A 997 deed by
Emperor Otto III mentions a settlement with the
Slavic name
Belizi, though this denotation may also refer to the nearby town of
Belzig. The
Saint Mary and
Saint Nicholas parish church was first mentioned in a 1247 report of a Jewish
host desecration, and bleeding
host miracle, that made Beelitz a medieval
pilgrimage site. Since 1370 the host was kept in a small chapel adjacent to the church. The reason for the former name of the Judenberg (renamed Friedensberg after 1945) before the Mühlentor is not confirmed, though tradition indicates it was the site of the burning of Jews. When in 1731 King
Frederick William I of Prussia billeted a
hussar regiment, Beelitz became a garrison town and today is home to a
Bundeswehr command. The cultivation of asparagus was first documented in 1861. The village of
Kanin, a subdivision of Beelitz since 2001, had been an
exclave of the
Electorate of Saxony until 1815 and therefore a notorious
smuggling area as well as a destination for
deserters from the
Prussian army. Its fieldstone church was erected about 1138 and today is the oldest preserved one within the Brandenburg state. In 1928, the
Telefunken company erected a
radio station in the subdivision of
Schönefeld for the wireless communication with North America. Together with the
Nauen Transmitter Station, it was incorporated by the
Reichspost in 1932. After
World War II, the station was used by the
Deutsche Post of the GDR until it finally went out of service in 1991.
Demography File:Bevölkerungsentwicklung Beelitz.pdf|Development of the population since 1875 within the current boundaries (Blue Line: Population; Dotted Line: Comparison to Population development in Brandenburg state; Grey Background: Time of
Nazi Germany; Red Background: Time of communist
East Germany) File:Bevölkerungsprognosen Beelitz.pdf|Recent Population Development and Projections (Population Development before Census 2011 (blue line); Recent Population Development according to the
Census in Germany in 2011 (blue bordered line); Official projections for 2005-2030 (yellow line); for 2017-2030 (scarlet line); for 2020-2030 (green line) ==Beelitz-Heilstätten==