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In-Depth Information
search for a scapegoat. hings looked up twenty years later with the admission of Berlin
and Cölln to the powerful
Hanseatic League
of city-states in 1369, confirming their
economic and political importance. Powerful trade guilds and prosperous burghers
ran the towns and, by 1391, made them virtually autonomous from the Mark of
Brandenburg, which grew ever more chaotic in the early fifteenth century. Order was
eventually restored by
Friedrich Hohenzollern
, burgrave of Nürnberg, when in 1411
the Holy Roman Emperor invited him to take over - the start of a dynasty that would
rule Berlin for half a millennium. Friedrich's
subjugation of the province was initially
welcomed by the burghers of Berlin and Cölln. However, when his son Johann
attempted to follow suit, they forced him to withdraw to Spandau. It was only
divisions in their ranks that enabled
Friedrich II
, “Irontooth” Johann's brother, to take
over the two cities. Some guilds offered him the keys to the gates in return for backing
them against the Berlin-Cölln magistrates. Friedrich obliged, then built the
Berliner
Schloss
(see p.53) and instituted his own harsh rule, forbidding any further union
between Berlin and Cölln.
After swiftly crushing a 1448
rebellion
, Friedrich imposed new restrictions. To
symbolize the
consolidation of Hohenzollern power
, a chain was placed around the
neck of Berlin's heraldic symbol, the bear, which remained on the city's coat of arms
until 1875. After the Hohenzollerns moved their residence and court here, Berlin-
Cölln assumed the character of a
Residenzstadt
(royal residence city) and rapidly
expanded, its old wattle-and-daub dwellings replaced with substantial stone buildings
- culminating in a Renaissance Schloss finished in 1540. Yet life remained hard; despite
being involved in the Reformation, Berlin-Cölln lagged behind the great cities of
western and southern Germany, and in 1576 was ravaged by plague.
he
Thirty Years' War
(1618-48) marked another low point: Europe was riven by
Protestant-Catholic conflicts and national rivalries, and leaders who could ill afford to
pay their mercenary armies promised them loot instead. Both Catholic Imperial troops
and Protestant Swedes occupied and ransacked the twin towns who lost half their
population and one third of their buildings by the end of the war.
The Great
he monumental task of postwar reconstruction fell to the Mark's new ruler, Elector
Friedrich
Wilhelm of Brandenburg
(1620-88), who was barely out of his teens. Massive
fortifications were constructed, besides the residences and public buildings necessary to
make Berlin-Cölln a worthy capital for an Elector. (Seven Electors - three archbishops,
a margrave, duke, count and king - were entitled to elect the Holy Roman Emperor.)
In recognition of his achievements, Friedrich Wilhelm came to be known as the
Great
Elector
. After defeating the Swedes at the Battle of Fehrbellin in 1675, the Mark of
Brandenburg was acknowledged as a force to be reckoned with, and its capital grew
accordingly. Recognizing the value of a cosmopolitan population, the Elector permitted
Jews and South German Catholics to move here and enjoy protection as citizens.
A later wave of immigrants affected Berlin-Cölln even more profoundly. Persecuted in
France, thousands of
Protestant Huguenots
sought new homes in England and Germany.
he arrival of five thousand immigrants - mostly skilled craftsmen or traders - revitalized
Berlin-Cölln, whose own population was just twenty thousand. French became an almost
1100s
1244
1247
Germans take over the land
again.
Berlin is first mentioned in
written records.
The city of Cölln is founded
right next to Berlin.
