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Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of the Federal Republic of Germany — and with 3.4 million inhabitants and an area of 891.69 km² (344.3 mi²) also its largest city in population and size. Politically, Berlin is both a city and one of the 16 federal states of Germany.
Berlin is the political and cultural center of Germany and, due to its division into West Berlin and East Berlin from 1949 - 1989, one of the most diverse metropolises inside the European Union. Berlin is an important crossroads for the states of the expanding European Union, as well as the home of many of the national economical, cultural and educational institutions of Germany. Some of the outstanding institutions of Berlin include universities, research faculties, theatres, and museums, while festivals, the night-life, and the architecture of Berlin have gained an international reputation as well.
Berlin is located in northeastern Germany, on the Rivers Spree and Havel, completely surrounded by the German federal state of Brandenburg. Founded in the early 13th century, Berlin was the capital of the Margravate of Brandenburg and, after 1701, capital of the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1871, Berlin became capital of the German Empire and a focal point for the nation's history. Since the reunification of Germany on 3 October 1990, Berlin has been the official capital of the Federal Republic of Germany. Today, Berlin is also the seat of most of the executive and legislative branches of the German government.

History of Berlin
Early in the 13th century, the twin cities of Berlin and Cölln were founded as part of the German expansion into the formerly Slavic lands east of the River Elbe. Each of the twin cities was built on an island in the River Spree. Cölln lay on what is now known as the Spree Island (Spreeinsel), while the original Berlin lay across an arm of the Spree on an island to the northeast, where the medieval churches of St. Mary (Marienkirche) and St. Nicholas (Nikolaikirche) now stand. Another arm of the Spree, since filled in, separated the original Berlin from the mainland to the northeast.
The first written mention of the city of Cölln dates to 1237, and that of Berlin dates to 1244. From the beginning, the two cities formed an economic and social unit. In 1307, the two cities were united politically. Over time, the twin cities came to be known simply as Berlin, the larger of the pair. The name Berlin probably stems from the Slavic root berl (swamp, marshy ground).
In 1415 Frederick I became the elector of the Margravate of Brandenburg, which he ruled until 1440. Subsequent members of the Hohenzollern family ruled until 1918 in Berlin, first as margraves of Brandenburg, then as kings of Prussia, and finally as German emperors. The inhabitants of Berlin did not always welcome these changes.
In 1448 they rebelled in the “Berlin Indignation” against the construction of a new royal palace by Elector Frederick II Irontooth. This protest was not successful, however, and the citizenry lost many of its political and economic privileges. In 1451 Berlin became the royal residence of the Brandenburg electors, and Berlin had to give up its status as a free Hanseatic city. In 1539 the electors and the city officially became Protestant.
The Thirty Years War between 1618 and 1648 had devastating consequences for Berlin. A third of the houses were damaged, and the city lost half of its population. Frederick William, known as the “Great Elector”, succeeded his father as ruler in 1640. He initiated a policy of promoting immigration and religious tolerance. Over the following decades, Berlin expanded greatly in area and population with the founding of the new suburbs of Friedrichswerder, Dorotheenstadt, and Friedrichstadt, today the site of many government offices.
In 1671 50 Jewish families from Austria were given a home in Berlin. With the Edict of Potsdam in 1685, Frederick William invited the French Huguenots to Brandenburg. More than 15,000 Huguenots came, of whom 6,000 settled in Berlin. Around 1700, 20 percent of Berlin's residents were French, and their cultural influence was great. Many other immigrants came from Bohemia, Poland, and Salzburg.
With coronation of Frederick I in 1701 as king of Prussia, Berlin became the capital of Prussia. On 1 January 1710, the cities of Berlin, Cölln, Friedrichswerder, Dorotheenstadt, and Friedrichstadt were united as the “Royal Capital and Residence of Berlin.” However, additional suburbs soon developed and increased the area and population of Berlin. In 1861, outlying suburbs including Wedding, Moabit, and several others were incorporated into Berlin. In 1871, Berlin became capital of the newly founded German Empire.
At the end of World War I in 1918, the Weimar Republic was proclaimed in Berlin. In 1920, the Greater Berlin Act united dozens of suburban cities, villages, and estates around Berlin into a greatly expanded city. After this expansion, Berlin had a population of around 4 million.
After the seizure of power by the National Socialists (Nazis) in 1933, Berlin became the capital of the Third Reich. The Nazis used the 1936 Summer Olympic Games in Berlin for propaganda purposes. There were also plans to rebuild Berlin as “Germania, capital of the world.” However, these plans were put aside because of World War II.
During the war, large parts of Berlin were destroyed by bombs and street combat. After the occupation of the city by the Red Army and the German surrender in 1945, Berlin was divided into four sectors, analogous to the occupation zones into which Germany was divided. The sectors of the Western Allies (the United States, United Kingdom, and France) formed West Berlin, while the sector of the Soviet Union formed East Berlin.
For Berlin as a whole, all four allies retained shared oversight. However, the growing political differences between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union led the Soviet Union, which controlled the territory surrounding Berlin, to impose the Berlin Blockade, an economic blockade of West Berlin from 1948 to 1949. The Allies successfully overcame this blockade through the Berlin Airlift.
In 1949 the democratic Federal Republic of Germany was founded in West Germany, while the Marxist-Leninist German Democratic Republic (GDR) was proclaimed in East Germany. The founding of the two German states increased Cold War tensions. West Berlin was surrounded by the territory of the GDR. Due to Berlin's isolation and vulnerability, the Federal Republic established its provisional capital in Bonn. The GDR, however, proclaimed East Berlin, which included most of the historic centre, as its capital. The east-west conflict culminated in the construction of the Berlin Wall around West Berlin by the GDR on 13 August 1961. West Berlin was now de facto a part of the Federal Republic of Germany, although with a unique legal status, while East Berlin was de facto a part of the GDR.
The eastern and western portions of Berlin were now completely separated. It was possible for Westerners to pass from one to the other only through strictly controlled checkpoints. For most Easterners, travel to West Berlin or West Germany was no longer possible. In 1971, the Four-Power Agreement on Berlin was signed. While the Soviet Union applied the oversight of the four powers only to West Berlin, the Western Allies emphasized in a 1975 note to the United Nations their position that four-power oversight applied to Berlin as a whole.
In 1989 pressure from the East German population brought a transition to democracy in the GDR, and Easterners gained free access across the Berlin Wall, which was quickly demolished. In 1990 the two parts of Germany were reunified as the Federal Republic of Germany and Berlin became the German capital according to the unification treaty. In 1991, the Bundestag (the lower house of the German parliament) decided, after a controversial public discussion, that the city should again be the seat of the German national government. Most branches of the German government relocated from Bonn to Berlin during the subsequent years. On 1 September 1999 the German parliament and government began their work in Berlin.

