a large number of other suburban communes and cities. Together with the quarters Britz, Rudow and Buckow, Neukölln now formed the new homonymous borough of Neukölln, Berlin's 14th (and since the 2001 reform 8th) administrative district, which eventually added the new quarter of Gropiusstadt in 2002. At the time of the merger, the city of Neukölln had a population of 262,128.Census of 8 October 1919. The old Rixdorf continued to exist, and is today represented by two neighborhoods in the center of Neukölln, Böhmisch-Rixdorf and Richardplatz-Süd. In preparation for Neukölln's incorporation, the first election of the new assembly of borough representatives ('' Bezirksverordnetenversammlung'', BVV) was held on 20 June 1920, but had to be repeated on 16 October 1921.The 1920 local election followed the 6 June 1920 German federal election; in Berlin it was a dual election, both in the Greater Berlin boroughs and of the state deputies who would serve in the Berlin '' Abgeordnetenhaus'' (State House of Representatives). However, the constituents of the new boroughs were not yet allowed to vote in the Berlin state election, but that election was eventually declared void due to partial electoral fraud and repeated on 16 October 1921. Neukölln's BVV election was also repeated, and the SPD (27.9%) became the winner before the socialist USPD (23.8%) and the communist KPD (13.8%)
"Wahlen zu den Bezirksverordnetenversammlungen in Berlin am 16. Oktober 1921 nach Bezirken und Parteien – Stimmen in Prozent"
''Der Landeswahlleiter für Berlin'', ''Amt für Statistik Berlin-Brandenburg''. The first Berlin state election, in which Neukölln's constituents were finally allowed to vote, was held on 25 October 1925.

In the Weimar Republic, Neukölln's population eventually grew to 278,208 in 1930.Friedrich Leyden, ''Gross-Berlin. Geographie der Weltstadt'', Breslau 1933; the largest population to date in the borough of Neukölln was 313,790 in 1932. Berlin Tempelhof Airport, whose airfield was part of Neukölln and Tempelhof, opened on 8 October 1923 and was expanded in several phases until 1941. To relieve the older tram networks, the Berlin S-Bahn was electrified starting in 1926, while Neukölln's ''Südring'' (south ring) lines were modernized in 1928. Additionally, two lines of the Berlin U-Bahn, the ''Nord-Süd-Bahn'' and the ''GN-Bahn'', were extended through Neukölln between 1926 and 1930.Alternate proposals from the 1900s and 1910s for connecting Rixdorf and Berlin were a north-to-south suspension railway line from Gesundbrunnen station through the inner city, or a subway line by AEG from southern Reinickendorf and following a similar route, or the diagonal northwest-to-southeast ''Moabit–Rixdorf line'' from Huttenstraße at the western end of Turmstraße, all of them eventually via Kottbusser Damm, Hermannplatz and Karl-Marx-Straße to Rixdorf Station at the ''Ringbahn'' or to Grenzallee; cf. e.g. Max Rudeloff (ed.)
"Entwurf einer Schwebebahn für Berlin"
''Dinglers Polytechnisches Journal'' 86, no. 320, issue 45, 11 November 1905, p. 705 sqq.; these plans were scrapped in favor of the ''GN-Bahn'' and an eastern branch for the ''Nord-Süd-Bahn''. The first line opened to the public on 11 April 1926; the ''Nord-Süd-Bahn'', since 1928 ''Line C'', today the U6, originally had a junction to a secondary eastbound branch into Neukölln at the historical Belle-Alliance-Straße station, and this Neukölln branch later became part of today's U7; in the second stage, the Neukölln branch, since 1928 called ''Line C^I'', was extended from the old terminus Bergstraße to Grenzallee, and after its opening on 21 December 1930 it remained the terminus until the third stage opened in 1963 with an extension into the rest of the Neukölln borough. The ''GN-Bahn'' (Gesundbrunnen–Neukölln line), since 1928 ''Line D'', which eventually became the U8, opened on 17 July 1927, in Neukölln at first as a stump line between Boddinstraße and Schönleinstraße via Hermannplatz, before being joined with the northern stump in two stages (12 February and 6 April 1928); a southern extension to Leinestraße opened in August 1929; the final extension to the S-Bahn interchange Hermanstraße had already been planned in 1910, but wasn't implemented until the year 1996.

Neukölln remained a working-class quarter and communist stronghold, especially in the Rollberg neighborhood. This led to increasing tensions between left-wing radicals like the KPD and the Berlin police, culminating in the '' Bloody May'' riots of 1929 (''Blutmai'') with 14 fatalities and 17 injured. The Nazis viewed the quarter as "Red Neukölln", and tensions with the rivaling socialist and communist groups ensued as early as November 1926, when Joseph Goebbels sent over 300 men of the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA) on a propaganda march through Neukölln, ending in clashes on the Hermannplatz. The emerging resistance against National Socialism also spilled over into regional church politics as the 1929 ''Neuköllner Kirchenstreit'' (Neukölln church conflict), when Protestant priest Arthur Rackwitz was only granted his inauguration at Neukölln's Philipp Melanchthon Church after an intervention by cultural minister Adolf Grimme, which had previously been denied due to his religious-socialist and anti-fascist positions, as well as his open criticism of the Protestant authorities' support for the Nazis. The beer hall '' Neue Welt'' on Hasenheide near Hermannplatz was the 1930 location of one of Adolf Hitler's early speeches in Berlin.4 December 1930; in his speech to mainly students, Hitler also touched on his aesthetic visions for the future, and further persuaded the assistant professor Albert Speer, who was also in attendance, on his national socialist path; Albert Speer, ''Erinnerungen'', Frankfurt am Main 1969, 32 sq.; cf. also Constantin Goschler (ed.), ''Hitler: Reden, Schriften, Anordnungen'' 4 (1), Munich 1994, s.v. "Dok. 37", p. 145 with n. 2. One other speech by Hitler from the Nazis' so-called ''Berliner Kampfzeit'' ("Berlin time of struggle") was allegedly given in 1931 across the street on the Kreuzberg side of Hasenheide in ''Kliems Festsäle'', but no sources exist; his speech on 10 September 1930 in the ''Orpheum'', also on Hasenheide, was canceled at the last minute; cf. id. 3 (3), s.v. "Dok. 110", p. 408, n. 2. The conflicts eventually intensified until the end of the republic, leading to occasional armed engagements like the Rixdorf shootout of October 1931, when communists attacked the ''Richardsburg'', a ''Sturmlokal'' of the SA.

After Hitler's '' Machtübernahme'' in 1933, the SA extended their campaigns and also targeted rallies and events by moderate parties like the SPD. Neukölln's borough mayor Alfred Scholz (SPD) and all officials of Neukölln's district office had to resign under pressure from the new ruling Nazi Party and the enactment of the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service.Scholz was succeeded as borough mayor by Nazi politician Kurt Samson, who remained in office until the end of the war and died in the Soviet POW camp Buchenwald in 1947. Many of Germany's resistance fighters and activists against Nazi rule operated from "red Neukölln", for example Heinz Kapelle and Ursula Goetze, who coordinated with the Red Orchestra in the quarter.Some activists also moved to socialist East Germany after the war and became prominent state officials and politicians, for example Klaus Gysi and Friedel Hoffmann. In time for the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, the 1872 ''Jahndenkmal'' memorial for ''Turnvater'' Jahn in the park Hasenheide was relocated, slightly redesigned and expanded with a commemorative grove, which exists to this day.

As a prelude to the Shoah, Neukölln's only synagogue on Isarstraße (Flughafenkiez) as well as numerous Jewish businesses and property were attacked and demolished during the '' Kristallnacht'' of 1938. Today, only a commemorative plaque remains of the synagogue.In addition, the first '' stolperstein'' in Neukölln to honor the victims of Nazism was laid in 2006 in front of Hermannstraße 46; as of 2024, Neukölln has 242 of these commemorative pavement stones. After the onset of World War II in 1939, the Rixdorf factories of the Krupp-Registrierkassen-Gesellschaft and American company National Cash Register, which had merged as the National Krupp Registrierkassen GmbH during the Weimar Republic, were transformed into military production facilities.Between Weigandufer 39–45 at the Neukölln Ship Canal and Sonnenallee 181–89, at the time renamed to '' Braunauer Straße''. In 1941, the Friedhof Lilienthalstraße in Hasenheide, which had been built by Wilhelm Büning, opened as a cemetery for the fallen soldiers of the ''Wehrmacht''. Today, it is a general cemetery for the victims of World War II. In 1942 a forced labor camp for up to 865 mainly Jewish and Romani women from the conquered Eastern territories was established on the National Krupp factory grounds. In 1944 it was absorbed as one of several Berlin outposts (''Außenlager'') of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, primarily for female Jewish-Polish forced laborers, who had been transferred from the Łódź Ghetto and Auschwitz respectively. The camp's last remaining barracks stood until the year 1957, long after the Jewish survivors had emigrated.Neukölln's and Berlin's Jewish survivors at first sheltered i.a. in Berlin's UNRRA camps for Jewish displaced persons, e.g. in nearby Mariendorf, before emigrating to Israel or the United States; these camps were mainly constructed between 1945 and 1946 for Jewish refugees from Poland, who were fleeing post-war anti-semitic pogroms; cf. Sigrid Kneist
"Eine eigene Stadt mitten in Berlin"
''Tagesspiegel'', 25 July 2021

. At the end of the war, Neukölln's population had decreased by roughly 30,000, and 9% of the quarter's buildings had been destroyed, with 12% severely damaged by allied bombing raids, including the ''Mercedes-Palast'' in the Rollberg neighborhood, which since 1927 had housed Europe's largest movie theater.Parts of the building were saved and used as a theater, a smaller movie theater and a music venue until the 1960s.

Following the withdrawal of the occupying Soviet forces in 1945, Neukölln became part of the American sector of Berlin from 1945 to 1949, encompassing the south and south-east of what would later become West Berlin, an enclave of West Germany within Communist East Germany from 1949 until German reunification in 1990. The Sonnenallee, connecting Neukölln with Baumschulenweg in former East Berlin, was the site of a border crossing of the Berlin Wall from 1961 to 1990.Featured prominently in the 1999 comedy film '' Sonnenallee''. After a long war hiatus since 31 August 1944, Neukölln's daily newspaper ''Neuköllner Tageblatt'' returned to the newsstands on 28 May 1953, before being discontinued for good on 18 August of the same year due to low profits. On 2 October 1960, Neukölln's new borough library opened on Erlanger Straße.Today, the library is part of the ''Neukölln Arcaden'' mall; it was renamed ''Helene-Nathan-Bibliothek'' in 1989 in honor of Helene Nathan, the old borough library's Jewish director, who had been driven into suicide under Nazi oppression. In 1963, the U-Bahn line C^I was extended from Grenzallee station further into the Britz quarter, eventually leading to Neukölln's last remaining tram line being shut down in 1966.Line 47 between Buschkrugallee and the so-called '' Rudow Spider'' had been in operation since 30 September 1913. In 1965, Neukölln's professional association football club SC Tasmania 1900 Berlin was promoted from Berlin's second league directly to the Bundesliga for political reasons,Cold War politics had reserved a Bundesliga spot for a Berlin team, but since Westend's Tennis Borussia Berlin, the actual winner of the Berlin's second league, failed in the play-offs, and Spandauer SV declined the promotion, Tasmania 1900 was next in line and accepted the promotion two weeks before the start of the new season. and in the 1965–66 season, the club only won two games and became the worst-performing club in league history, a notorious record that stands to this day.Tasmania 1900 was relegated back to the second league and managed to reach the Bundesliga play-offs three times, but was eventually dissolved in July 1973 due to bankruptcy. To be able to absorb the failing club's young players, an unofficial successor club, SV Tasmania 73 Neukölln, had already been founded on 3 February 1973 and made its debut in the seventh division. For sponsorship reasons, the club was renamed ''SV Tasmania Gropiusstadt 73'' in 2000, and since 2011 it performs under the name ''SV Tasmania Berlin'', as of 2024–25 in the northern series of Germany's fifth division; like its historical predecessor, the club plays its home matches at Neukölln's Werner-Seelenbinder-Sportpark. In 1967, Europe's largest poultry farm, the so-called '' Hühnerhochhaus'' ("chicken high-riser") opened in Neukölln's industrial park Nobelstraße, but was closed down again in 1972 due to unprofitability, and after continuing animal rights protests, which evolved into the spearhead of sustainable and free-range farming in Germany. During the Cold War, Neukölln retained its status as a traditional working-class area and one of Berlin's red-light districts. Many '' gastarbeiters'', especially from Turkey and Greece, settled in Kreuzberg and Neukölln since the 1950s, later followed by Palestinian and Arabic refugees from the Lebanese Civil War. Neukölln's current U-Bahn network into the southern quarters via the U7 was constructed between 1970 and 1972, while the final U8 section between Leinestraße and the S-Bahn wasn't implemented until 1996. The Körnerpark, which after the war had fallen into disrepair due to its location beneath the nearby airport's eastern approach path, was restored in its historical form since 1977 and reopened to the public on 4 August 1983, with its '' orangerie'' following on 10 October of the same year. The ''Neukölln Opera'', which had originally been founded in 1972, received its own venue in 1988 and became one of Berlin's four opera houses. Another important cultural venue, the '' Saalbau Neukölln'', the location of the former ''Bürgersalon Niesigk'' ("citizens' parlor"), reopened in 1990 and is today known as ''Heimathafen Neukölln''.

