An ‹Ur-Berliner› is someone who was born in Berlin. Ideally, their parents were also Berliners—and their grandparents too. Even better if you can trace your ancestors back to a local mammoth hunter clad in a bearskin. Back when Berlin actually belonged to the Berliners, and people knew their neighbors. Of course, the place wasn’t yet called Berlin.
Prehistoric and Early Settlements
«Before God, all people are actually Berliners.» Theodor Fontane
An archaeological site near Cottbus, about an hour’s drive south of Berlin, has yielded the oldest evidence of human life in the region, dating back approximately 130,000 years. This is evidenced by flint tools from that period, discovered by researchers in an open-cast mine. Strictly speaking, these ‹Ur-Brandenburger› were not representatives of modern humans (Homo sapiens) but rather their extinct relatives (Homo neanderthalensis).
Animal bones and plant remains reveal that the site was once a water-rich valley, overgrown with forest tundra vegetation. Sea buckthorn, willows, birches, and various herbs, grasses, and mosses thrived there. The climate and vegetation were similar to those found in northern Scandinavia today, making it possible for Neanderthals to migrate into the area—at least during the summer months. In winter, however, snow and ice likely rendered the region inhospitable, prompting these Ice Age people to move further south.
Fast forward about 120,000 years. The landscapes of the region are now almost exclusively of glacial and post-glacial origin. Moraines have shaped flat, hilly terrains covered with extensive forests. Primeval river valleys and lowlands form wide plains, rich with rivers and meadows. Above all, the area is characterized by its abundance of lakes. With over 3,000 large and small lakes, the state is one of the most water-rich regions in Europe. This natural feature has profoundly influenced the history of settlement and the founding of towns from the very beginning.
Neolithic Era
Around 4000 BCE, the Neolithic Revolution brought agriculture and permanent settlements to the region. One of the earliest farming communities identified in the area was the Linear Pottery culture.
The Linear Pottery culture, also known as the Linear Band Ware culture or Linear Ceramic culture (German: Linearbandkeramik or LBK), derives its name from the distinctive linear decoration on its pottery, characterized by incised or painted lines and bands. LBK communities typically lived in longhouses—large, rectangular timber-framed structures capable of housing multiple families. These settlements were often situated in fertile loess regions, rich in nutrients and ideal for agriculture.
Notably, the Linear Pottery culture was among the first Neolithic cultures in Europe to practice agriculture. They cultivated crops such as wheat, barley, and legumes, and domesticated animals like cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats.
Bronze and Iron Ages
By the Bronze Age (around 2000–800 BCE), the region witnessed the rise of more complex societies, including the Lusatian culture, renowned for its fortified settlements and advanced metallurgy. During the Iron Age (around 800 BCE–1 CE), Germanic tribes, such as the Semnones and later the Suebi, settled in the area.
The name ‹Suebi› was used by Roman authors to describe a confederation of tribes, including the Semnones, Marcomanni, Quadi, and others, who shared cultural and linguistic traits. The Semnones were mentioned by the Roman historian Tacitus in his work ‹Germania›, written around 98 CE. According to Tacitus, the Semnones were one of the most ancient and prominent tribes among the Suebi. The region around the Elbe River, in what is now modern-day Brandenburg and Saxony in Germany, is considered the heartland of the Semnones—and this for a long time.
The Semnones can trace their history back over a thousand years, an impressive span even on a global scale. Few cultures in world history can claim such continuity of settlement. Current research suggests that the origins of the Semnones date back to the pre-Roman Iron Age, specifically the later Hallstatt period (around 500 BCE), when the idea of a Roman Empire was inconceivable. At that time, the eternal city still exuded the charm of an idyllic provincial nest, while the Persians ruled vast stretches of the ancient world—from the Indian subcontinent in the east to the Balkans in Europe and Libya in North Africa. And it would be over 300 years before Alexander the Great, Europe’s first ‹superhero›, emerged on the world stage.