Tourist attractions
Even though Berlin does have a number of impressive buildings from earlier centuries, the city's appearance today is mainly shaped by the key role it played in Germany's history in the 20th century. Each of the national governments based in Berlin — the 1871 German Empire, the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, East Germany, and now the reunified Germany — initiated ambitious construction programmes, each with its own distinctive character. Berlin was devastated by bombing raids during World War II, and many of the old buildings that escaped the bombs were eradicated in the 1950s and 1960s in both West and East. Much of this destruction was caused by overambitious architecture programmes, especially to build new residential or business quarters and main roads. It would not be an exaggeration to say that no other city in the world offers Berlin's unusual mix of architecture, especially 20th-century architecture. The city's tense and unique recent history has left it with a distinctive array of sights.
Not much is left of the Berlin Wall. The East Side Gallery in Friedrichshain near the Oberbaumbrücke ("Upper Turnpike Bridge") over the Spree preserves a portion of the Wall. Architectural styles still sometimes reveal whether one is in the former eastern or western part of the city. In the eastern part, many Plattenbauten can be found, reminders of Eastern Bloc ambitions to create complete residential areas with fixed ratios of shops, kindergartens and schools. Another difference between former east and west is in the design of little red and green men on pedestrian crossing lights (Ampelmännchen in German); the eastern versions received an opt-out during the standardisation of road traffic signs after re-unification, and have survived to become a popular icon in tourist products. They are however starting to appear in western Berlin too.

Wikipedia.org