Since the 1970s and '80s, Neukölln, like the neighboring Kreuzberg, has embraced independent forms of living like alternative trailer parks, for example the ''Rollheimer'' in the Schillerkiez, Germany's oldest '' Wagenburg'',It was founded in 1981 and first occupied an area on Potsdamer Platz, before relocating to its lease on the Oderstraße in 1995; however, its lease was terminated at the end of 2023; Madlen Harbach
"Kündigung für Berlins ältestes Wagendorf: Wie geht es weiter mit den Neuköllner Rollheimern?"
''Tagesspiegel'', 25 November 2023

. One additional ''Wagenburg'' is the radical alternative queer trailer park '' Kanal'', which has occupied a compound on the Neukölln side of Kiefholzstraße at the border to Plänterwald since 2010, though their domain had to be downsized by half for the new modular refugee center; the ''Wagenburg'' was formerly known as ''Schwarzer Kanal'', and has existed in various inner-city locations since 1989. squatting,Compared to Kreuzberg and the Eastern inner-city quarters of Berlin after German reunification, Neukölln has had far fewer squats. As of 2024, of the 21 squatted apartment houses and occupied undeveloped areas, only two houses remain, both of which have been occupied since 1981, a rear building on Karl-Marx-Straße and a building on Richardplatz, whose residents supported the ''Comenius Garden'' and cooperate in the historical forge on Richardplatz. Neukölln is furthermore home to several partially squatted houses, used e.g. for radical left stores, organizational offices or cultural venues, with notable examples from recent times being the ''Friedel54'' on Friedelstraße (Reuterkiez), which was evicted under heavy protests in 2017, while the alternative pub ''Syndikat'', which had been forcibly evicted in 2020 by a shell company of British William Pears Group from their home on Weisestraße (Schillerkiez), reopened in 2023 on Emser Straße (Rixdorf); cf. i.a. Ingo Salmen, Hasan Gökkaya & André Görke
"Friedel 54 in Berlin-Neukölln: Kiezladen nach Protesten an Gerichtsvollzieher übergeben"
''Tagesspiegel'', 29 June 2017; Erik Peter
"Denen, die drin saufen"
''taz'', 19 January 2023. For the history and an overview of Berlin's and Neukölln's squatting scene, see e.g. Toni Grabowsky (ed.)
"berlin besetzt"
'' Assoziation A'', Berlin 2024. and an often anti-establishment and anti-fascist counterculture that is still active to this day. In the 1990s, late repatriates from formerly Soviet states like Ukraine and Russia, including many Russian Jews, resettled in Germany, and especially in Berlin and Neukölln. An honorary statue of John Amos Comenius, who had been the last bishop of Rixdorf's Moravian colonists before their flight from Bohemia, was unveiled in Böhmisch-Rixdorf on 21 March 1992, followed on 15 November of the same year by the founding of the new ''German Comenius Society'' in Rixdorf's Moravian oratory. The decade after German reunification mainly transformed the eastern parts of the city, but western quarters like Neukölln were able to benefit as well. In 1994, the ''Estrel Hotel'' with convention center opened in Rixdorf's former industrial outskirts on the eastern shore of the Neukölln Ship Canal, and many new shopping malls and cultural locations sprung up all over Neukölln. In 1995, ethnologist Brigitte Walz and Anett Szabó developed the concept of a multiethnic carnival at Neukölln's transcultural '' Werkstatt der Kulturen'', which became Berlin's famous '' Karneval der Kulturen'' one year later.

Modern neighborhood formation

Over the generations, all of Neukölln's southern neighborhoods of Rixdorf, Körnerpark and Schillerpromenade have gradually expanded south- and southeastward, while the Reuterkiez was finally expanded onto the marshy areas to the east. Major settlement constructions occurred as part of the new objective movement of the 1920s and '30s, in Germany often called ''Neues Bauen'' (New Building). In that era, many modern estates were constructed within Neukölln proper, for example the areas around Ossastraße, a 1927 Reuterkiez housing estate by Bruno Taut, or around the crossing of Innstraße and Weserstraße in Rixdorf (1924–26), but a notable example for a complete early modern settlement is the ''Dammwegsiedlung'' south-east of Rixdorf, which was constructed between 1920 and 1922, based on earlier designs by Reinhold Kiehl.

After World War II, almost a quarter of the buildings in Neukölln were destroyed or severely damaged. This affected all neighborhoods except the Schillerkiez, where the destruction remained minimal, though the quarter, like Körnerpark, was eventually expanded and compacted further south beyond the ''Ringbahn''. Other neighborhoods quickly began to rebuild in the bombing gaps from the war, but naturally had to disregard the classical models of Neukölln's original architecture. Quick modern construction was the order of business, at best with a social reformist slant. In the 1960s, however, a public housing boom ensued in Berlin, which also changed the face of many parts of Neukölln's neighborhoods. Most older ''Gründerzeit'' areas were only expanded with compacting measures and discreet perimeter block development, but the bulk of Rollberg and the new quarters southeast of Rixdorf were built during this era.

'' Flächensanierung'' (district redevelopment)From a modern standpoint now derided as ''Kahlschlagsanierung'' (clear-cut redevelopment). in the Rollberg neighborhood began in the 1960s,Berlin's first urban restructuring program of 1963 already included Rollberg as a redevelopment target, and the formal regulation was passed in 1972. which meant completely demolishing and reconstructing most of its old working-class estates. Of Rollberg's more than 5,000 apartments, only about 340 remained, 200 of them in ''Gründerzeit'' estates, and 140 in existing houses from pre-war developments and initial post-war reconstructions. Furthermore, Berlin's historical grid plan street layout was partially dismantled. The modernist meandering block structures (''Mäanderbauten'') in the eastern part were constructed first, while the rest of the newly designed quarter, including ''Die Ringe'' ("The Rings") in the western part, was finished in the mid to late 1970s. Approximately 2,000 new apartments were constructed, but many of the original residents had left and never returned, opening up rental space for Neukölln's new immigrant population. These developments created new problems, which persist to this day, because the new neighborhood is neither urbanistically nor socially integrated with the rest of Neukölln.

During the same era, the Weiße Siedlung southeast of Rixdorf was built as a typical 1970s modernist suburban housing estate north of the older Dammwegsiedlung. Due to its distinctive high-rise design, the quarter is widely visible. Construction of the youngest neighborhood further south, the High-Deck-Siedlung, began in 1975 and ended in 1984 as a follow-up to the earlier large-scale housing developments Gropiusstadt and Märkisches Viertel. Both settlements suffer from a fate similar to that of Rollberg, being foreign architectural bodies with geographical and social separation from the rest of urban Neukölln.

After the end of Neukölln's public housing wave, the Schillerpromenade neighborhood at last became part of the borough's official urban renewal program, which was passed by the assembly of representatives on 23 January 1990. At first, the focus was on modernizing the deficits of the old infrastructure, but from 1996 onward, specific emphasis was placed on conservation and neighborhood management, to counter gentrification and the displacement of the old-established citizenry. This proved complicated, as many former tenements had already been converted into condominiums. In addition, more recent gentrification could not be blocked completely, since the neighborhood, beside the Reuterkiez, became one of the most popular destinations for 21st century western immigrants.

In contrast, conservation efforts had been placed on a more solid footing in the historical neighborhoods of Böhmisch-Rixdorf and Richardplatz-Süd. The new 1990 development procedures officially designated both the Bohemian and the contiguous German areas of Alt-Rixdorf as a ''Kulturdenkmal von europäischem Rang'' (cultural monument of European importance). This measure, which had been demanded since 1979 by Rixdorf's Bohemian descendants and supported by the local society ''Förderkreis Böhmisches Dorf'' since its foundation in 1984, has since preserved Rixdorf's old infrastructure and prevented any large-scale modern redevelopment.

= Future residential development

=

In the 21st century, further residential development in Neukölln is still possible by repurposing many of the garden allotments, the largest of which have primarily formed on or near the historical border to former East Berlin. However, important recreational areas would be lost, and there are no plans by the administration to let the relevant leases expire. Alternative plans to clear green spaces like the forest ''Emmauswald'', a former cemetery, regularly encounter strong resistance, but the assembly of borough representatives generally favors a partial development of Neukölln's old cemeteries over nature conservation. Similarly, the plans for a residential boundary development of the ''Tempelhofer Feld'' are a recurring topic of contention in Berlin politics. Unconfrontational development mainly has to rely on compacting measures by covering the last remaining bombing gaps from World War II or undeveloped properties, on redeveloping former industrial neighborhoods like the ''Neukölln Docklands'',E.g. the non-residential project ''DOXS NKLN''; Dominik Bardow
"'Docks Neukölln': Das entsteht in Berlins neuem Hafenviertel"
''Berliner Zeitung'', 13 June 2023

. and on perimeter block development, where possible. A recent example can be found in the Harzer Kiez, where the mainly industrial block Harzer Straße/Elsenstraße will be undergoing residential redevelopment.The infrastructure is currently used by i.a. film industry laboratories and studios; cf
"Hier plant der Berliner Senat plant elf neue Wohngebiete"
''Berliner Zeitung'', 29 May 2018, s.v. "Neukölln, Harzer Straße". However, other new developments are (as of 2025) only under way in the southern quarters of the Neukölln borough, namely in ''Alt-Britz'', the old village center of Britz, and especially the housing estate ''Buckower Felder'' in the far south of Buckow I with 900 new apartments; cf. Teresa Roelcke
"Tausende Wohnungen neu gebaut: In diesen Quartieren können Berliner bald ein neues Zuhause finden"
''Tagesspiegel'', 10 May 2025

.

Berlin-Neukölln in the 21st century

As part of Berlin's administrative reform, the city's 14th borough Neukölln was reorganized as the 8th borough of Berlin on 1 January 2001. Gropiusstadt, originally just a large suburban housing estate in Britz, Rudow and mainly Buckow, was declared an official quarter and joined the borough a year later, which split the Buckow quarter in half. In 2002, the final restoration stage concluded at the Körnerpark with the reopening of the park's cascade and adjacent water passages. In 2009, the 1907 '':de:Hererostein, Hererostein'' on the grounds of the :de:Friedhof Columbiadamm, Columbiadamm cemetery, which honors seven volunteer soldiers who between 1904 and 1907 had fallen while serving in the Imperial Schutztruppe for German South West Africa, Imperial ''Schutztruppe'' of German South West Africa, was augmented with a plaque commemorating the victims of German colonial empire, German colonialism in Namibia, including those of the Colonial War, which resulted in the Herero and Nama genocide, until now the only memorial of its kind in Berlin. The closedown of Tempelhof Airport on 30 October 2008 had relieved many of Neukölln's central residential areas, which had been located beneath the airport's eastern approach path, of aircraft noise, especially Körnerpark and the Schillerkiez. In 2010, the city opened the '' Tempelhofer Feld'' to the public, the former airfield, which had been shared by the quarters Neukölln and Tempelhof.It was at first called ''Tempelhofer Freiheit'' (Tempelhof Liberty), and officially designated ''Tempelhofer Feld'' on 14 June 2014; many Berliners simply call it ''das Feld'' ("the field"). Over night, this created a new and unique area for recreation, sporting activities, small and large cultural events like ''Lollapalooza#Germany, Lollapalooza'', sustainability projects and natural habitats for many wild species. During the 2020–23 COVID-19 pandemic, Neukölln was one of the early hotspots of Germany, resulting in more than 600 fatalities.The mortality rate was approximately 0.5%, with more than 40% of the population infected
"Aktuelle Corona Inzidenz von Berlin Neukölln"
''Corona-Zahlen heute'', 23 September 2024; this was mainly a consequence of the quarter's larger share of immigrants and people in poverty, and the associated lower educational level; Benjamin Hirsch

''Focus'', 16 April 2021.

