Kleinmachnow

Kleinmachnow is a municipality of about 20,000 inhabitants in the Potsdam Mittelmark district, in Brandenburg, Germany. It is situated south west of the borough of Steglitz Zehlendorf and east of Potsdam. First mentioned in the Landbuch of Karl IV in 1375, the Kleinmachnow played an important role at the Bäke beek / creek crossing, secured by multiple medieval castles. The last of these castles (none of which are preserved today) belonged to the Knights of Hake, a family who shaped the local history until the 20th century. The replacement of the Bäke (beek / creek) with the Teltow Canal in 1906 brought the village the now listed historic Kleinmachnow flood gate. In the first half of the 20th century, Kleinmachnow grew from a rural village to a suburban municipality of the Berlin metropolitan area. The construction of the Berlin Wall cut Kleinmachnow off from West Berlin. The community's location near the border meant it was relatively isolated in the GDR. Since the German reunification, Kleinmachnow has been part of the growth of the countryside areas outside of Berlin.

Kleinmachnow is bordered by the Teltow Canal in the south and by the city boundary of Berlin in the north, west and east, forming a kind of indentation in the district of Steglitz Zehlendorf, which is a neighbouring borough. The municipality encompasses the settlement of Dreilinden. During the Cold War period, the area could only be accessed from Teltow and Stahnsdorf via three bridges across the Teltow Canal, and access from Berlin Zehlendorf was once again granted after 1990. Since 1996, Kleinmachnow has a separate motorway connection to the German federal motorway 115 in the west. The centre of Berlin is situated north east of the town, and Potsdam east of the town.

Located in the southwestern part of Berlin and adjacent Brandenburg, Kleinmachnow sits on the Teltow Ground Moraine Plateau, carved into a turbulent relief of small scale chains of hills formed from boulder clay and meltwater channels, interspersed with puddles and pools. Geologically, the youngest Vistula Ice Age, about 21,000 years ago, created a loose erosion in the Bäke Valley that made the construction of the Teltow Canal between the Seeberg and Weinberg possible. The Seeberg area, at 65 meters above sea level, is the highest elevation in the region. The Buschgraben is a glacial meltwater channel, located on the southwest border of Berlin, stretching in a north–south direction between the localities of Berlin Zehlendorf and Kleinmachnow, ending at the Teltowkanal northwest of Teltow. The region of Kleinmachnow contains several small bodies of water, formed from dead ice holes. The Meiereipfuhl in the Bannwald formerly held five ponds, this has since reduced with the Duellpfuhl an der Ginsterheide, Pferdepfuhl, and Pfuhl am Jägerstieg/Ecke Wolfswerder serving as receptacles for roadway surface water today.

Kleinmachnow arose at the former Bäke creek, today replaced by the Teltow Canal built in 1906. Parvo Machenow was first mentioned in the 1375 land registry (Landbuch) of Emperor Charles IV, then also Brandenburg Elector. In medieval times the ford was controlled by a castle, recently held by the Hake noble family. Together with the canal the Kleinmachnow lock was erected, soon becoming a landmark. From the early 20th century the former village developed to an affluent suburb of Berlin. In 1937 Wilhelm Ohnesorge, minister of the Reichspost, acquired the Hakeburg mansion as his residence and established a large research facility of communications electronics here. In World War II Kleinmachnow was the site of a labour camp with about 5,000 inmates, including a subcamp of Sachsenhausen. On the night of 2–3 December 1943, a Lancaster plane of the Royal Australian Air Force (flight LM 316) was shot down over Kleinmachnow, one of those killed being the well known Norwegian writer and poet Nordahl Grieg, at the time serving as a war correspondent. (A memorial stone was unveiled at the site in November 2003.) In 1946 the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) seized the Hakeburg, which hosted the party's academy in the following years. From 1961 to 1989 the municipality was girded by the Berlin Wall on three sides and the motorway near Dreilinden (today Bundesautobahn 115) was the site of a major border crossing, counterpart of the Allied checkpoint Bravo in West Berlin. Since German reunification Kleinmachnow has seen a major increase of population, while the restitution of numerous plots in favour of those owners who had fled from the GDR led to fierce conflicts.

