Potsdam

Wednesday, 12 December 2012

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Atlas
An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a map of Earth or a region of Earth, but there are atlases of the other planets (and their satellites) in the Solar System. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographic features and political boundaries, many atlases often feature geopolitical, social, religious and economic statistics. They also have information about the map and places in it.
The origin of the term atlas is a common source of misconception, perhaps because two different mythical figures named 'Atlas' are associated with map making.
In works of art, this Atlas is represented as carrying the heavens or the Celestial Sphere, on his shoulders. The earliest such depiction is the Farnese Atlas, now housed at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale Napoli in Naples, Italy. This figure is frequently found on the cover or title-pages of atlases. This is particularly true of atlases published by Dutch publishers during the second half of the seventeenth century. The image became associated with Dutch merchants, and a statue of this figure adorns the front of the World Trade Center in Amsterdam.

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Austria
Austria (ⁱ/ˈɒstriə/ or /ˈɔːstriə/; German: Österreich [ˈøːstɐˌʁaɪç] ( listen)), officially the Republic of Austria (German: Republik Österreich (help·info)), is a landlocked country of roughly 8.47 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers 83,855 square kilometres (32,377 sq mi) and has a temperate and alpine climate. Austria's terrain is highly mountainous due to the presence of the Alps; only 32% of the country is below 500 metres (1,640 ft), and its highest point is 3,798 metres (12,461 ft). The majority of the population speak local Austro-Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, and German in its standard form is the country's official language. Other local official languages are Burgenland Croatian, Hungarian and Slovene.
The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty when the vast majority of the country was a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Austria became one of the great powers of Europe and, in response to the coronation of Napoleon I as the Emperor of the French, the Austrian Empire was officially proclaimed in 1804. In 1867, the Austrian Empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary.

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Babelsberg
Babelsberg is the largest district of the Brandenburg capital Potsdam in Germany. The affluent neighbourhood named after a small hill on the Havel river is famous for Babelsberg Palace and Park, part of the Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin UNESCO World Heritage Site, as well as for Studio Babelsberg, a historical centre of the German film industry.
A settlement on the small Nuthe creek was first mentioned in the 1375 Landbuch (domesday book) by Emperor Charles IV of Luxembourg, who also ruled as Margrave of Brandenburg since 1373. Then called Neuendorf (New Village) after its former West Slavic name Nova Ves, it was shelled several times and was severely damaged during the Thirty Years' War.
In the mid 18th century a new village was founded by King Frederick II of Prussia and settled with Protestant Bohemian expellees, predominantly weavers who as descendants of the Unity of the Brethren had fled from the suppression in the lands of the Habsburg Monarchy under Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. During the Industrial Revolution it developed into a centre of textile manufacturing and, at the premises of Orenstein & Koppel, from 1899 on also of the railway production. For decades German Neuendorf and Bohemian Nowawes (Czech: Nová Ves) bordered on each other but remained separate municipalities until their official unification in 1907. Nowawes received town privileges in 1924.

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Babelsberg Studios
The Babelsberg Film Studio (German: Filmstudio Babelsberg), located in Potsdam-Babelsberg, Germany, is the oldest, large-scale, film studio in the world. Founded in 1912, it covers an area of about 25,000 square metres (270,000 sq ft). Hundreds of films, including Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel were filmed there. In 2012 Studio Babelsberg will celebrate its 100th anniversary.
Today, Studio Babelsberg remains operational mainly for feature film productions. Furthermore, it acts as co-producer on international high budget productions.
In 1911, the company Bioscop built its first glass–film studio in Neubabelsberg. The first filming began as early as February 1912 for The Dance of the Dead by Danish director Urban Gad. In 1922 the Deutsche Bioscop Gesellschaft merged with Erich Pommer's Decla-Film GmbH into „Decla Bioscop“. In 1921, Decla Bioscop passed into Universum Film AG (Ufa) which had been founded in 1917. This company built the large studio (which is now known as the "Marlene Dietrich Halle") in 1926 for the major film production of Metropolis by Fritz Lang. The first German sound stage in Babelsberg, the Tonkreuz, was built during 1929. Melodie des Herzens/Melody of the Heart with Willy Fritsch was the first German full-sound film. This was followed in 1930 by the premiere of The Blue Angel by Josef von Sternberg with Marlene Dietrich and Emil Jannings in the main roles.

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Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg (German pronunciation: [ˈbaːdən ˈvʏɐ̯təmˌbɛɐ̯k]) is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of 35,742 square kilometres (13,800 sq mi) and 10.7 million inhabitants. The state capital is Stuttgart.
The sobriquet Ländle (dialect form for "small land") is sometimes used as a synonym for the Swabian part of Baden-Württemberg.^{[citation needed]}
The area used to be covered by the historical states of Baden, including the former Prussian Hohenzollern, and Württemberg, part of the region of Swabia.
Württemberg was occupied by the Romans in the first century AD who defended their position there by constructing a (limes) rampart. Early on in the third century, the Alemanni drove the Romans beyond the Rhine and the Danube, but in their turn they succumbed to the Franks under Clovis I, the decisive battle taking place in 496. It later became part of the Holy Roman Empire.

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Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria (German: Freistaat Bayern, pronounced [ˈfʁaɪʃtaːt ˈbaɪ.ɐn] ( listen)), is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of 70,548 square kilometres (27,200 sq mi), it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany. Bavaria is Germany's second most populous state (after North Rhine-Westphalia), with 12.5 million inhabitants, more than any of the three sovereign states on its borders. Bavaria's capital is Munich.
One of the oldest states of Europe, it was established as a duchy in the mid first millennium. In the 17th century, the Duke of Bavaria became a Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire. The Kingdom of Bavaria existed from 1806 to 1918, and Bavaria has since been a free state (republic). Modern Bavaria also includes parts of the historical regions of Franconia and Swabia.
The Bavarians emerged in a region north of the Alps, originally inhabited by the Gauls, which had been part of the Roman provinces of Raetia and Noricum. The Bavarians spoke Old High German but, unlike other Germanic groups, probably did not migrate from elsewhere. Rather, they seem to have coalesced out of other groups left behind by Roman withdrawal late in the 5th century. These peoples may have included the Celtic Boii, some remaining Romans, Marcomanni, Allemanni, Quadi, Thuringians, Goths, Scirians, Rugians, Heruli. The name "Bavarian" ("Baiuvarii") means "Men of Baia" which may indicate Bohemia, the homeland of the Celtic Boii and later of the Marcomanni. They first appear in written sources c. 520. Saint Boniface completed the people's conversion to Christianity in the early-8th century. Bavaria was, for the most part, unaffected by the Protestant Reformation.

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Berlin
Berlin ( /bɜrˈlɪn/; German pronunciation: [bɛɐ̯ˈliːn] ( listen)) is the capital city of Germany and one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.5 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city and is the second most populous city proper and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union. Located in northeastern Germany, it is the center of the Berlin-Brandenburg Metropolitan Region, which has 5.9 million residents from over 190 nations. Located in the European Plains, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one third of the city's area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers and lakes.
First documented in the 13th century, Berlin was the capital of the Kingdom of Prussia (1701–1918), the German Empire (1871–1918), the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) and the Third Reich (1933–1945).Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world. After World War II, the city became divided into East Berlin—the capital of East Germany—and West Berlin, a West German exclave surrounded by the Berlin Wall (1961–1989). Following German reunification in 1990, the city regained its status as the capital of Germany, hosting 147 foreign embassies.

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Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc claimed that the wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a socialist state in East Germany. In practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that marked Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period.
The Berlin Wall was officially referred to as the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart" (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall) by GDR authorities, implying that neighbouring West Germany had not been fully de-Nazified. The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame"—a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt—while condemning the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB) that demarcated the border between East and West Germany, both borders came to symbolize the "Iron Curtain" that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.

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Biosphäre Potsdam
The Biosphäre Potsdam (7,000 m²) is an indoor tropical botanical garden located in the Volkspark Potsdam, a park between the Sanssouci Park and the Neuer Garten Potsdam (New Garden) at Georg-Hermann-Allee 99, Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany. It is open daily; an admission fee is charged.
The garden contains approximately 20,000 tropical plants representing about 350 species, including orchids, epiphytes, and trees about 14 meters in height, including a palm grove and mangrove swamp. It also includes tropical crops, a waterfall, two lakes, and various types of tropical wildlife, including iguanas, snakes, spiders, frogs, geckos, and pheasants, as well as a butterfly house containing about 30 butterfly species.
Coordinates: 52°25′07″N 13°02′59″E / 52.4186944444°N 13.0496388889°E / 52.4186944444; 13.0496388889

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Brandenburg
Brandenburg ( listen (help·info); Low German: Brannenborg, Lower Sorbian: Bramborska; Upper Sorbian: Braniborska) is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam. Brandenburg surrounds but does not include the national capital and city-state of Berlin.
Originating in the medieval Northern March, the Margraviate of Brandenburg grew to become the core of the Kingdom of Prussia, which would later become the Free State of Prussia. The eastern third of historic Brandenburg (Ostbrandenburg/Neumark) was ceded to Poland in 1945.
In late medieval and early modern times, Brandenburg was one of seven electoral states of the Holy Roman Empire, and, along with Prussia, formed the original core of the German Empire, the first unified German state. Governed by the Hohenzollern dynasty from 1415, it contained the future German capital Berlin. After 1618 the Margraviate of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia were combined to form Brandenburg-Prussia, which was ruled by the same branch of the House of Hohenzollern. In 1701 the state was elevated as the Kingdom of Prussia. Franconian Nuremberg and Ansbach, Swabian Hohenzollern, the eastern European connections of Berlin, and the status of Brandenburg's ruler as prince-elector together were instrumental in the rise of that state.

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Brandenburg Gate
The Brandenburg Gate (German: Brandenburger Tor) is a former city gate, rebuilt in the late 18th century as a neoclassical triumphal arch, and now one of the most well-known landmarks of Berlin and Germany. It is located west of the city centre at the junction of Unter den Linden and Ebertstraße, immediately west of the Pariser Platz. It is the only remaining gate of a series through which Berlin was once entered. One block to the north stands the Reichstag building. The gate is the monumental entry to Unter den Linden, the renowned boulevard of linden trees which formerly led directly to the city palace of the Prussian monarchs. It was commissioned by King Frederick William II of Prussia as a sign of peace and built by Carl Gotthard Langhans from 1788 to 1791. Having suffered considerable damage in World War II, the Brandenburg Gate was fully restored from 2000 to 2002 by the Stiftung Denkmalschutz Berlin (Berlin Monument Conservation Foundation). During the post-war Partition of Germany the gate was isolated and inaccessible immediately next to the Berlin Wall, and the area around the gate featured most prominently in the media coverage of the opening of the wall in 1989.

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Brandenburg-Prussia
Brandenburg-Prussia (German: Brandenburg-Preußen) is the historiographic denomination for the Early Modern realm of the Brandenburgian Hohenzollerns between 1618 and 1701. Based in the Electorate of Brandenburg, the main branch of the Hohenzollern intermarried with the branch ruling the Duchy of Prussia, and secured succession upon the latter's extinction in the male line in 1618. Another consequence of the intermarriage was the incorporation of the lower Rhenish principalities of Cleves, Mark and Ravensberg after the Treaty of Xanten in 1614.
By the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War in 1648, Brandenburg gained Minden and Halberstadt, also the succession in Farther Pomerania (incorporated in 1653) and the Duchy of Magdeburg (incorporated in 1680). With the Treaty of Bromberg (1657), concluded during the Second Northern War, the electors were freed of Polish vassalage for the Duchy of Prussia and gained Lauenburg–Bütow and Draheim. The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1679) expanded Brandenburgian Pomerania to the lower Oder.

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Bremen (state)
The Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (German: Freie Hansestadt Bremen, pronounced [ˈbʁeːmən]) is the smallest of Germany's 16 states. A more informal name, but used in some official contexts, is Land Bremen ('Country Bremen').
The state of Bremen consists of two separated enclaves: Bremen, officially the 'City' (Stadtgemeinde Bremen) which is the state capital, and the city of Bremerhaven (Stadt Bremerhaven). Both are located on the River Weser; Bremerhaven is further downstream and serves as a North Sea harbour (the name means "Bremen's harbour"). Both cities are completely surrounded by the neighbouring State of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen). The two cities are the only administrative subdivisions the state has.
At the unwinding of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 the Free Imperial City of Bremen (as of 1646, after earlier privileges of autonomy of 1186) was not mediatised but became a sovereign state officially titled Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. Its currency was the Bremen thaler (until 1873). In 1811 the First French Empire annexed the city-state. Upon the first, however only preliminary defeat of Napoléon Bonaparte, Bremen resumed its pre-1811 status as city-state in 1813. The Vienna Congress of 1815 confirmed Bremen's - as well as Frankfurt's, Hamburg's, and Lübeck's - independence after pressuring by Bremen's emissary, and later burgomaster, Johann Smidt. Bremen became one of 39 sovereign states of the German Confederation. In 1827 the state of Bremen bought the tract of land from the Kingdom of Hanover, where future Bremerhaven would be established. Bremen became part of the North German Confederation in 1867 and became an autonomous component state of the new-founded German Empire in 1871 and stayed with Germany in its following forms of government.

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Bundesautobahn 9
Bundesautobahn 9 (translates from German as Federal Motorway 9, short form Autobahn 9, abbreviated as BAB 9 or A 9) is an autobahn in Germany, connecting Berlin and Munich.
The southern terminus of the A 9 is in the district of Schwabing in Munich. In the north at the Potsdam interchange it merges into the A 10, also known the "Berliner Ring", 30 km away from Berlin city limits. The shortest route from there into Berlin would be the A 10 (east) and the A 115. On its way, the A 9 passes through Bavaria, Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt, and Brandenburg. To the west of Leipzig, the border between Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony crisscrosses along the autobahn.
The A 9 was inaugurated in sections, beginning in 1936 with the part between what is today's Schkeuditz interchange (A 9 & A 14) and Bad Berneck, 164 km in length. In 1941, the second lane near Schnaittach was the last gap closed. This makes the A 9 one of Germany's oldest interregional autobahn. Until the introduction of a new numbering system in 1974, it was the A 3.

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Cecilienhof
Schloss Cecilienhof is a palace in the northern part of the Neuer Garten park in Potsdam, Germany, close to the Jungfernsee lake. It has been part of the Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1990.
Cecilienhof was the last palace built by the Hohenzollern family. Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany had it erected for his son, Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany, and the crown prince's wife Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. The house was designed by Paul Schultze-Naumburg to look like an English Tudor country house and built between 1914 and 1917. Its design was based on a house called 'Bidston Court' (later 'Hillbark') on the Wirral Peninsula. which in turn was inspired by Little Moreton Hall. The interior was furnished according to plans by Paul Troost, who originally had designed steamship décors.
The brick and oak timberframe building, including six courtyards and 55 carved brick chimney tops, should have been completed in 1915, but construction was delayed due to the outbreak of World War I and Crown Prince Wilhelm and Cecilie could not move in until August 1917. Wilhelm followed his father into exile one year later, while Cecilie stayed at the palace until she fled from the approaching Red Army in February 1945.