Like other Germanic tribes, the Semnones were primarily a warrior society, placing a strong emphasis on martial prowess. They practiced agriculture and animal husbandry, and their social structure was likely organized around kinship and tribal affiliations.
The Semnones played a crucial role not only in trade along the Amber Road but also in the broader Germanic and European context. Their tribal territories lay strategically between the amber-rich Baltic coast—which the Romans referred to as the ‹Mare Suebicum›, or Suebian Sea—and the Roman Limes to the west and south.
The Semnones were so significant that the Roman emperor Domitian invited one of their kings, Masios, as well as a seer named Ganna, a representative of Semnonian spirituality, to Rome. This was an honor the otherwise arrogant Roman Empire reserved only for important allies and representatives of powerful nations it sought to win over. Presumably, the Romans viewed the Semnones as the overlords of all the Suebi and aimed to secure their goodwill through such gestures. The Romans had already faced numerous ‹problems› with descendants of these people since the Gallic Wars of Julius Caesar and held unfavorable memories of them.
If a single Suebian prince and army leader like Ariovistus (died 54 BCE) could suddenly emerge from ‹Germania Magna›, subjugate powerful Celtic peoples, and expand his retinue from 15,000 to 120,000 in just a decade, what might the entire Suebian confederation be capable of? It is possible that the Roman Empire even paid regular protection money to the Semnones to deter them from invading, particularly through their Suebian allies, the Marcomanni. This could explain the relative prosperity of the Semnones compared to other Germanic tribes of the time.
In any case, this could not have been due to the extraordinary fertility of the farmland in the Semitic settlement area, as it was only around 300 years ago that targeted melioration turned the woodland and marshland into a profitable agricultural landscape. Nonetheless, the region was relatively densely populated.
Early Medieval Period
In the 7th and 8th centuries AD, West Slavic tribes began to migrate into the region, often referred to as the Wends in ancient chronicles. These tribes’ ancestors were Proto-Slavic peoples, likely originating in the area north of the Carpathian Mountains, between the Dnieper and Vistula rivers—lands associated with the Zarubintsy and Przeworsk cultures.
The Slavs made use of the region’s many rivers and lakes to support their livestock. From the riverbanks, they cleared forests to create fields. They established settlements such as Brenna, the royal seat of the Slavs, located on an island. This castle and settlement later gave the region its name—Brandenburg. Other key settlements included Spandow (today Spandau, a district of Berlin) and Köpenick (now also part of Berlin).
These fortified castle settlements, dating from the 9th century, remained the largest centers in the area until the early 11th century. Spandow, in particular, located at the confluence of the Spree and Havel rivers, was strategically positioned for trade and defense. Over time, the remaining Germanic population intermingled with the Slavic settlers, and the two cultures began to merge into newly forming tribes.
In 789, Charlemagne waged war against the Slavs along the Elbe and Saale rivers, aiming to incorporate the land into his empire. He sought to establish buffer zones around his vast domain to protect it from external threats. But it wasn’t until the winter of 928/929 that King Henry I successfully conquered Brandenburg. By the time of his death in 936, all Slavic tribes between the Elbe and Oder rivers had been subjugated. His son, Otto I, continued his father’s work, consolidating German rule with the help of the Church.
In 946, Otto I established the bishopric of Havelberg, followed by the foundation of the bishopric of Brandenburg in 948—marking the first mention of Brandenburg, spelled as “Brendanburg” in official records. The founding of the archbishopric of Magdeburg in 968 aimed to serve as the ecclesiastical center for the lands east of the Elbe, which had previously been under the jurisdiction of Mainz.
For the next two centuries, the region continued to change hands. Slavic uprisings in 932 and 955 were violently suppressed, but in 983, the Slavs rose again and temporarily regained control of the lands east of the Elbe, pushing back both Christianity and German authority. The Hevell and Abodrite tribes even crossed the Elbe and destroyed Hamburg. From that point on, a series of wars ravaged the Elbe border, with neither side able to secure any lasting victories. It wasn’t until the mid-12th century that German territorial lords began to make serious attempts to establish full German sovereignty over the region.
