Berlin

BERLIN, capital and largest city of the German Reich, and also of the Land of Prussia. It is the seat of the parliament (Reichstag) and the Prussian diet (Landtag), and of the state offices of the German realm, except the supreme court of Justice (Reichsgericht), which is fixed at Leipzig. The city lies in a flat sandy plain, 'loft. above sea-level, on both banks of the navigable Spree, which intersects it from south-east to north-west. The highest point in the immediate neighbourhood is the Kreuzberg (2ooft.), a hill in the southern suburb of Schone berg, which commands a fine view of the city. In the middle ages, while Brandenburg was the capital of the Mark, Berlin was of very moderate importance at the junction of the Havel and Spree farther east, and by each river it was possible to approach the Oder and by the united one Brandenburg and the Elbe.

Growth of the City.

In 1646 the Great Elector (Frederick William) married a Dutch princess, and during his reign Bran denburg became a Protestant refuge and a field for Dutch energy. Important canal construction was undertaken and the name of the Friedrich Wilhelm canal from the Oder to the Spree com memorates an achievement of the Great Elector. These canal tracks were marked out by nature in the surface features of the country. The passing away of the great ice sheets has left on the northern plain of Europe long east to west lines of low hills formed of terminal moraines. The rivers follow the east to west troughs between moraines until they break through to the north at weak spots in the successive lines. (See Map.) These east and west courses were organized into the great canal communica tion system which emphasized the focal position of Berlin. Thenceforward Berlin gathered traffic to itself by an elaborate system of roads, canals and, later, railways, and thus became a new power, which, through the German empire, was to dominate the northern plain. In considering the focal position of Berlin it is important to emphasize also that it was situated not only on the east to west route but at the focus of the morainic lines of hills as well. (See Map.) With the consolidation of the German empire, after the Franco Prussian War of 187o-71, Berlin grew enormously. Housing, drainage and water supplies, which had previously been notori ously bad, were now greatly improved. Streets became well paved and lighting improved, while the Congress of Berlin in 1878 gave added status to the city. The great international railway lines, which developed after 187o, tended to focus here as well. By the beginning of the 2oth century Berlin was a first rate modern city. Almost equidistant from the remotest frontiers of Prussia, from north to south and from east to west, its situation has been the principal determining factor in its rapid rise to the position of the greatest industrial and commercial city on the Continent, and now the third largest city in the world. The oldest part of Berlin, the city and Alt-Kglln, built along the arms of the Spree, is, together with that portion of the town lying immediately west, the centre of business activity. The west end and the south-west are the residential quarters; the north-west is largely occupied by academic, scientific and military institutions; the north is the seat of machinery works; the north-east of the woollen manu factures; the east and south-east of the dyeing, furniture and metal industries, and the south of railway works.

In 187o Berlin was practically bounded on the south by the Landwehr canal, but it has since extended far beyond, and the Tempelhofer Feld, where military reviews were held, then prac tically in the country, is now surrounded by houses. The Land wehr canal, leaving the Spree near the Schlesische Tor (gate), and rejoining it at Charlottenburg, is flanked by fine boulevards and crossed by many bridges. The object of this canal was to relieve the congestion of the water traffic in the heart of Berlin. It was superseded in 1906 by the Teltow canal to the south, which leaves the Spree above Berlin at Kopenick, and, running south of Rixdorf, Siidende and Gross-Lichterfelde, enters the Havel at Teltow. In 1914 a ship canal to Stettin was begun, and in Sept. 1923 a new harbour, called the "West Harbour," was opened; here 68 large ships from the Elbe could be loaded simultaneously. The boundaries of the city remained the same from 186o to 192o, although in 1912 an association of the city and its suburbs was formed and the whole was called "Greater Berlin." A law passed in 192o, however, made this whole area one municipality. Area 332 sq. miles. An idea of the rapid growth of the city may be gathered from the population statistics. It has been esti mated that the figure in 1688 was only 8,000. In 1816 it was in 1871, 826,341 ; in 1905, 2,033,900 and in 1933 it was 4,236,416; part of this phenomenal rise is due to extension of boundaries.

Streets and Public Buildings.