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Charlottenburg
Charlottenburg is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, named after Queen consort Sophia Charlotte (1668–1705). It is best known for Charlottenburg Palace, the largest surviving royal palace in Berlin, and the adjacent museums.
Charlottenburg was an independent city to the west of Berlin until 1920 when it was incorporated into "Groß-Berlin" (Greater Berlin) and transformed into a borough. In the course of Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it was merged with the former borough of Wilmersdorf becoming a part of a new borough called Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Later, in 2004, the new borough's districts were rearranged, dividing the former borough of Charlottenburg into the localities of Charlottenburg proper, Westend and Charlottenburg-Nord. In addition, Charlottenburg features a number of popular kiezes.
Charlottenburg celebrated its 300th anniversary in 2005.
Charlottenburg is located in Berlin's inner city, west of the Tiergarten park. Its historic core Alt Lietzow is situated near the river Spree within the Berlin-Warsaw glacial valley. The Straße des 17. Juni (17 June Street), former Charlottenburger Chaussee, which runs eastwards through the Tiergarten park to Brandenburg Gate, connects Charlottenburg with the historic centre of Berlin-Mitte. Adjacent in the south is the territory of Wilmersdorf.

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Charlottenhof Palace
Charlottenhof Palace or Charlottenhof Manor (German: Schloss Charlottenhof) is located southwest of Sanssouci Palace in Sanssouci Park at Potsdam, Germany. It is most famous as the summer residence of Crown Prince Frederick William (later King Frederick William IV of Prussia). Today it is maintained by the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg.
The park area with its various buildings can be traced back to the 18th century. After it had changed hands several times, King Frederick William III of Prussia bought the land that borders the south of Sanssouci Park and gave it to his son Frederick William and his wife Elisabeth Ludovika for Christmas in 1825.
The Crown Prince charged the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel with the remodeling of an already existing farm house and the project was completed at low cost from 1826 through 1829. In the end, Schinkel, with the help of his student Ludwig Persius, built a small neo-classical palace on the foundations of the old farm house in the image of the old Roman villas.

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China
China (ⁱ/ˈtʃaɪnə/; Chinese: 中国; pinyin: Zhōngguó; see also Names of China), officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is the world's most-populous country, with a population of over 1.3 billion. Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometres, the East Asian state is the world's second-largest country by land area, and the third- or fourth-largest in total area, depending on the definition of total area.
The People's Republic of China is a single-party state governed by the Communist Party of China. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four directly controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). Its capital city is Beijing. The PRC also claims Taiwan—which is controlled by the Republic of China (ROC), a separate political entity—as its 23rd province, a claim controversial due to the complex political status of Taiwan and the unresolved Chinese Civil War. The PRC government denies the legitimacy of the ROC.

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East Berlin
East Berlin was the name given to the eastern regions of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. East Berlin consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin that was established in 1945. The American, British and French sectors became West Berlin, a part strongly associated with West Germany but a free city. Despite its status as part of an occupied city, East Berlin was claimed as the capital of East Germany, as the Soviets did not honor the distinction of a free city for their sector. From 13 August 1961 until 9 November 1989, East Berlin was separated from West Berlin by the Berlin Wall. The East German government referred to East Berlin simply as "Berlin" or often "Berlin, Hauptstadt der DDR" (Berlin, capital of the GDR). The term "Democratic Sector" was also used until the 1960s. (See also Naming conventions).
The Western Allies (the USA, Britain and France) never formally acknowledged the authority of the East German government to govern East Berlin; the official Allied protocol recognized only the authority of the Soviet Union in East Berlin in accordance with the occupation status of Berlin as a whole. The United States Command Berlin, for example, published detailed instructions for U.S. military and civilian personnel wishing to visit East Berlin. In fact, the three Western commandants regularly protested the presence of the East German National People's Army (NVA) in East Berlin, particularly on the occasion of military parades. Nevertheless, the three Western Allies eventually established embassies in East Berlin in the 1970s, although they never recognized it as the capital of East Germany. Treaties instead used terms such as "seat of government."

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East Germany
The German Democratic Republic (GDR; German: Deutsche Demokratische Republik [ˈdɔʏtʃə demoˈkʀaːtɪʃə ʀepuˈbliːk] or DDR), informally known as East Germany (German: Ostdeutschland), was a socialist state established by the USSR in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city. The GDR had an area of 107,771 km² (41,610 mi²), bordering Czechoslovakia to the south, West Germany to the south and west, Poland to the east, and the Baltic Sea to the north. East Germany was dissolved upon joining the institutions of West Germany in the German reunification, on 3 October 1990.

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Einstein Tower
The Einstein Tower (German: Einsteinturm) is an astrophysical observatory in the Albert Einstein Science Park in Potsdam, Germany built by Erich Mendelsohn. It was built on the summit of the Potsdam Telegraphenberg to house a solar telescope designed by the astronomer Erwin Finlay-Freundlich. The telescope supports experiments and observations to validate (or disprove) Albert Einstein's relativity theory. The building was first conceived around 1917, built from 1919 to 1921 after a fund-raising drive, and became operational in 1924. Although Einstein never worked there, he supported the construction and operation of the telescope. It is still a working solar observatory today as part of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam. Light from the telescope is directed down through the shaft to the basement where the instruments and laboratory are located.
This was one of Mendelsohn's first major projects, completed when a young Richard Neutra was on his staff, and his best-known building.

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England
England ⁱ/ˈɪŋɡlənd/ is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, while the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separate it from continental Europe. Most of England comprises the central and southern part of the island of Great Britain in the North Atlantic. The country also includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.
The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Palaeolithic period, but it takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in AD 927, and since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century, has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world. The English language, the Anglican Church, and English law—the basis for the common law legal systems of many other countries around the world—developed in England, and the country's parliamentary system of government has been widely adopted by other nations. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the world's first industrialised nation. England's Royal Society laid the foundations of modern experimental science.

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Finland
Coordinates: 65°N 27°E / 65°N 027°E / 65; 027
Finland ⁱ/ˈfɪnlənd/ ( Finnish: Suomi; Swedish: Finland (help·info)), officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.
Around 5.4 million people reside in Finland, with the majority concentrated in the southern region. It is the eighth largest country in Europe in terms of area and the most sparsely populated country in the European Union. Finland is a parliamentary republic with a central government based in Helsinki and local governments in 336 municipalities, and an autonomous region of the Åland Islands. About one million residents live in the Greater Helsinki area, which consists of Helsinki, Espoo, Kauniainen and Vantaa, and a third of the country's GDP is produced there. Other larger cities include Tampere, Turku, Oulu, Jyväskylä, Lahti and Kuopio.

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France
France (English ⁱ/ˈfræns/ FRANSS or /ˈfrɑːns/ FRAHNSS; French: [fʁɑ̃s] ( listen)), officially the French Republic (French: République française [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is often referred to as l’Hexagone ("The Hexagon") because of the geometric shape of its territory. It is the largest western European country and it possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone in the world, covering 11,035,000 km² (4,260,000 sq mi), just behind that of the United States (11,351,000 km² / 4,383,000 sq mi).
Over the past 500 years, France has been a major power with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and around the world. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America and Southeast Asia; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, France built the second largest colonial empire of the time, including large portions of North, West and Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and many Caribbean and Pacific Islands.

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German Empire
The German Empire (German: Deutsches Kaiserreich) is the common name given to the state officially named the Deutsches Reich (literally: "German Realm"), designating Germany from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.
The German Empire consisted of 27 constituent territories (most of them ruled by royal families). While the Kingdom of Prussia contained most of the population and most of the territory of the Reich; the Prussian leadership became supplanted by German leaders and Prussia itself played a lesser role. As Dwyer (2005) points out, Prussia's "political and cultural influence had diminished considerably" by the 1890s. Its three largest neighbors were rivals Imperial Russia to the east and France to the west and ally Austria-Hungary to the south.
After 1850, Germany industrialized rapidly, with a foundation in coal, iron (and later steel), chemicals and railways. From a population of 41 million people in 1871, it grew to 68 million in 1913. From a heavily rural nation in 1815, it was now predominantly urban. During its 47 years of existence, the German Empire operated as an industrial, technological and scientific giant, receiving more Nobel Prizes in science than Britain, France, Russia and the United States combined.

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Germany
Germany (ⁱ/ˈdʒɜrməni/), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, pronounced [ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant] ( listen)), is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km² and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With 81.8 million inhabitants, it is the most populous member state and the largest economy in the European Union. It is one of the major political powers of the European continent and a technological leader in many fields.
A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, was documented before AD 100. During the Migration Period, the Germanic tribes expanded southward, and established successor kingdoms throughout much of Europe. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation while southern and western parts remained dominated by Roman Catholic denominations, with the two factions clashing in the Thirty Years' War, marking the beginning of the Catholic–Protestant divide that has characterized German society ever since. Occupied during the Napoleonic Wars, the rise of Pan-Germanism inside the German Confederation resulted in the unification of most of the German states into the German Empire in 1871 which was Prussian dominated. After the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and the subsequent military surrender in World War I, the Empire was replaced by the Weimar Republic in 1918, and partitioned in the Treaty of Versailles. Amidst the Great Depression, the Third Reich was proclaimed in 1933. The latter period was marked by Fascism and World War II. After 1945, Germany was divided by allied occupation, and evolved into two states, East Germany and West Germany. In 1990 Germany was reunified.

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Glienicke Bridge
The Glienicke Bridge (German: Glienicker Brücke) is a bridge on the edge of Berlin that spans the Havel River to connect the cities of Potsdam and Berlin near Klein Glienicke. The current bridge, the fourth on the site, was completed in 1907, although major reconstruction was necessary after it was damaged in the Second World War.
During the Cold War, Glienicke Bridge was one of the few places in the world where the Soviet Union and the Western powers stood directly opposite each other. Thus, “deals” could be made here without any of their allies having any say in the matter. The bridge lies at an isolated point where US-occupied West-Berlin met Soviet-occupied Potsdam, which was in East Germany.
The United States and the Soviet Union used it four times to exchange captured spies during the Cold War, and the Bridge was referred to as the Bridge of Spies by reporters.
The first prisoner exchange between the superpowers took place on February 10, 1962. The U.S. released Soviet spy Colonel Rudolf Abel in exchange for U.S. spy-plane pilot Francis Gary Powers captured by the USSR following the U-2 Crisis of 1960.

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Greater Berlin
The Greater Berlin Act (German: Groß-Berlin-Gesetz), in full the Law Regarding the Reconstruction of the New Local Authority of Berlin (German: Gesetz über die Bildung einer neuen Stadtgemeinde Berlin), was a law passed by the Prussian government in 1920 that greatly expanded the size of the German capital of Berlin.
Berlin had been part of the Province of Brandenburg since 1815. On 1 April 1881, the city became Stadtkreis Berlin, a city district separate from Brandenburg. The Greater Berlin Act was passed by the Prussian parliament on 27 April 1920 and came into effect on 1 October of the same year. The region then termed Greater Berlin acquired territories from the Province of Brandenburg and consisted of the following:
The act increased the area of Berlin 13-fold from 66 km² (25.5 mi²) to 883 km² (341 mi²) and the population doubled from approximately 1.9 million to near 4 million, with almost 1.2 million of these new inhabitants coming from the 7 surrounding towns alone.
Greater Berlin was then sub-divided into 20 boroughs (Verwaltungsbezirke):

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Hamburg
Hamburg ( /ˈhæmbɜrɡ/; German pronunciation: [ˈhambʊɐ̯k], local pronunciation [ˈhambʊɪç]; Low German/Low Saxon: Hamborg [ˈhaˑmbɔːx]), officially Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, is the second-largest city in Germany, the thirteenth largest German state, and the sixth-largest city in the European Union. The city is home to over 1.8 million people, while the Hamburg Metropolitan Region (including parts of the neighbouring Federal States of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein) has more than 4.3 million inhabitants. Situated on the river Elbe, the port of Hamburg is the second largest port in Europe (after the Port of Rotterdam) and 11th-largest worldwide.
Hamburg's official name, Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (German: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg), reflects Hamburg's history as a member of the medieval Hanseatic League, as a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire, and that Hamburg is a city-state and one of the sixteen States of Germany.
Hamburg is a major transport hub in Northern Germany and is one of the most affluent cities in Europe. It has become a media and industrial centre, with plants and facilities belonging to Airbus, Blohm + Voss and Aurubis. The radio and television broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk and publishers such as Gruner + Jahr and Spiegel-Verlag are pillars of the important media industry in Hamburg. In total, there are more than 120,000 enterprises.

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Hesse
Hesse /ˈhɛs/ or Hessia (German: Hessen [ˈhɛsən], Hessian dialect: Hesse [ˈhɛzə]) is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.
The English name "Hesse" comes from the Hessian dialect. The variant "Hessia" comes from the medieval latin Hassia. The German term Hessen is used by the European Commission, not because it is English, but because their general policy is to leave regional names untranslated (paragraphs 1.31 & 1.35). The term "Hesse" ultimately derives from a Germanic tribe called the Chatti, who settled in the region in the first century B.C.
An inhabitant of Hesse is called a Hessian (German: Hesse (masculine) or Hessin (feminine)) (see also Hessian (soldiers)).
As early as the Paleolithic period, the Central Hessian region was inhabited. Due to the favorable climate of the location, people lived there about 50,000 years ago during the last glacial period, as burial sites show from this era. Finds of paleolitical tools in southern Hesse in Rüsselsheim suggest Pleistocene hunters about 13,000 years ago. The Züschen tomb (German: Steinkammergrab von Züschen, sometimes also Lohne-Züschen) is a prehistoric burial monument, located between Lohne and Züschen, near Fritzlar, Hesse, Germany. Classified as a gallery grave or a Hessian-Westphalian stone cist (hessisch-westfälische Steinkiste), it is one of the most important megalithic monuments in Central Europe. Dating to the late 4th millennium BC (and possibly remaining in use until the early 3rd), it belongs to the Late Neolithic Wartberg culture.

