Bernau bei Berlin

Bernau bei Berlin
Town
Coat of arms
Location of Bernau bei Berlin within Barnim district
Country	Germany
State	Brandenburg
District	Barnim
Subdivisions	Hauptort und 4 Ortsteile
Government
• Mayor	André Stahl (Die Linke)
Area
• Total	103.73 km2 (40.05 sq mi)
Elevation	68 m (223 ft)
Population  (2022-12-31)
• Total	43,685
• Density	420/km2 (1,100/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)
Postal codes	16321
Dialling codes	03338
Vehicle registration	BAR, BER, EW
Website	www.bernau-bei-berlin.de

Bernau bei Berlin (English Bernau by Berlin, commonly named Bernau) is a German town in the Barnim district. The town is located about 10 km (6.2 mi) northeast of Berlin.

History

Archaeological excavations of Mesolithic prove the fact that this area has been inhabited since about 8800 BC. The city was first mentioned in 1232. The true reasons of its founding are not known. According to a legend Albert I of Brandenburg permitted the founding of the city in 1140 because of the good beer which was offered to him. It is true that beer has been brewed with the water of the river Panke. Therefore, it was forbidden by law to pollute this river with waste and excrements before the days the brewing took place.

Bernau had its boom years before the Thirty Years' War. Large parts of the defensive wall with town gate and wet moats are relics of that time. These helped Bernau defend itself successfully against attackers, e.g. the Hussites in 1432. Following the plague and war Bernau was poor and bleak. Frederick I of Prussia settled 25 Huguenotic families (craftsmen, farmers, traders and scientists) in 1699.

In 1842 a railway line was opened. One of the first electrical suburban railway lines in the world began operation in 1924. This line of the Berlin S-Bahn connected Bernau with the Stettiner Bahnhof (today Berlin Nordbahnhof) in Berlin. The Bundesschule des Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, (ADGB Trade Union School), designed by Bauhaus director Hannes Meyer, opened in 1930. The Waldsiedlung (engl. residential area in the wood) is a district of the city where the political leaders of the GDR lived isolated from the people.

Local District Court

Pulverturm (Armory).

Church of St. Mary.

Timber framed houses and Plattenbauten.

Demography

• 
  Development of Population since 1875 within the Current Boundaries (Blue Line: Population; Dotted Line: Comparison to Population Development of Brandenburg state; Grey Background: Time of Nazi rule; Red Background: Time of Communist rule)
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  Recent Population Development (Blue Line) and Forecasts

Bernau bei Berlin:
Population development within the current boundaries (2013)

Year Population 1875 8 060 1890 9 583 1910 12 364 1925 13 403 1933 17 671 1939 20 256 1946 19 678 1950 20 482 1964 20 545 1971 20 511

Year Population 1981 24 318 1985 25 386 1989 25 145 1990 24 532 1991 24 491 1992 24 693 1993 24 744 1994 24 913 1995 25 428 1996 27 208

Year Population 1997 29 609 1998 31 231 1999 32 506 2000 33 086 2001 33 507 2002 33 882 2003 34 379 2004 34 995 2005 35 235 2006 35 546

Year Population 2007 35 859 2008 36 059 2009 36 154 2010 36 338 2011 35 843 2012 36 020 2013 36 222

Main sights

Monument for the victims of witch-hunt in Bernau

Museums

The museum of local history has two locations. One is the town gate with the former prison Hungerturm (engl. Tower of Hunger). It is one of formerly three town gates, that were part of the defensive wall. Today armours and instruments of torture of the Middle Ages are shown there. Common furniture of several epochs and utensils of the executioner are exhibited in the Henkerhaus (engl. executioner's house) to demonstrate the life in the small town.

In 2005 the Wolf Kahlen Museum opened. Media art from 40 years is shown.

In 2005 Annelie Grund created the monument for the victims of witch-hunt.

Buildings

The church St. Marien (Late Gothic style) dominates the skyline of the town. The nave was built in the 15th century.

Large parts of the defensive walls and wet moats of the Middle Ages are preserved. The defensive wall is supplemented by several lookout houses, the Pulverturm (armoury) and a town gate.

Until the 1960s the city centre, enclosed by the defensive wall, consisted of small old buildings with timber framed construction. Most of them were in a bad state because no funds were available in the GDR to renovate these buildings. It was decided to change Bernau into an exemplary city of socialist architecture. Nearly all the old houses were torn down in the 1960s and 1970s and new so-called Plattenbauten (buildings constructed of prefabricated concrete slabs) were built. The new houses had a maximum of four storeys to fit in with the architecture to the historic structure of the city.

The former ADGB school is located in the northeast of the town. It is the largest building in the Bauhaus style besides the Bauhaus itself.

• Breitscheidstraße
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Transportation

See also: Bernau bei Berlin railway station

The line S2 of the Berlin S-Bahn (suburban railway) connects Bernau with Berlin Friedrichstraße's station, in the center of that city Regional rail services connect Bernau with Eberswalde, Schwedt, Stralsund, Frankfurt (Oder) in northbound direction and with Berlin Hauptbahnhof, Berlin Lichtenberg and Elsterwerda in southbound direction. Long-distance trains go to Stralsund, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Dresden and Amsterdam.

The Bundesautobahn A11 from Berlin to Prenzlau and Szczecin has the two exits Bernau Nord (number 15) and Bernau Süd (number 16).

International relations

See also: List of twin towns and sister cities in Germany

Twin towns — sister cities

Bernau bei Berlin is twinned with:

• Champigny-sur-Marne, France
• Meckhenheim, Germany
• Skwierzyna, Poland

Personalities

Honorary citizen

• Konrad Wolf(1925-1982), film director, President of the Academy of Arts, was the first city commander of Bernau after the Second World War (April 1945) at the age of 19, honorary citizen since 1975

Sons and daughters of the city

• Charlotte Mäder (born 1905; † unknown), athlete
• Hans-Jürgen Buchner (born 1944), musician and composer
• Jeanette Biedermann (born 1980), entertainer

People associated with Bernau

• Hannes Meyer (1889-1954), architect, built the Bundesschule des Allgemeine Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbundes (ADGB Trade Union School) in Bernau from 1928 to 1930
• Günther Maleuda (1931-2012), politician (DBD), President of the GDR in the turn-time of the GDR
• Wolf Kahlen (born 1940), performance, object and media artist, opened his museum in Bernau in 2005
• Marianne Buggenhagen (born 1953), several times Paralympics winner, lives in Bernau
• Andreas Müller (born 1961), youth judge in Bernau

See also

• Liepnitzsee

External links

• Media related to Bernau bei Berlin at Wikimedia Commons
• www.bernau-bei-berlin.de Official website of the city (German)