High and Late Medieval Period
In 1134, Emperor Lothar III granted the Ascanian prince Albrecht von Ballenstedt, known as the Bear (born around 1100), the part of the margraviate that had remained German—the Altmark (or Nordmark). The Ascanians were an influential Central German noble family, named after their castle seat in Aschersleben (known in Latin as Ascharia). Originally from the Swabian-Franconian region, they had been based in Saxony, northeast of the Harz Mountains, since the 10th century.
Through military conflict, the subjugation of Slavic principalities, and inheritance, Albrecht eventually came into possession of Brandenburg. Albrecht’s son, Otto I, worked to consolidate and expand his father’s legacy. One key method for securing the newly acquired territory was the planned settlement of the land.
The largely depopulated region was gradually Germanized, with settlers brought in primarily from the Ascanian Harz region and the Lower Rhine area. As the eastern territories were colonized, merchants and settlers from the Rhineland, Flanders, Holland, and Saxony also arrived. This migration played a significant role in the establishment of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, beginning in 1157.
Spandau, which was rebuilt as a castle in 1175, remained a key base for the steady eastward expansion for many years. The citadel, still standing today and in use until the Second World War, is located near the old town—on the site where both Slavic and later Ascanian castles once stood.
Further fortified bases were established north of Spandau in what are now the Berlin districts of Wedding and Reinickendorf, as well as Templar settlements in Rixdorf and Tempelhof. From Spandau, military campaigns were launched, such as the one against the Pomeranians in 1180.
Throughout the 12th and 13th centuries, nearly all the towns in the Mark were founded—around 100 in total. Approximately 2,500 villages were established during this period, many of which still exist today. Some emerged from previously Wendish villages, while others grew around newly built castles or monasteries. These settlements were often designed as transportation hubs and places of refuge for the settlers.
By the end of the period, around 200,000 people had settled in the region’s towns and villages, with about 50,000 coming from within the Mark itself. The Slavs accounted for roughly a third of the total population. While the region was Germanized through the settlement of peasants, towns, and monasteries, the Slavic population was neither exterminated nor expelled. Many former Slavic villages became mixed communities, with both Slavic and German settlers coexisting. In some Slavic settlements (Kietze) and on the edge of the Ascanian Margrave region, Slavic culture has survived to the present day; the Sorbs in the Spreewald region serve as an example.
The city of Berlin was officially founded in 1237. Ironically, the city began its history as a divided settlement—Berlin and Cölln—located in a modest, swampy hinterland on either side of the Spree River. This area offered no natural resources or fortifications and was an impassable marshland, with only a few scattered pine forests. Yet, its strategic location at the crossroads of medieval trade routes made it highly significant. The settlement consisted of two small villages, each with a few wooden houses, located along a trade route near what is now the Mühlendamm Bridge. Two ferry piers, so to speak.
The exact date of Berlin and Cölln’s founding remains unknown, as no founding documents have survived—the original records were lost in the great fire of St. Lawrence’s Day in 1380. Documentary evidence of the towns only appears decades after the first settlers had arrived. The earliest known mention of Cölln is dated October 28, 1237. Since Berlin and Cölln were twin towns, this date is also considered the founding of Berlin.
Urban Development
All other capitals of Europe came into being differently than Berlin. While most capitals naturally evolved into the heart of their respective countries, drawing all attention and forces, Berlin was an exception. The twin city was never the natural center of the country but rather a frontier post that had to be defended year after year.
From its humble beginnings to the present day, Berlin has only grown as new people have arrived from the west or south of the country, or even from abroad. When the population grew, it was because margraves, electors, and kings called new colonists to the region. The displaced, the oppressed, the dispossessed, and all sorts of thugs came. It did not grow organically out of itself, but like a colonial city, like American or Australian cities in the nineteenth century. It was repeatedly expanded, divided, and reunited by decree, and new masses of people had to be brought in by some kind of force.