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Italy
Italy ⁱ/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic or the Republic of Italy (Italian: Repubblica italiana), is a unitary parliamentary republic in south-central Europe. To the north, it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia along the Alps. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia–the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea–and many other smaller islands. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italy, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. The territory of Italy covers some 301,338 km² (116,347 sq mi) and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 60.6 million inhabitants, it is the fifth most populous country in Europe, and the 23rd most populous in the world.
Rome, the capital of Italy, was for centuries a political and religious centre of Western civilisation as the capital of the Roman Empire and site of the Holy See. After the decline of the Roman Empire, Italy endured numerous invasions by foreign peoples, from Germanic tribes such as the Lombards and Ostrogoths, to the Byzantines and later, the Normans, among others. Centuries later, Italy became the birthplace of Maritime republics and the Renaissance, an immensely fruitful intellectual movement that would prove to be integral in shaping the subsequent course of European thought.

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Jyväskylä
Jyväskylä (Finnish pronunciation: [ˈjyvæsˌkylæ]) is a city and municipality in Central Finland in the western part of the Finnish Lakeland. It is the largest city in central Finland and on the Finnish Lakeland. Jyväskylä is located on the northern coast of Lake Päijänne, 147 kilometres (91 mi) north-east of Tampere and 270 kilometres (170 mi) north of Helsinki. The hilly and forested terrain in Jyväskylä is surrounded by hundreds of lakes. The summers in Jyväskylä are warm and winters cold and snowy.
Elias Lönnrot, the compiler of the Finnish national epic Kalevala, gave the city a nickname "Athens of Finland". This nickname is used to describe the major role of Jyväskylä as an education centre and the first place in the world to provide education in Finnish.
The works of the most famous Finnish architect Alvar Aalto can be seen throughout the city. The city hosts Neste Oil Rally Finland, which is part of the World Rally Championship. It is also home of the annual Jyväskylä Arts Festival.

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Köpenick
Köpenick is a historic town and locality (Ortsteil) that is situated at the confluence of the rivers Dahme and Spree in the south-east of the German capital city of Berlin. It was formerly known as Copanic and then Cöpenick, only officially adopting the current spelling in 1931. It is known for the famous imposter Hauptmann von Köpenick.
Prior to its incorporation into Berlin in 1920, Köpenick was an independent town. It then became a borough of Berlin, with an area of 128 km² (49 sq mi), making it Berlin's largest borough. In Berlin's 2001 administrative reform, the borough of Köpenick was merged with that of Treptow to create the current borough of Treptow-Köpenick.
A large percentage of Köpenick's area is covered with forests and water, most notably the Müggelsee lake. The historic town lies in the centre of the Berlin Urstromtal meltwater valley at the confluence of the rivers Dahme and Spree. Shortly before its conflux with the Spree, the Schlossinsel lies on the Dahme, a small island with Köpenick Castle.

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Landtag Brandenburg
The Landtag of Brandenburg (Brandenburg State Parliament) is the unicameral legislature of the state of Brandenburg in Germany. It has 88 members of parliament, currently belonging to five parties.
The Landtag of Brandenburg was established in 1946 and abolished in 1952. It was re-established in 1990. Its current seat is the former Military School building in the Brauhausberg, Potsdam, which dates from 1902, although it will move to the Potsdam City Palace once it's finished..
After the elections of September 27, 2009, the composition of the Landtag is as follows:
Elections are conducted using a proportional representation system, with a minimum of 5% vote share to receive any seats.
The building that houses the Landtag is on the Brauhausberg hill in Potsdam. A new building is planned.
Coordinates: 52°23′16″N 13°03′48″E / 52.38778°N 13.06333°E / 52.38778; 13.06333

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Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony (German: Niedersachsen [ˈniːdɐzaksən], Low German: Neddersassen) is a German state situated in northwestern Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany. In rural areas Northern Low Saxon, a dialect of Low German, is still spoken, but the number of speakers is declining.
Lower Saxony borders on (from north and clockwise) the North Sea, the states of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. In fact, Lower Saxony borders more neighbours than any other single federal state. The state of Bremen forms two enclaves within Lower Saxony, one being the city of Bremen, the other, its seaport city of Bremerhaven. The state's principal cities include Hanover, Brunswick, Lüneburg, Osnabrück, Oldenburg, and Göttingen.
The northwestern area of Lower Saxony, which lies on the coast of the North Sea, is called East Frisia and the seven East Frisian Islands offshore are popular with tourists. In the extreme west of Lower Saxony is the Emsland, a traditionally poor and sparsely populated area, once dominated by inaccessible swamps. The northern half of Lower Saxony, also known as the North German Plains, is almost invariably flat except for the gentle hills around the Bremen geestland. Towards the south and southwest lie the northern parts of the German Central Uplands: the Weser Uplands and the Harz mountains. Between these two lie the Lower Saxon Hills, a range of low ridges.

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Mecklenburg
Mecklenburg (Low German: Mękelnborg) is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The largest cities of the region are Rostock, Schwerin, and Neubrandenburg.
The name Mecklenburg derives from a castle named "Mikilenburg" (Old Saxon: "big castle", thus the Grecised name variant Megalopolis used in Medieval Latin sources), located between the cities of Schwerin and Wismar. It was the ancestral seat of the House of Mecklenburg and for a time divided into Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz among the same dynasty.
Linguistically Mecklenburgers retain and use many features of Low German vocabulary or phonology.
Mecklenburg is known for its mostly flat countryside. Much of the terrain forms a morass, with ponds, marshes and fields as common features, with small forests interspersed. The terrain changes as one moves north towards the Baltic Sea.
Under the peat of Mecklenburg are sometimes found deposits of ancient lava flows. Traditionally, at least in the countryside, the stone from these flows is cut and used in the construction of homes, often in joint use with cement, brick and wood, forming a unique look to the exterior of country houses.

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Nauener Tor
Nauener Tor (Nauen Gate) is one of the three preserved gates of Potsdam. It was built in 1755 and is one of the first examples of the influence of English Gothic Revival architecture in Continental Europe. The first Nauener Tor was built around 1720 about 400 metres away from the current site. The second gate was built in 1733 at the current site. In 1755 the gate was rebuilt in its current form by the architect Johann Gottfried Büring was constructed based on a sketch by Frederick II. Originally there was a city wall connecting the Nauen gate with the other two gates, the Jägertor and the "small" Brandenburg Gate.
Today the three Potsdam gates are connected by a promenade, instead of a city wall. Nauener Tor is located in close proximity to the Dutch Quarter. Its users were the military and merchants, craftsmen and administrations. Today the square in front of the Nauener Tor has a high density of cafes, restaurants and bars is a popular meeting point of people in Potsdam and their guests. Tram tracks lead directly through Nauener Tor.

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Netherlands
The Netherlands (ⁱ/ˈnɛðərləndz/; Dutch: Nederland [ˈneːdə(r)lɑnt] or [ˈneɪ̯də(r)lɑnt] ( listen); West Frisian: Nederlân; Papiamento: Hulanda) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with some islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders with Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. It is a parliamentary democracy organised as a unitary state. The country capital is Amsterdam and the seat of government is The Hague. The Netherlands in its entirety is often referred to as Holland, although North and South Holland are actually only two of its twelve provinces (a case of pars pro toto; see terminology of "the Netherlands").

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Neukölln (locality)
Neukölln is an inner-city locality (Ortsteil) of Berlin in the homonymous borough (Bezirk) of Neukölln, including the historic village of Rixdorf and numerous Gründerzeit apartment blocks. The Ortsteil is densely settled a with a population of 154,127 inhabitants (2009) and is the most populated one of Berlin. It is characterized by a high percentage of immigrants, especially of Turkish and Arab descent. In the past few years, northern Neukölln, frequently known as "Kreuzkölln", has undergone a transformation and has seen a huge influx of students and artists as the area becomes increasingly popular.
The locality is situated in the north of the Neukölln borough, adjacent to Kreuzberg (in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg) at the Landwehrkanal. It also borders with Alt-Treptow, Plänterwald and Baumschulenweg (all part of Treptow-Köpenick) in the east and Tempelhof (in Tempelhof-Schöneberg) in the west, separated by the vast field of the former Tempelhof Airport. In the south, the Stadtring motorway forms the border with the Britz locality.

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New Palace (Potsdam)
The New Palace (German: Neues Palais) is a palace situated on the western side of the Sanssouci royal park in Potsdam, Germany. The building was begun in 1763, after the end of the Seven Years' War, under Frederick the Great and was completed in 1769. It is considered to be the last great Prussian baroque palace.
The building of the palace commenced at the end of the Seven Years' War, to celebrate Prussia’s success. The war is also variably referred to as the Third Silesian War, owing to the dispute over Silesia. In an architectural form, Frederick the Great sought to demonstrate the power and glories of Prussia attributing it as fanfaronade, an excess of splendor in marble, stone and gilt.
For the King, the New Palace was not a principal residence, but a display for the reception of important royals and dignitaries. Of the over 200 rooms, four principal gathering rooms and a theater were available for royal functions, balls and state occasions. During his occasional stays at the palace, Frederick occupied a suite of rooms at the southern end of the building, composed of two antechambers, a study, a concert room, a dining salon and a bedroom, among others.

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Oder-Neiße line
The Oder–Neisse line (Polish: granica na Odrze i Nysie Łużyckiej, German: Oder-Neiße-Grenze) is the border between Germany and Poland which was drawn in the aftermath of World War II. The line is formed primarily by the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, and meets the Baltic Sea west of the seaport cities of Szczecin (German: Stettin) and Świnoujście (Swinemünde). All pre-war German territory east of the line (23.8% of the former Weimar Republic lands, most of them from Prussia) was awarded either to Poland or the Soviet Union after the war, and the vast majority of its native German population was killed, fled or was expelled by force. The Oder–Neisse line marked the border between the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and Poland from 1950 to 1990. East Germany confirmed the border with Poland in 1950, while West Germany, after a period of refusal, finally accepted the border in 1970. In 1990 the newly reunified Germany and the Republic of Poland signed a treaty recognizing it as their border.

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Opole
Opole [ɔˈpɔlɛ] ( listen) (German: Oppeln, Silesian German: Uppeln, Silesian: Uopole) is a city in southern Poland on the Oder River (Odra). It has a population of 125,992 (June 2009) and is the capital of the Upper Silesia, Opole Voivodeship and, also the seat of Opole County. Today, many German Upper Silesians and Poles of German ancestry live in the Opole region; in the city itself, Germans make up less than 3% of population.
The name Opole likely originated from the medieval Slavic term for a group of settlements.
Opole's history begins in the 8th century. It this time, according to the archeological excavations, the first Slavic settlement was founded on the Ostrówek - the northern part of the Pasieka island in the middle of the Odra river. In the early 10th century it developed into one of the main gróds of the Slavic Opolanie. At the end of the century Silesia became part of Poland and was ruled by the Piast dynasty; the land of the pagan Opolanie was conquered by Duke Mieszko I in 992. From the 11th-12th centuries it was also a castellany. After the death of Duke Władysław II the Exile, Silesia was divided in 1163 between two Piast lines- the Wrocławska line in Lower Silesia and the Opolsko-Raciborska of Upper Silesia. Opole would became a duchy in 1172 and would share much in common with the Duchy of Racibórz, with which it was often combined. In 1281 Upper Silesia was divided further between the heirs of the dukes. The Duchy of Opole was temporarily reestablished in 1290.

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Orangery Palace
The Orangery Palace (German: Orangerieschloss) is also known as the New Orangery on the Klausberg, or just the Orangery. It was built by the Romantic on the Throne, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, in his seat of Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany, from 1851 to 1864.
The building of the Orangery began with a plan for a high street or triumph street. It was to begin at the triumph arch, east of Sanssouci Park, and end at the Belvedere on the Klausberg. A difference of elevation was to be balanced with viaducts.
With reference to the north side of the Picture Gallery and the New Chambers from the time of Friedrich the Great, Friedrich Wilhelm IV sketched out more new buildings, which would decorate his two kilometer long Via Tiumphalis.
Because of the political unrest of the period (March Revolution) and lack of funding, the gigantic project never materialized. Only the Orangery Palace and the Triumphtor were ever realized.
The construction of the Orangery Palace began after preliminary drawings by Friedrich Wilhelm IV. The architects Friedrich August Stüler and Ludwig Ferdinand Hesse were commissioned to turn the drawings into a reality.

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Park Sanssouci
Sanssouci Park is a large park surrounding Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, Germany. Following the terracing of the vineyard and the completion of the palace, the surroundings were included in the structure. A baroque flower garden with lawns, flower beds, hedges and trees was created. In the hedge quarter 3,000 fruit trees were planted. The greenhouses of the numerous nurseries contained oranges, melons, peaches and bananas. The goddesses Flora and Pomona, who decorate the entrance obelisk at the eastern park exit, were placed there to highlight the connection of a flower, fruit and vegetable garden.
With the expansion of the site after the creation of more buildings, a 2.5 km long straight main avenue was built. It began in the east at the 1748 obelisk and over the years was extended all the way to the New Palace, which marks its end in the west. In 1764 the picture gallery was constructed, followed by the New Chambers in 1774. They flank the palace and open the alley up to rondels with the fountains, surrounded by marble statues. From there paths lead in a star pattern between tall hedges to further parts of the gardens.

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Perugia
Perugia (Italian pronunciation: [peˈruːdʒa] ( listen); (Latin: Perusia) is the capital city of the region of Umbria in central Italy, near the River Tiber, and the capital of the province of Perugia. The city is located about 164 kilometres (102 mi) north of Rome. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area.
The history of Perugia goes back to the Etruscan period. The city is also known as a university town, with the University of Perugia (about 34,000 students), the University for Foreigners (5,000 students), and some smaller colleges, also. There are annual festivals and events: the Eurochocolate Festival (October), the Umbria Jazz Festival, and the International Journalism Festival (in April).
Perugia is a well-known artistic centre of Italy. The famous painter Pietro Vannucci, nicknamed Perugino, was a native of Città della Pieve near Perugia. He decorated the local Sala del Cambio with a beautiful series of frescoes; eight of his pictures can also be admired in the National Gallery of Umbria. Perugino was the teacher of Raphael, the great Renaissance artist who produced five paintings in Perugia (today no longer in the city) and one fresco. Another famous painter, Pinturicchio, lived in Perugia. Galeazzo Alessi is the most famous architect from Perugia. The city symbol is the griffin, which can be seen in the form of plaques and statues on buildings around the city.

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Poland
Poland ⁱ/ˈpoʊlənd/ (Polish: Polska), officially the Republic of Poland (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Polska; Kashubian: Pòlskô Repùblika; Silesian: Polsko Republika), is a country in Central Europe, bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north. The total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres (120,726 sq mi), making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. Poland has a population of over 38 million people, which makes it the 34th most populous country in the world and the sixth most populous member of the European Union, being its most populous post-communist member. Poland is a unitary state made up of 16 voivodeships. Poland is a member of the European Union, NATO, the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), European Economic Area, International Energy Agency, Council of Europe, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, International Atomic Energy Agency, G6, Council of the Baltic Sea States, Visegrád Group, Weimar Triangle and Schengen Agreement.

