Etymology The name derives from the Grunewald hunting lodge of 1543, the oldest preserved castle in Berlin, which is, however, officially located within the adjacent
Dahlem locality. It was erected in an Early
Renaissance style by order of
Elector Joachim II Hector of Brandenburg and named
Zum Gruenen Wald, the
umlaut spelt with a following "e" instead of a
diacritic as depicted above the main entrance. A
corduroy road leading from the Berlin
Stadtschloss to the lodge was laid out, which later would be known as the
Kurfürstendamm boulevard.
Overview , 1832 The neighbourhood developed out of a so-called "mansion colony" at the western end of the Kurfürstendamm. Promoted by
Otto von Bismarck, Grunewald was found to be a preferred residential area from the 1880s onward. Grunewald was incorporated into
Greater Berlin in 1920. Today, the social structure of Grunewald is still influenced by these origins. The
Rot-Weiss Tennis Club, home of the
WTA Tour German Open, has been located in the district since 1897. On 24 June 1922 Foreign Minister of Germany
Walther Rathenau was assassinated by ultra-nationalist radicals of the
Organisation Consul in a curve of the main street called
Koenigsallee. A memorial stone marks the scene of the crime. Since 1981 the Grunewald district is the home of the
Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin. It also houses the embassies of
Afghanistan,
Azerbaijan,
Qatar,
Kuwait,
Laos,
North Macedonia,
Poland and
Serbia. Within the Grunewald forest lies the artificial
Teufelsberg hill, once a listening station of the US
National Security Agency. On the shore of the Havel, the
Grunewaldturm, built by
Franz Heinrich Schwechten in 1898, offers views over the
Havelland region.
Deportation memorial Between October 1941 and February 1945 more than 50,000 Jews were deported by German
Nazis to extermination camps from the Grunewald freight railway station and murdered. Memorials from the district of
Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf and the
Deutsche Bahn ("Gleis 17") commemorate this spot in Grunewald's history. The area is accessible by the
Berlin-Grunewald station. == Transport ==