Spandau
Spandau is the westernmost of the twelve boroughs of Berlin, situated at the confluence of the Havel and Spree rivers and extending along the western bank of Havel. It is the smallest borough by population, but the fourth largest by land area.
Overview
Modern industries in Spandau include metalworking, and chemical and electrical factories. BMW Motorrad's Spandau factory made all BMW's motorcycles from 1969 until final assembly plants were added in Rayong, Thailand in 2000, and Manaus, Brazil in 2016.Rathaus Spandau, Spandau's seat of government, was built in 1913. Other landmarks include the Renaissance fortress Spandau Citadel, built in 1594, the 1848 St. Marien am Behnitz Catholic church designed by August Soller, and Spandau arsenal, Germany's arms development center until 1919, now a museum. That arsenal's Spandau machine gun inspired the slang Spandau Ballet to describe dying soldiers on barbed wire during the First World War, and later was applied to the appearance of Nazi war criminals hanged at Spandau Prison. The notorious prison, built in 1876, held Nazi war criminals after World War II until 1987, when it was demolished after the death of the last surviving prisoner, Rudolf Hess. In 1979, the English New Romantic band Spandau Ballet again re-purposed the term for its name.
After World War II Spandau fell into the British and American sector of West Berlin during the Allied occupation. Gatow airfield in the south of the district, was used by the Royal Air Force, most notably during the Berlin Airlift. Since 1995 the airfield is now the Museum of Military History.
Geography
Spandau's neighbors outside Berlin are the districts of Oberhavel to the north, and Havelland to the west, and the city of Potsdam, Brandenburg, to the southwest. Within Berlin, it borders the boroughs of Steglitz-Zehlendorf to the south, Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf to the east, and Reinickendorf to the northeast. Its land area of is the fourth largest of the twelve boroughs.Subdivisions
Spandau Borough is divided into nine quarters :- Spandau
- Haselhorst
- Siemensstadt
- Staaken
- Gatow
- Kladow
- Hakenfelde
- Falkenhagener Feld
- Wilhelmstadt
Demographics
Percentage of people with migration background | |
Germans without migration background/Ethnic Germans | 165,000 |
Germans with migration background or foreign citizens | 62,000 |
Middle Eastern origin | 20,400 |
EU-European migration background | 13,600 |
African background/Afro-Germans | 7,000 |
Others | 20,400 |
Politics
At the 2016 elections for the parliament of the borough the following parties were elected:- SPD 20
- CDU 16
- AfD 9
- Alliance '90/The Greens 4
- The Left 3
- FDP 3
People
- FJAAK, Band,
- Bela B., musician, born 14 December 1962
- Robert Hoyzer, former football referee, born 28 August 1979
- Arthur Löwenstamm was Spandau Synagogue's first and only rabbi, from 1917 to 1938
- Ivan Rebroff, singer, born 31 July 1931, died 27 February 2008 in Frankfurt
- Erna Sack, soprano, born 6 February 1898, died 2 March 1972 in Mainz
- Henning Alexander von Kleist, Governor of the Spandau citadel, died there in 1784
Twin towns
- Luton, United Kingdom since 1950
- Siegen, Germany since 1952
- Asnières-sur-Seine, France since 1959
- Ashdod, Israel since 1968
- Iznik, Turkey since 1987
- Nauen, Germany since 1988