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Potsdam (Bezirk)
The Bezirk Potsdam was a district (Bezirk) of East Germany. The administrative seat and the main town was Potsdam.
The district was established, with the other 13, on July 25, 1952, substituting the old German states. After October 3, 1990, it was disestablished due to the German reunification, becoming again part of the state of Brandenburg.
The Bezirk Potsdam, the greatest one of DDR and the only bordering with West Berlin, bordered with East Berlin and the Bezirke of Schwerin, Neubrandenburg, Frankfurt (Oder), Cottbus, Halle and Magdeburg.
The Bezirk was divided into 17 kreise: 2 urban districts (Stadtkreise) and 15 rural districts (Landkreise):

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Potsdam-Babelsberg
Babelsberg is the largest district of the Brandenburg capital Potsdam in Germany. The affluent neighbourhood named after a small hill on the Havel river is famous for Babelsberg Palace and Park, part of the Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin UNESCO World Heritage Site, as well as for Studio Babelsberg, a historical centre of the German film industry.
A settlement on the small Nuthe creek was first mentioned in the 1375 Landbuch (domesday book) by Emperor Charles IV of Luxembourg, who also ruled as Margrave of Brandenburg since 1373. Then called Neuendorf (New Village) after its former West Slavic name Nova Ves, it was shelled several times and was severely damaged during the Thirty Years' War.
In the mid 18th century a new village was founded by King Frederick II of Prussia and settled with Protestant Bohemian expellees, predominantly weavers who as descendants of the Unity of the Brethren had fled from the suppression in the lands of the Habsburg Monarchy under Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. During the Industrial Revolution it developed into a centre of textile manufacturing and, at the premises of Orenstein & Koppel, from 1899 on also of the railway production. For decades German Neuendorf and Bohemian Nowawes (Czech: Nová Ves) bordered on each other but remained separate municipalities until their official unification in 1907. Nowawes received town privileges in 1924.

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Province of Saxony
The Province of Saxony (German: Provinz Sachsen) was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and later the Free State of Prussia from 1816 until 1945. Its capital was Magdeburg.
The province was created in 1816 out of the following territories:
The Province of Saxony was one of the richest regions of Prussia with highly developed agriculture and industry. In 1932 the province was enlarged with the addition of the regions around Ilfeld and Elbingerode, which had previously been part of the Province of Hanover.
On 1 July 1944, the Province of Saxony was divided along the lines of its three administrative regions. The Erfurt Regierungsbezirk was merged with the Herrschaft Schmalkalden district of the Province of Hesse-Nassau and given to the state of Thuringia. The Magdeburg Regierungsbezirk became the Province of Magdeburg, and the Merseburg Regierungsbezirk became the Province of Halle-Merseburg.
In 1945, the Soviet military administration combined Magdeburg and Halle-Merseburg with the State of Anhalt into the Province of Saxony-Anhalt, with Halle as its capital. The eastern part of the Blankenburg exclave of Brunswick and the Thuringian exclave of Allstedt were also added to Saxony-Anhalt. In 1947, Saxony-Anhalt became a state.

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Quedlinburg Abbey
Quedlinburg Abbey (German: Stift Quedlinburg or Reichsstift Quedlinburg) was a house of secular canonesses (Frauenstift) in Quedlinburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It was founded in 936 on the initiative of Saint Mathilda, the widow of Henry the Fowler, as his memorial . For many centuries it enjoyed great prestige and influence.
Quedlinburg Abbey was founded on the castle hill of Quedlinburg in the present Saxony-Anhalt in 936 by Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, at the request of his mother Queen Matilda, later canonised as Saint Matilda, in honour of her late husband, Otto's father, King Henry the Fowler, and as his memorial . Henry was buried here, as was Matilda herself.
The "Kaiserlich freie weltliche Reichsstift Quedlinburg" ("Free secular Imperial abbey of Quedlinburg"), as its full style was until its dissolution in 1802, consisted of a proprietary church of the Imperial family to which was attached a college of secular canonesses (Stiftsdamen), a community of the unmarried daughters of the greater nobility and royalty leading a godly life. The greatest and most prominent foundations of this sort were Essen Abbey, Gandersheim Abbey, Gernrode Abbey, Cologne Abbey and Herford Abbey, in the last of which the young Queen Matilda had been brought up by her grandmother, the abbess.

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Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of 19,846 square kilometres (7,663 sq mi) and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz.English-speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz (pronounced [ˈʁaɪnlant ˈpfalts]).
The state of Rhineland-Palatinate was established on 30 August 1946. It was formed from the northern part of the French Occupation Zone, which included parts of Bavaria (the Rhenish Palatinate), the southern parts of the Prussian Rhine Province (including the District of Birkenfeld which formerly belonged to Oldenburg), parts of the Prussian Province of Nassau (see Hesse-Nassau), and parts of Hesse-Darmstadt (Rhinehessen on the western banks of the Rhine); the constitution was legally confirmed by referendum on 18 May 1947.
Situated in western Germany, Rhineland-Palatinate borders (from the north and clockwise) North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Baden-Württemberg, France, Saarland, Luxembourg and Belgium.

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Russia
Russia ⁱ/ˈrʌʃə/ or /ˈrʊʃə/ (Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijə] ( listen)), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Российская Федерация, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈratsɨjə] ( listen)), is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both via Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It also has maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, and the US state of Alaska by the Bering Strait. At 17,075,400 square kilometres (6,592,800 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than one eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. Russia is also the eighth most populous nation with 143 million people. It extends across the whole of northern Asia and 40% of Europe, spanning nine time zones and incorporating a wide range of environments and landforms. Russia has the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources and is the largest producer of oil and natural gas globally. Russia has the world's largest forest reserves and its lakes contain approximately one-quarter of the world's fresh water.

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Saarland
Saarland (German pronunciation: [ˈzaːɐlant]; French: Sarre, IPA: [saʁ]) is one of the sixteen states of Germany. The capital is Saarbrücken. It has an area of 2570 km² and 1,045,000 inhabitants. In both area and population, it is the smallest state in Germany other than the city-states (Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg). Its location on the border between France and Germany has given Saarland a unique history.
The Saar did not exist as a unified entity until its creation as the Territory of the Saar Basin by the League of Nations after World War I. Prior to this, some parts of the current entity were Prussian and other parts Bavarian. The inhabitants voted to rejoin Germany in a plebiscite in 1935.
From 1947 to 1956 the Saar was a French-occupied territory (the "Saar Protectorate") separate from the rest of Germany. In 1955 the inhabitants were offered independence in a plebiscite, but instead voted to become a state of West Germany. From 1920 to 1935, and then from 1947 to 1959, the inhabitants used postage stamps issued specially for the territory; see postage stamps and postal history of the Saar for details. Between 1950 and 1956, Saarland was a member of the Council of Europe.

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Sanssouci
Sanssouci is the name of the former summer palace of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, in Potsdam, near Berlin. It is often counted among the German rivals of Versailles. While Sanssouci is in the more intimate Rococo style and is far smaller than its French Baroque counterpart, it too is notable for the numerous temples and follies in the park. The palace was designed by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff between 1745 and 1747 to fulfill King Frederick's need for a private residence where he could relax away from the pomp and ceremony of the Berlin court. The palace's name emphasises this; it is a French phrase (sans souci), which translates as "without concerns", meaning "without worries" or "carefree", symbolising that the palace was a place for relaxation rather than a seat of power. The palace is little more than a large single-storey villa—more like the Château de Marly than Versailles. Containing just ten principal rooms, it was built on the brow of a terraced hill at the centre of the park. The influence of King Frederick's personal taste in the design and decoration of the palace was so great that its style is characterised as "Frederician Rococo", and his feelings for the palace were so strong that he conceived it as "a place that would die with him". Because of a disagreement about the site of the palace in the park, Knobelsdorff was fired in 1746. Jan Bouman, a Dutch architect, finished the project.

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Sanssouci Park
Sanssouci Park is a large park surrounding Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, Germany. Following the terracing of the vineyard and the completion of the palace, the surroundings were included in the structure. A baroque flower garden with lawns, flower beds, hedges and trees was created. In the hedge quarter 3,000 fruit trees were planted. The greenhouses of the numerous nurseries contained oranges, melons, peaches and bananas. The goddesses Flora and Pomona, who decorate the entrance obelisk at the eastern park exit, were placed there to highlight the connection of a flower, fruit and vegetable garden.
With the expansion of the site after the creation of more buildings, a 2.5 km long straight main avenue was built. It began in the east at the 1748 obelisk and over the years was extended all the way to the New Palace, which marks its end in the west. In 1764 the picture gallery was constructed, followed by the New Chambers in 1774. They flank the palace and open the alley up to rondels with the fountains, surrounded by marble statues. From there paths lead in a star pattern between tall hedges to further parts of the gardens.

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Saxony
The Free State of Saxony (German: Freistaat Sachsen [ˈfʁaɪʃtaːt ˈzaksən]; Upper Sorbian: Swobodny stat Sakska) is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with (18,413 square kilometres (7,109 sq mi), and the sixth most-populous (4.3 million) of Germany's sixteen states.
Located in the middle of an erstwhile German-speaking part of Europe, the history of the state of Saxony spans more than a millennium. It has been a medieval duchy, an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire, a kingdom, a republic from 1918 to 1952 and then again from 1990.
The area of the modern state of Saxony should not be confused with Old Saxony, the area inhabited by Saxons. Old Saxony corresponds approximately to the modern German states of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and the Westphalian part of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Sachsen is divided into three Direktionsbezirke — Chemnitz, Dresden, Leipzig — which are subdivided into 10 districts:

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Saxony-Anhalt
Saxony-Anhalt (German: Sachsen-Anhalt, pronounced [ˌzaksən ˈanhalt], Low German: Sassen-Anholt) is a landlocked state of Germany. Its capital is Magdeburg and it is surrounded by the German states of Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia.
Saxony-Anhalt covers an area of 20,447.7 square kilometres (7,894.9 sq mi). It has a population of 2.34 million (more than 2.8 million in 1990).
Saxony-Anhalt should not be confused with Saxony or Lower Saxony, also German states.
Saxony-Anhalt is one of 16 states of Germany. It is located in the western part of eastern Germany. By size, it is the 8th largest state in Germany, and by population, the 10th largest.
In the north, the Saxony-Anhalt landscape is dominated by plain (North German Plain). The old Hanseatic towns Salzwedel, Gardelegen, Stendal, or Tangermünde are located in the sparsely populated Altmark. The Colbitz-Letzlingen Heath and the Drömling near Wolfsburg mark the transition between the Altmark region and the Elbe-Börde-Heath region with its fertile, sparsely wooded Magdeburg Börde. Notable towns in the Magdeburg Börde are Haldensleben, Oschersleben (Bode), Wanzleben, Schönebeck (Elbe), Aschersleben and the capital Magdeburg, from which the Börde derives its name.

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Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein (pronounced [ˈʃleːsvɪç ˈhɔlʃtaɪn] ( listen)) is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig. Its capital city is Kiel; other notable cities are Lübeck, Flensburg and Neumünster.
The former English name was Sleswick-Holsatia, the Danish name is Slesvig-Holsten, the Low German name is Sleswig-Holsteen, the Dutch name is Sleeswijk-Holstein and the North Frisian name is Slaswik-Holstiinj. Historically, the name can also refer to a larger region, containing both present-day Schleswig-Holstein and the former South Jutland County (Northern Schleswig) in Denmark.
The term "Holstein" derives from Old Saxon, Holseta Land, meaning "the land of those who dwell in the wood" (Holz and Holt mean wood in modern Standardised German and in literary English respectively). Originally, it referred to the central of the three Saxon tribes north of the Elbe river, Tedmarsgoi, Holcetae, and Sturmarii. The area of the Holcetae was between the Stör river and Hamburg, and after Christianization their main church was in Schenefeld. Saxon Holstein became a part of the Holy Roman Empire after Charlemagne's Saxon campaigns in the late eighth century. Since 811 the northern frontier of Holstein (and thus the Empire) was marked by the river Eider.

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Schöneberg
Schöneberg is a locality of Berlin, Germany. Until Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it was a separate borough including the locality of Friedenau. Together with the former borough of Tempelhof it is now part of the new borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg.
The village was first documented in a 1264 deed issued by Margrave Otto III of Brandenburg. In 1751 Bohemian weavers founded Neu-Schöneberg also known as Böhmisch-Schöneberg along northern Hauptstraße. During the Seven Years' War on 7 October 1760 Schöneberg and its village church were completely destroyed by a fire due to the joint attack on Berlin by Habsburg and Russian troops.
Alt & Neu Schöneberg were not combined as one entity until 1874 and received town privileges in 1898. In the following year it was disentangled from the Kreis Teltow and became a Prussian Stadtkreis (independent city). Many of the former peasants gained wealth by selling their acres to the settlement companies of growing Berlin and built luxurious mansions on Hauptstraße. The large town hall Rathaus Schöneberg was completed in 1914. In 1920 Schöneberg became a part of Greater Berlin. Subsequent to World War II the Rathaus served as the city hall of West Berlin until 1991 when the administration of the reunited City of Berlin moved back to the Rotes Rathaus in Mitte.

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Sioux Falls
Sioux Falls /ˌsuː ˈfɔːlz/ is the largest city in the U.S. state of South Dakota. Sioux Falls is the county seat of Minnehaha County, and also extends into Lincoln County to the south. It is the 47th fastest growing city in the United States and the fastest growing metro area in the state of South Dakota, with a total increase of 22% since 2000.
As of the 2010 census, Sioux Falls had a population of 153,888. The metropolitan population of 228,261 accounts for 28% of South Dakota's population. Sioux Falls is the largest city in the Sioux Falls-Sioux City, SD-IA-MN-NE Designated Market Area (DMA),with a population of 1,043,450. Chartered in 1856 on the banks of the Big Sioux River, the city is situated on the prairie of the Great Plains at the junction of Interstate 90 and Interstate 29.
The history of Sioux Falls revolves around the cascades of the Big Sioux River. The falls were created about 14,000 years ago during the last ice age. The lure of the falls has been a powerful influence. Ho-Chunk, Ioway, Otoe, Missouri, Omaha (and Ponca at the time), Quapaw, Kansa, Osage, Arikira, Dakota, Nakota and Cheyenne people inhabited the region previous to European descendants. Numerous burial mounds still exist on the high bluffs near the river. These people operated an agricultural society that built fortified villages on many of the same sites that were previously settled. Lakota populate urban and reservation communities in the contemporary state and many Lakota, Dakota, Nakota, and other Indigenous Americans reside in Sioux Falls today.