Following the 1990s as a typical inner-city hot spot with high rates of immigration, poverty, crime, educational discriminationAt the time, former borough mayor Heinz Buschkowsky had named Neukölln as an example for the "failed multicultural society" (Tijs van den Boomen
"Die unsichtbare Mauer"
''Der Spiegel'', 21 August 2011), and judge Kirsten Heisig ''et al.'' initiated the so-called ''Neukölln Model'' for swift criminal prosecution of juvenile delinquents (Jutta Schütz
"Neuköllner Modell – schnelle Strafen für junge Täter"
''Die Welt'', 6 April 2010). and inadequate asylum laws, early 21st century Neukölln had experienced an influx of students, Creative class, creatives and other young professionals of mostly Western culture, Western origin avoiding higher rents charged in other parts of Berlin.For a report on the early trends in the Reuterkiez, cf. Nicholas Brautlecht
"Nachts in Neukölln-Nord"
''Berliner Zeitung'', 23 August 2007. It was during this time that the informal cultural toponym ''Kreuzkölln'' developed, as the northern neighborhood's culture and night life was slowly being resurrected.Neukölln's initial mid-2000s Gentrification, gentrifying wave eventually attracted an ever increasing number of young new residents, and enticed Berliners to favorably compare the up-and-coming new north of Neukölln with the culturally more established Kreuzberg (Christine Eichelmann
"Ein Berliner Kiez erwacht zu neuem Leben"
''Welt'', 15 June 2007). The new toponym ''Kreuzkölln'' was at first dismissed by many long-term residents on both sides of the border (Johanna Lühr

''Tagesspiegel'', 25 October 2008), mainly due to the different history and urban characteristics of the two quarters, which at the time were still very much unequal, with Kreuzberg either more middle-class (Kreuzberg 61) or still strongly influenced by the traditional alternative counterculture of Cold War West Berlin (SO 36), who viewed the toponym as a signifier of the ensuing gentrification, vis-à-vis the Reuterquartier's emerging alternative Hipster (contemporary subculture), hipster subculture, whose comparison to the heydey of the Lower East Side was both approved and derided by culturally progressive commentators and radical left-wing traditionalists respectively (Jacek Slaski
"Nord Neukölln: Spielplatz Avantgarde"
''tip'', 18 May 201
archived
Ingo Arend

''Deutschlandfunk'', 11 August 2010). Today, after many years of cross-border gentrification, ''Kreuzkölln'' describes the Reuterkiez and the adjacent city blocks of Kreuzberg 61 and SO 36, which together have now formed an almost fully integrated, albeit gentrified, urban cultural sphere (Johannes Schneider
"Sagt endlich Kreuzkölln!"
''Tagesspiegel'', 12 April 2016). The trend increased with the 2008 financial crisis and Euro area crisis, when many young Citizenship of the European Union, EU citizens left their home countries for Germany in search of work, leading to rapid cultural shifts in certain neighborhoods within Neukölln, especially the neighborhoods to the north and west from Reuter- to Schillerkiez. Coupled with increasing domestic and foreign real estate investments, this had caused a knock-on effect of rents to rise in many parts of Neukölln. Gentrification eventually stalled in the early 2020s,As of 2017, in Berlin-Neukölln "the [gentrification] boom [was] in full swing or, in some places, complete (no more big hikes in rent here)"; cf. Meier J, RealXData. 2019. "Zeitraum Mietentwicklungen 2013–2017". In: Bruns H. 2019
"At A Glance: Which Berlin Districts are Going to Get More Expensive"
''B.Z. (newspaper), B.Z. – Berliner Zeitung''. 19 November 2019. but since then, rent inflation has mainly shifted from residential to commercial real estate, which now threatens to favor corporatized lighthouse projects over Neukölln's smaller entrepreneurs and traditional businesses, who were initially saved by the German government response to the COVID-19 pandemic#Economic stimulus measures, federal stimulus during the COVID-19 lockdowns.Unlike the so-called '':de:Mietpreisbindung#Mietpreisbremse (2015), Mietpreisbremse'' (lit. "brake on rent prices"), there is no Rent regulation#Germany tenements, federal law in Germany that moderates and slows the increase of commercial leases, and this has begun to affect Neukölln; Madlen Haarbach
"Steigende Preise, leerstehende Räume"
13 June 2024

.

The gentrifying migration, together with later migrational waves after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and primarily the ongoing 2015 European migrant crisis, European migrant crisis from mainly Islamic countries,Due to the recent cultural changes induced by modern Muslim immigration, the :de:Sonnenallee, Sonnenallee is also called شارع العرب (''Schara al Arab'', ''Arabische Straße'', Arab Street), similar to the Bohemian migrants calling Böhmisch-Rixdorf ''Český Rixdorf'' (Czech Rixdorf) three centuries earlier. Before 2015, Berliners called the area around Sonnenallee ''Little Beirut''; Al-Habbal, 2007, in: Nazeeha Saeed, "The Arabs of Berlin face generations laden with guilt and trauma", in: Hanan Badr, Nahed Samour (eds.), ''Arab Berlin – Dynamics of Transformation'', Bielefeld 2023, p. 63–82 (69); Miriam Stock, "The tastes of Arab Berlin – Manifestations of Arab snack culture in the changing urban migration regime of Berlin", in: ibid., p. 169–187 (''passim''). have significantly increased Neukölln's population since the 2010s, also spawning social and religious conflicts in some neighborhoods, shifting the political climate to the right across Germany, with Neukölln remaining a symbol of societal decline.For some modern authors, mirroring the criticism from almost two decades prior, Neukölln today still serves as a prime example of a society burdened by Immigration to Germany, immigration and dwindling fiscal resources; cf. Falko Liecke, ''Brennpunkt Deutschland: Armut, Gewalt, Verwahrlosung – Neukölln ist erst der Anfang'', Berlin/Cologne 2022. However, Neukölln's partly precarious demographic makeup also led to a contrarian Berlin-Neukölln (electoral district)#2025 election, landslide victory in the 2025 German federal election for the socialist party ''The Left (Germany), Die Linke'' and Ferat Koçak, who became the first ever direct socialist representative of a West German electoral district.Party members perceived the win as a vote against the increasing Far-right politics in Germany (1945–present), right-wing trend and Opposition to immigration#Germany, anti-immigration sentiment in Germany (Pascal Beucker, David Muschenich, Franziska Schindler, Lotte Laloire, Stefan Reinecke
"Wenn die Linke 139.000-mal klingelt"
''taz'', 24 February 2025), while conservative commentators wrote that Koçak's and his party's Anti-police sentiment, anti-police, Pro-Palestinian, Anti-Zionism, anti-zionist and sometimes antisemitic views managed to secure the victory with votes from Neukölln's Muslim population (Gunnar Schupelius
"So will die Linkspartei in Berlin an die Macht"
''B.Z.'', 13 May 2025; Janne Hoppe

''Welt'', 26 February 2025). Koçak himself stated that he was annoyed by this categorization, referring to Neukölln's large expat and often disenfranchised Palestinian population, and to his duty to make politics for all residents, while striving for reconciliation and cooperation; Ferat Koçak in: Alice von Lenthe, Wiebke Hollersen
"Linker Wahlsieger in Neukölln: Ferat Koçak über Antisemitismusvorwürfe"
''Berliner Zeitung'', 3 March 2025
archived
. The electorate had broken with the borough's secular Centrism, centrist voting behavior, and returned Neukölln to its historical pre-war socialist roots. While the borough's southern quarters mostly still voted conservative, the victory was secured by the electorate in the quarter of Neukölln. Here, the vibrant immigrant culture and recent Cosmopolitanism, cosmopolitan evolution, especially in the northern neighborhoods, have consistently defied the more dire academic theories of a fundamental social polarization in Neukölln. Over the years, the quarter has retained its special role as a centuries-old melting pot, which has now become one of the trendiest and most diverse districts of Berlin, and, for better or worse, the epitome of Socioeconomics, socioeconomic change in the city.Moises Mendoza
"Foreigners Feel Accused in Berlin Gentrification Row"
11 March 2011, ''Der Spiegel''. Accordingly, the quarter has often ranked as one of the world's most desirable places to visit and live.

Coat of arms

Neukölln's coat of arms is a modern variant of :de:Wappen des Bezirks Neukölln#Geschichte und Bedeutung, Rixdorf's original shield. After Rixdorf's independence on 1 April 1899, the city's first coat of arms had been commissioned on 10 November of the same year. The final design, which swapped the placement of the cross and chalice, was ordered by emperor Wilhelm II and approved on 29 May 1903.

The most prominent element on Neukölln's Escutcheon (heraldry), shield is in the bottom field, the escutcheon with the silver on red Maltese Cross, Maltese cross, which signifies the official foundation of the historic village of ''Richardsdorf'' on 26 June 1360 under the sovereignty of the Catholic Johannite Knights Hospitaller, who had assumed the '' angerdorf'' from the Knights Templar in the year 1318. In the upper right Charge (heraldry), charge is the red and gold heraldic right-facing eagle on silver background, which is actually a double reference, mainly to Rixdorf's Fief, feudal parent city of Cölln (23 September 1435 – 17 January 1709At first, Rixdorf existed in a shared fiefdom of Cölln and Alt-Berlin, and became the sole fief of Cölln on 24 August 1543 (''see above'').), but also to the later Province of Brandenburg, which likewise used Cölln's historical eagle on its coat of arms. In the upper left Field (heraldry), field is the silver on black common chalice of the Protestant Hussite colonists, who began to settle on the Rixdorf lot in the year 1737 and eventually built their own village, which as '' Böhmisch-Rixdorf'' was granted its own administration in 1797, before both Rixdorf villages were united on 1 January 1874.An architectural representation of Rixdorf's historical Hussite chalice can be found in the pediment of the 1753 Bohemian school building on Kirchgasse. The original coronet with the Mural crown#Heraldic use, mural crown, consisting of a city wall with three towers made of red bricks with black seams, was similar to the modern variant, but contained a city gate as its central element, signifying Rixdorf's 1899 independence.

Unofficially, the historical coat of arms remained in use at first, after Rixdorf, then already renamed ''Neukölln'', had joined the new Neukölln borough of Greater Berlin Act, Greater Berlin on 1 October 1920. On 13 May 1954, however, Berlin passed legislation which allowed its boroughs to carry official National emblem, heraldic emblems. To this end, Rixdorf's old coat of arms was slightly redesigned, altered from the French to Berlin's official Escutcheon (heraldry)#Shapes, Iberian form, and the only major elemental change was applied to the coronet, which was replaced by the new mural crown now used by all of Berlin's boroughs, including the silver shield with right-facing black bear, as found in Coat of arms of Berlin, Berlin's own coat of arms. The changes were approved by Neukölln's district office and representative assembly by 12 March 1956. The new coat of arms was admitted by the city of Berlin in April 1956 and awarded to the Neukölln, borough Neukölln on 16 May 1956. Today, it is used by the quarter of Neukölln, together with the borough's other quarters of Britz, Buckow, Rudow and Gropiusstadt.

Demographics and social statistics

As of 2025, Neukölln with its 162,548 inhabitants has the second-highest population of Berlin's quarters after Prenzlauer Berg. The borough's current budget deficit stands at €10.2 million ($11,39 million), and in 2024 Neukölln's district office declared the third spending freeze in a year. In 2023, the unemployment rate in Neukölln was at 14.1%. The poverty rate was at 29%, more than a third of Neukölln's children and adolescents were poor or at risk of poverty, and the borough is currently the only German district with its own poverty commissioner.

As of 2025, 58.3% of residents in the quarter Neukölln are German or foreign immigrant generations, first or later-generation immigrants, up from 46% in 2019 and 48% in 2021, with roots in more than 155 countries. The overall share of foreigners in the quarter currently stands at 36%, and has continued to rise in the past years due to western immigration and the ongoing 2015 European migrant crisis, European migrant crisis, while the number of Ukrainians in the borough Neukölln increased by 11.9% in 2023 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Due to the quarter's dense urban character, only far less than five percent of Berlin's refugees can be accommodated in Neukölln.As of July 2024, the whole borough of Neukölln houses only 1,703 of Berlin's refugees (4.68%)
"Überblick über die Flüchtlingsunterkünfte in Berlin"
''Landesamt für Flüchtlingsangelegenheiten'', 7 July 2024. As of January 2024, of the borough's seven refugee centers, only two were in the quarter Neukölln, a larger one on Karl-Marx-Straße in Neukölln's southern dockland area just north of Grenzallee, and a smaller one at the Kiefholzstraße near the eastern border to Plänterwald. However, the Berlin Senate plans to open a large new refugee center on the street Hasenheide right on the border between Kreuzberg and Neukölln, including a center for unaccompanied minors, and its close proximity to Hermannplatz and other neighborhoods with an already existing high share of Immigration and crime, migrant crime like the Donaukiez has been harshly criticized by politicians of both affected boroughs; Susanne Rost
"Flüchtlingsunterkunft an der Hasenheide ab 2026: Pläne sorgen für Unruhe in Kreuzberg und Neukölln"
''Berliner Zeitung'', 7 January 2025
archived
. As of 2025, the percentage of foreigners without German citizenship is 21.6% on the low end in Bouchéstraße (LOR 100313), and as high as 42.9% in Treptower Straße Nord (LOR 100419), while the highest share in the quarter's historical center stands at 40.3% in the Donaustraße neighborhood (LOR 100314). The bulk of the most recent migration originated in Islamic countries,As of June 2024, approximately 800–900 refugees have been reaching Berlin every month, with the majority arriving from Turkey, Syria, Afghanistan, Vietnam and Moldova
"Hauptherkunftsländer im Juni 2024 – Berlin"
''Landesamt für Flüchtlingsangelegenheiten'', 7 July 2024. and over the years this development, coupled with a strong local grassroots Antifa (Germany), radical left counterculture, has led to a significant increase in antisemitismAccording to Güner Balcı, Neukölln's ''Integrationsbeauftragte'' (integration commissioner), this is a historically intrinsic part of the Islamic religion and an "almost self-evident part of [immigrant and especially Muslim] cultural identity"; cf. Güner Balcı
"'Zu viele meist muslimische Einwandererkinder wachsen mit den Geboten der Unfreiheit auf'"
''Sueddeutsche Zeitung'', 8 February 2024
archived
; ''see also'' Güner Balcı in: Katrin Elger
"Muslim Anti-Semitism in Berlin: 'Wide Swaths of Arab-Speaking Population Harbor Sympathies for Terrorists'"
''Der Spiegel'', 11 October 2023; for an example, cf. e.g. Madlen Haarbach

''Tagesspiegel'', 29 September 2024. For Berlin's former integration commissioner Derviş Hızarcı, this modern antisemitism is also rooted in experiences with islamophobia and religious prejudice, and in the internalization of the negative stereotypes associated with Neukölln's Muslims and the quarter's generally false stigma as a failed district; Derviş Hızarcı in: Madlen Harbach
"Warum immer Neukölln?"
''Tagesspiegel'', 28 October 2024

. and Palestinian nationalism, pro-Palestinian propaganda,Culminating during the Gaza war; Katrin Elger
"I Actually Don't Like Hamas, But…"
''Der Spiegel'', 23 October 2023; ''see also'' :de:Migrantifa, Migrantifa. also fueled by the politicians of Neukölln's chapter of The Left (Germany), Die Linke.

