The village was first documented in a 1264 deed issued by MargraveOtto 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. Both Alt-Schöneberg and Neu-Schöneberg were in an area developed in the course of industrialization and incorporated in a street network laid out in the Hobrecht-Plan in an area that came to be known architecturally as the Wilhelmine Ring. The two villages were not combined as one entity until 1874 and received town privileges in 1898. In the following year it was disentangled from the Kreis of Teltow, and became a Prussian Stadtkreis. 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.
Neighbourhoods
The locality of Schöneberg includes the neighbourhoods of Bayerisches Viertel and the Rote Insel as well as Lindenhof and the large natural park area Südgelände on the outside of the Ringbahn railway circle line.
Popular sights
Dorfkirche, the old village church, built in 1766
Rathaus Schöneberg on John-F.-Kennedy-Platz, where on 26 June 1963 U.S. President John F. Kennedy held his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech
Headquarters of the RIAS Berlin from 1948 to 1993, then headquarters of DeutschlandRadio Berlin from 1994 until the station was renamed Deutschlandradio Kultur in 2005. The building was erected in 1941 by the IG Farbenconglomerate.
Pallasstraße Hochbunker, a former air-raid shelter, built in 1943 by forced laborers. A large social housing estate was built in 1977 to partially bridge over the bunker and to cross the street, the former site of the Berlin Sportpalast. This is where Joseph Goebbels held his 1943 "Total War" speech. It was demolished in 1973. The present housing estate is known to Berliners as the Sozialpalast.
Marlene Dietrich, actress, born 27 December 1901, Sedanstraße 65, Rote Insel, died 6 May 1992 in Paris; buried in the Städtischer Friedhof III cemetery, Friedenau
Gisèle Freund, photographer, born 19 December 1908, Bayerisches Viertel, died 31 March 2000 in Paris
Helmut Newton, photographer, born 31 October 1920, Innsbrucker Straße 24, died 23 January 2004 in West Hollywood; buried in the Städtischer Friedhof III cemetery, Friedenau
Claire Waldoff, singer, Bamberger Straße, Starnberger Straße 2, Landshuter Straße 14, Regensburger Straße 33 1919–1933, Haberlandstraße 7
Billy Wilder Viktoria-Luise-Platz 11, 1927–1928
Paul Zech Naumannstraße 78
Gay Centre
The area around Nollendorfplatz has been a centre of gay life in Berlin since the 1920s and early 1930s during the Weimar Republic. The Eldorado Night Club on Motzstraße was closed down by the Nazis on coming to power in 1933. The painter and printmaker Otto Dix used patrons of this establishment as subjects for some of his famous works. Christopher Isherwood lived just around the corner on Nollendorfstraße. This apartment was the basis for his book Goodbye to Berlin and later the musical Cabaret and the film Cabaret and is commemorated by a historic plaque on the building.