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South Dakota
South Dakota (ⁱ/ˌsaʊθ dəˈkoʊtə/) is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. South Dakota is the 17th most extensive, but the 5th least populous and the 5th least densely populated of the 50 United States. Once the southern portion of the Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. Pierre is the state capital and Sioux Falls, with a population of nearly 160,000, is South Dakota's largest city.
South Dakota is bordered by the states of North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana. The state is bisected by the Missouri River, dividing South Dakota into two geographically and socially distinct halves, known to residents as "East River" and "West River". Eastern South Dakota is home to most of the state's population, and fertile soil in this area is used to grow a variety of crops. West of the Missouri, ranching is the predominant agricultural activity, and the economy is more dependent on tourism and defense spending.

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Spandau
Spandau is the fifth of the twelve boroughs (Bezirk) of Berlin. It is the fourth largest and westernmost borough, situated at the confluence of the Havel and Spree rivers and along the western bank of the Havel, but the least populated.
In the west it borders with the districts of Oberhavel, Havelland and the city of Potsdam in the federal state of Brandenburg. Modern industries include metal working, chemicals and carpet manufacturing. It was the location of the notorious Spandau Prison until the prison was demolished in 1987. The British New Romantic band Spandau Ballet took their name from the Spandau borough in the British sector of former West Berlin.
The borough headquarters occupy the Rathaus Spandau, a town hall built in 1913.
As of 2010, Spandau had a population of 223,962, of whom 62,000 (27%) had a migration background or were of non-German ethnicity.
Spandau is divided into 9 localities:
At the 2011 elections for the parliament of the borough (Bezirksverordnetenversammlung) the following parties were elected:

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Studio Babelsberg
The Babelsberg Film Studio (German: Filmstudio Babelsberg), located in Potsdam-Babelsberg, Germany, is the oldest, large-scale, film studio in the world. Founded in 1912, it covers an area of about 25,000 square metres (270,000 sq ft). Hundreds of films, including Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel were filmed there. In 2012 Studio Babelsberg will celebrate its 100th anniversary.
Today, Studio Babelsberg remains operational mainly for feature film productions. Furthermore, it acts as co-producer on international high budget productions.
In 1911, the company Bioscop built its first glass–film studio in Neubabelsberg. The first filming began as early as February 1912 for The Dance of the Dead by Danish director Urban Gad. In 1922 the Deutsche Bioscop Gesellschaft merged with Erich Pommer's Decla-Film GmbH into „Decla Bioscop“. In 1921, Decla Bioscop passed into Universum Film AG (Ufa) which had been founded in 1917. This company built the large studio (which is now known as the "Marlene Dietrich Halle") in 1926 for the major film production of Metropolis by Fritz Lang. The first German sound stage in Babelsberg, the Tonkreuz, was built during 1929. Melodie des Herzens/Melody of the Heart with Willy Fritsch was the first German full-sound film. This was followed in 1930 by the premiere of The Blue Angel by Josef von Sternberg with Marlene Dietrich and Emil Jannings in the main roles.

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Switzerland
Switzerland (German: die Schweiz[ˈʃvaɪts]; French: Suisse [sɥis(ə)]; Italian: Svizzera [ˈzvit͡sːɛra]; Romansh: Svizra [ˈʒviːtsrɐ] or [ˈʒviːtsʁːɐ]), in its full name the Swiss Confederation (Latin: Confoederatio Helvetica, hence its abbreviation CH), is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western Europe, where it is bordered by Germany to the north, France to the west, Italy to the south, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east.
Switzerland is a landlocked country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km² (15,940 sq mi). While the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, the Swiss population of approximately 8 million people is concentrated mostly on the Plateau, where the largest cities are to be found. Among them are the two global cities and economic centres of Zurich and Geneva.
The Swiss Confederation has a long history of armed neutrality—it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815—and did not join the United Nations until 2002. It pursues, however, an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. Switzerland is also the birthplace of the Red Cross and home to a large number of international organizations, including the second largest UN office. On the European level, it is a founding member of the European Free Trade Association and is part of the Schengen Area – although it is notably not a member of the European Union, nor the European Economic Area.

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Third Reich
The Third Reich, also Nazi Germany, is the common name for Germany when it was a totalitarian state ruled by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). On 30 January 1933 Hitler became chancellor of Germany, quickly eliminating all opposition to rule as sole leader. The state idolized Hitler as its Führer ("leader"), centralizing all power in his hands. Historians have emphasized the hypnotic effect of his rhetoric on large audiences, and of his eyes in small groups. Kessel writes, "Overwhelmingly...Germans speak with mystification of Hitler's 'hypnotic' appeal..." Under the "leader principle", the Führer's word was above all other laws. Top officials reported to Hitler and followed his policies, but they had considerable autonomy. The government was not a coordinated, cooperating body, but rather a collection of factions struggling to amass power and curry favor with the Führer. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazi government restored prosperity and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending and a mixed economy of free-market and central-planning practices. Extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of the Autobahns. The return to prosperity gave the regime enormous popularity; the suppression of all opposition made Hitler's rule mostly unchallenged.

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Thuringia
The Free State of Thuringia (German: Freistaat Thüringen, pronounced [ˈfʁaɪʃtaːt ˈtyːʁɪŋən], English /θjʊərˈrɪndʒiə/) is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country. It has an area of 16,171 square kilometres (6,244 sq mi) and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states. Most of Thuringia is within the watershed of the Saale, a left tributary of the Elbe. Its capital is Erfurt.
Thuringia has been known by the nickname of "the green heart of Germany" (das grüne Herz Deutschlands) from the late 19th century, due to the dense forest that covers the terrain.
Thuringia is well known in Germany for nature and winter sports. It is home to the Rennsteig, Germany's most famous hiking trail, and the winter resort of Oberhof. Germany has won more Winter Olympics gold medals than any other country in the last 20 years, and half of Germany's gold medals have been won by Thuringian athletes.
From the northwest going clockwise, Thuringia borders on the German states of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, Bavaria and Hesse. The ridges of the western Harz Mountains divide the region from Lower Saxony on the north-west, while the eastern Harz similarly separates Thuringia from the state of Saxony-Anhalt to the north-east. To the south and southwest, the Thuringian Forest effectively separates the ancient region of Franconia, now the northern part of Bavaria, from the rolling plains of most of Thuringia. The central Harz range extends southwards along the western side into the northwest corner of the Thuringian Forest region, making Thuringia a lowland basin of rolling plains nearly surrounded by ancient somewhat-difficult mountains. To the west across the mountains and south is the drainage basin of the Rhine River.

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United States
The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity). Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.

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Wilmersdorf
Wilmersdorf is an inner city locality of Berlin, formerly a borough by itself but since Berlin's 2001 administrative reform a part of the new borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf.
The village near Berlin was first mentioned in 1293 as Wilmerstorff, probably founded in the course of the German Ostsiedlung under the Ascanian margraves of Brandenburg. From the 1850s on Deutsch-Wilmersdorf was developed as a densely settled, affluent residential area, which in 1920 became a part of Greater Berlin. The former borough of Wilmersdorf included the localities of Halensee, Schmargendorf and Grunewald.
Jérôme Boateng, footballer for Bayern Munich and Germany, grew up in the area.
Church at Hohenzollernplatz
Berlin Mosque
Volkspark Wilmersdorf
Media related to Wilmersdorf at Wikimedia Commons

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Windsor, Berkshire
Coordinates: 51°28′45″N 0°36′34″W / 51.4791°N 0.6095°W / 51.4791; -0.6095
Windsor ( /ˈwɪndzər/) is an affluent^{[citation needed]} town and unparished area in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in Berkshire, England. It is widely known as the site of Windsor Castle, one of the official residences of the British Royal Family.
The town is situated 21 miles (34 km) west of Charing Cross, London. It is immediately south of the River Thames, which forms its boundary with Eton. Windsor and the surrounding areas contain some of the most expensive and desirable housing in the UK^{[citation needed]}. The village of Old Windsor, just over 2 miles (3 km) to the south, predates what is now called Windsor by around 300 years; in the past Windsor was formally referred to as New Windsor to distinguish the two.
The early history of the site is unknown, although the site was almost certainly settled many years before the medieval castle was built. Histories of the town note that the combination of the navigable river and the strategically placed hill point to the likelihood of continuous human settlement from early times. Evidence includes archaeological finds from Windsor, such as palaeolithic hand-axes, neolithic flint picks, Bronze Age swords and an Iron Age brooch. Although Roman remains are few, there is ample evidence of Anglo Saxon settlement in the area.

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Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (German: [ˈadɔlf ˈhɪtlɐ] ( listen); 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany (as Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler is commonly associated with the rise of fascism in Europe, World War II, and the Holocaust.
A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the German Workers' Party, precursor of the Nazi Party, in 1919, and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted a coup d'état, known as the Beer Hall Putsch, in Munich. The failed coup resulted in Hitler's imprisonment, during which time he wrote his memoir, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anticommunism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. After his appointment as chancellor in 1933, he transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism. His aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe.

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Austria
Austria (ⁱ/ˈɒstriə/ or /ˈɔːstriə/; German: Österreich [ˈøːstɐˌʁaɪç] ( listen)), officially the Republic of Austria (German: Republik Österreich (help·info)), is a landlocked country of roughly 8.47 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers 83,855 square kilometres (32,377 sq mi) and has a temperate and alpine climate. Austria's terrain is highly mountainous due to the presence of the Alps; only 32% of the country is below 500 metres (1,640 ft), and its highest point is 3,798 metres (12,461 ft). The majority of the population speak local Austro-Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, and German in its standard form is the country's official language. Other local official languages are Burgenland Croatian, Hungarian and Slovene.
The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty when the vast majority of the country was a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Austria became one of the great powers of Europe and, in response to the coronation of Napoleon I as the Emperor of the French, the Austrian Empire was officially proclaimed in 1804. In 1867, the Austrian Empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary.

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China
China (ⁱ/ˈtʃaɪnə/; Chinese: 中国; pinyin: Zhōngguó; see also Names of China), officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is the world's most-populous country, with a population of over 1.3 billion. Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometres, the East Asian state is the world's second-largest country by land area, and the third- or fourth-largest in total area, depending on the definition of total area.
The People's Republic of China is a single-party state governed by the Communist Party of China. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four directly controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). Its capital city is Beijing. The PRC also claims Taiwan—which is controlled by the Republic of China (ROC), a separate political entity—as its 23rd province, a claim controversial due to the complex political status of Taiwan and the unresolved Chinese Civil War. The PRC government denies the legitimacy of the ROC.

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Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS (3 January 1883 – 8 October 1967) was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was also the first person to hold the office of Deputy Prime Minister, under Winston Churchill in the wartime coalition government, before leading the Labour Party to a landslide election victory over Churchill's Conservative Party in 1945. He was the first Labour Prime Minister to serve a full Parliamentary term, and the first to command a Labour majority in Parliament.
The government he led put in place the post-war settlement, based upon the assumption that full employment would be maintained by Keynesian policies, and that a greatly enlarged system of social services would be created – aspirations that had been outlined in the wartime Beveridge Report. Within this context, his government undertook the nationalisation of major industries and public utilities as well as the creation of the National Health Service. After initial Conservative opposition to Keynesian fiscal policy, this settlement was broadly accepted by all parties until Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979.

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Emperor Otto III
Otto III (980 – 23 January 1002), a King of Germany, was the fourth ruler of the Saxon or Ottonian dynasty of the Holy Roman Empire. He was elected King in 983 on the death of his father Otto II and was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 996.
Otto was born in Kessel, near Goch, in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia.
He was acclaimed King of the Romans in Verona in June 983, at the age of three, and crowned in Aachen on 25 December the same year by Willigis, Archbishop of Mainz and John, Archbishop of Ravenna. His father had died on 7 December in Rome, but the news did not reach Germany until after the coronation. The arrival of a minor on the throne saw both Germany and Italy thrown into confusion.
In early 984 Henry the Quarrelsome, who had been deposed as Duke of Bavaria by Otto II, seized Otto and claimed the regency as a member of the reigning house. Henry was supported by Egbert (Archbishop of Trier), Gisilher, Archbishop of Magdeburg and Bishop Dietrich I of Metz, while Otto was supported by Willigis, Archbishop of Mainz and the Dukes of Saxony, Bavaria and Swabia. Soon however, Henry was claiming the crown for himself, obtaining the allegiance of Mieszko I of Poland and Boleslaus II, Duke of Bohemia. However, the threat of war saw Henry, forced by Willigis and Conrad I, Duke of Swabia, to relinquish Otto on June 29, 984, and agreeing to respect the rule of his mother, the Byzantine princess Theophanu, as regent. She abandoned her husband's imperialistic policy and devoted herself entirely to furthering an alliance between Church and Empire. She was unable, however, to prevent France from speedily freeing itself from German influence.