The social and official life of the capital centres round Unter den Linden, which runs from the former royal palace to the Brandenburger Tor. This street, one of the finest and most spacious in Europe, nearly a mile in length, its double avenue divided by a favourite promenade, planted with lime trees, presents Berlin life in all its aspects. South of Unter den Linden lies the Friedrichstadt, with its parallel lines of straight streets—the official quarter of the capital —which extends to the busy Leipzigerstrasse, running from the Potsdamer Platz to the Donhoffplatz. This street and Unter den Linden are crossed at right angles by the Friedrichstrasse, 2m. long, and form the chief shopping centres. In the city proper, the Konigstrasse and the Kaiser Wilhelmstrasse, the latter a con tinuation of Unter den Linden, are the chief streets; while in the fashionable south-west quarter are Viktoriastrasse, Bellevue strasse, Potsdamerstrasse, Kurf iirstenstrasse and the Kurf iirsten damm. Among the most important squares are the Opernplatz, the Gendarmenmarkt, the Schlossplatz, the Lustgarten, the Pariserplatz, at the Brandenburg Gate, the Konigsplatz, the Wilhelmplatz, the circular Belle-Allianceplatz and, in the west ern district, the spacious Liitzowplatz. The establishment of the imperial government in Berlin naturally brought with it the erec tion of a large number of public buildings, and the great prosperity of the country (187o-1914), as well as the enhanced national feeling, enabled them to be built on a fine scale. First in im portance is the Reichstagsgebaude (see ARCHITECTURE), in which the federal council (Bundesrat) and the imperial parliament (Reichstag) hold their sittings. A special feature is the library, which is exceedingly rich in works on constitutional law. A house was also built for the Prussian parliament (Landtag) in the Albrechtstrasse. Other buildings included the patent office on the site of the old ministry of the interior, the ministry of posts (with post museum) at the corner of the Mauerstrasse and Leipzigerstrasse, the central criminal court in Moabit, the courts of first instance on the Alexanderplatz, the ministry of police and the Reichsversicherungsarnt, the centre for the great system of state insurance. In addition to these, many buildings were re stored and enlarged, chief among them being the armoury (Zeug hans), the war office and the ministry of public works, while the royal mews (Marstall) was entirely rebuilt. The new Berlin, the creation of 1870-1910, is dominated by the Unter den Linden, about which stand evidences of the great central administrative power wielded by the city. Against this array of administrative buildings those giving expression to artistic, intellectual and re ligious life seem somewhat subordinate. At the Schloss end of Unter den Linden are the cathedral, a sumptuous, though some what clumsy, Renaissance building erected in 1893, and the museums, university, library, opera and the former palace of the Crown Prince, now a gallery of modern pictures. A new museum is being built for the Pergamon antiquities. The Kaiser Friedrich museum, standing between two arms of the Spree, is a building of the Italian baroque style, built in 1904. Here is the national gallery of pictures the statuary of the Christian epoch and the numismatic collection. The Kunstgewerbe museum, at the corner of the Koniggrortzerstrasse and Albrechtstrasse, contains valuable specimens of applied art.

The former royal palace is a huge quadrangular building with four courts. The Weisse-Saal within was used for court pageants. In 1921 the Schloss museum of pottery, silver and furniture was opened in this palace. The Opernhaus and Schauspielhaus are state supported theatres of old standing. There are many private play-houses.

University and Schools.

The Friedrich Wilhelm university was founded in 181o, when Prussia had lost her celebrated Uni versity of Halle, which Napoleon had included in his newly created kingdom of Westphalia. It was as a weapon of war, as well as a nursery of learning, that Frederick William III. and those associated with its origin called it into existence. Wilhelm von Humboldt, Fichte, Neander, Savigny, Hegel, Niebuhr and others began to make its fame, and they were followed by many world-renowned successors, including Bopp, Schelling, Richter, the brothers Grimm. The great names of still later days are in numerable, but one may instance Virchow, du Bois Reymond, von Ranke, Curtius, Lipsius, Kiepert, Helmholtz, van't Hoff, Koch, E. Fischer, Waldeyer, Mommsen, Harnack, Penck, de Vries. The university has long been housed in a palace of Prince Henry of Prussia and not until 1913-19 were any important additions made to the overcrowded buildings, when two north wings were added.