For centuries, it was hardly mentioned when it came to the affairs of the German Empire. Located on its northeastern periphery, it was too far away from the core areas of German culture and history. The stream of German culture from the sources in the west and south of Germany barely reached there. Then it dried up, swallowed up by the Ice Age dunes on whose sands Berlin is built. This city has always been a marginal existence, and in some ways, it still is.
The two rival moieties were in no hurry to unite. While the other indigenous peoples of Europe were working hard to bring their cities up to world standards as quickly as possible, the Berliners did not care for the hurly-burly of the medieval world. They ostentatiously stayed out of everything, and no matter what was offered to them, they always rejected it. Eventually, in 1307, Berlin and Cölln teamed up to lead the defense of the Brandenburg region and defeat the robber barons who terrorized merchants and peasants in the area.
Until 1448, Berlin remained an almost autonomous outpost of the empire. However, following the forceful quelling of citizens’ resistance opposing the construction of a castle on Spree Island and the subsequent imposition of land concessions, control of the city shifted to Frederick II, the Elector of Brandenburg. He was a member of the Swabian Hohenzollern dynasty, which was to shape the country’s destiny for the next five centuries. This very castle was later expanded, blown up in 1950 and since rebuilt, served to demonstrate victory over the rebellious Berliners and to suppress them more effectively.
The Hohenzollerns, over time, established Berlin as their residence and designated it the capital of the Mark Brandenburg. Life was apparently simple in the 15th century, as the historian Trithemius noted: «Life here consists of nothing but eating and drinking.» While Notre-Dame added a touch of class to Paris and Westminster Abbey to London, Berlin was not yet making much of a splash. Even the electors themselves lived modestly. Their lives were centered around their feudal responsibilities, managing their lands, overseeing agricultural production, and collecting rents from their tenants.
Plagues and fires repeatedly depopulated the city, bringing trade and commerce to a standstill barely after it had recovered. Five times between 1348 and 1576, the Black Death raged through the dirty streets of the two towns of Kölln-Berlin, killing thousands. The depopulated fledgling settlement constantly demanded new influxes from the empire.
The last chance to completely do without Berlin was lost in 1648. Like the rest of Brandenburg, the city was devastated by the Thirty Years’ War. In a futile attempt to navigate the religious conflicts, the rulers of Brandenburg sought to befriend both Protestant and Catholic armies but ended up alienating both, ultimately leaving an undefended Berlin vulnerable to its own destiny.
In the war’s aftermath, Brandenburg looked like a wasteland in many places; neither people nor domestic animals could be found for miles. The former farmland became covered with forest. Many villages were razed to the ground, fell back into insignificance or have remained deserted to this day.
Berlin also suffered a terrible setback. The city found itself reduced to a mere 556 and 379 households in the respective districts of Berlin and Kölln. It withered under Swedish rule. The misery was so severe that there were discussions of abandoning the city entirely. But then, something came up, and they stayed.
Prussian Expansion
The country recovered under the ‹Great Elector› Frederick William (1640-88). The name Prussia was now applied to the Brandenburg-Prussian state as a whole, and Brandenburg’s history became that of Prussia. During the Northern Wars (1674-1679), the territory of the Hohenzollerns was expanded until it became the powerful Kingdom of Prussia in 1701.
After Frederick I had crowned himself king, he made Brandenburg a Prussian province and Berlin the capital of Prussia. From here, he wanted to enforce his policy of ‹blood and iron.› The rise to a major European power began, but that is another story. Berlin remained an unloved place, dominating the northern Germanic realm above all militarily.
Once again, it was foreign immigrants who had to fill the ranks, now summoned by an utterly insignificant elector who ruled over a handful of stubborn lazybones. Berlin was a miserable town in Brandenburg with no cultural value. To buy some prestige, the rulers needed money. It was clear that their treasuries would not be filled by such a backward population. Those barbarians. Back then, Berlin was not the city of light it is today. It did not attract anyone with its glitz and glamour. So they tried to attract an economically educated intelligentsia by promising religious freedom.