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Erich Mendelsohn
Erich Mendelsohn (21 March 1887 – 15 September 1953) was a Jewish German architect, known for his expressionist architecture in the 1920s, as well as for developing a dynamic functionalism in his projects for department stores and cinemas.
Erich Mendelsohn was born in Allenstein (Olsztyn), East Prussia. He was the fifth of six children; his mother was a hatmaker and his father a shopkeeper. He attended a humanist Gymnasium in Allenstein and continued with commercial training in Berlin.
In 1906 he took up the study of national economics at the University of Munich. In 1908 he began studying architecture at the Technical University of Berlin; two years later he transferred to the Technical University of Munich, where in 1912 he graduated cum laude. In Munich he was influenced by Theodor Fischer, an architect whose own work fell between neo-classical and Jugendstil, and who had been teaching there since 1907; Mendelsohn also made contact with members of Der Blaue Reiter and Die Brücke, two groups of expressionist artists.

wn.com/Erich_Mendelsohn
Frederick Wilhelm I
Frederick William I (German: Friedrich Wilhelm I) (14 August 1688 – 31 May 1740) was the King in Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg (as Frederick William II) from 1713 until his death. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel.
The King acquired a reputation for his fondness for military display, leading to his special efforts to hire the tallest men he could find in all of Europe for a special regiment nicknamed the Potsdam Giants. He was known as the Soldier-king (Soldatenkönig).
He was born in Berlin to Frederick I of Prussia and Sophia Charlotte of Hanover. His father had successfully acquired the title King for the margraves of Brandenburg. During his own reign, Frederick William I did much to centralize and improve Prussia. He replaced mandatory military service among the middle class with an annual tax, established primary schools, and resettled East Prussia (which had been devastated by the plague in 1709).
The king encouraged farming, reclaimed marshes, stored grain in good times and sold it in bad times. He dictated the manual of Regulations for State Officials, containing 35 chapters and 297 paragraphs in which every public servant in Prussia could find his duties precisely set out: a minister or councillor failing to attend a committee meeting, for example, would lose six months' pay; if he absented himself a second time, he would be discharged from the royal service.

wn.com/Frederick_Wilhelm_I
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the 33rd President of the United States (1945–1953). As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States (1945), he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his unprecedented fourth term.
During World War I, Truman served in combat in France as an artillery officer in his National Guard unit. After the war, he joined the Democratic Party political machine of Tom Pendergast in Kansas City, Missouri. He was elected a county official and in 1934 United States senator. After he had gained national prominence as head of the wartime Truman Committee, Truman replaced vice president Henry A. Wallace as Roosevelt's running mate in 1944.
Truman faced many challenges in domestic affairs. The disorderly postwar reconversion of the economy of the United States was marked by severe shortages, numerous strikes, and the passage of the Taft–Hartley Act over his veto. He confounded all predictions to win election in 1948, helped by his famous Whistle Stop Tour of rural America. After his election, he passed only one of the proposals in his liberal Fair Deal program. He used executive orders to end racial discrimination in the armed forces and created loyalty checks that dismissed thousands of communist supporters from office.

wn.com/Harry_S._Truman
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин; born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Джугашвили; 18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 and later held the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. While the office of the General Secretary was officially elective and not initially regarded as the top position in the Soviet state, Stalin managed to use it to consolidate more and more power in his hands after the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924 and gradually put down all opposition groups within the Communist Party. This included Leon Trotsky, a socialist theorist and the principal critic of Stalin among the early Soviet leaders, who was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929. Whereas Trotsky was an exponent of permanent revolution, it was Stalin's concept of socialism in one country that became the primary focus of Soviet politics.

wn.com/Joseph_Stalin
Ludwig Persius
Friedrich Ludwig Persius (15 February 1803 in Potsdam – 12 July 1845 in Potsdam) was a Prussian architect and a student of Karl Friedrich Schinkel.
Persius assisted Schinkel with, among others, the building of the Charlottenhof Castle and the Roman Baths in Sanssouci Park in Potsdam. He was also involved with the construction of the Great Fountain, the Church of Peace, and the Orangery and observation tower on the Ruinenberg opposite Sanssouci Palace.
Persius was born in Potsdam, where he went to public school and grammar school. From 1817 to 1819 he worked with the building inspector Gotthil Hecker; he enrolled as a carpenter. From 1819 he studied to become a surveyor at the Academy of Architecture in Berlin, and took his exam in March 1821. From 1821 he worked as a building planner in Potsdam, working under, among others, Karl Friedrich Schinkel during the building of the castle and church on the grounds of Graf Potocki at Kraków. In 1824 Persius became a member of the Association of Architects. In Glienicke he worked as a successful architect under Schinkel. In 1826 he passed his exam to become a master builder at the Academy of Architecture in Berlin, and became a building planner in Charlottenhof.

wn.com/Ludwig_Persius
Magna Germania
Germania (Greek: Γερμανία) was the Greek and Roman geographic term for the geographical regions inhabited mainly by peoples considered to be Germani. It was most often used to refer especially to the east of the Rhine and north of the Danube. The areas west of the Rhine were mainly Celtic (specifically Gaulish) and had become part of the Roman Empire.
Some Germani, perhaps the original people to have been referred to by this name, had lived on the west side of the Rhine. At least as early as the 2nd century BC. This area was considered to be in "Gaul", and became part of the Roman empire. These were the so-called germani cisrhenani, who in modern terms lived in the region of modern eastern Belgium, the southeastern Netherlands, and stretching into Germany towards the Rhine. During the period of the Roman empire, more tribes were settled in areas of the empire near the Rhine, in territories controlled by the Roman Empire. Eventually these areas came to be known as Lesser Germania, while Greater Germania (Magna Germania) was the larger territory east of the Rhine.

wn.com/Magna_Germania
Paul von Hindenburg
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg ( listen (help·info)), known universally as Paul von Hindenburg (German: [ˈpaʊl fɔn ˈhɪndənbʊɐ̯k] ( listen); 2 October 1847 – 2 August 1934) was a Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and politician, and served as the second President of Germany from 1925 to 1934.
Hindenburg enjoyed a long career in the Prussian Army, retiring in 1911. He was recalled at the outbreak of World War I, and first came to national attention, at the age of 66, as the victor at Tannenberg in 1914. As Germany's Chief of the General Staff from 1916, he and his deputy, Erich Ludendorff, rose in the German public's esteem until Hindenburg came to eclipse the Kaiser himself.^{[citation needed]} Hindenburg retired again in 1919, but returned to public life one more time in 1925 to be elected as the second President of Germany.
Though 84 years old and in poor health, Hindenburg was persuaded to run for re-election in 1932, as he was considered the only candidate who could defeat Adolf Hitler. Hindenburg was re-elected in a runoff. Although he was opposing Hitler, the deteriorating political stability of the Weimar Republic let him play an important role in the Nazi Party's rise to power. He dissolved the parliament twice in 1932 and eventually appointed Hitler as Chancellor in January 1933. In February, he issued the Reichstag Fire Decree which suspended various civil liberties, and in March he signed the Enabling Act, in which the parliament gave Hitler's administration legislative powers. Hindenburg died the following year, after which Hitler declared the office of President vacant and, as "Führer und Reichskanzler", made himself head of state.

wn.com/Paul_von_Hindenburg
Tacitus
Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus (AD 56 – AD 117) was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors. These two works span the history of the Roman Empire from the death of Augustus in AD 14 to (presumably) the death of emperor Domitian in AD 96. There are substantial lacunae in the surviving texts, including one four books long in the Annals.
Other writings by him discuss oratory (in dialogue format, see Dialogus de oratoribus), Germania (in De origine et situ Germanorum), and the life of his father-in-law Agricola, mainly focusing on his campaign in Britannia (see De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae).
Tacitus is considered to be one of the greatest Roman historians. He lived in what has been called the Silver Age of Latin literature, and as well as the brevity and compactness of his Latin prose, he is known for his penetrating insights into the psychology of power politics.

wn.com/Tacitus
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃.swa ma.ʁi aʁ.wɛ]; 21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778), known by the pen name Voltaire (pronounced: [vɔl.tɛːʁ]), was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, freedom of expression, free trade and separation of church and state. Voltaire was a prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poetry, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and more than 2,000 books and pamphlets. He was an outspoken supporter of social reform, despite strict censorship laws with harsh penalties for those who broke them. As a satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma and the French institutions of his day.
Voltaire was one of several Enlightenment figures (along with Montesquieu, John Locke, Richard Price, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Émilie du Châtelet) whose works and ideas influenced important thinkers of both the American and French Revolutions.

wn.com/Voltaire
Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ulbricht (30 June 1893 – 1 August 1973) was a German communist politician. As First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971 (and then Honorary "Chairman" until his death), he played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and later (spending the years of Nazi rule in exile in the Soviet Union) in the early development and establishment of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). From President Wilhelm Pieck's death in 1960 he was the East German head of state until his own death in 1973.
Ulbricht was born in Leipzig, Saxony, where his father worked as a tailor. He spent eight years in primary school (Volksschule). After leaving school, he trained to be a joiner. Both his parents worked actively for the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Walter Ulbricht joined the party in 1912.
Ulbricht served in World War I from 1915 to 1917 in Galicia on the Eastern Front, and in the Balkans. He deserted in 1917, as he had opposed the war from the beginning. Imprisoned in Charleroi, in 1918 he was released during the German Revolution of 1918–1919. In 1917 he became a member of the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) after it split off from the Social Democratic Party (SPD) over support of Germany's participation in World War I. During the German Revolution he became a member of the soldier's soviet of his army corps and later a member of the KPD in 1920, joining its Central Committee in 1923. Ulbricht attended the International Lenin School of the Comintern in Moscow in 1924/1925. The electors subsequently voted him into the regional parliament of Saxony (Sächsischer Landtag) in 1926. He became a Member of the Reichstag for South Westphalia from 1928 to 1933 and served as KPD chairman in Berlin from 1929.

wn.com/Walter_Ulbricht
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, PC, DL, FRS, Hon. RA (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British Conservative politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. Widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century, he served as Prime Minister twice (1940–45 and 1951–55). A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian, a writer, and an artist. He is the only British prime minister to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was the first person to be made an Honorary Citizen of the United States.
Churchill was born into the aristocratic family of the Dukes of Marlborough. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a charismatic politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer; his mother, Jenny Jerome, was an American socialite. As a young army officer, he saw action in British India, the Sudan, and the Second Boer War. He gained fame as a war correspondent and wrote books about his campaigns.

wn.com/Winston_Churchill
World War I
World War I (WWI), which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939 (World War II), and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. It involved all the world's great powers, which were assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies (based on the Triple Entente of the United Kingdom, France and Russia) and the Central Powers (originally centred around the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy; but, as Austria–Hungary had taken the offensive against the agreement, Italy did not enter into the war). These alliances both reorganised (Italy fought for the Allies), and expanded as more nations entered the war. Ultimately more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history. More than 9 million combatants were killed, largely because of enormous increases in lethality of weapons, thanks to new technology, without corresponding improvements in protection or mobility. It was the sixth-deadliest conflict in world history, subsequently paving the way for various political changes such as revolutions in the nations involved.

wn.com/World_War_I

Potsdam Germany

Having always wanted to visit Berlin, I was very excited when I was asked to join a press ...

published: 10 Sep 2011

author: eurodestination

Potsdam Conference 1945

The Berlin Conference...

published: 20 Feb 2009

author: Marty Perlmutter

Potsdam, Germany

The first part of the "Beautiful Cities Series" focuses on Potsdam, a city of splendid bea...

published: 26 Jun 2007

author: Martin Sejas

Recommended - Potsdam | Discover Germany

Musician Anne Winkler shows us her hometown Potsdam. She recommends visiting the Luisenpla...

published: 05 Sep 2011

author: deutschewelleenglish

Germany: Potsdam - The Sanssouci Park

The 287-hectare Castle Park dates from 1725. It was located where once was an orchard. Wit...

published: 12 Oct 2009

author: maaswater15

Potsdam - Three Travel Tips | Discover Germany

Soprano singer Ute Beckert shows us three of her favorite places in Potsdam: the Pfingstbe...

published: 01 Jul 2012

author: deutschewelleenglish

De Oranjeroute: Potsdam

EO uitzending over Potsdam en Sanssouci....

published: 16 Jun 2009

author: DeOranjeroute

Trams of Potsdam, Germany

potsdam is a city just outside of berlin. Trams provide transportation for Potsdam 200000 ...

published: 31 Jul 2009

author: timosha21

Potsdam 1933 in Farbe

Der älteste überlieferte Farbfilm über Potsdam, hergestellt von Ufa. Die einstige Schönhei...

published: 18 Feb 2010

author: Chrilsama

Potsdam Conference 1945

Potsdam Conference 1945 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee, US Presi...

published: 31 May 2011

author: 80omar80omar80

Kanalsprint Potsdam 2008

Torsten Lachmann vs. Andreas Dittmer 170m...

published: 10 Aug 2008

author: torstenlachmann

Hausbesetzer Potsdam

hausbesetzer in potsdam 1993, gutenbergstrasse...

published: 17 Dec 2006

author: panikOlli

Exclusive! S-Bahn in Berlin/Potsdam, Germany 2009

s-bahn is an above ground train that transports people around berlin. sometimes it goes un...

published: 01 Aug 2009

author: timosha21

Potsdam im Februar1990 History .Noch ist es DDR

Potsdam im Februar1990 History .Noch ist es DDR unbearbeitetes original Material vom 22.2....

published: 11 Jul 2011

author: videohai02

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photo: AP / Reed Saxon

FILE - In this March 8, 2012 file photo, Mexican-American singer and reality TV star Jenni Rivera poses during an interview in Los Angeles.

Singer feared dead in Mexico plane crash

Al Jazeera

10 Dec 2012

The wreckage of a small plane believed to be carrying Mexican-American singing superstar Jenni Rivera has been found in northern Mexico and there are no apparent survivors, authorities said. Transportation and Communications Minister Gerardo Ruiz Esparza said on Sunday that "everything points toward" it being the US-registered Learjet 25 carrying Rivera and six other people from Monterrey en route to Toluca, Mexico ... 192 Source . ... Share ... ....(size: 17.5Kb)

photo: USAF / Staff Sgt. Jonathan Lovelady

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. James Bates, a security force squad leader with the Farah Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), provides security at a landing zone as his team prepares to disembark a CH-47 Chinook helicopter Sept. 26, 2012, in Pur Chaman district, Farah province, Afghanistan. The Farah PRT was composed of Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen whose mission was to provide security, support local governments and monitor reconstruction efforts throughout the province.

Are U.S. Wars and Politics Primitive?

WorldNews.com

10 Dec 2012

Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling. In the desert of central Australia still resides a primitive tribe known as the Arunta. This non-technological and stateless group, which mainly depends on hunting and gathering, had suffered several inexplicable deaths ... Therefore, they organized an atinga, or revenge group ... When the guiltless tribe learned of their approach, they sent out a delegation of young women as a token of peace....(size: 5.8Kb)

photo: AP / Todd Williamson

Jenni Rivera attends a press conference on Friday, Aug. 24, 2012, in Woodland Hills, California.

Lamentan muerte de Jenni Rivera

Yahoo Daily News

10 Dec 2012

MÉXICO, D.F., diciembre 9 (EL UNIVERSAL).- La Voz México, programa de talentos de Televisa, confirmó la muerte de la cantante Jenni Rivera, a través de su Twitter. "Que toquen fuerte las bandas, suelten por mí mariposas, apláudanme con sus palmas... http.//twitpic.com/bkmhl0 .Descanse en paz Jenni Rivera" ... Además, anunció un homenaje luctuoso dedicado a la cantante ... Descanse en Paz" ... ....(size: 2.1Kb)

photo: AP / Bullit Marquez

Soldiers unload another victim of typhoon Bopha as retrieval operations continue at the hardest hit New Bataan township, Compostela Valley in southern Philippines Sunday Dec. 9, 2012. The number of missing in the wake of a typhoon that devastated parts of the southern Philippines has jumped to nearly 900 after families and fishing companies reported losing contact with more than 300 fishermen in the South China Sea and Pacific Ocean, officials said Sunday.

Typhoon ‘Pablo’ toll: 714 confirmed dead, 890 missing

The Daily Tribune

11 Dec 2012

The death toll brought about by typhoon “Pablo” continued to rise with 714 persons confirmed dead by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) yesterday while those missing ballooned to 890 as massive search, retrieval and relief operations continue in the typhoon-ravaged areas in Mindanao ... 4 ... They were subsequently brought to Caraga Regional Hospital ... (NHMFC) (P100,000) ... With AFP ....(size: 5.4Kb)

photo: AP / A.M. Ahad

Police officials wield bamboo sticks to stop main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party activist during a protest in Kachpur, on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, Dec. 9, 2012.