Prior to the First World War, Kleinmachnow, located at the outskirts of Berlin, maintained a hamlet like atmosphere, with a population of less than 450. This figure drastically increased in the following years due to the development of Dreilinden and the northwest expansion of the Bürgerhaus housing estate by Adolf Sommerfeld. During the 15 years between 1926 and 1939, the inhabitants of Kleinmachnow grew from 944 to 12,565. A considerable number of citizens migrated to the West until 1961 This was compensated for by an influx of new citizens and, following the reunification of Germany, the population remained relatively constant until 1995. Subsequently, due to the increase of restitution claims by the original property owners, as well as the allure of the area, the number of inhabitants doubled from the mid 1990s until today.

In 1539, Joachim II, the Elector of Brandenburg, initiated the Reformation, resulting in the conversion of Bradenburg from a primarily Catholic region to a mainly Protestant area. Initially, Lutheranism was the major denomination of the region, but was eventually joined by the Reformed Church. The old village church was first constructed in 1597 as one of the earliest Protestant style church buildings in the region. The building belonged to the landed property the von Hake family, who were recorded to have renounced their Catholicism prior to the Elector of Brandenburg. Subsequent to the expansion of the local area in the 1920s and 1930s, a parish hall was erected near the Jägersteig, which was upgraded to a church in 1953 and named the Evangelical Church of the Resurrection. As of August 2012 the church had 5,400 adherents. In addition to the regional church congregation, an Evangelical Lutheran Free Church was based in Brandenburg from its inception in 1871. Following 1922, the congregation held services in the former sailors' convalescent home located on Zehlendorfer Damm. In May 2007, the congregation of approximately 70 attendees was officially named the Paul Gerhardt Congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Free Church. The property was later sold to the rapper Bushido, and regular services were relocated to Teltow.

+ Seats in the municipal assembly (Gemeindevertretung) as of 2019 elections Party Seats % Christian Democratic Union 5 19.1 Social Democratic Party of Germany 5 19.0 The Left 3 8.8 Alliance 90/The Greens 7 24.6 Alternative for Germany 2 5.8 Free Democratic Party 2 7.2 PRO (independent) 1 3.3

In 1967, during the German Democratic Republic, the possibility of a merger of Kleinmachnow, Stahnsdorf and Teltow districts was first considered. In 1972, the three districts established an administrative and organizational alliance, nonetheless maintaining their individual legal status. Since the reunification of Germany in 1990, debate has persisted over the most effective administrative arrangement; ranging from merely informal cooperation, through contractual collaboration, to full amalgamation into a single large district. Despite the district area restructuring that occurred in Brandenburg from 2000 to 2003, Kleinmachnow remains and was unaffected. The 2009 Berlin Bradenburg State Development Plan led to a re examination of the two tier system of central places for Bradenburg, involving the establishment of "a framework for spatial development in the capital region of Berlin Bradenburg". The plan proposed four regional centres and fifty medium sized centres. Teltow was noted as the sole medium centre for the region, which would result to reduced financial support for the Stahnsdorf and Kleinmachnow districts. The political dispute concerning this proposed change remains unconcluded.

In 2001 and 2007, Eigenherd European School in Kleinmachnow was awarded for its sporting excellence by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport in Bradenburg. In 2021, the district of Teltow joined forces with Kleinmachnow to create a four day program for an international contingent of athletes participating in the Special Olympics World Sumer Games 2023, Berlin. As a result of their successful application, in 2022 Kleinmachnow was chosen to be the host town for Special Olympics Samoa. This endeavour marked the largest district inclusion project to have taken place in Germany with over 200 towns participating in the endeavour. Kleinmachnow is one of the three home towns of the basketball team TKS 49ers.