Grunewald (Greenwood) is both a forest in Berlin on the east side of the Havel river and a locality of the Berlin borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Until 2001 it was part of the former district of Wilmersdorf.

History

Origin of the name

The name derives from the Grunewald hunting lodge of 1543, the oldest preserved castle in Berlin. It was erected in an Early Renaissance style by order of Elector Joachim II Hector of Brandenburg and named Zum Gruenen Wald, the umlaut spelt with an following instead of a diacritic as depicted above the main entrance. A corduroy road leading from the Berlin Stadtschloss to the lodge was laid out, which later would be known as the Kurfürstendamm boulevard.

Overview

The neighbourhood developed out of a so-called "mansion colony" at the western end of the Kurfürstendamm. Promoted by Otto von Bismarck the upper class of Berlin from 1880 on discovered Grunewald as an attractive site for living, which was incorporated into Greater Berlin in 1920. Today, the social structure of Grunewald is still influenced by these origins. The Rot-Weiss Tennis Club, home of the WTA Tour German Open, has been located in the district since 1897.

On June 24, 1922 Foreign Minister of Germany Walther Rathenau was assassinated by ultra-nationalist radicals of the Organisation Consul in a curve of the main street called Koenigsallee. A memorial stone marks the scene of the crime.

Since 1981 the Grunewald district is the home of the Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin. It also houses the embassies of Qatar, Kuwait, Laos, the Republic of Macedonia, Poland and Serbia.

Within the forest is the artificial Teufelsberg hill, once a listening station of the US National Security Agency. At the shore of the Havel the Grunewaldturm, built by Franz Heinrich Schwechten in 1898, offers panoramic views of the Havelland region. The Grunewald hunting lodge nearby today is officially located on the grounds of the adjacent Dahlem locality.

Transportation

Grunewald has access to the Berlin S-Bahn network at the Berlin-Grunewald railway station (lines S7 and S5 -night only-).

See also

• Pfaueninsel

• Teufelsberg

• Grunewaldturm

• Grunewald Railway Station with the memorial "Track 17", for the Jewish Berliners deported from this station during the Nazi period to Ghettos and concentration camps.