Bangladesh opposition in violent protests over attacks

BBC News

11 Dec 2012

Violence has flared in many parts of Bangladesh as schools and most businesses were shut after opposition groups enforced a dawn-to-dusk strike. They called the strike to protest against attacks on their supporters during a road blockade on Sunday. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its allies have been demanding a caretaker government be put in place to oversee the next parliamentary polls ... "The situation is under control now ... ....(size: 2.2Kb)

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Therapy Dog De-stresses Students During Finals Week at Clarkson University (Clarkson University)

noodls

11 Dec 2012

(Source. Clarkson University) ... "Everyone loves dogs ... Young said ... Rose enjoyed the attention, according to her owner, Joan Kogut of Potsdam, who brings her dog to events on a volunteer basis ... Located just outside the Adirondack Park in Potsdam, N.Y., Clarkson is a nationally recognized research university for undergraduates with select graduate programs in signature areas of academic excellence directed toward the world's pressing issues....(size: 4.0Kb)

Clarkson University President Tony Collins Swaps Roles with Freshman for the Day (Clarkson University)

noodls

11 Dec 2012

(Source. Clarkson University) ... The two swapped roles for the third annual "Presidential Switch Day" at Clarkson ... The CUSA raffle benefitted the Make-A-Wish Foundation ... Located just outside the Adirondack Park in Potsdam, N.Y., Clarkson is a nationally recognized research university for undergraduates with select graduate programs in signature areas of academic excellence directed toward the world's pressing issues ... distributed by ... (noodl....(size: 3.8Kb)

Skyscraper city of thirst, traffic and tax-free jobs

Irish Times

11 Dec 2012

FRANK McDONALD ... With the World Bank warning that the Gulf region could be among the hardest hit by soaring temperatures, the Qatar Foundation for Science, Education and Community Development has teamed up with the Potsdam Institute to set up a climate change research centre ... No wonder there’s no construction work permitted from 11am to 3pm between April and September ... Richest country ... ....(size: 4.5Kb)

Miro, Max Ernst Collectors Await Berlin Decision on Art

Bloomberg

11 Dec 2012

Ulla and Heiner Pietzsch are waiting for Berlin to decide whether it can house their collection of Surrealist art, with paintings by Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, Rene Magritte, Yves Tanguy and Joan Miro. Berlin’s museums currently have no space for the gift ... The city’s museum authorities were forced to reconsider ... That would clear the Gemaeldegalerie at Potsdamer Platz for 20th-century art, a solution Heiner Pietzsch said he favors ... ....(size: 6.5Kb)

Tip ’o the hat

Boston Herald

10 Dec 2012

Junior assistant captain from Danvers had a four-goal week, including a hat trick, as Huskies split with visiting Potsdam ... SHARE . ... Advertisement. ....(size: 1.3Kb)

DB Schenker expands its lead logistics operations (DB Schenker AG)

noodls

10 Dec 2012

(Source. DB Schenker AG). Management and integration of service providers in customer orders • Team of specialists with 15 years' experience. (Essen/Berlin, 10 December 2012) With immediate effect, DB Schenker Logistics is expanding its tailored transport and logistics services to include the new DB SCHENKERleadlogisticsservice ... Issued by. by DB Mobility Logistics AG. Potsdamer Platz 2, 10785 Berlin, Germany. Responsible for content.....(size: 2.8Kb)

DB Schenker expands its lead logistics operations (DB - Deutsche Bahn AG)

noodls

10 Dec 2012

(Source. DB - Deutsche Bahn AG). Press release. Management and integration of service providers in customer orders • Team of specialists with 15 years' experience. (Essen/Berlin, 10 December 2012) With immediate effect, DB Schenker Logistics is expanding its tailored transport and logistics services to include the new DB SCHENKERleadlogistics service ... Issued by. by DB Mobility Logistics AG. Potsdamer Platz 2, 10785 Berlin, Germany....(size: 3.0Kb)

Music for the earth

Deutsche Welle

10 Dec 2012

A group of professional musicians in Germany are using their talent to save the earth. They've even drawn big-name stars on board, like Daniel Barenboim and Thomas Quasthoff ... Even huge storms couldn't disturb the godly order in which people felt safe and secure ... ecology and music ... Well-known scientist Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, recently joined the NaturTon foundation ... ....(size: 4.1Kb)

Array of emissions trading markets opening up for SA

Business Day

10 Dec 2012

Related articles. UN climate-change deal gives second life to Kyoto Protocol Arab youths deported for silent climate protest in Qatar South Africa ‘with Africa’ on climate change talks In this article ... But it is unlikely to meet this goal, according to research by German nonprofit organisation Climate Analytics, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and renewable energy and carbon efficiency consultancy Ecofys ... ....(size: 5.1Kb)

All eyes on St George's

The Gleaner

08 Dec 2012

Robert Bailey, Gleaner Writer. Defending champions St George's College will be looking to wrap up the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA)/ Gatorade/Digicel Olivier Shield title when they face daCosta Cup winners Glenmuir High in the second leg at Brancourt in Clarendon this afternoon at 3.00 ... Bell added ... Glenmuir outclassed ... Past Olivier Shield winners ... Munro College (was Potsdam College) ... Munro College (was Potsdam College)....(size: 5.0Kb)

Pollution limits under Kyoto Protocol extended

The Washington Post

08 Dec 2012

Dec. 8 (Bloomberg) -- The international effort to curb global warming inched forward with an agreement that extends pollution limits under the Kyoto Protocol and calls for work on a mechanism that would pay aid for climate-related disasters ... Loading... Arctic sea ice shrank to its lowest on record this summer, and ocean levels may rise 1 meter (3 feet) by the end of the century, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research says ... ....(size: 4.1Kb)

Pollution Limits Extended in UN Global Warming Pact

Bloomberg

08 Dec 2012

The international effort to curb global warming inched forward with an agreement that extends pollution limits under the Kyoto Protocol and calls for work on a mechanism that would pay aid for climate-related disasters ... Arctic sea ice shrank to its lowest on record this summer, and ocean levels may rise 1 meter (3 feet) by the end of the century, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research says ... “We need ambitious global action ... ....(size: 10.4Kb)

Salvation Army trumpeter muted by Wal-Mart

Newsday

07 Dec 2012

POTSDAM, N.Y ... , an 81-year-old retired Crane School of Music professor, says managers at the Wal-Mart store in Potsdam told him Thursday that he could not play his horn at his ......(size: 0.9Kb)

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For other uses, see Potsdam (disambiguation).

Potsdam
Aerial view of Potsdam

Potsdam
Coordinates	52°24′0″N 13°4′0″E / 52.4°N 13.066667°E / 52.4; 13.066667Coordinates: 52°24′0″N 13°4′0″E / 52.4°N 13.066667°E / 52.4; 13.066667
Administration
Country	Germany
State	Brandenburg
District	Urban district
Lord Mayor	Jann Jakobs (SPD)

Basic statistics
Area	187.28 km² (72.31 sq mi)
Elevation	35-114 m
Population	156,906 (31 December 2010)^[1]
- Density	838 /km² (2,170 /sq mi)
Other information
Time zone	CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Licence plate	P
Postal codes	14401–14482
Area code	0331
Website	www.potsdam.de

Potsdam (German pronunciation: [ˈpɔtsdam]) is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, 24 km (15 mi) southwest of Berlin city centre.

The name "Potsdam" originally seems to have been "Poztupimi" from a West Slavonic name meaning "beneath the oaks", highlighting the area's many grand oak trees.^[2]

Potsdam has several claims to national and international notability. In Germany, it had the status Windsor has in Britain: it was the residence of the Prussian kings and German Kaisers, until 1918. Around the city there are a series of interconnected lakes and unique cultural landmarks, in particular the parks and palaces of Sanssouci, the largest World Heritage Site in Germany. The Potsdam Conference, the major post-World War II conference between the victorious Allies, was held at another palace in the area, the Cecilienhof.

Babelsberg, in the south-eastern part of Potsdam, was a major film production studio before the war and has enjoyed increased success as a major centre of European film production since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Filmstudio Babelsberg is the oldest large-scale film studio in the world.

Potsdam developed into a centre of science in Germany from the 19th century. Today, there are three public colleges and more than 30 research institutes in the city.

1 Geography
2 History
- 2.1 Governorate of Potsdam
- 2.2 Potsdam in the 20th century
3 Politics
- 3.1 Administration
4 International relations
- 4.1 Twin towns — sister cities
5 Education and research
6 Main sights
7 Transport
8 Sport
9 Famous people
10 References
11 Sources
12 External links

Geography [link]

Sanssouci

Templiner See south of Potsdam

The area was formed from a series of large moraines left after the last ice age. Today, the city is three-quarters green space, with just a quarter as urban area. There are about 20 lakes and rivers in and around Potsdam, such as the Havel, the Griebnitzsee, Templiner See, Tiefer See, Jungfernsee, Teltowkanal, Heiliger See and the Sacrower See. The highest point is the 114-metre (374 ft) high Kleiner Ravensberg.

Potsdam is divided into seven historic city districts and nine new Ortsteile (villages), which joined the city in 2003. The appearances of the city districts are quite different. The districts in the north and in the centre consist mainly of historical buildings, the south of the city is dominated by larger areas of newer buildings.

History [link]

Document from the Holy Roman Empire in 993 mentioning Poztupimi

New Palace

The area around Potsdam shows occupancy since the Bronze Age and was part of Magna Germania as described by Tacitus. After the migrations, Slavs moved in and Potsdam was probably founded after the 7th century as a settlement of the Heveller centred on a castle. It was first mentioned in a document in 993AD as Poztupimi, when Emperor Otto III gifted the territory to the Quedlinburg Abbey, then led by his aunt Matilda. A possible translation of the name might be beneath the oaks. By 1317, it was mentioned as a small town. It gained its town charter in 1345. In 1573, it was still a small market town of 2,000 inhabitants. Due to the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), Potsdam had lost nearly half of its population.

A continuous Hohenzollern possession since 1415, Potsdam became prominent, when it was chosen in 1660 as the hunting residence of Frederick William I, Elector of Brandenburg, the core of the powerful state that later became the Kingdom of Prussia. It also housed Prussian barracks.

Voltaire at the residence of Frederick II in Potsdam. Partial view of an engraving by Pierre Charles Baquoy, after N. A. Monsiau.

After the Edict of Potsdam in 1685, Potsdam became a centre of European immigration. Its religious freedom attracted people from France (Huguenots), Russia, the Netherlands and Bohemia. The edict accelerated population growth and economic recovery.

Later, the city became a full residence of the Prussian royal family. The majestic buildings of the royal residences were built mainly during the reign of Frederick the Great. One of these is the Sanssouci Palace (French: "without cares", by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff, 1744), famed for its formal gardens and Rococo interiors. Other royal residences include the New Palace and the Orangery.

In 1815, at the formation of the Province of Brandenburg, Potsdam became the provincial capital until 1918, however, interrupted and succeeded by Berlin as provincial capital between 1827 and 1843, and after 1918. The province comprised two governorates named after their capitals Potsdam and Frankfurt upon Oder.

Governorate of Potsdam [link]

Between 1815 and 1945 the city of Potsdam served as capital of the governorate of Potsdam (German: Regierungsbezirk Potsdam). The Regierungsbezirk encompassed the former districts of Uckermark, the Mark of Priegnitz, and the greater part of the Middle March. It was situated between Mecklenburg and the Province of Pomerania on the north, and the Province of Saxony on the south and west (Berlin, with a small surrounding district, was an urban governorate and enclave within the governorate of Potsdam between 1815 and 1822, then it merged as urban district into the governorate only to be disentangled again from Potsdam governorate in 1875, becoming an own distinct province-like entity on 1 April 1881). Towards the north west the governorate was bounded by the rivers Elbe and the Havel, and on the north east by the Oder. The southeastern boundary was to the neighbouring governorate of Frankfurt upon Oder. About 500,000 inhabitants lived in the Potsdam governorate, which covered an area of about 20,700 square kilometres, divided into thirteen rural districts, named after their capitals:^[3]

Angermünde	Beeskow-Storkow (as of 1836)	East Havelland	East Prignitz
Jüterbog-Luckenwalde	Lower Barnim	Prenzlau	Ruppin
Teltow (as of 1836)	Teltow-Storkow (until 1835)	Templin	Upper Barnim
West Havelland	West Prignitz	Zauch-Belzig

The traditional towns in the governorate were small, however, in the course of the industrial labour migration some reached the rank as urban districts. The principal towns were Brandenburg upon Havel, Köpenick, Potsdam, Prenzlau, Spandau and Ruppin.^[3] Until 1875 also Berlin was a town within the governorate. After its disentanglement a number of its suburbs outside Berlin's municipal borders grew to cities, many forming urban within the governorate of Potsdam such as Charlottenburg, Lichtenberg, Rixdorf (after 1912 Neukölln), and Schöneberg (all of which, as well as Köpenick and Spandau, incorporated into Greater Berlin in 1920). The urban districts were (years indicating the elevation to rank of urban district or affiliation with Potsdam governorate, respectively):

Berlin (1822–1875)	Brandenburg/Havel (as of 1881)	Charlottenburg (1877–1920)	Eberswalde (as of 1911)
Lichtenberg (1908–1920)	Schöneberg (1899–1920)	Deutsch-Wilmersdorf (1907–1920)	Rixdorf (Neukölln) (1899–1920)
Potsdam	Rathenow (as of 1925)	Spandau (1886–1920)	Wittenberge (as of 1922)

Potsdam in the 20th century [link]

Berlin was the official capital of Prussia and later of the German Empire, but the court remained in Potsdam, where many government officials settled. In 1914, the Emperor Wilhelm II signed the Declaration of War in the Neues Palais. The city lost its status as a second capital in 1918, when Wilhelm II abdicated at the end of World War I.

At the start of the Third Reich in 1933 there was a ceremonial handshake between President Paul von Hindenburg and the new Chancellor Adolf Hitler on 21 March 1933 in Potsdam's Garrison Church in what became known as the "Day of Potsdam". This symbolised a coalition of the military (Reichswehr) and Nazism. Potsdam was severely damaged in bombing raids during World War II.

Potsdam Conference in 1945 with Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin

The Cecilienhof Palace was the scene of the Potsdam Conference from 17 July, to 2 August 1945, at which the victorious Allied leaders (Harry S. Truman; Winston Churchill and his successor, Clement Attlee; and Joseph Stalin) met to decide the future of Germany and postwar Europe in general. The conference ended with the Potsdam Agreement and the Potsdam Declaration.

