Frohnau () is a locality in the

Reinickendorf Reinickendorf () is the twelfth borough of Berlin. It encompasses the northwest of the city area, including the Berlin Tegel Airport, Lake Tegel, spacious settlements of detached houses as well as housing estates like Märkisches Viertel. Subdi ...

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle Ag ...

of Berlin, Germany. It lies in the extreme northern part of the city. Frohnau is an affluent area characterized by many patrician villas from the early 20th century. During the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...

, it was part of

West Berlin West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...

History

Founded in 1910, Frohnau was created whole as a planned community, corresponding to the early twentieth-century idea of a garden city. Frohnau was founded in the Stolper Heath, which had been bought for the Berlin Terrain Commission by Count

Guido Henckel von Donnersmarck Guido Georg Friedrich Erdmann Heinrich Adalbert Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck, from 1901 Prince (''Fürst'') Henckel von Donnersmarck (born 10 August 1830 in Breslau, died 19 December 1916 in Berlin) was a German nobleman, industrial magnate, mem ...

in 1907. The competition for the design was won by a plan developed by Joseph Brix and Felix Genzmer. Their concept represented an

asymmetrical Asymmetry is the absence of, or a violation of, symmetry (the property of an object being invariant to a transformation, such as reflection). Symmetry is an important property of both physical and abstract systems and it may be displayed in pre ...

, seemingly natural development out of the dunes near the Havel River. Even the name "Frohnau" was determined by a contest. In 1920, Frohnau was annexed into the

Greater Berlin The Greater Berlin Act (german: Groß-Berlin-Gesetz), officially Law Regarding the Creation of the New Municipality of Berlin (german: Gesetz über die Bildung einer neuen Stadtgemeinde Berlin), was a law passed by the Prussian state government i ...

city-state A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world since the dawn of history, including cities such as ...

Architectures

The natural center of the city has always been the

train station A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track and a station building providing ...

and the nearby buildings. The casino tower serves as the symbol of Frohnau. The entire area is noted for its large mansion-like buildings. The architects responsible for the typical mansions include Walter and Johannes Krüger (the Church of St. John), Hart and Lesser (train station and casino tower), Max Meyer ( Buddhist house), Paul Poser, Max Scheidling, and Heinrich Straumer (better known for his work on Berlin's radio tower, ''Funkturm''). Frohnau includes one of the tallest buildings in Germany: The '' Richtfunkmast'' (microwave radio tower) measures 358.6 m (1177 ft) in height and was built between 1977–1979. Until

German reunification German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...

, this was the means for keeping

microwave Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging from about one meter to one millimeter corresponding to frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz respectively. Different sources define different frequency ra ...

radio contact with

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 ...

. The receiving tower on the West German side was in Gartow,

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...

. Alongside the ''Richtfunkmast'' is a 117 m (384 ft) free-standing steel framework tower, which is dwarfed in comparison. This was built between 1970 and 1973, and had 18 m (66 ft) diameter

parabolic antenna A parabolic antenna is an antenna that uses a parabolic reflector, a curved surface with the cross-sectional shape of a parabola, to direct the radio waves. The most common form is shaped like a dish and is popularly called a dish antenna or par ...

e to enable radio connection beyond the horizon to Lower Saxony until 1995. Since 2002

mediumwave Medium wave (MW) is the part of the medium frequency (MF) radio band used mainly for AM radio broadcasting. The spectrum provides about 120 channels with more limited sound quality than FM stations on the FM broadcast band. During the dayt ...

digital radio Digital radio is the use of digital technology to transmit or receive across the radio spectrum. Digital transmission by radio waves includes digital broadcasting, and especially digital audio radio services. Types In digital broadcasting s ...

transmissions have been tested in Frohnau at 1485 kHz. Since neither the ''Richtfunkmast'' nor the parabolic antenna tower was intended for mediumwave transmissions, an additional 10 m (33 ft) long-wire antenna was installed.

References

External links

Frohnau page of Reinickendorfer site
Localities of Berlin * Populated places established in 1910 {{Berlin-geo-stub