Among the first new arrivals were some wealthy Jewish families who had been expelled from Vienna in 1671. Fourteen years later, 5,600 Huguenot Protestants arrived, having been expelled from France by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. These well-trained merchants and highly skilled craftsmen – including jewelers, tailors, chefs, and restaurateurs – brought a new sophistication to the city.
After the Edict of Potsdam in 1685, religiously persecuted people from half of Europe flocked to the barren wasteland: Dutch and Salzburger, Palatine and Swiss, Bohemian and Moravian Methodists. By 1700, only a quarter of the population were native Berliners. About 1/5 of the population spoke French as their mother tongue.
Stendhal, the French writer, made several observations about Brandenburg, particularly Berlin, during his visit in 1806. He entered Berlin on October 27, 1806, as part of Napoleon’s entourage. Stendhal noted:
«In all the places which are unpaved, your foot goes down up to the ankle; and sand has turned the outskirt of the city into a desert; they only grow trees and a little grass. I don’t know what gave them the idea to put a city in the middle of all this sand; they say that this town has one hundred and fifty-nine thousand inhabitants.»
Increasing industrialization and the resulting need for labor led to a steady influx of immigrants.
Each year, 12,000 new arrivals sought work and a better life, leaving behind the villages and small towns they had come from. Severe underemployment among agricultural workers, particularly in the eastern regions caused large numbers of German and Polish peasants arrived from Pomerania, East Prussia, and Silesia. In the 1870s, the population exceeded one million for the first time. After the founding of the German Empire, Berlin became the capital, and the influx of immigrants doubled, with even more people moving to the city each year.
20th Century
After the First World War, tens of thousands of Germans came to Brandenburg from the areas occupied by Poland. In the ‹Golden Twenties› and later until 1939, thousands of people again came to the Mark from all areas of Germany because of the good work opportunities.
They were joined by hundreds of thousands of exiled Russians. Almost every major Russian writer of the 20th century lived here temporarily or visited the city. «Berlin smells like Russia,» wrote the St. Petersburg poet Andrei Bely in the 1920s. As he wandered around the city, he met compatriots everywhere. «We live among the Germans in droves, like a lake among its shores,» noted fellow writer Viktor Shklovsky around the same time.
When the tsarist empire collapsed, and the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, who himself had lived in Berlin several times as an émigré, forcibly transformed the multi-ethnic state into their own Soviet state, a huge exodus of intellectuals, monarchists, civil servants, officers, businessmen, and artists set in.
The influx into Germany peaked in 1922-23 when some 600,000 Russian refugees arrived, half of them in Berlin. There were so many Russians in Berlin that city buses were called ‹Russian Swings,› Wittenbergplatz was called ‹Little St. Petersburg,› Charlottenburg was called ‹Charlottengrad,› and Kurfürstendamm was called ‹Nöpski Prospekt›—a neologism used by the exiles to mock Lenin’s ‹New Economic Policy› (NEP).
A few years later, the Germans began to exile, shoot, or gas their own intelligentsia. In 1933, Berlin was home to approximately 160,000–170,000 Jews, making up about one-third of Germany’s Jewish population and 4% of Berlin’s total population. By 1939, due to emigration driven by persecution, Berlin’s Jewish population had halved to about 80,000.
In April 1939, laws allowed authorities to forcibly evict Jews from their homes and concentrate them in ‹Jew houses› under deplorable conditions. Deportations began in October 1941. By January 1942, around 10,000 Jews had been deported to ghettos in Eastern Europe (e.g., Lodz, Riga) or killing centers like Auschwitz-Birkenau. Elderly Jews were sent to Theresienstadt. Between October 1941 and April 1943, over 60,000 Berlin Jews were deported.
By June 1943, Berlin was declared «free of Jews,» though about 7,000 remained in hiding or protected by mixed marriages. After the war ended in May 1945, only around 8,000 Jews were found alive in Berlin.