The Glienicke Bridge, used for exchanging spies during the Cold War

The government of East Germany (formally known as the German Democratic Republic (German: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, DDR)) tried to remove symbols of Prussian militarism. Many historic buildings, some of them badly damaged in the war, were demolished.

When in 1946 the remainder of the Province of Brandenburg west of the Oder-Neiße line was constituted as the state of Brandenburg, Potsdam became its capital. In 1952 the GDR disestablished its federative states and replaced them by smaller new East German administrative districts. Potsdam became the capital of the new Bezirk Potsdam until 1990.

Potsdam, south-west of Berlin, lay just outside West Berlin after the construction of the Berlin Wall. The walling off of West Berlin not only isolated Potsdam from West Berlin, but also doubled commuting times to East Berlin. The Glienicke Bridge across the Havel connected the city to West Berlin and was the scene of some Cold War exchanges of spies.

After German reunification, Potsdam became the capital of the newly re-established state of Brandenburg. There are many ideas and efforts to reconstruct the original appearance of the city, most remarkably the Potsdam City Palace and the Garrison Church.

Politics [link]

Administration [link]

The Old Town Hall

Potsdam has had a mayor (Bürgermeister) and city council since the 15th century. From 1809 the city council was elected, with a mayor (Oberbürgermeister) at its head. During the Third Reich the mayor was selected by the NSDAP and the city council was dissolved; it was reconstituted in token form after the Second World War, but free elections did not take place until after reunification.

Today, the city council is the city's central administrative authority. Local elections took place on 26 October 2003 and again in 2008. Between 1990 and 1999, the Chairman of the City Council was known as the "Town President" but today the post is the "Chairman of the City Council". The mayor is elected directly by the population. In the mayoral election on 22 September 2002, no candidate gained an overall majority, and a run-off election was held between Jann Jakobs (SPD) and Hans-Jürgen Scharfenberg (PDS), with Jann Jakobs gaining the narrowest of victories, with 50.1%.

The Landtag Brandenburg, the parliament of the federal state of Brandenburg is in Potsdam. It is planned to move into the Potsdam City Palace in 2011, after its reconstruction.

International relations [link]

Main article: List of twin towns and sister cities in Germany

Twin towns — sister cities [link]

Potsdam is twinned with the following cities:^[4]


Opole	Poland	1973	Perugia	Italy	1990
Bobigny	France	1974	Sioux Falls	South Dakota, USA	1990
Jyväskylä	Finland	1985	Bonn	North Rhine-Westphalia	1988
Lucerne	Switzerland	2002

Education and research [link]

Landmark buildings of the University of Potsdam

Potsdam is a university town. The University of Potsdam was founded in 1991 as a university of the State of Brandenburg. Its predecessor was the Akademie für Staats- und Rechtswissenschaften der DDR "Walter Ulbricht", a college of education founded in 1948 which was one of the GDR's most important colleges. There are about 20,000 students enrolled at the university.

The Einstein Tower was built in 1921 to house research on the theory of relativity

In 1991 the Fachhochschule was founded as the second college; it now has 2,400 students.

In addition there is a College of Film and Television (Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen "Konrad Wolf" HFF), founded in 1954 in Babelsberg, the foremost centre of the German film industry since its birth, with currently 600 students.

There are also several research foundations, including Fraunhofer Institutes for Applied Polymer Research and Biomedical Engineering, Max Planck Institutes for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute), Colloids and Interfaces, and Molecular Plant Physiology, the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, the Potsdam Astrophysical Institute and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, which employs 140 people in researching climate change.

As well as universities, Potsdam is home to reputable secondary schools. Montessori Gesamtschule Potsdam, in western Potsdam, attracts 400 students from the Brandenburg and Berlin region.

Main sights [link]

Main article: List of sights of Potsdam

Sanssouci Palace.

Potsdam was historically a centre of European immigration. Its religious tolerance attracted people from France, Russia, the Netherlands and Bohemia. This is still visible in the culture and architecture of the city.

The most popular attraction in Potsdam is Sanssouci Park, 2 km west of the city centre. In 1744 King Frederick the Great ordered the construction of a residence here, where he could live sans souci ("without worries", in the French spoken at the court). The park hosts a botanical garden (Botanical Garden, Potsdam) and many magnificent buildings:

The Sanssouci Palace (Schloss Sanssouci), a relatively modest palace of the Prussian royal and German imperial family
The Orangery Palace (Orangerieschloss), former palace for foreign royal guests
The New Palace (Neues Palais), built between 1763 and 1769 to celebrate the end of the Seven Years' War, in which Prussia ousted Austria from its centuries-long role as the dominant power in German affairs. It is a much larger and grander palace than Sanssouci, having over 200 rooms and 400 statues as decoration. It served as a guest house for numerous royal visitors. It is now housing parts of University of Potsdam.
The Charlottenhof Palace (Schloss Charlottenhof), a Neoclassical palace by Karl Friedrich Schinkel built in 1826
The Roman Baths (Römische Bäder), built by Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Ludwig Persius in 1829-1840. It is a complex of buildings including a tea pavilion, a Renaissance-style villa, and a Roman bathhouse (from which the whole complex takes its name).
The Chinese Tea House (Chinesisches Teehaus), an 18th century pavilion built in a Chinese style, the fashion of the time.

Three gates from the original city wall remain today. The oldest is the Hunters' Gate (Jägertor), built in 1733. The Nauener Tor was built in 1755 and close to the historic Dutch Quarter. The ornate Brandenburg Gate (built in 1770, not to be confused with the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin) is situated on the Luisenplatz at the western entrance to the old town.

Fortunaportal and St. Nicholas' Church on the Alter Markt (the church has since been renovated see photo)

The old town (main shopping street, Brandenburger Straße)

The Old Market Square (Alter Markt) is Potsdam's historical city centre. For three centuries this was the site of the City Palace (Stadtschloß), a royal palace built in 1662. Under Frederick the Great, the palace became the winter residence of the Prussian kings. The palace was severely damaged by bombing in 1945 and demolished in 1961 by the Communist authorities. In 2002 the Fortuna Gate (Fortunaportal) was rebuilt in its original historic position, which marks the first step in the reconstruction of the palace.

The Old Market Square is dominated today by the dome of St. Nicholas' Church (Nikolaikirche), built in 1837 in the classical style. It was the last work of Karl Friedrich Schinkel, who designed the building but did not live to see its completion. It was finished by his disciples Friedrich August Stüler and Ludwig Persius. The eastern side of the Market Square is dominated by the Old City Hall (Altes Rathaus), built in 1755 by the Dutch architect Jan Bouman (1706–1776). It has a characteristic circular tower, crowned with a gilded Atlas bearing the world on his shoulders.

Potsdam's Brandenburg Gate

File:Dutcharchitecture9.png

Dutch Quarter

North of the Old Market Square is the oval French Church (Französische Kirche), erected in the 1750s by Boumann for the Huguenot community.

Another landmark of Potsdam is the two-street Dutch Quarter (Holländisches Viertel), an ensemble of buildings that is unique in Europe, with about 150 houses built of red bricks in the Dutch style. It was built between 1734 and 1742 under the direction of Jan Bouman to be used by Dutch artisans and craftsmen who had been invited to settle here by King Frederick Wilhelm I. Today, this area is one of Potsdam's most visited districts.

North of the city centre is the Russian colony of Alexandrowka, a small enclave of Russian architecture (including an Orthodox chapel) built in 1825 for a group of Russian immigrants. Since 1999, the colony has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

East of the Alexandrowka colony is a large park, the New Garden (Neuer Garten), which was laid out from 1786 in the English style. The site contains two palaces; one of them, the Cecilienhof, was where the Potsdam Conference was held in July and August 1945. The Marmorpalais (Marble Palace) was built in 1789 in the style of classicism. Nearby is the Biosphäre Potsdam, a tropical botanical garden.

Another interesting district of Potsdam is Babelsberg, a quarter south-east of the centre, housing the UFA film studios (Babelsberg Studios), and an extensive park with some historical buildings, including the Babelsberg Palace (Schloß Babelsberg, a neo-Gothic palace designed by Schinkel). The Einstein Tower was built between 1920 and 1924 by architect Erich Mendelsohn on the top of the Telegraphenberg within an astronomy compound.

There are many parks in Potsdam, most of them included in UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Some of them are:

Parks in Potsdam
The Belvedere near Sanssouci Park
View from Babelsberg Park to Berlin.
The Chinese House

Potsdam also includes a memorial centre in the former KGB prison in Leistikowstraße.

The Kaiserbahnhof at Park Sanssouci

Transport [link]

Rail transport: Potsdam, included in the fare zone "C" (Tarifbereich C)^[5] of Berlin's public transport area, is served by the S7 S-Bahn line. The stations served are Griebnitzsee, Babelsberg and the Central Station (Hauptbahnhof), the main and long-distance station of the city. Other DB stations in Potsdam are Charlottenhof, Park Sanssouci (including the monumental Kaiserbahnhof), Medienstadt Babelsberg (formerly Drewitz), Rehbrücke and Pirschheide. The city also possesses a 27 km-long tramway network.

Road transport: Potsdam is served by several motorways: the A 10, a beltway better known as Berliner Ring, the A 115 (using part of the AVUS) and is closely linked to the A 2 and A 9. The B 1 and B 2 federal roads cross the city. Potsdam counts a network of urban and suburban buses and trolleybuses.

Sport [link]

1. FFC Turbine Potsdam, one of the most successful German female football clubs (Bundesliga (women))
SV Babelsberg 03, football club (3. Bundesliga)
Olympic training centre Potsdam
USV Potsdam, Rugby union (2nd Rugby-Bundesliga) and Football (Kreisklasse)
List of football clubs in Potsdam
The Potsdamer Schlössermarathon (Potsdam Palace Marathon) is a marathon in that is held annually in June. Thousands of runners run the course past the palaces for the half marathon and several hundred repeat the course to complete the full marathon.

Famous people [link]

Famous people from Potsdam who are the subjects of Wikipedia articles can be found here.

References [link]

^ "Bevölkerung im Land Brandenburg am am 30. Dezember 2010 nach amtsfreien Gemeinden, Ämtern und Gemeinden. Gebietsstand: 31.12.2010" (in German). Amt für Statistik Berlin-Brandenburg. 31 December 2010. http://www.statistik-berlin-brandenburg.de//Publikationen/OTab/2011/OT_A01-04-00_124_201012_BB.pdf.
^ http://www.potsdam.de/cms/beitrag/10000936/33981/
^ ^a ^b Thomas Curtis (1839). The London encyclopaedia, or, Universal dictionary of science, art, literature, and practical mechanics, by the orig. ed. of the Encyclopaedia metropolitana Volume XVIII, p. 11
^ "Die Partnerstädte der Landeshauptstadt Potsdam" (in German). www.potsdam.de. http://www.potsdam.de/cms/ziel/27222/DE/. Retrieved 24 June 2010.
^ (German) BVG: Berliner public transport pdf maps showing fare zones

Sources [link]

Paul Sigel, Silke Dähmlow, Frank Seehausen und Lucas Elmenhorst, Architekturführer Potsdam Architectural Guide, Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-496-01325-7.

External links [link]

Germany portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Potsdam

v t e Urban and rural districts in the state of Brandenburg in Germany

Urban districts	Brandenburg an der Havel Cottbus Frankfurt (Oder) Potsdam

Rural districts	Barnim Dahme-Spreewald Elbe-Elster Havelland Märkisch-Oderland Oberhavel Oberspreewald-Lausitz Oder-Spree Ostprignitz-Ruppin Potsdam-Mittelmark Prignitz Spree-Neiße Teltow-Fläming Uckermark

v t e Capitals of states of the Federal Republic of Germany

Capitals of area states	Dresden (Saxony) Düsseldorf (North Rhine-Westphalia) Erfurt (Thuringia) Hanover (Lower Saxony) Kiel (Schleswig-Holstein) Magdeburg (Saxony-Anhalt) Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate) Munich (Bavaria) Potsdam (Brandenburg) Saarbrücken (Saarland) Schwerin (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) Stuttgart (Baden-Württemberg) Wiesbaden (Hesse)

Citystates¹	Berlin City of Bremen (State of Bremen) Hamburg

Capitals of former states	Freiburg im Breisgau (South Baden, 1949–1952) Stuttgart (Württemberg-Baden, 1949–1952) Tübingen (Württemberg-Hohenzollern, 1949–1952)

¹ Unlike the mono-city states Berlin and Hamburg the State of Bremen consists of two cities, thus state and capital are not identical.

v t e Cities in Germany by population

1,000,000+	Berlin Cologne Hamburg Munich

500,000+	Bremen Dortmund Dresden Düsseldorf Essen Frankfurt Hanover Leipzig Nuremberg Stuttgart

200,000+	Aachen Augsburg Bielefeld Bochum Bonn Braunschweig Chemnitz Duisburg Erfurt Freiburg im Breisgau Gelsenkirchen Halle an der Saale Karlsruhe Kiel Krefeld Lübeck Magdeburg Mannheim Münster Mönchengladbach Oberhausen Rostock Wiesbaden Wuppertal

100,000+	Bergisch Gladbach Bottrop Bremerhaven Cottbus Darmstadt Erlangen Fürth Göttingen Hagen Hamm Heidelberg Heilbronn Herne Hildesheim Ingolstadt Jena Kassel Koblenz Leverkusen Ludwigshafen Mainz Moers Mülheim an der Ruhr Neuss Offenbach am Main Oldenburg Osnabrück Paderborn Pforzheim Potsdam Recklinghausen Regensburg Remscheid Reutlingen Saarbrücken Salzgitter Siegen Solingen Trier Ulm Wolfsburg Würzburg

complete list municipalities metropolitan regions cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants

v t e Capitals of the former East German Bezirke

East Berlin · Cottbus · Dresden · Erfurt · Frankfurt (Oder) · Gera · Halle · Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chemnitz) · Leipzig · Magdeburg · Neubrandenburg · Potsdam · Rostock · Schwerin · Suhl

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Contents

Geography [link]

History [link]

Governorate of Potsdam [link]

Potsdam in the 20th century [link]

Politics [link]

Administration [link]

International relations [link]

Twin towns — sister cities [link]

Education and research [link]

Main sights [link]

Transport [link]

Sport [link]

Famous people [link]

References [link]

Sources [link]

External links [link]

http://wn.com/Potsdam

Related pages:

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http://cs.wn.com/Postupim

http://es.wn.com/Potsdam

http://ru.wn.com/Потсдам

http://id.wn.com/Potsdam

http://pl.wn.com/Poczdam

http://fr.wn.com/Potsdam

http://de.wn.com/Potsdam

http://pt.wn.com/Potsdam

http://nl.wn.com/Potsdam