Crime, police and fire safety

Two out of Berlin's seven so-called "crime-burdened locations" ('':de:Kriminalitätsbelasteter Ort, Kriminalitätsbelastete Orte'', kbOs) are in Neukölln, Hermannplatz with Donaukiez including Sonnenallee, and Hermannstraße around Hermannstraße Station. Especially in these neighborhoods, Neukölln is also characterized by social and religious conflicts, manifesting in educational challenges, violent felonies,Crime statistics only exist for the borough of Neukölln, and in 2023, crime overall rose slightly to 13,794 registered cases, but still remains below the previous decade's maximum of 14,406 in 2015. Generally, Neukölln, in relation to its population size, has fewer registered criminal cases than, for example, the boroughs Mitte and Kreuzberg-Friedrichshain. However, as in all of Berlin, violent felonies in Neukölln have been steadily rising for the last decade to a new high of 1,393 in 2023, especially aggravated assaults, which, compared to the pre-pandemic high, rose by more than 10% from 383 in 2020 to 423 cases; for the full statistics, see e.g
"Kriminalitätsatlas Berlin"
''Polizei Berlin''. organized crime by Islamism, Islamic clans with recurring gang and drug violence, occasional rioting and arson, transphobia and homophobia.Carolina Schwarz
"Wie bunt ist Neukölln wirklich?"
''die tageszeitung'', 12 February 2024; ''see also'' LGBT people and Islam; according to official 2024 numbers for the whole of Berlin, queerphobic felonies have risen eightfold since 2014, with more than 71% committed against male victims, while 80% were committed for indeterminate reasons, 12% due to right-wing and 6% due to foreign or religious ideologies, with the latter having increased significantly over the past decade, especially with regard to insults, harassment and property damage; within the quarter Neukölln, only a few streets and neighborhoods are potentially queerphobic hotspots, but those have still raised the whole borough to the fifth rank compared to other boroughs of Berlin; Alexander Fröhlich
"Mehr queerfeindliche Taten: Berliner Polizei meldet Höchststand"
''Der Tagesspiegel'', 27 July 2024. Among the critical annual events for the Berlin Police are the so-called ''Revolutionary 1st of May Demonstration'', which usually takes place in Kreuzberg and Neukölln as part of the local May Day in Kreuzberg, May Day, and the New Year's Eve#Germany, New Year's Eve festivities, which in recent past have often resulted in rioting and arson. Since 2022, Neukölln has had the highest garbage pollution of all Berlin boroughs.

Neukölln, together with the borough Neukölln, is part of the ''Directorate 5'' of the Berlin Police. The quarter Neukölln is patrolled by Precinct 54 (Sonnenallee) and Precinct 55 (Rollbergstraße). The police's special authorities, for example warrantless searches, extend from the kbOs into the S-Bahn and the trains and stations of the U-Bahn lines U7 and U8, the latter of which directly connects Neukölln's and two other important kbOs, Kottbusser Tor (Berlin U-Bahn), Kottbusser Tor in Kreuzberg and Alexanderplatz in Mitte, with two other kbOs close by, the Görlitzer Park with Wrangelkiez in Kreuzberg and (via the U-Bahn line U1 (Berlin U-Bahn), U1) :de:Warschauer Brücke, Warschauer Brücke in Friedrichshain.Jörn Hasselmann
"Dreck, Drogen, Obdachlosigkeit: Wie die BVG Berliner U-Bahnhöfe sauberer machen will"
''Der Tagesspiegel'', 14 February 2024. Neukölln's stations of the U8, especially Hermannplatz, are among Berlin's U-Bahn stations with the highest crime rate due to their role as locations for drug trafficking and drug-related (violent) crime; Dominik Mai
"Besonders viele Gewalttaten: Das ist Berlins gefährlichste U-Bahnlinie"
''Tagesspiegel'', 4 November 2024

. The Federal Police (Germany), Federal Police has occasionally issued temporary weapons bans with extended rights to warantless searches for several Berlin railway and S-Bahn stations, which in 2025 also included Neukölln station, while the Senate will enact a general weapons ban for the whole of Berlin's public transport system starting in July 2025.

As with the police, Neukölln is part of the ''Directorate 5'' of the Berlin Fire Brigade. It is served by the Fire Stations 5000 and 5001, whereas the latter is part of Berlin's volunteer fire department. Both stations are in the center of Neukölln on Kirchhofstraße in Rixdorf, so the neighborhoods of Neukölln are often served by stations in adjacent quarters, for example the Reuterkiez by Fire Stations 1600 and 1601 on Wiener Straße in Kreuzberg nearby.

Religion

The old village of Rixdorf had been part of the Holy Roman Empire as a Knights Templar and Hospitaller settlement, so it was historically a Catholic Church, Roman Catholic village. However, the Reformation in the 16th century changed the religious makeup of many German regions, especially in the northern and eastern parts of the empire. Furthermore, in the early 18th century, Rixdorf came under Prussian political and cultural hegemony, which included Protestantism as the effective church of the state, so the Christian affiliative distribution gradually shifted away from the Roman faith. Rixdorf in particular was a prominent example of this development, because it eventually obtained a strong Protestant community, descended both from the early 18th century Moravian Church, Moravian colonists and the industrial immigrants from the Eastern parts of the German Empire (1870–1910).Rixdorf and Neukölln are therefore in accordance with the overall German religious distribution of a primarily Roman Catholic citizenry on the historically Roman side of the '' limes'', and a primarily Protestant citizenry in the former regions of the unconquered Barbaricum, Germanic barbarian tribes. In the course of the 20th and 21st centuries, the Christian parishes of Berlin, and in particular of Neukölln, hemorrhaged a significant share of their members. Following the secularization in the age of Enlightenment after the Reformation, many of the 20th century's global secular, Atheism, atheist and sometimes downright Antireligion, antireligious political ideologies like communism, socialism and Nazism, national socialism flourished (and clashed) in Berlin (''see above''), and a Marxism–Leninism, Marxist-Leninist regime eventually ruled over the East Germany, Eastern parts of Germany and East Berlin for many decades. For this reason, a large part of Germany's population today is not affiliated with any religion, and Berlin in particular is often called the "atheist capital of the world". Beyond that, Neukölln had always been a Left-wing politics, left-leaning working class district, and a home to Progressivism, progressive voices from Reformism, social reformists to Biblical criticism, Biblical critics like Bruno Bauer, so the effects with regard to irreligion are visible to this day.

German statistics offices are not required to gather information on the religious affiliations of the citizenry. The Church tax#Germany, German church tax system, however, offers insight into the membership strength of at least the two primary Christian denominations in the ''borough'' of Neukölln. As of 2025, only 19.02% of Neukölln's residents are Christian, of which 7.18% are Catholic, while 11.84% belong to one of Germany's Protestant Church in Germany, associated mainstream Protestant denominations (EKD). At roughly 72%, the vast majority of Berlin's residents, however, is irreligious, while 1.5% are of other faiths, not counting Islam, with similar numbers to be expected for Neukölln.See also Religion in Berlin. Due to the quarter's Ethnicity, ethnic makeup and history of Ottoman empire, Ottoman, Turkish and modern Muslims, Muslim immigration, a significant minority adheres to the Islam, Islamic faiths, of which the Sunni Islam, Sunni branch forms the majority. Statistics for the quarter itself do not exist, but based on reliable, but partially outdated numbers for the whole of Berlin (4%) and the borough Neukölln (7–9%), the share of the Muslim population in the quarter Neukölln would be at least twice as high as the borough's overall share. In 2012, residents of Turkish descent made up 45% of the immigrant and 12% of the overall population, accounting for two thirds of the quarter's Muslim population, which at the time stood at a share of 18%. Increasing immigration from Islamic countries since 2015 therefore suggests that unofficial estimates of at least 20% and up to 25% (2024) are not false.This would conform to the number of (mainly Muslim) Arabs in the borough (7.9%) and the quarter (ca. 10%); ''see also'' :de:Araber in Berlin, Arabs in Berlin. Either way, Islam and (more precisely) Sunni Islam forms the largest religious cohort in the quarter Neukölln, dwarfed only by the number of irreligious residents at approximately 50–60%.

Within Neukölln's Cosmopolitanism, cosmopolitan citizenry, many other religions and denominations are present and thriving. The borough of Neukölln is home to several thousand Hinduism, Hindus, mainly from India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, and especially the number of Indians in Germany, Indian expats has been rising steadily since the 2022 enactment of the ''Deutsch-indisches Migrationsabkommen'' (German-Indian Treaty on Migration). Still, the religious and cultural diversity of German society, not least in Berlin, has suffered greatly in the past 90 years, namely from the loss of History of the Jews in Germany, Jewish culture due to the The Holocaust, Shoa and Aftermath of the Holocaust, Jewish exodus from Germany. Jewish life cautiously resurged in the 1990s with the immigrating late repatriates from Eastern Europe, and the trend continued with the 21st century influx of young people from all around the world, many of whom come from Israel. However, in 2022 only 1% of Berlin's residents had been Jewish.

Historical population numbers

Around the time of Rixdorf's unification in 1874, the population was approximately 12,300. After Rixdorf's independence in 1899, the population stood at 90,422 (1900), while the final count for the rechristened city of Neukölln was 262,414 (1919), mainly due to early modern industrial immigration. The largest ever population of the quarter Neukölln was 278,208 in 1930. Modern immigration began in the mid-2000s and accounted for a population increase of approximately 20,000 at its peak in 2015, declining to now 12,000 compared to the beginning of the 3rd millennium, millennium.

Transport

Public transport

In Berlin, urban railway services are managed by the S-Bahn Berlin GmbH, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn, while all other public transport systems are managed by the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG).Exceptions are privately operated tramways like the Wuhlheide :de:Parkeisenbahn Wuhlheide, park railway or the ''Britzer Garten'' tramway; the VBB integration of the aerial tramway in the ''Gärten der Welt'' has often been proposed, but was declined until 2026; :de:Stefan Ziller, Stefan Ziller in
"Marzahn: Seilbahn in den Gärten der Welt bleibt von BVG getrennt – das ist der Grund"
''Berliner Zeitung'', 24 September 2024. Together with the Brandenburg public transport providers, they form the network group Verkehrsverbund Berlin-Brandenburg (VBB).

U-Bahn

Neukölln is served by two U-Bahn (subway) rail lines, the northwest-to-southeast U7 (Berlin), U7 (Rathaus Spandau (Berlin U-Bahn), Rathaus Spandau ↔ Rudow (Berlin U-Bahn), Rudow) and the north-to-south U8 (Berlin), U8 (Berlin-Wittenau station, Wittenau ↔ Berlin Hermannstraße station, Hermannstraße), with an interchange between the two at Hermannplatz.For an overview including their history of construction, cf. e.g. Alexander Seefeldt, Robert Schwandl, ''Berliner U-Bahn-Linien: U7 – Quer durch den Westen'', Berlin, 2013; Axel Mauruszat, Alexander Seefeldt, ''Berliner U-Bahn-Linien: U8 – Von Gesundbrunnen nach Neukölln'', Berlin, 2015. Within Neukölln, the U7 has three additional eastbound stations along the Karl-Marx-Straße: Rathaus Neukölln (Berlin U-Bahn), Rathaus Neukölln, Karl-Marx-Straße (Berlin U-Bahn), Karl-Marx-Straße and Berlin-Neukölln station, Neukölln, the latter being an interchange between U- and S-Bahn. The U8 has three additional southbound stations along the Hermannstraße: Boddinstraße, Leinestraße and Berlin Hermannstraße station, Hermannstraße, the latter being the quarter's second interchange between U- and S-Bahn.

Three U-Bahn stations just outside of the quarter offer quicker access to certain neighborhoods of Neukölln: Südstern (Berlin U-Bahn), Südstern (U7) to the western parts of Hasenheide, Schönleinstraße (U8) to the Reuterkiez, and Grenzallee (Berlin U-Bahn), Grenzallee (U7) to the southern and south-eastern industrial parks including the Neukölln Harbor.

During workday nights, approximately between 1:00 and 4:00, Berlin's subways are not operational, but are replaced by buses. In Neukölln, the U7 and U8 are replaced by the bus lines N7 and N8 respectively. During nights before Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, the U-Bahn lines operate continuously.