After the division of Berlin in 1949, West Berlin experienced population growth, reaching about 2.2 million inhabitants by the early 1950s. Between 1949 and 1961, an estimated 2.7 million people migrated from East Germany to West Germany, with many passing through West Berlin. Despite the initial growth, West Berlin’s population began to decline steadily. While West Berlin prospered due to investment from America, the demographic changes and isolation impacted its economic structure compared to other West German cities.
The Wall’s sudden construction separated many families, with some members trapped in East Berlin while others remained in the West, altering family structures in West Berlin. Many East Berliners employed in the West were cut off from their jobs, affecting the labor market in West Berlin. Before the border was closed, around 60,000 to 70,000 East Berliners regularly commuted to work in the western sectors of the city. It had been a perfect arrangement: earning a decent wage in the West while enjoying the low rents of East Berlin.
The city became an increasingly unpleasant and isolated place, small and surrounded by concrete walls and barbed wire, filled with survivalist symbolism. What remained was a strange, eclectic mix: soldiers’ widows and war veterans, artists and con artists, migrants and fortune hunters, students, gays, lesbians, and drug addicts. It was a place of contradictions—an urban oddity, a surreal sociotope where bourgeois residents coexisted with punks, squatters, musicians, do-gooders, and every other kind of eccentric. Not to mention the 30 to 40 international secret services and their personnel.
Despite being walled in, West Berlin offered freedoms not available in the rest of West Germany. In no other city was it possible to live so shamelessly and freely as in this lavishly subsidized outpost of the free world. The city became a magnet for those seeking alternative ways of living, including artists, students, and political dissidents. Many people moved to West Berlin from other West German towns, pursuing lifestyles they found too constrained elsewhere.
Unlike West Germany, West Berlin did not require military service, which made it especially attractive to conscientious objectors. This exemption stemmed from West Berlin’s unique status under Allied law. As a result, around 50,000 young men moved to West Berlin specifically to avoid conscription. The city’s lack of mandatory closing times for bars also contributed to a vibrant nightlife, drawing in young people from all over.
The West Berlin administration treated its island city like a self-sustaining allotment garden, with funds coming from outside sources. Politics could not be taken seriously. In this peculiar political ecosystem, frivolous bourgeois fantasies, construction scandals, and eccentric left-wing ideologies thrived. The extremely lavish financing of the subcity was completely divorced from its economic performance. All the industry and its workers had moved away, apart from Schering, Philip Morris, and Mercedes-Benz. Schering produced the contraceptive pill, which was not much needed in Berlin at the time—free people were supposed to have babies.
The high proportion of foreign immigrants was also noteworthy. By 1961, West Germany had reached an agreement with Turkey to admit Turkish citizens as guest workers. The recruitment of workers from West Germany and abroad was intended to compensate for the lack of refugees from the East. West Berlin, heavily subsidized by West Germany, offered job prospects for foreign workers, resulting in a large Turkish population in Berlin.
Most of them were impoverished peasants who had lived in the slums, the so-called ‹Gecekondu,› around the big cities of Ankara, Istanbul, and Izmir. Educated Turkish urbanites also came to Berlin, often with professional training, shaped by Atatürk’s vision and European cultural influences, bringing with them a strong work ethic and a desire to integrate.
In the 1950s and 1960s, West Germany, including West Berlin, signed bilateral recruitment agreements with several countries to address labor shortages. These countries included Italy (1955), Spain and Greece (1960), Turkey (1961), Morocco (1963), Portugal (1964), Tunisia (1965), and Yugoslavia (1968).
The initial plan was for these guest workers to stay for a few years, work, and then return to their home countries. A rotation system was implemented to ensure that foreign workers would only remain temporarily, with one group being replaced by another once their contracts expired.
Most Turks in Berlin lived virtually without contact with the German population in notoriously overcrowded and poorly equipped dormitories, trying to save as much money as possible.There was no reason to learn German and no opportunity to do so, given the harsh working and living conditions. Family reunification was forbidden, and women who got pregnant while visiting their husbands were sent back to Turkey, even if they were close to giving birth.