There are 29 Gymnasien (classical schools), 46 Realgymnasien (modern), 23 Oberrealschulen, 1 Progymnasium, Berlin Marien dorf, 2 Real progymnasien and 41 Realschulen (commercial) in Berlin ; institutions of university rank include the technical high school at Charlottenburg, highly equipped for all scientific work, the school of mines, the agricultural college, the veterinary col lege, the seminary for oriental languages and the high school for music. Leibnitz founded in 170o the Royal Academy of Sciences, one of the most important of learned societies. Among the public monuments Rauch's statue of Frederick the Great, in Unter den Linden, is one of the most celebrated, while Begas' statue of William I. is enormous. A second group of monuments on the Wilhelmplatz commemorates the generals of the Seven Years' War ; and a third in the neighbourhood of the opera-house the generals who fought against ?Napoleon I. On the Kreuzberg a Gothic monument in bronze was erected by Frederick William III. to commemorate the victories of 1813-15; and in the centre of the Konigsplatz stands a lofty column in honour of the triumphs of 1864, 1866 and 187o-71. Literature, science and art are represented in different parts of the city by statues and busts of Rauch, Schinkel, Thaer, Beuth, Schadow, Winckelmann, Schil ler, Hegel and Jahn. On the Konigsplatz, between the column of Victory and the Reichstagsgebaude, is the bronze statue of Bis marck, unveiled in 1901. From the south side of the Konigsplatz, crossing the Tiergarten and intersecting the avenue from the Brandenburg gate to Charlottenburg, runs the broad Siegesallee, adorned by thirty-two groups of marble statuary representing Hohenzollern rulers, the gift of the emperor William II. to the city. The Tiergarten park has statues of Queen Louisa, Goethe. and Lessing.

Environs.

On the east, north and west the city was sur rounded at a distance of some 5m. from its centre by a thick belt of pine woods, the Jungfernheide, the Spandauer Forest and the Grunewald, the last-named stretching away in a south-westerly direction as far as Potsdam and fringing the beautiful chain of Havel lakes. After the opening of the circular railway in 1871 these districts were developed and a "villa colony" was built at the edge of the Grunewald between the station West-end and the Spandauer Bock. From these beginnings, owing mainly to the expansion of the important suburb of Charlottenburg, has resulted a complete transformation of the eastern part of the Grunewald into a picturesque villa suburb, which is connected by the Kur f urstendamm with the city. The former fishing villages on the shores of the lakes, notably the Wannsee, are now an important residential area.

Administration.

The rapid growth of the suburbs, which were independent communities, necessitated the adoption of cer tain main lines of procedure, applicable both to them and to Ber lin, in order to prevent conflicting action on the part of the authorities on one side and the other. This led, in 1911, to the creation of Greater Berlin, as, in the first instance, an association of the city with the more important outlying districts for special objects. It embraced the City of Berlin and the towns of Char lottenburg, Schoneberg, Neukolln, Wilmersdorf, Lichtenberg and the administrative circles of Teltow and Niederbarnim. Its ob jects were to institute a common control of streets, roadways and the elevated railway, also of building and street alignment plans, the uniform co-ordination of police regulations and the acquisition of large tracts of forest and of land for building. This special union came into force on April 1, 1912. It soon became manifest, however, that, beyond co-operation for special pur poses, a further co-ordination of the administrations of these places was requisite. It was not until the year 192o that it was possible, after long negotiations, to form a new municipality of Berlin, embracing all the suburbs under a single united ad ministration. A law to this effect was carried through the Prussian Constituent Assembly on April 27, 192o, and was put into force on October 1 of the same year. This law effected the centralization of Berlin and all its suburbs into one uniform municipal region (Stadtbezirk), but, nevertheless, left large powers of local self administration to the individual communes (Gemeinden). The water-supply is mainly derived from works on the Miiggel and Tegeler lakes, the river water being carefully filtered. The city is divided into twelve radial systems, each with a pumping station, and the drainage is forced through mains to sewage farms. In 1915 the city purchased the Berlin electrical works.

The city is very richly endowed with charitable institutions for the relief of pauperism and distress. In addition to the municipal support of the poor-houses there are large funds de rived from bequests for the relief of the poor. The hospital or ganization is also well appointed. State, municipal and private charity join hands in the relief of sickness. Of the municipal hospitals the largest is the Virchow hospital, situate in Moabit and opened in 1906; then comes that of Friedrichshain, while the state controls six (not including the prison infirmaries), of which the renowned Charite in the Luisenstrasse is the principal.

Industry, Trade and Commerce.

The old wool industry has become much extended and now embraces products such as shawls, carpets, hosiery, etc. Its silk manufactures, formerly so important, have, however, gradually gone back. It is particularly in the working of iron, steel and cloth and in the by-products of these that Berlin excels. The manufacture of machinery shows an enormous development. Among the chief articles of manu facture and production are railway plant, sewing machines, bi cycles, steel pens, chronometers, electric and electric-telegraph plant, bronze, chemicals, soap, lamps, linoleum, china, pianofortes, furniture, gloves, buttons and artificial flowers. It has extensive breweries. Berlin is also the great centre and the chief market for speculation in corn and other cereals which reach it by water from Poland, Austria and Russia, while in commerce in spirits it rivals Hamburg. It is also a large publishing centre and has be come a serious rival to Leipzig. Berlin has markets conveniently situated at various accessible places within the city, of which the central market near the Alexanderplatz is the most important. The central cattle market and slaughter-houses for the inspec tion and supply of the fresh meat consumed in the metropolis is in the north-east on the Ringbahn, upon which a station has been erected for the accommodation of meat trains and passengers attending the market.

