The village was first documented in a 1264 deed issued by Margrave Otto III of Brandenburg. In 1751, Bohemianweavers 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 (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.
The Eldorado nightclub on Motzstraße was closed down by the Nazis on coming to power in December 1932.[2][4] Holocaust survivor Elsa Conrad co-ran the lesbian bar Mali und Igel. Inside the bar, was a club called Monbijou des Westens.[5] The club was exclusive and catered for Berlin's lesbian, intellectual elite; one famous guest was the actress Marlene Dietrich.[5] Each year the club hosted balls with up to 600 women in attendance.[5]
The painter and printmaker Otto Dix used patrons of this establishment as subjects for some of his works.[6]Christopher Isherwood lived just around the corner on Nollendorfstraße. This apartment was the basis for his book Goodbye to Berlin (1939) and later the musical Cabaret (1966) and the film Cabaret (1972) and is commemorated by a historic plaque on the building.
The locality of Schöneberg includes the neighborhoods (Stadtquartiere) of Bayerisches Viertel (English: “Bavarian quarter[de]”; an affluent residential area with streets named after Bavarian towns) and the Rote Insel (English: “red island”) as well as Lindenhof and the large natural park area Südgelände (English: “south grounds”) on the outside of the Ringbahn railway circle line.
Headquarters of the RIAS Berlin (Radio in the American Sector) 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.
Former headquarters of the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG), the public transport company of Berlin, on Potsdamer Straße
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 ("Social Palace").
Eduard Bernstein, lived 1850-1932, Socialist economist and politician, member of Reichstag
Marlene Dietrich, actress, born 27 December 1901, Sedanstraße 65 (today: Leberstraße 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
Ilse Kokula: "Ganz normal anders und engagiert". In: Baerbel Becker (Hrsg.): Bad Women. Luder, Schlampen und Xanthippen. Elefanten Press, Berlin 1989, ISBN3-88520-315-4, pp. 130–131 (131). Cited in: Sigrid Wiegand: "Kitty Kuse – Mit dem Strom und doch gegen den Strich", Stadtteilzeitung Schöneberg, 1 March 2016.
Pettis, Ruth M. (16 August 2005). "Roellig, Ruth Margarete (1878-1969)". GLBTQ: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture. Archived from the original on 7 April 2015. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
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