By the 1970s, labor migration had peaked. Rather than training newly arrived workers, many companies began to extend the contracts of experienced foreign workers. The rotation principle was abandoned by both employers and the government.
The longer the young Turks stayed in Berlin, the more they wanted to marry or bring their spouses and children to Germany. Family reunification became an important aspect of immigration policy. As guest workers began to settle permanently, the families left the dormitories and moved into cheap apartments in poor condition in Kreuzberg, Wedding, or Tiergarten. In 1973, 79,468 Turks were living in Berlin.
A distinct Turkish urban life developed in Berlin, with Turkish shops, greengrocers, travel agencies, small handicraft businesses, tailors, car repair shops, and glaziers. The Turkish infrastructure was centered on a few districts, which quickly attracted other Turks from other parts of the city. But even within these districts, areas of concentration formed. Some blocks in Kreuzberg and Wedding were around 60 percent Turkish. The poet Orhon Murat Arıburnu, who lived for a time in Berlin-Kreuzberg, wrote: «An Anatolia emerged in the middle of Germany.»
Today, the entire ethnic and cultural diversity of Turkey has arrived in Berlin. There are city dwellers and peasants, Turks, Kurds, Azerbaijanis, Lasen, Bulgarian Turks, Armenians, and many others. Some streets – especially in Neukölln, Kreuzberg, Moabit, and Wedding – are dominated by Arab and Turkish culture. Meanwhile, there is evidence of a demographic decline among ethnic Germans. Allah is with the patient, they say.
East Berlin stood as the sole city in East Germany with a population exceeding one million. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the city’s population surged with returnees, displaced persons, bombing survivors, and those escaping poverty. However, by 1961, nearly 150,000 residents had fled to the West, leading to a sharp decline in population.
Facing a chronic labor shortage within its socialist planned economy, East Germany turned to migrant workers to fill the gap. The German Democratic Republic (GDR) signed its first guest worker agreement with Poland in 1966 to address this pressing issue. Unlike West Germany, which drew workers from a wide range of countries, East Germany primarily recruited labor from Soviet-aligned communist states, including Hungary, Poland, Vietnam, North Korea, Angola, Mozambique, and Cuba.
Tens of thousands of Polish commuters worked in factories and agricultural cooperatives near the border. Additionally, thousands of persecuted leftists from Latin America sought refuge in East Germany, including a significant number of Chileans who fled following Pinochet’s military coup. Similarly, tens of thousands of Africans, mainly from Angola and Mozambique—both Soviet allies—arrived to work and live in the GDR.
The living conditions for foreign workers in East Germany were notoriously harsh, often even more so than those in West Germany. Yet, for many, these conditions were still preferable to the dire circumstances in their home countries. For instance, Mozambique was embroiled in a devastating civil war at the time, making life in East Germany, despite its challenges, a relatively safer and more stable alternative.
They had no autonomy in their circumstances, as bilateral agreements dictated every aspect of their stay in the host country, tailored entirely to the state’s interests rather than their own. They were not even permitted to choose the profession for which they would be trained. Only upon arrival were they informed of their assigned factories and living arrangements. The duration of their stay was determined not by the requirements of their promised training but by the economic priorities of the partner countries, typically spanning three to five years.
Foreign workers were usually housed in single-sex dormitories. A basic knowledge of German was deemed sufficient for everyday communication in state-owned enterprises. After a brief settling-in period and minimal language training, they were often relegated to menial, low-paying jobs in factories, mines, railways, agriculture, and abattoirs. The regime actively discouraged interactions with the local population, creating barriers in daily life. Guest workers were frequently confined to their dormitories or designated areas of the city that Germans were prohibited from entering. Sexual relations with Germans could result in deportation, and female contract workers who became pregnant were forced to undergo abortions or were sent back to their home countries.