S-Bahn

Neukölln is served by five S-Bahn (urban railway) lines, with U-Bahn interchanges at Berlin Hermannstraße station, Berlin-Hermannstraße (U8) and Berlin-Neukölln station, Berlin-Neukölln (U7), each for all of the five lines. The S45 (Berlin), S45 connects Neukölln and the airport (''see below''). Two additional important services are the '' Ringbahn'' Circle route, circle lines S41/42 (Berlin), S41 (clockwise) and S42 (counter-clockwise), connecting i.a. to Berlin Südkreuz station, Südkreuz, Berlin Westkreuz station, Westkreuz, Berlin Gesundbrunnen station, Gesundbrunnen (Nordkreuz) and Berlin Ostkreuz station, Ostkreuz. The other two lines are the S47 (Berlin), S47 via Niederschöneweide to Berlin-Spindlersfeld station, Spindlersfeld in the south-east, and the S46 (Berlin), S46, which connects Neukölln to Westend in the far west and the town Königs Wusterhausen south-east of Berlin via Adlershof, Grünau (Berlin), Grünau and the town Zeuthen. Overall, Neukölln has four S-Bahn stations, the aforementioned Hermannstraße and Neukölln as well as Berlin Sonnenallee station, Sonnenallee on the ''Ringbahn'' at the outskirts of Rixdorf, and Berlin Köllnische Heide station, Köllnische Heide on the southeastbound railway, providing S-Bahn access to the inhabitants of Weiße Siedlung, High-Deck-Siedlung and Schulenburgpark.

Bus

Due to sufficient access to U- and S-Bahn for most areas of Neukölln, the quarter is currently not served by any of Berlin's ExpressBus lines. Still, Neukölln has several regular Bus transport in Berlin, bus lines, connecting for example Marzahn (194) and Marienfelde (277). There are also four MetroBus lines, the most important ones being the M29 connecting to the western city center including Kurfürstendamm, the M41 to Berlin Hauptbahnhof, Berlin Central Station, and the southbound M44 to Buckow, Buckow-Süd, the destination of a potential extension of the U-Bahn line U8 (''see below''). In addition to the U-Bahn replacement bus lines during night hours, Neukölln is served by several regular night bus lines, for example the N47 connecting Hermannplatz and Berlin Ostbahnhof, Berlin East railway station (Ostbahnhof).

Airport connections

Since the closing of the airports Berlin Tegel Airport, Tegel and Berlin Tempelhof Airport, Tempelhof, whose airfield was partially situated in Neukölln, Berlin only has one remaining international airport,Another smaller airport northeast of Berlin, which is mainly used by charter planes, is :de:Flugplatz Eberswalde-Finow, Eberswalde–Finow Airport; it has always been a candidate for an expansion into a second international airport in the Berlin periphery
"Flugplatz Eberswalde-Finow: Ex-Militärlandeplatz mischt Tegel-Diskussion auf"
''Berliner Morgenpost'', 11 August 2017. Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER), the former (and greatly extended) Berlin Schönefeld Airport just outside of Berlin. As of 2024, BER passengers to or from Neukölln can only use buses or the S-Bahn for direct connections.Long-distance trains like the Regional-Express also connect the airport and Berlin, but do not cross Neukölln itself. For Neukölln residents, Berlin's airport express line :de:Flughafen-Express, FEX is currently reachable via Berlin Alexanderplatz station, Alexanderplatz and (from the end of 2025) via Berlin Südkreuz station, Südkreuz.

When using the U-Bahn, an interchange between subway and the airport express bus lines X7 and X71 is necessary at the U7 terminus Rudow (Berlin U-Bahn), Rudow.The minimum frequency in off-hours is every 10 minutes (X7 and X71 combined), while the X7 itself runs every 5 minutes in peak time. For S-Bahn access, an interchange is necessary between U-Bahn and the S45 (Berlin), S45 at the stations Berlin Hermannstraße station, Hermannstraße (U8) or Berlin-Neukölln station, Neukölln (U7). As of 2024, the S45 operates every 20 minutes from 5:00–24:00 and 7:00–24:00 on Sundays respectively. During the night, the U-Bahn service is replaced by the night bus line N7, which directly connects Neukölln and the airport.Since the closing of the old Terminal 5 near Schönefeld, the daytime bus line 171 between Hermannplatz and BER has not been extended to reach the operational terminals 1–4: using this line, passengers need to interchange either at Rudow (X7/71) or at the terminus Schönefeld (bei Berlin) station, Schönefeld (S-Bahn). Furthermore, line 171 is eventually set to terminate at Rudow; cf
"Nahverkehrsplan Berlin 2019–2023"
''Senatsverwaltung für Umwelt, Verkehr und Klimaschutz'', p. 282.

Ferry

Neukölln does not offer any regular Ferry transport in Berlin, ferry transport, but several landing stages for a variety of charter tours exist in Neukölln. Berlin shipping company '':de:Stern und Kreisschiffahrt, Stern und Kreisschiffahrt'', which is based at the :de:Hafen Treptow, Treptow Harbor, operates a landing at the Estrel Hotel on the Neukölln Ship Canal, with one route through Neukölln along the Landwehr Canal. Former Kreuzberg shipping company '':de:Reederei Riedel, Reederei Riedel'', which is now based at the :de:Hafen Rummelsburg, Rummelsburg Harbor in Oberschöneweide, operates two landings, the ''Kottbusser Brücke'' at the Landwehr Canal, and the ''Wildenbruchbrücke'' at the Neukölln Ship Canal. One of their ships is the 1962 '':de:Rixdorf (Schiff, 1962), Rixdorf'', which has been in their service since 1987 and is authorized for 250 passengers and crew.Depending on the source, the ''Rixdorf'' was built in 1962 or 1963. After its launch at the :de:Ruhrorter Schiffswerft, Ruhrort shipyard, it was first used on :de:Baldeneysee, Lake Baldeney under the name ''Gruga''. It was sold to Berlin in 1984 and rechristened ''Spreekieker''. In 1987, it was resold to the Riedel shipping company and rechristened ''Rixdorf''. It is long and wide, with a gauge of and a machine capacity of .

Future

= U-Bahn

=
There are concrete medium-term plans to extend the U7 south beyond Rudow to directly connect the airport BER to Neukölln and the rest of Berlin via U-Bahn, adding a minimum of two and up to seven additional stations inbetween, with Schönefeld (bei Berlin) station, Schönefeld also functioning as an S-Bahn interchange.On the Berlin side, a maximum of two additional stations are planned: Rudow-Süd (near Neuhofer Straße) and Lieselotte-Berger-Platz; on the Schönefeld side of the border, a maximum of six additional stations are planned: Schönefeld-Nord, Schönefeld (S-Bahn interchange), Schönefelder Seen (east of the autobahn A113 near the ''Segra Airport Park''), followed by three stations on airport grounds, namely Air Town (alternatively named ''Airgate''), Midfield Gardens and the final station at BER main terminals; cf. i.a. Thorsten Metzner
"Pläne für Verlängerung nehmen nächste Hürde: Jetzt wird die Wirtschaftlichkeit der U7 zum BER untersucht"
''Tagesspiegel'', 25 June 2023. Further stations in Selchow (Schönefeld), Selchow and at the Berlin ExpoCenter Airport, including preparatory work beneath the BER terminal expansion area, are not part of the current extension plans. In 2024, two performance audits for the extension began, with the Berlin audit still under way, while the audit by the Schönefeld municipality ended with a positive result in April 2025. The extended U7 would be the first of Berlin's U-Bahn lines to reach beyond the city's borders.

As :de:Agglomeration Berlin, Greater Berlin has been steadily growing since German reunification to now almost 4.8 million inhabitants, with extensive residential construction happening in Berlin's immediate surrounding regions, public transport extensions to the city's periphery are propagated frequently. With regard to Neukölln, an internal 2023 BVG feasibility study on long-term U-Bahn network expansion included a southbound extension of the U8 beyond Hermannstraße, terminating in the south of Buckow on the border to Brandenburg's :de:Großziethen, Gartenstadt Großziethen.

= S-Bahn

=
The borough administrations of Treptow-Köpenick and Neukölln have often pushed for an additional station on Berlin's Ringbahn, primarily at the Kiefholzstraße on the border of the two boroughs. However, the Berlin transport providers aim at one Ringbahn revolution every 60 minutes. Under this guideline, only one station can be added to the lines S41/42 for the whole of Berlin. The Kiefholzstraße therefore competes against four other proposed stations, one of them in Neukölln as well, namely Oderstraße at the south-eastern corner of the Tempelhofer Feld.The political majority favors a dedicated S-Bahn station between Hermannstraße and Tempelhof to offer the public direct access to the Tempelhofer Feld, so Oderstraße would compete for this spot against Oberlandstraße and a station directly at the Tempelhofer Feld north of the A100 autobahn. Furthermore, there have also been demands for a new Ringbahn station at Kniprodestraße in eastern Prenzlauer Berg; cf. Julia Schmitz
"'Geringes Fahrgastpotential': Vorerst kein neuer Ringbahnhalt in Alt-Treptow"
''Tagesspiegel'', 18 September 2023.

= Bus and DRT

=
Two new MetroBus and ExpressBus lines are planned, the M94 to Friedrichsfelde, Friedrichsfelde-Ost via Treptow and Berlin Ostkreuz station, Ostkreuz station, and the X77 from Hermannstraße to Marienfelde via Alt-Mariendorf.

Mainly two neighborhoods of Neukölln are insufficiently connected to the Berlin public transportation system, either because they were never developed (Schillerpromenade), or because the old and narrow streets prevent the establishment of bus lines (Alt-Rixdorf). Therefore the Senate of Berlin, Berlin Senate and the BVG plan to create a network of Demand responsive transport, DRT bus lines (''Rufbus'') for large parts of Neukölln, from the western neighborhoods at the Tempelhofer Feld to the Sonnenallee in the east, covering Schillerpromenade, Flughafenstraße, Rollberg, Körnerpark and both Rixdorf neighborhoods.

= Tram

=
Despite Rixdorf's and Neukölln's important role in the historical development of Trams in Berlin, Berlin's tramway, the quarter currently has no connection to the city's modern MetroTram system. Due to the Teltow slopes and narrower streets in places like Flughafenstraße, only Neukölln's northern neighborhoods in the glacial valley are immediately suitable for tram expansion. A long-gestating plan proposes to extend Berlin's so-called "party tram" line M10 by the year 2031"Straßenbahnneubaustrecke Warschauer Straße – Hermannplatz (M10-Verlängerung)"
''Senatsverwaltung für Mobilität, Verkehr, Klimaschutz und Umwelt'', Berlin 2025; construction is not set to begin before 2028; Oliver Noffke

''RBB24'', 13 June 2024. from Kreuzberg (SO 36) through the Görlitzer Park and crossing the Landwehr Canal into Neukölln, with stations in the Reuterkiez planned at Framstraße, Pannierstraße and Hermannplatz (Berlin U-Bahn), U Hermannplatz on Urbanstraße via Sonnenallee.Due to the part-time function of the Hermannplatz as a marketplace (''see below''), its relatively small space and the large motorized traffic volume, the M10 will terminate just north of the plaza on Kreuzberg's Urbanstraße
"Weiterbau der Tramlinie M10: Neue Endhaltestelle an der Urbanstraße"
''Entwicklungsstadt Berlin'', 17 November 2022. This would create a direct public transport connection from Neukölln (Reuterkiez) to Kreuzberg, Friedrichshain, Prenzlauer Berg, Mitte, Moabit via Berlin Hauptbahnhof, Berlin Central Station, and Berlin Jungfernheide station, Jungfernheide station in Charlottenburg-Nord.

To replace Neukölln's overstrained "ghetto bus" line M41, the Berlin Senate also has concrete plans to create a new tram line from Berlin-Schöneweide station, Schöneweide S-Bahn station through Johannisthal (Berlin), Johannisthal along the '':de:Königsheide (Berlin), Königsheide'', part of the former '' Cölln Heath'', through Baumschulenweg, Neukölln and Kreuzberg 61 along Sonnenallee and Urbanstraße via Hallesches Tor to Potsdamer Platz."Straßenbahnneubaustrecke Schöneweide – Potsdamer Platz"
''mein Berlin'', Berlin 2024; different from the current bus M41, the new tram line would not terminate at Berlin Hauptbahnhof, and the routing via Urbanstraße could interfere with operations at the planned M10 terminus; therefore, an alternate route south of Hermannplatz via Hasenheide was also part of the proposal; the new tram line will not open before 2035; Peter Neumann
"Von Schöneweide zum Potsdamer Platz: Berlins unbeliebteste Buslinie soll Straßenbahn werden"
''Berliner Zeitung'', 7 November 2024.

Individual transport

Motorized individual transport

Since Neukölln is densely populated and highly urbanized, most of its streets come with a speed limit of 30 km/h for motorized vehicles, including more aggressive urban planning measures in recent years aimed at Traffic calming, reducing traffic with One-way traffic, one-way roads and concepts like the '':de:Spielstraße, Spielstraße'' ("play street"), modal filters or larger-scale neighborhood blocks ('':de:Superblock (Stadtplanung), Kiezblock'', Low Traffic Neighbourhood, LTN).For example, these measures were introduced in the northern Reuterkiez in 2024 and have significantly reduced through traffic and the number of accidents; Madlen Haarbach
"Poller und Einbahnstraßen in Berlin-Neukölln: So haben sich die Unfallzahlen im Reuterkiez entwickelt"
''Tagesspiegel'', 11 April 2025

. Furthermore, in 2024 the Senate of Berlin and the borough's administration have begun to monetize public parking space in the northern neighborhoods to steer away some of the excess traffic.

Nevertheless, several main roads function as important Arterial road, arterial connections to other parts of Berlin: Columbiadamm, Urbanstraße and Hasenheide connect to the western parts of Berlin south of the city center via Tempelhof and the western neighborhood of Kreuzberg 61 respectively, while Sonnenallee, Karl-Marx-Straße and Hermannstraße connect to southern and south-eastern parts of Berlin via Britz and Baumschulenweg respectively. The Kottbusser Damm is the main road to the SO 36 neighborhood of Kreuzberg in the north, but traffic calming measures have reduced its importance in recent years. Except for the Columbiadamm, all of the above arterial roads converge at Hermannplatz.