Communications.

Berlin is the centre of the German net work of railways. No fewer than twelve main lines concentrate upon it. Internal communication is provided for by the Ring bahn, or outer circle, which was opened in 1871, and by a well devised system which connects the termini of the main lines. The through traffic coming from east and west is carried by the Stadtbahn, or city railway, which also connects with and forms an integral part of the outer circle. This line runs through the heart of the city. Originally a private enterprise, it has been owned by the State since 1878. Lying apart from the system are the Lehrter Bahnhof for Hamburg and Bremen, the Stettiner for Baltic ports, and the Gorlitzer, Anhalter and Potsdamer termini for traffic to the south. The North and South Tube, begun before 1914, was opened in 1923.

Berlin is a comparatively young town. When the Saxon North Mark was founded in the 12th century by Albert the Bear, after successful wars against the indigenous Slays, it comprised at first only a little land on the east bank of the Elbe. It was only gradually that Albert's successors penetrated farther into the districts of the upper Havel and the Spree, and only at the beginning of the 13th century that the first towns were founded in these districts. It can hardly be doubted that the choice of this particular site for the foundation of the two towns directly contiguous to one another was due to the wish to safe guard the important crossing of the Spree. Berlin grew up south of the Spree, Kolln north of it, on the island formed by the two arms of the river. The two towns must have been founded at about the same date. The first mention of Berlin in the records which have been preserved occurs in 1230; Kolln appears to be a little older. The charter and administration of the two towns was at first totally separate, even though they had a common civil government and common courts of justice from 1307 onwards. Only in 1709 were they completely amalgamated.

It was soon found that the situation of the two new towns was advantageous for commerce to the east and north-east, and they quickly became prosperous. Their military importance as bases for the German dominion became secondary when the fron tiers of the Mark were extended farther to the north and east. Their rapid commercial growth brought an increasing need to enter into closer and permanent relations with the commercial cities of northern Germany, which at this period were growing up rapidly. They joined the great Hanseatic League, which was formed in the latter half of the i 3th century, and embraced all important towns in northern Germany. They were soon among the leading cities of the Mark of Brandenburg and were thus involved in the many internal struggles resultant on the change of dynasties and the antagonisms which arose between princes, nobles, and cities after the extinction of the Ascanian line in the i4th century. Neither the Wittelsbachs, to whom the Emperor Louis the Bavarian granted the province, nor the house of Luxem burg, their successors, were able to establish their authority se curely in this district, and the cities of Berlin and Kolln thus long remained almost wholly independent, especially as their con nection with the Hanseatic League (q.v.) put them in a strong position, even towards their own sovereign prince. In 1391 they received complete judicial authority within their walls.

Conditions changed only after 1415, when the Hohenzollerns had permanently established their rule in the Mark and set about subjecting to their own sway all independent powers still sur viving. The Elector Frederick I. was still engaged principally with the recalcitrant local nobility, but his successor Frederick II. (1440-70) aimed at incorporating the large cities also more closely into his territory. He subdued Berlin and Kolln, although not without a sharp struggle, partly by exploiting the antagonisms existing within the cities themselves between the dominant fam ilies, the patricians, and the guilds of artisans. After his victory he deprived the cities of part of their old privileges, in particular of the right of concluding independent alliances with other towns. He built a fortress in K011n on the site later occupied by the royal palace, and his successor made this spot his principal seat. From the end of the 15th century Berlin-Kolln was the permanent res idence of the Hohenzollerns and the capital of the Electorate of Brandenburg.

In the 15th and 16th centuries the two towns were compar atively small in area and population. In 1654 their united popu lation was only about I o,000. At that time also they played a comparatively subordinate part in the history of the Electorate and could not challenge any comparison with the wealth and re pute of the great old commercial cities of Germany, such as Nuremberg, Augsburg, Strasburg, Frankfort or Cologne. They suffered severely, moreover, from sacks and forced levies during the Thirty Years' War.

It was only with the growing power of the Electors of Bran denburg from the 17th century onwards that the extent and im portance of their place of residence began to grow likewise. The Great Elector, Frederick William (164o-88), laid out exten sive fortifications, founded in the immediate neighbourhood three more small towns, Friedrichwerder, Dorotheenstadt and Friedrichstadt, which soon amalgamated with the two older towns introducing good paving and lighting in the main streets. By settling here some of the Huguenots who had left France on account of the religious persecutions of Louis XIV. he brought into the population of the city important new elements, whose influence on commerce and industry was considerable. At the end of the i 7th century there were over 5,00o French Huguenots in the area of the present Berlin, the total population being about 25,000. By completing the construction of the canal between the Spree and the Oder he opened up greater facilities for shipping and commerce.

