Marzahn () is a locality within the

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 Marzahn-Hellersdorf in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

. Berlin's 2001 administrative reform led to the former boroughs of Marzahn and Hellersdorf fusing into a single new borough. In the north the Marzahn locality includes the neighbourhoods of ''Bürknersfelde'' and ''Ahrensfelde'', an overbuilt strip of land which once had belonged to the

Brandenburg Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an area of 29,480 squ ...

municipality of

Ahrensfelde Ahrensfelde is a municipality in the district of Barnim, in Brandenburg, Germany. It is situated on the Barnim Plateau at the city limits of Berlin, about northeast of the city centre. The municipal area comprises the villages of Ahrensfelde, Bl ...

and was incorporated into Berlin in 1990.

Geography

Subdivision

Marzahn is divided into three zones (''Ortslagen''): *Marzahn-Nord (''Berlin-Ahrensfelde'') *Marzahn-Mitte *Marzahn-Süd

History

The historic village of Marzahn was first mentioned as ''Morczane'' in a 1300 deed by Margrave Albert III of Brandenburg-Salzwedel, when he granted the estates to the Friedland

Cistercian The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint B ...

abbey (in today's

Neuhardenberg Neuhardenberg is a municipality in the district Märkisch-Oderland, in Brandenburg, Germany. It is the site of Neuhardenberg Palace, residence of the Prussian statesman Prince Karl August von Hardenberg (1750-1822). The municipal area comprises th ...

). After the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of batt ...

it fell to Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg. The new village church was finished in 1871 according to plans by Friedrich August Stüler, another landmark is the Marzahn

post mill The post mill is the earliest type of European windmill. Its defining feature is that the whole body of the mill that houses the machinery is mounted on a single vertical post, around which it can be turned to bring the sails into the wind. All ...

, rebuilt in 1994. The village became part of Greater Berlin in 1920, as a locality of the Lichtenberg district. Marzahn was the site of a labour camp (today a water treatment plant), where

Romani Romani may refer to: Ethnicities * Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia ** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule * Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...

were interned during the

1936 Summer Olympics The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: ''Olympische Sommerspiele 1936''), officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad (German: ''Spiele der XI. Olympiade'') and commonly known as Berlin 1936 or the Nazi Olympics, were an international multi-s ...

in Berlin, away from visitors' eyes. As a part of the Nazi '' Porajmos'' extermination policy, up to 2000 inmates remained there until in 1943, when they were deported to

Auschwitz-Birkenau Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed int ...

, where most of them were gassed. In 1941 the large factory of the ''Carl Hasse & Wrede'' machine tool company (now

Knorr-Bremse Knorr-Bremse AG is a German manufacturer of braking systems for rail and commercial vehicles that has operated in the field for over 110 years. Other products in Group's portfolio include intelligent door systems, control components, air c ...

) was erected, where hundreds of forced labourers were employed. The victims were buried at the nearby ''Parkfriedhof''; a memorial marks the site. On 21 April 1945, during the opening phase of the

Battle of Berlin The Battle of Berlin, designated as the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, and also known as the Fall of Berlin, was one of the last major offensives of the European theatre of World War II. After the Vistula– ...

, the city's eastern district of Marzahn was the first in Berlin to be conquered by the Soviet

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...

under General

Nikolai Berzarin Nikolai Erastovich Berzarin (Russian: Никола́й Эра́стович Берза́рин; 1 April 1904 – 16 June 1945) was a Soviet officer in the Red Army during the Stalinist era and the Second World War. In 1945 he became the first town ...

's command. A single-storey building (Landsberger Allee 563), apparently the "first freed house", still stands today on ''Landsberger Allee'' as a memorial to the Soviet victory after the battle. A part of

East Berlin East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as West Berlin. From 13 August 1961 u ...

from 1949, Marzahn remained a rural site until 1977 when vast

housing estate A housing estate (or sometimes housing complex or housing development) is a group of homes and other buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country. Popular throughout the United States ...

s were built on its fields by order of the

East German East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

authorities. The construction, carried out in the typical plattenbau prefabricated-building style, dragged on until the late 1980s. In the course of the considerable population growth Marzahn was separated from Lichtenberg in 1979 to become a borough in its own right and in 1986 the new Hellersdorf district (including Kaulsdorf and

Mahlsdorf Mahlsdorf () is a locality (''Ortsteil'') within the Berlin borough (''Bezirk'') of Marzahn-Hellersdorf. Until 2001 it was part of the former borough of Hellersdorf. History The locality was mentioned for the first time in a document of 1345, ...

) was split from it. In 1987, Marzahn hosted the ''Berliner Gartenschau'', a

horticulture Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...

show, on the occasion of Berlin's 750th anniversary. The area today called ''Erholungspark Marzahn'' includes the ''Gärten der Welt'' (Gardens of the World) project, showing Chinese, Japanese, Balinese, and Korean

labyrinth In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth (, ) was an elaborate, confusing structure designed and built by the legendary artificer Daedalus for King Minos of Crete at Knossos. Its function was to hold the Minotaur, the monster eventually killed by ...

s modelled on

Hampton Court Palace Hampton Court Palace is a Grade I listed royal palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, southwest and upstream of central London on the River Thames. The building of the palace began in 1514 for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the chie ...

and

Chartres Cathedral Chartres Cathedral, also known as the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres (french: Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres), is a Roman Catholic church in Chartres, France, about southwest of Paris, and is the seat of the Bishop of Chartres. Mostly con ...

, as well as a garden of the

Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...

. After 1989 (as the Berlin Wall fell and Germany reunified), the Marzahn estate became known for being a place synonymous with neo-Nazis and their activities and "foreigners were warned not even to visit there", despite the area having a significant

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

n and

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making ...

ese community.

Public transport

Marzahn is served by the

S-Bahn The S-Bahn is the name of hybrid urban-suburban rail systems serving a metropolitan region in German-speaking countries. Some of the larger S-Bahn systems provide service similar to rapid transit systems, while smaller ones often resemble c ...

lines S7 and S75 at the stations '' Springpfuhl'', '' Poelchaustraße'', '' Marzahn'', '' Raoul-Wallenberg-Straße'', '' Mehrower Allee'' and ''

''. Tramway connections to the inner city are provided by the ''M6'' and ''M8'' lines of the Berlin Straßenbahn.

Gallery

File:Marzahn 08-2015 windmill.jpg,

Post mill The post mill is the earliest type of European windmill. Its defining feature is that the whole body of the mill that houses the machinery is mounted on a single vertical post, around which it can be turned to bring the sails into the wind. All ...

File:Rolf Biebl Brunnen der Generationen.jpg, Rolf Biebl fountain File:Unkenpfuhle Marzahn 04.JPG, Unkenpfuhle

References

External links

Marzahn page on info-marzahn-hellersdorf.de
(archived on ''22 June 2016'' by ''Web Archive'') {{Authority control Populated places established in the 1300s Localities of Berlin * Former boroughs of Berlin Housing estates in Germany