The Bundesautobahn 100, A100 autobahn just outside of Neukölln's border with Britz connects to the western parts of Berlin, with an eastern extension through parts of Neukölln to Alt-Treptow under construction, and a highly contended final stage planned to extend further into Friedrichshain and Lichtenberg (locality), Lichtenberg via Berlin Ostkreuz station, Ostkreuz. At the interchange ''Autobahndreieck Neukölln'', the A100 connects to the Bundesautobahn 113, A113 autobahn, which leads south to BER airport and the Bundesautobahn 10, A10, Berlin's Ring road, orbital autobahn.

Bicycle traffic

Most of Neukölln's one-way streets are two-way for cyclists. In 2017, the western parts of Weserstraße opened as Neukölln's first bicycle boulevard, and in the following years, several side streets have been rededicated as such, at first especially in the trendier districts of Reuter- and Schillerkiez, but now slowly expanding into other neighborhoods.In 2025, the first bicycle boulevard opened in the Körnerkiez
"Umbau der Ilsestraße zur Fahrradstraße ist abgeschlossen"
''Bezirksamt Neukölln'', 10 April 2025); for an overview of Neukölln's current and planned bicycle boulevards, including the Weserkiez extension into Rixdorf, cf. Michael Fugel (ed.)
"infraVelo" s.v. "Neukölln § Fahrradstraße
''GB infraVelo GmbH''. Larger main roads have been reconstructed to include properly separated bike lanes, for example Kottbusser Damm and Hasenheide, with plans for more reconstruction in the coming years. Neukölln's most ambitious project is the "Y route" (''Y-Trasse''), a forked dual bicycle highway (''Radschnellverbindung'') from south-eastern Berlin through Neukölln to Kreuzberg.The initial joint section of the route will pass from Adlershof along the Teltow Canal through Johannisthal (Berlin), Johannisthal and Baumschulenweg, and will then split near the Britz quarter, with branches leading through (a) Britz and western Neukölln to the Tempelhofer Feld and Südstern (Kreuzberg 61), and (b) through eastern Neukölln and Alt-Treptow to Görlitzer Park and Wiener Straße (Kreuzberg SO 36) respectively; Michael Fugel (ed.)
"Y-Trasse: Von Adlershof nach Neukölln und Kreuzberg"
''infraVelo'', August 2024. Berlin and Neukölln have several bicycle-sharing systems with a large fleet of standard and electric bicycles, as well as cargo bikes and e-scooters.

Pedestrian traffic

Due to Berlin's usually broad sidewalks, extensive speed limits, especially on side streets, and other measures like play streets and an increasing number of one-way streets, Neukölln has become a rather safe environment for pedestrians. However, compared to other German cities, very few pedestrian zones exist in Neukölln, currently only the "youth street" Rütli School, Rütlistraße (Reuterkiez) and the Tempelhofer Feld. There are proposals and concrete plans to rededicate certain locations as either pedestrian zones or mixed zones for pedestrians and cyclists, for example the Elbestraße and Weichselstraße in the Reuterkiez.

Several hiking trails exist along the waterways within or bordering Neukölln, primarily the Landwehr Canal, parts of the Neukölln Ship Canal, the Britz Canal, and the Heidekampgraben in the east, which is part of Berlin's '':de:Berliner Mauerweg, Mauerweg''. Other green trails are limited to Neukölln's parks, especially the Hasenheide, the Tempelhofer Feld, the Carl-Weder-Park, and the eastern garden plots. However, due to Neukölln's highly urbanized and partially industrialized character, few of the trails are sufficiently interconnected, as it is often found in the suburban quarters of Berlin. Still, ''Trail 18'' of Berlin's officially designated ''Grüne Hauptwege'' (main green trails) leads from the Tempelhofer Feld through Neukölln's western cemeteries and parks, Alt-Rixdorf and along the Neukölln Ship Canal via ''Trusepark'' into Kreuzberg and beyond.

Freight transport

Almost all of Neukölln's industrial parks are situated in the southern and eastern parts of the quarter. Both the A100 and A113 highways function as vital access ways, not least for connecting to the BER airport's freight terminals.

The Neukölln Harbor alongside Berlin's waterways also plays a prominent role in the transportation of goods, because all major Transport in Berlin#Water transport, canals of Berlin are part of the network of German :de:Bundeswasserstraße, Federal Waterways, which connects many German industrial regions, all important international maritime and inland ports, the North Sea, North and Baltic Sea, and all of Germany's neighboring countries. The infrastructure of Neukölln's harbor sans railways (''see below'') is managed by the state-owned ''Berliner Hafen- und Lagerhausgesellschaft'' (:de:BEHALA, BEHALA). The Neukölln Ship Canal, together with Neukölln Harbor and the '' Neukölln Watergate'', is :de:Liste der Landeswasserstraßen in Berlin, owned by the state of Berlin and managed by Neukölln's district office. All of Neukölln's other waterways, including rivers and canals outside of the quarter and borough, are managed by the Neukölln branch of the federal '':de:Wasserstraßen- und Schifffahrtsamt Spree-Havel, Wasserstraßen- und Schifffahrtsamt Spree–Havel'' (Office of Spree–Havel Waterways and Shipping), which is situated in the eastern Britz docklands south of Neukölln Harbor.

Besides S-Bahn services, the stations Berlin Hermannstraße station, Hermannstraße, Berlin Sonnenallee station, Sonnenallee with its northern terminals along the western shore of the Neukölln Ship Canal into the freight terminus ''Güterbahnhof Treptow'',Despite its name, the Treptow freight yards are part of the Neukölln quarter; the terminal depot is owned by ''Klösters Baustoffwerke'' (Potsdam) and operated by ''VEPAS bahnservice'', and two of the five tracks were recommissioned and modernized in 2010. and especially Berlin Neukölln station, Neukölln offer additional capacities for freight traffic via railways. The main lines connect eastbound via Berlin Köllnische Heide station, Köllnische Heide and westbound alongside Berlin's orbital S-Bahn infrastructure, continuing either westbound via Berlin Südkreuz station, Südkreuz or southbound and southwestbound via Berlin Tempelhof station, Tempelhof.

A smaller historical railroad, parts of which are still in use today, is the :de:Neukölln-Mittenwalder Eisenbahn, Neukölln–Mittenwald railroad (NME), which branches off in the Tempelhof quarter south of the Tempelhofer Feld between the stations Hermannstraße and Tempelhof and traverses the Teltow Canal to connect other industrial areas in the southern quarters of the Neukölln borough, eventually leading back east to the Teltow Canal on the Rudow :de:Industriestammgleis, industrial through track east of Gropiusstadt via Zwickauer Damm and Stubenrauchstraße.Of the NME's four industrial train stations and terminals, only two are still in operation, ''Berlin Teltowkanal'' in the Britz quarter, and ''Berlin Rudow-Nord'' just before the through track junction. The remaining tracks, which historically led south through Rudow proper into Brandenburg, were dismantled along with the terminals and stations.

Furthermore, industrial through tracks, which are managed by the '':de:Industriebahn Berlin, Industriebahn Berlin'', connect Neukölln station via the Treptow freight yards north of Sonnenallee to several industrial plants in the Neukölln quarter, which are mainly located within the industrial park Nobelstraße north of the Britz Canal near High-Deck-Siedlung. They connect through the eastern parts of the Neukölln Harbor, with several auxiliary tracks currently or permanently decommissioned.The industrial track to the western harbor dock has been permanently closed, while the tracks on the eastern dock are currently not connected. The tracks east of the Neukölln Ship Canal to Dieselstraße, which had also serviced the Estrel Hotel north of Sonnenallee, were closed down and dismantled due to extensive development in the Neukölln Docklands; the remaining tracks now end at the site of the Estrel Tower and are currently not connected, but still reserved as a potential future supply route. Due to Neukölln's dense urban development and its inner-city industrial areas, the quarter's freight trains always needed to be Shunting (rail), switched and shift directions several times.For connections from the currently decommissioned tracks on the eastern harbor dock to the industrial main line through Baumschulenweg, six directional changes were once necessary. For the daily transports from the ports of Bremen to Neukölln's JDE Peet's, Jacobs Douwe Egberts production facilities on Nobelstraße, trains only need to change directions twice, first at the Treptow freight yards, then at Neukölln Harbor; however, due to the now shortened length of the northern Neukölln Harbor track, trains first need to be split into smaller groups at the Treptow freight yards.

Main sights

* Rixdorf village church, consecrated at the beginning of the 15th century, adopted by the Moravian Protestants in 1737, officially called Bethlehem Church since 1912.
* Şehitlik Mosque, on the Turkish cemetery, finished in 2005 by the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DİTİB).
* Neuköllner Oper: opera house that hosts a wide range of performances including musicals, baroque opera, operetta, or experimental music theatre. Famous for its aim to bring elitist culture to a wider audience.
* :de:Stadtbad Neukölln, Stadtbad Neukölln, the local swim hall which consists of antique thermal baths inspired by Greek temples and basilicas.
* Körnerpark: park in neobarock style with fountains, orangerie, exhibition rooms and a cafe, founded 1910.

Notable people

Brunobauer_(cropped).jpg, Bruno Bauer
Lena_Braun.jpeg, Lena Braun
WP Horst Buchholz.jpg, Horst Buchholz
Lee Lawrie 1925.jpg, Lee Lawrie
Jutta_Limbach.jpg, Jutta Limbach
File:Susan Neiman.jpg, Susan Neiman
20180602 FIFA Friendly Match Austria vs. Germany Antonio Rüdiger 850 0711.jpg, Antonio Rüdiger
Friedrich Wilhelm Voight.jpg, Wilhelm Voigt

Many of Rixdorf's and Neukölln's natives became world-renowned in their respective professions, for example architectural sculptor Lee Lawrie, actor Horst Buchholz, president of Federal Constitutional Court, Germany's Supreme Court Jutta Limbach, or Real Madrid CF, Real Madrid's Defender (association football)#Centre-back, centre-back Antonio Rüdiger. Other important people have lived or settled in Rixdorf and Neukölln, for example Bible critic Bruno Bauer, philosopher Susan Neiman, artist Lena Braun, or Wilhelm Voigt, the infamous ''Captain of Köpenick''.

Resistance against National Socialism

Ursula Goetze 1942.png, Ursula Goetze
Fotothek df pk 0000220 043 Porträts, Prof. (Max ^) Pechstein, (Johannes^) Stroux, Kraus, Benedik, Lederer, (cropped).jpg, Klaus Gysi
Heinz Kapelle circa 1931.jpg, Heinz Kapelle
Fritz Lange, Berlin 1956.jpg, Fritz Lange (politician), Fritz Lange
WernerSeelenbinder 1930-42.jpg, Werner Seelenbinder
Zig Ion.jpg, John Sieg
Frieda Unger Landesarchiv Baden-Wuerttemberg Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe -231 Nr. 2937 (930)- Bild 1 (4-1384480-1).jpg, Frieda Unger
Memorial plate martin weise (cropped).jpg, Martin Weise

Many of Germany's resistance fighters and activists against Nazism, National Socialist rule operated from Neukölln, for example Heinz Kapelle and Ursula Goetze, who coordinated with the Red Orchestra in the quarter. Some activists also moved to socialist East Germany after World War II and became prominent state officials and politicians, for example Klaus Gysi and Frieda Unger.

Mayors and other local politicians

Hermann Boddin 1906 cropped.png, Hermann Boddin
Heinz Buschkowsky 2009.jpg, Heinz Buschkowsky
File:Dankward Buwitt (1998).jpg, Dankward Buwitt
MKr348187 Franziska Giffey (Berlinale 2024).jpg, Franziska Giffey
CurtKaiser KurtKaiser Mayor LordMayor Rixdorf Neukölln 1908-1919.png, Curt Kaiser
Ferat Koçak in 2022.jpg, Ferat Koçak
GUSTAVLEYKE.JPG, :de:Gustav Leyke, Gustav Leyke
AlfredScholz SPD Mayor BoroughMayor Neukölln Berlin 1919-1933.png, Alfred Scholz

Rixdorf became an independent city in 1899 and was incorporated as a borough of Berlin in the 1920 Greater Berlin Act, so the city of Rixdorf (later Neukölln) has only had three mayors and lord mayors respectively.The term ''Lord mayor#Equivalents in other languages, Lord Mayor'' is only a rough translation of the German '':de:Oberbürgermeister, Oberbürgermeister'', literally "Chief Mayor". Both the Hermannstraße and the Boddinstraße, together with the corresponding plazas, were named after Rixdorf's first mayor, Hermann Boddin."Der Patriarch"
''Neukoellner'', 19 September 2012). According to 1885 local civil engineering records, the same eponymous provenance applies to the name '' Hermannplatz''; cf
"Hermannplatz"
in: Roman Kaupert (ed.), ''Kauperts Straßenführer durch Berlin'', Zepter und Krone: Edition Luisenstadt, Berlin 2019. Furthermore, for Rixdorf's proposed rechristening, Boddin had insisted the city be renamed ''Hermannstadt'' after himself (''see above''), which underscores his egomaniacal side that his family tried to remedy after his death. None of Rixdorf's and Neukölln's three city mayors were natives, while only Alfred Scholz had a political party affiliation. As part of the borough Neukölln, the quarter of Neukölln has been administered by the borough mayor since 1920. As of 2025, the incumbent is :de:Martin Hikel, Martin Hikel ( SPD).For a list of all historical mayors and borough mayors, see
"Ehemalige Bürgermeister des Bezirkes"
''Bezirksamt Neukölln''.