Mozambican workers, for example, received a base income of only 350 East Marks. Up to 60 percent of their wages were withheld under the pretext that the money would be deposited into an account in Mozambique for their future use upon returning home. In reality, these funds were used to repay the Mozambican state’s debts to East Germany.
The East German regime maintained a particularly close relationship with the communist government of Vietnam, which was also isolated on the global stage. Propaganda efforts heavily emphasized this alliance. Images of Vietnam were ubiquitous, and a series of stamps titled ‹Invincible Vietnam› was issued, depicting poignant scenes from the war, the country’s reconstruction, and its hardworking, content citizens. These stamps were printed in editions of up to 9 million copies each, with an additional surcharge intended for donations.
In 1971, the East German newspapers proudly announced: «More than 150 young Vietnamese have arrived in Berlin to begin their studies at the universities and colleges of East Germany at the start of the new academic year. More than 1,100 young representatives of the heroic Vietnamese people are already enrolled at the Republic’s universities.» Additionally, nearly 70,000 Vietnamese contract workers were employed in state-owned enterprises across the country.
Vietnamese workers faced their own set of challenges. They were required to pay 15 percent of their earnings to the Vietnamese state to support the country’s reconstruction efforts. They also had to send regular shipments of goods to support their families back home.
Post-Reunification
For many West Berliners, the Wall was anything but an oppressive barrier. On the contrary, it gave them a sense of security and moral superiority. There were no demonstrations for reunification in West Berlin—not a single one in more than 30 years. Instead, they reveled in the illusion of a peaceful, privileged existence while considering themselves cosmopolitan pioneers. Thanks to their unique residential situation, they were automatically considered an attraction all over the world.
When the wall disappeared, it suddenly got cold. The initial euphoria was quickly followed by a hangover. Berlin had a rare opportunity to reinvent itself. Of course, it was not taken. It became clear that Berlin was a hardly viable entity without significant production and largely deindustrialized.
In East Berlin, the loss of customer markets in the former Eastern Bloc countries and the backlog of modernization led to the collapse of factories.The end of subsidies for West Berlin had a similarly lasting effect. The money stopped flowing, and within a few years, the city spiraled into debt.
Berlin became infamous for being «poor but sexy,» as former mayor Klaus Wowereit once put it. Because, clearly, there’s no better way to embody sophistication than by being broke yet undeniably trendy.Today, it’s Europe’s ultimate hipster haven. Given the city’s history of chaos, division, and reinvention, this «artsy cool» vibe somehow feels like the logical conclusion after a century of turmoil. But hey, at least it’s still relatively affordable—well, sort of.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, another wave of Russian migrants arrived. Thousands of Russian-Germans came who actually did not speak a word of German and who spiritually continued to live in Siberia. Most were housed in the ghetto-like developments on the northeastern edge of the city.
Population growth in Berlin has accelerated in recent years. From 3,292,365 residents in 2011, the population increased to 3,596,999 in 2022, marking a significant 9.3% rise over the course of 11 years. As of 2023, Berlin’s population is estimated to be around 3.78 million.
Berlin is growing, and it is becoming more diverse. Today, over 473,000 foreigners from 186 countries call Berlin home—almost as many nationalities as there are countries in the world. One in four residents has a migration background, and of these, 42% hold German citizenship.
The largest immigrant groups in Berlin are of Turkish origin, followed by Arabs, Russians, people from the former Yugoslavia, and Poles. Since 2022, around 57,500 Ukrainians have registered as residents, with estimates suggesting an additional 100,000 to 250,000 unregistered immigrants living in the city.
According to the latest available data, fewer than half of Berlin’s residents were born in the city. Long-term residents have been brutally displaced by gentrification. Prenzlauer Berg is a neighborhood that, between 1989 and 2009, saw 80% of its population changed—a proportion that has no equivalent in the history of gentrification in New York, Paris or London. These people moved to live, for example, in peripheral neighborhoods of East Berlin, and have gradually become ‹invisible.›
Teaserimage: J.-H. Janßen, Lieberoser Wüste, CC BY-SA 3.0