As noted in the previous article, Berlin, and its sister city Cölln on the opposite bank of the river Spree, had by 1600 reached a combined population of twelve thousand people.  This number was to rise steeply in the years ahead, as Berlin rose herself and eventually garnered an empire.

            Troubles still plagued the city, however.  The Thirty years war was no kinder to Berlin than it was to the rest of “the Germanies” (as most of what is now modern Germany was then known), leaving a third of the city’s houses in ruins and killing half the population.

            Hard times often bring forth capable leaders however, and after Frederick William, known as “the Great Elector,” became the Elector of Brandenberg in 1640, taking over from George William, the population of the city quickly rose to over twenty thousand people under his leadership.  Berlin, for the first time, became a significant city in central Europe.

            The policies of religious toleration and encouragement of immigration pursued by the Great Elector produced—as they always will—a great surge of prosperity.  Most notably, he offered refuge for fifteen thousand French Huguenots, six thousand of whom remained in Berlin permanently, to the city’s profound cultural enrichment.  In marked contrast to some of his predecessors, he even saw to it that fifty Jewish families were given homes in Berlin in 1671.

            Frederick William enjoyed many military successes, eventually winning full independence for Prussia (which was elevated from a Duchy to a Kingdom under his successor), although he had been forced to accept Swedish suzerainty after setbacks in the Northern War.  His successes were quite possibly due to his then-unique style of command, a delegation of authority to subordinate commanders which eventually evolved into the Auftragstaktik, which has guided the German Military (although not under that name) all the way to the present day.

            Several new “suburbs” were also added to Berlin under the Great Elector, as required by the rapid expansion of the city under his rule.

            The Great Elector’s successor, Frederick III, took over in 1688, and then in 1701, crowned himself as Frederick I, the “King in Prussia” (the usage was changed by Frederick the Great to a more standard “King of Prussia” after 1772), which he ruled until 1713.  On the first of January, 1710, the cities of Berlin, Cölln, Friedrichswerder, Dorotheenstadt, and Friedrichstadt were united as the “Royal Capital and Residence of Berlin.”  Thus, the original cities of Berlin and Cölln were finally formally untied, and today they form the Mitte Borough, in the heart of old Berlin.

            Frederick William II succeeded his father in 1713, and then, in 1740, Frederick III, known as Frederick the Great, assumed the throne.

            This article is far too small a canvass to paint an adequate portrait of Frederick the Great, or “Old Fritz,” as he was also known.  Under his “enlightened absolutism,”  the kingdom swelled, and Berlin became one of the centers of the Enlgihtenment.  Even the censorship and repression practised by his successor cannot dim his accomplishments.  “Old Fritz” was a great general, true, but he was also a musician, a philosopher, and an intimate friend of Voltaire.  Berlin had only fifty-five thousand inhabitants when Frederick the Great was born... by the time he died, the city held nearly a quarter of a million.  Less than fifty years later, Berlin had reached half a million, and was the fourth-largest city in Europe.

            The rich cultural heritage bequeathed to Berlin by her more enlightened rulers has never died out.  It has been repressed and censored... and always sprung up again, free-wheeling and irreverent.  Even during the Soviet era, the contrast couldn’t have been greater: guns and guards on the eastern side of the wall... counterpointed by bohemians, philosophers, and flower-children on the western.

            ...and the only way to truly experience this rich heritage is to learn its language.  Any attempt to translate the untrammelled extravagance of freedom in Berlin—including this one—is doomed to failure, and can merely paint a pallid reflection of the grand original.  The “map” always changes with a different tongue: meanings blur and nuances are lost... and nuances can be the most important of all.