Local building officials

Karl Nikolaus Bonatz 1930.png, Karl Bonatz
Franz Hoffmann 3 um 1935.jpg, :de:Franz Hoffmann (Architekt, 1884), Franz Hoffmann
Reinhold Kiehl.png, Reinhold Kiehl
John Martens 1904.png, :de:John Martens, John Martens
Hugo Erfurth - Portrait Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 1934.jpg, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Hans Heinrich Müller by Hans H. Müer.jpg, :de:Hans Heinrich Müller, Hans Heinrich Müller
ブルーノ・タウト.jpg, Bruno Taut
Josef Zizler 1929.jpg, :de:Josef Zizler, Josef Zizler

During the tenure of Reinhold Kiehl and his colleagues, for example fellow architect Heinrich Best, Rixdorf's ''Hochbauamt'' (office of public works service) and building authority received a stellar reputation across the German Empire, which attracted many young architects, who all earned their stripes in Rixdorf and Neukölln before becoming often renowned independent architects, for example Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, :de:Franz Hoffmann (Architekt, 1884), Franz Hoffmann and Bruno Taut.

International relations and awards

Neukölln as part of the borough Neukölln

* has been a ''Municipality of Europe'' since joining the Council of European Municipalities and Regions as a cooperative member on 1 April 1967;
* was awarded the Council of Europe's ''Europe Prize'' in 1987 for outstanding commitment to European integration before the fall of the Berlin Wall;
* is a ''Pilot City'' of the ''Intercultural Cities Programme'', also known as the ''International ICC Programme'', organized by the Council of Europe together with the European Commission;"Berlin-Neukölln represents one of the few cases within the Intercultural cities programme, in which membership is not associated with a city as such, but with a part of it, i.e. with a neighbourhood, or rather in administrative terms, with a district. This has to do with the complex and eventful history of Berlin, as well as with the important political and administrative changes it has gone through as from the end of World War II, in 1945." in
"Berlin-Neukölln: Intercultural Profile"
''Council of Europe'', 27 October 2011.
* maintains relationships with several German and international twin cities, municipalities or communes, among them Cologne, Boulogne-Billancourt, London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, Hammersmith and Fulham, Çiğli, Bat Yam, Marino, Lazio, Marino and Prague 5.

Neukölln as part of Berlin

* maintains relationships with several international twin cities, among them London, Istanbul, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Tokyo and Windhoek.

Rixdorf and Neukölln in media and popular culture

Literature

As an urban hotspot and important quarter of Berlin, Neukölln has always been the focus of many nonfiction books and academic works in the fields of history, education, social and political sciences. A few prominent natives and residents of Neukölln received biographies, such as architect Reinhold Kiehl and actor Horst Buchholz, or have written memoirs, for example actor Inge Meysel. Many consumer nonfiction books about Neukölln exist as well. Notable examples are ''In den Gangs von Neukölln – Das Leben des Yehya E.'' (2014) by :de:Christian Stahl, Christian Stahl, and the satirical ''Gebrauchsanweisung für Neukölln'' (1988) by :de:Johannes Groschupf, Johannes Groschupf, which he wrote as a student under the pseudonym ''Olga O'Groschen'', while the most popular book to this date has been the critical ''Neukölln ist überall'' (2012) by former borough mayor Heinz Buschkowsky.

In fiction, several authors have written about or set their stories in Neukölln, for example ''Käsebier takes Berlin'' (''Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm'', 1932) by Gabriele Tergit, ''Katharina oder Die Existenzverpflichtung'' (1992) by Iris Hanika, ''Hinterhofhelden'' (2009) by Johannes Groschupf, ''Hund, Wolf, Schakal'' (2022) by :de:Behzad Karim Khani, Behzad Karim Khani, ''Allegro Pastel'' (''Allegro Pastell'', 2020) by :de:Leif Randt, Leif Randt, the semi-autobiographical ''Die halbe Stadt, die es nicht mehr gibt'' (2012) by :de:Ulrike Sterblich, Ulrike Sterblich, ''Jesus von Neukölln'' (2022) by :de:Wolfgang Priewe, Wolfgang Priewe, or the children's book ''Nelly und die Berlinchen – Die Schatzsuche'' (2019) by Neukölln author Karin Beese. Over the decades, urban lyricists have written many poems about Rixdorf or Neukölln, for example ''Ede Petermann aus Rixdorf singt in der Verbannung'' by Otto Julius Bierbaum, published in ''Ausgewählte Gedichte'' (1921). The alternative literary artist collective around :de:Uwe Bremer, Uwe Bremer chose the name '':de:Werkstatt Rixdorfer Drucke, Werkstatt Rixdorfer Drucke'', but in fact operated from a Squatting, squat on Oranienstraße in Kreuzberg.

Theater and stage

:de:Horst Pillau, Horst Pillau wrote the comedy play ''Der Kaiser von Neukölln'', which premiered in 1987 at the :de:Hansa-Theater (Berlin), Hansa Theater. Since 1980, :de:Ades Zabel, Ades Zabel has created several musicals, plays and stage performances around the long-term unemployed Neukölln character ''Edith Schröder'', for example ''Tatort Neukölln'' and ''Einfach Edith! 25 Jahre Edith Schröder''. Kurt Krömer, himself a Neukölln native, has regularly emphasized the quarter in his stand-up comedy and other works, for example ''Pimp my Ghetto'' (2010) in support of the Körnerkiez. Neukölln author :de:Abdullah Eryilmaz, Abdullah Eryilmaz has written monodramatic works like ''Der Pfarrer von Neukölln'' (The Priest of Neukölln). Commissioned by theater manager and Neukölln resident Matthias Lilienthal for the inauguration of the new ''Hebbel am Ufer'' theater company, choreographer Constanza Macras and her dance ensemble Dorky Park produced the dance theater play ''Scratch Neukölln'', which premiered in 2003 at the Hebbel-Theater.

Film and television

Neukölln has been a favored location for national and international film and television productions, including Reality television, reality TV shows,Neukölln was the sixth leg's final pit stop in the The Amazing Race 32, 32nd season (2020) of the reality competition TV show ''The Amazing Race (American TV series), The Amazing Race'' by Elise Doganieri and Bertram van Munster; Sammi Turano
"The Amazing Race Recap for 11/18/2020: Double Legs"
''TV Grapevine'', 18 November 2020
archived
. as well as special effects work for many Babelsberg Studio, Babelsberg productions, most notably :de:Simon Weisse, Simon Weisse's ''Prop & Model Maker Berlin'', which have worked on films by the Wachowskis or Wes Anderson, and on TV series like ''Homeland (TV series), Homeland''. Some film works have focused primarily on Neukölln, either as a cultural setting or as an integral part of the narrative, often treating the quarter or borough as a perceived hotspot for the precariat, criminal gangs and alternative concepts of living.An early and now world-famous motion picture dealing with Neukölln in such a way, is the 1981 biographical drama ''Christiane F. (film), Christiane F.'' (''Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo'') by Uli Edel, Herman Weigel and Christiane F., Vera Christiane Felscherinow; here, however, the focus is not on the northern quarter of Neukölln, but i.a. on Gropiusstadt in the south of the Neukölln borough.

Neukölln feature films include the 1983 children's fantasy drama ''Conrad: The Factory-Made Boy'' (''Konrad oder Das Kind aus der Konservenbüchse'') by :de:Claudia Schröder, Claudia Schröder and Christine Nöstlinger,In the same year, the film was Remake, remade for US television by Nell Cox and Malcolm Marmorstein under the title ''Konrad''. the 2006 crime drama ''Tough Enough (2006 film), Tough Enough'' (''Knallhart'') by Detlev Buck, Zoran Drvenkar and Gregor Tessnow, the 2007 romance and crime drama ''Straight (2007 film), Straight'' by Nicolas Flessa, the 2009 young adult crime melodrama '':de:Gangs, Gangs'' by :de:Rainer Matsutani, Rainer Matsutani, Peer Klehmet and :de:Sebastian Wehlings, Sebastian Wehlings, the 2011 science-fiction melodrama ''Dr. Ketel'' (''Dr. Ketel – Der Schatten von Neukölln'') by Linus and Anna de Paoli, the 2013 comedy drama ''Ummah – Among Friends'' ('':de:Ummah – Unter Freunden, Ummah – Unter Freunden'') by :de:Cüneyt Kaya, Cüneyt Kaya, the 2014 television legal drama ''The Limits of Patience'' ('':de:Das Ende der Geduld, Das Ende der Geduld'') by Christian Wagner (director), Christian Wagner and :de:Stefan Dähnert, Stefan Dähnert, and the 2025 Richard III (play), Shakespearean criminal tragedy ''No Beast. So Fierce.'' (''Kein Tier. So Wild.'') by Burhan Qurbani and :de:Enis Maci, Enis Maci. Several television or streaming series have focused on Neukölln as well, for example the 2015 miniseries ''Ecke Weserstraße'' by Johannes Hertwig and Hayung von Oepen, the 2017 gang melodrama ''4 Blocks'' by :de:Richard Kropf, Richard Kropf, Hanno Hackfort and Bob Konrad, and the 2025 medical melodrama List of Apple TV+ original programming#Co-productions, ''Berlin ER'' (''Krank: Berlin'') by Samuel Jefferson and Viktor Jakovleski.

Many documentary works have been produced on Neukölln, for example the TV documentary miniseries ''Kiez knallhart: Berlin-Neukölln'' (2021) by Story House Productions, and mainly feature-length films, for example ''Neukölln Unlimited'' (2010) by Agostino Imondi and Dietmar Ratsch, '':de:Berlin: Hasenheide, Berlin: Hasenheide'' (2010) by Nana Rebhahn, '':de:Gangsterläufer, Gangsterläufer'' (2011) by :de:Christian Stahl, Christian Stahl, a precursor to his 2014 novel (''see above''), or ''Survival in Neukölln'' (2017, ''Überleben in Neukölln'') by Rosa von Praunheim. As part of its local and regional mandate, Berlin's public broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, RBB has co-produced several documentary films and series about Neukölln over the years, including history formats, for example ''Mein Neukölln – Wo gehste hin? Wo kommste her?'' (2015) by Neukölln native :de:Wolfgang Ettlich, Wolfgang Ettlich or ''Neukölln wie es einmal war'' (2024) by Svenja Weber.

Music

Songs referencing Neukölln or its residents are mostly from German artists, for example the 2017 Hip hop music, hip hop song ''Sonnenallee'' by AOB (Army of Brothers) and :de:Said (Rapper), Said, the 2004 indie rock song ''Wovon lebt eigentlich Peter?'' by :de:Winson, Winson, the 2008 rock song ''Neukölln'' (also known as ''Neukölln, Du alte Hure'') by :de:Gottfried Kalle Kalkowski, Kalle Kalkowski from the album ''Liebesgrüße aus Neukölln'' ("From Neukölln with Love"), the 2022 farewell Elegy#Music, elegy '':de:Besser kann ich es nicht erklären#Neukölln (Lied), Neukölln'' by Madeline Juno, the 2013 hip hop song ''Das ist Neukölln'' by Exxar and Kiddkey, the 2008 hip hop song ''Neukölln 44 feat. Kreuzberg 361'' by DJ AK in cooperation with several local German and Turkish Rapping, rappers, the 2011 satirical folk song ''Neukölln ist auf Scheiße gebaut'' by :de:Otto Kuhnle, Otto Kuhnle, the 2022 Alternative hip-hop, alternative hip hop song ''Sonnenallee'' by :de:Lena Stoehrfaktor, Lena Stoehrfaktor, or the Proletariat, proletarian love letter ''Dit is Neukölln'' ("This is Neukölln") by Kurt Krömer and :de:Gabi Decker, Gabi Decker, originally from a television Sketch comedy, skit and sung to the tune of ''I Got You Babe'', while tangential references are usually found in ''German hip hop, Deutschrap'' songs, for example the 2019 ''U7 Freestyle'' by :de:Luvre47, Luvre47. Italian progressive rock band Barock Project published their concept album ''Coffee in Neukölln'' in 2012.

Several instrumental works also reference Neukölln, most notably the 1977 David Bowie and Brian Eno track ''Neuköln'' [sic!], which was later reworked for orchestra by Philip Glass as the fifth movement of his ''Symphony No. 4 – Heroes'' (1996), and also inspired the fusion jazz diptych ''Neuköln (Day)'' and ''Neuköln (Night)'' by Dylan Howe (2007/14). Other instrumental works include the 1953 march ''Die Rixdorfer Blasmusik'' ("The Rixdorfian Brass Music") by :de:Otto Kermbach, Otto "der zackige Otto" Kermbach, the 1983 electronic composition ''Hasenheide'' by Dieter Moebius, the 2004 track ''Neukölln 2'' by Miss Kittin, Kittin, the 2012 deep house track ''Neukölln Burning'' by resident producer Deepchild, the 2011 Mogwai release ''Hasenheide'', or the 2012 tech house track ''Neukoelln Mon Amour'' [sic!] by Swayzak.