His successor, Frederick I., the first king of Prussia, amalga mated the four towns into a single municipality, the city of Berlin, and, in the new palace built by Andreas Schluter, gave it the first non-ecclesiastical building of any architectural im portance. Almost adjoining this he built the Arsenal, laid out the plans on which this quarter of the modern town developed, and erected the beautiful monument to his father (by Schluter) which is still one of the ornaments of Berlin. He encouraged education by founding the Academy of Science (Akademie der Wissenschaften). Under the two kings who succeeded him the city expanded in all directions. Frederick William I. had the old fortifications razed, thus making further expansion possible. Frederick the Great adorned the city with a number of new buildings, among which the Opera deserves chief mention. He also turned the Tiergarten into a large park. It was only under him that the transformation of Berlin into a modern great city be gan. The population, which had numbered about 70,00o at his accession, had risen by the end of the i8th century to 172,000. Even the temporary occupation of the town by the Austrians and the Russians during the Seven Years' War was unable to check its development.

Berlin passed through a difficult period at the beginning of the i9th century, when it was occupied by the French after the Battle of Jena and the King was obliged to transfer his seat temporarily to Konigsberg, in Prussia. This was, however, only a short break, which was followed by a period of renewed and rapid prosperity after the fall of Napoleon and the restoration and enlargement of the state of Prussia. Berlin was now the capital of the second largest German state, the centre of a European world power, and as Prussia's influence over the development of Germany grew in the following decades, so did Berlin rise higher and higher above the other German towns. The foundation of the University in 1809 and the erection of the old Museum by Schinkel (1824-28) gave the town new centres for its intellectual life. By the middle of the 19th century the position of Berlin in Prussia was already such that, after the outbreak of the revolution of 1848, the course of the subsequent struggles were mainly determined by the se quence of events in Berlin.

Of decisive importance for the further development of Berlin was the construction of the German railway system, which began about the middle of the 19th century. As Berlin was the capital of Prussia, and after 1871 also of the German Reich, it was made the terminus or meeting point of the most important railway lines. The Borsig machinery factories which were established in the first half of the i9th century were the starting point of great industrial prosperity. The city expanded with incredible rapidity devouring one suburb after another. Including those suburbs which were either entirely incorporated or at least organically united with Berlin, topographically and economically, the population of the town was 198,00o in 1815, 330,00o in 1840, 548,00o in 1861 at William I.'s accession, 826,00o in 1871 at the foundation of the German Empire, 1,764,00o in 1890, 2,529,00o in 1900, 3,730,000 in 1910, 4,024, 165 in 1926. In 1881 the local railway (Stadtbahn) was built, affording rapid connections from west to east. Splendid new buildings grew up, and gradually the centre of Berlin life was attracted more and more away from the old town, Unter den Linden, the Friedrichstrasse and the Leipzigerstrasse to the new western quarter, the streets round the Tauentzienstrasse and the Kuf urstendamm. At present Berlin ranks as the third city of the world.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-There is no really good history of Berlin. 0. Bibliography.-There is no really good history of Berlin. 0. Schwebel, Geschichte der Stadt Berlin (1888) is popular. See also F. Holtze, Geschichte der Stadt Berlin (1906) and Geschichte der Stadt Berlin, compiled by the "Verein fur Geschichte Berlins" for the Inter national Historical Congress, 1908 (bibl.) . BRA.) BERLIN, a city of Coos county, New Hampshire, U.S.A., the metropolis of the northern part of the State, on the Androscoggin river, about 75m. N.W. of Portland. It is served by the Grand Trunk and the Boston and Maine railways. Its area is 57.8sq. miles. The population was 8,886 in 19oo; 16,104 in 1920, of whom over a third were foreign-born; and was 20,018 in 1930 by the Fed eral census. It is in the heart of the White mountains, 16m. from the base of Mt. Washington. Immense water-power from the falls of the river an 3 vast supplies of raw material in the forests of Quebec and northern New England have combined to favour the develop ment of saw, pulp and paper-mills. The paper-mills, which make news-print, bond, and other varieties, are among the largest in the country. The output of the 19 manufacturing establishments in 1927 was valued at $34,630,520. Berlin was settled in 1821, incorporated as a township in 1829, and chartered as a city in 1897.