''Der Rixdorfer''

The song that cemented Rixdorf's infamy as a city of vice across Germany, which eventually prompted the renaming to ''Neukölln'', is the 1889 satirical polka March (music), march ''Der Rixdorfer'' ("The Rixdorfian"), also known under the title ''In Rixdorf ist Musike'',The German figure of speech ''da ist Musik [drin]'' (lit. "it contains music") has a more general meaning of something having verve and energy. At least one release also uses the alternate subtitle ''uff den Sonntag freu ick mir'' ("I'm looking forward to Sunday"), lifted directly from the song's original lyrics. with music by Eugen Philippi (1856–1920)Philippi was a pianist, ''kapellmeister'' and composer of popular music; Theo Stengel, Herbert Gerigk (eds.), ''Lexikon der Juden in der Musik'', Berlin 1940, col. 213, s.v. "Philipp, Eugen". He was born ''Eugen Peile Philipp'' on 14 October 1856 in Lübeck to Julius Salomon Philipp and Rosalia (Birth name#Maiden and married names, néé Silberstein). Philippi and his wife Gertrud (néé Arnfeld) had three children, and he died on 21 May 1920 in Charlottenburg, Berlin-Charlottenburg; ''Die Stimme'' 14 (8), p. 249. In his youth, he moved to Munich's Ludwigsvorstadt-Isarvorstadt, Isarvorstadt, where he became a musical director already in his early twenties; ''Adreßbuch von München für das Jahr 1880'', München 1880, p. 220; ''Münchener Anzeiger'' 31 (345), 11 December 1878, p. 2, col. 1, no. 5, s.v. "Bamberger Hof". He later mainly lived and worked in Berlin, i.a. in the :de:Königsstadt, Königsstadt district, where around 1892 he also ran a sample storage facility for cotillion items; W. & S. Loewenthal (eds.), ''Berliner Adreß Buch für das Jahr 1892'', Berlin 1892. From 1910 to 1917, he also owned a manor in Bobitz, Saunstorf (Bobitz), which he registered as a farmer with an oath of fealty (''Homagialeid''), and which he expanded and redeveloped between 1914 and 1916; Juliane Kruse
"Gutshaus Saunstorf in Mecklenburg-Vorpormmern"
''Historische Häuser'', 17 March 2024; ''Regierungs-Blatt für das Großherzogtum Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Amtliche Beilage Nr. 40'', §13.4, Schwerin 1910 (11 August 1910). Like many composers of the time, Philippi was a supporter of the Music royalties#Performance, performance royalties movement, which led to the GEMA (German organization)#Antecedents: 1902–1933, AFMA, founded in 1903 by Richard Strauss ''et al.'', argued for by Philippi with an article in a professional journal (Eugen Philippi, "Die Gründung einer Tantiemen-Anstalt in Deutschland", ''Deutsche Musikdirektoren-Zeitung'' 4 [36], Leipzig 1902), for which he was a regular contributor, i.a. with an article on John Philip Sousa. and lyrics by Oskar Klein (ca. 1852–1923).Oskar (also ''Oscar'') Klein was a lyricist, dramatist, Libretto, librettist for mostly operettas and burlesque music theater, and patron of Willy Prager. Until the 1910s, he also worked as president of the Berlin amusement society ''Tyll Eulenspiegel'', which was part of the rather tame satirical ''kabarett'' nightlife scene of late imperial Berlin that eventually faded during the war years and was supplanted by a more refined and modernized culture during Berlin's Roaring Twenties (Hans Ostwald, ''Das galante Berlin'', Berlin 1928
ch. 26
pp. 165–76). Klein's last work for theater mentioned in the German National Library archives is ''Am Nordseestrand'' (May 1910) with music by Hans Schlothen. From 1914 to 1922, Klein worked as editor of the satirical weekly magazine ''Der Brummer'', originally created as a humorous war magazine, and published i.a. by the ''Verlag Lustige Gesellschaft''. His biographical data is vague, but he was born on 7 June 1852 in Racibórz, Ratibor, where he became a merchant before choosing an artistic career; after moving to Berlin, he started out as director of the ''Literarisches Institut'' in 1881; Wilhelm Kosch (ed.), ''Deutsches Theater-Lexikon'' 3, Klagenfurt/Vienna 1960, p. 1013, s.v. "Klein, Oskar". Klein and his wife Wally (néé Ebstein) had one daughter; his date or year of death is unknown, but his final work as editor of ''Der Brummer'' was published in late 1922. It ranks among the first widely popular songs (''gassenhauer'') of the new ''Schlager music, schlager'' genre, which came under fire from conservative music commentators for its artistic inferiority and socially corrosive potential after the turn of the century.Sabine Giesebrecht-Schutte, "Zum Stand der Unterhaltungsmusik um 1900", in: Kaspar Maase, Wolfgang Kaschuba (eds.), ''Schund und Schönheit – Populäre Kultur um 1900'', Cologne/Weimar/Vienna 2001, p. 114–60 (134–36); Karl Storck, ''Musik-Politik – Beiträge zur Reform unseres Musiklebens'', Stuttgart 1911, pp. 75, 82, 102 sq.

The polka's original instrumental version was already performed in 1871 as a carnival song by Benjamin Bilse and his ensemble ''Bilse'sche Kapelle'' ("Bilse's Band"), the precursor to the Berlin Philharmonic, at Berlin's ''Concerthaus'' on Leipziger Straße, where the ensemble had a regular engagement from 1867 to 1885. It had been adapted from a traditional polka melody, which had been imported from the Bohemian Forest by two of the ensemble's Woodwind instrument, woodwind musicians, who had served in Bohemia as part of the :de:Kaiser Franz Garde-Grenadier-Regiment Nr. 2, ''Kaiser Franz'' regiment during the 1866 Austro-Prussian War.This instrumental version of the music had also been used for a brief period as an accompaniment to a dance by the clown ''Herr Boganowsky'' (pseud.), who later also worked for the '':de:Circus Busch-Roland, Circus Busch''.

After the polka had fallen into oblivion for many years, it suddenly exploded in popularity when the music was appropriated by Philippi and adapted to Klein's pre-existing lyrics in 1889.The received lyrics were written by Klein in 1889, and the music was adapted soon after; the song was first published in 1895 (Philippi, op. 18); cf. Lukas Richter, ''Der Berliner Gassenhauer: Darstellung – Dokumente – Sammlung'' (Volksliedstudien 4), Münster 2004, p. 96 sq., 253 sq. The first piano sheet version was published by ''Harmonie'' in 1904, arranged by :de:Victor Hollaender, Victor Hollaender. It is unknown, whether Philippi or Klein initiated the creation of the ''Rixdorfer'', but since Klein's ''Tyll Eulenspiegel'' was also a carnival society, the Sheet music, score of Bilse's original version was probably well-known in Berlin's small carnival circles. The new song was at first performed live by satirist Heinrich Littke-Carlsen in the late 19th century at Rixdorf's concert hall '' Neue Welt'' and Berlin's variety theater ''Berlin Wintergarten theatre, Wintergarten''. It soon became "probably the most widespread local dance",Anonymous commentary (ca. 1900): "wohl der verbreitetste Lokaltanz", in: ibid., p. 266. fostered the adoption of new dancing styles like the indecent ''Slow dance, schieber'',Littke-Carlsen himself had already coupled his performances of the song with the ''schieber'', which formed the term ''Rixdorfer'' into a synonym for the new dance; in 1912, correlating with Rixdorf's renaming to ''Neukölln'', the ''schieber'' was banned by law enforcement executive order; Gunda Bartels
"Wie aus Rixdorf Neukölln wurde: Der Ruf war ruiniert"
''Tagesspiegel'', 26 January 2012. spawned several imitations around Berlin like the ''Minna-Polka'' by Paul Lincke (1902),Furthermore, the term "Rixdorf" itself became a welcome artistic ingredient, either as part of song titles, e.g. ''Die Rixdorfer Blasmusik'' by Otto Kermbach (''see above'') or ''Neue Rixdorfer Polka'' by Philippi himself (1899, op. 29; Friedrich Hofmeister [ed.], ''Verzeichniss der im Jahre 1899 erschienenen Musikalien'', Leipzig 1899/1900, p. 131, col. 1, s.v. "Philippi, Eugen"), or as a lyrical replacement for other localities to potentially boost a song's popularity, substituting e.g. "Pankow" (or "Seckbach") in the polka ''Komm, Karlineken, Komm'', which was also composed by Eugen Philippi; Sabine Giesebrecht-Schutte, "Zum Stand der Unterhaltungsmusik um 1900", in: Kaspar Maase, Wolfgang Kaschuba (eds.), ''Schund und Schönheit – Populäre Kultur um 1900'', Cologne/Weimar/Vienna 2001, p. 114–60, n. 58 (135). and eventually spread throughout the empire's dance halls.

Several recordings of the song were published over the decades, the first being the ''Rixdorfer Bauern-Polka'' ("Rixdorfian peasants' polka"), a semi-instrumental version arranged by Max Büchner (1862–1906) with an accompanying comedic skit written by :de:Martin Bendix, Martin Bendix, recorded 1905 in Berlin onto an Phonograph cylinder, Edison cylinder, performed by the ''Büchner-Kapelle'' with actor and media pioneer :de:Gustav Schönwald, Gustav Schönwald, and widely released for the first time in 1914 by Homokord.The original 1905 recording title was simply ''Der Rixdorfer – Polka'' (Edison Gold Walze 15 250); Schönwald, Büchner and Bendix also recorded an alternate version, which was widely released as ''Rixdorfer Bauernhochzeit'' ("Rixdorfian country wedding") by Favorite Record in 1914 as well. A recording in the style of the popular all-male Close and open harmony, close harmony groups followed in 1938, performed by Georg Grohrock-Ferrari and his ensemble. An early East Germany, East German recording of the song in an arrangement by :de:Reinhard Müller (Komponist), Reiny Roland used alternate toned-down lyrics, originally written by :de:Josef Freudenthal, Josef Freudenthal, and was recorded in 1949 by actor :de:Erwin Hartung, Erwin Hartung, while the most prominent version with the original lyrics was recorded in 1959 by actor Willi Rose, both versions with :de:Otto Kermbach, Otto Kermbach's orchestra.A later reissue of Hartung's version by ''Deutsche Heimat'' mislabeled the song as recorded by Walter Künzel and his orchestra. The ''Rixdorfer'' remained popular through modern times, recorded in 1976 by James Last or in 1981 by Manfred Korth and the brass ensemble '':de:Spree-Athen, Spreeathener Blasmusik''. A symphonic version, recorded by baritone Hermann Prey with the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, was published in 2009.

Instrumental versions of the ''Rixdorfer'' have been released since the first recordings by Schönwald in 1905, for example a 1928 foxtrot Couplets (cabaret), couplet by Georges Boulanger (violinist), Georges Boulanger and arranged by Ben Berlin, Hermann "Ben Berlin" Biek for Vox Records,Vox 8570 E (master: 2137-1BB); Georges Boulanger Konzert-Jazz-Orchester, recorded November or December 1927, released January 1928; rereleased on Kristall 3008 ("Georges Boulanger und sein Orchester – Spezial-Arrangement: H. Bik"). a 1937 recording by Otto Kermbach's orchestra, or a 1981 version for barrel organ by Georg Kuwest. The most well-known instrumental version of Neukölln's unofficial anthem is the 1954 recording by conductor :de:Heinz Winkel, Heinz Winkel with the music corps of Berlin's ''Schutzpolizei''.

The song's original adulterated lyrics are usually recited with a strong Berlin German, Berlin dialect in the first person by a protagonist called Franz. They describe his free and easy Sunday partying and dancing spree in Rixdorf, and his meeting his long-time companion, an older woman called Rieke, who insinuates to also be a prostitute.Signified by the common Euphemism, euphemistic use of Dance, dancing for Sexual intercourse, intercourse and her words: ''Kost'n Groschen nur für die ganze Tour. Rieke lacht und sagt: "Na ja, dazu sind wir auch noch da!"'' ("It'll cost only a Groschen for the whole shebang. Rieke laughs and says: 'Well, that's what we're there for, too!'"). For the complete German lyrics, ''see'' e.g
"In Rixdorf ist Musike – Der Rixdorfer – Willi Rose"
''rixdorf.info''. The character's name ''Rike, Rieke'' is also a pun on the ''Rix'' in ''Rixdorf'', chosen to personify the city and its vice; ''see above'' for the toponym's alternate spelling as ''Rieksdorf''.

Quotes

Gallery

Notes

References

External links

Bezirksamt Neukölln
(district office website; Neukölln borough)

Neuköllner
(online web magazine; Neukölln)

KMS-Sonne
(neighborhood management website; Donaukiez)
*
Karlson
(neighborhood management online magazine)

Quartiersmanagement Berlin
(neighborhood management website; Berlin including Neukölln)

Der Bezirk Neukölln
(private news website; Neukölln borough)

Kiez und Kneipe Neukölln
(free local newspaper; Neukölln and Neukölln borough)

Facetten-Magazin Neukölln
(private news blog; Neukölln and Neukölln borough)

Kiezblog SoliNaR
(private neighborhood blog; Rixdorf, Neukölln and Neukölln borough)

Rixdorf in Berlin Neukölln
(private information website; Rixdorf, Neukölln and Neukölln borough)
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Neukolln
Localities of Berlin
Neukölln, *