Neukölln (locality)

Neukölln
Quarter of Berlin
Hasenheide on the western outskirts of Neukölln with St. John's Basilica
Flag Coat of arms
Location of Neukölln in Neukölln borough and Berlin
Neukölln Show map of Germany Neukölln Show map of Berlin
Coordinates: 52°28′39.3″N 13°26′31.5″E / 52.477583°N 13.442083°E / 52.477583; 13.442083
Country	Germany
State	Berlin
City	Berlin
Borough	Neukölln
Founded	26 June 1360 (official), ca. 1200 (inofficial)
Subdivisions	9 neighborhoods or 21 regions
Government
• Borough mayor	Martin Hikel (SPD)
Area
• Total	11.7 km2 (4.5 sq mi)
Elevation	52 m (171 ft)
Population  (2023-12-31)[1]
• Total	163,735
• Density	14,000/km2 (36,000/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)
Postal codes	12043, 12045, 12047, 12049, 12051, 12053, 12055, 12057, 12059
Vehicle registration	B
Website	https://www.berlin.de/ba-neukoelln/

Neukölln (German: [nɔʏˈkœln] ^ⓘ; formerly Rixdorf), from 1899 to 1920 an independent city, is a large inner-city quarter of Berlin in the homonymous borough of Neukölln, which evolved around the historic village of Rixdorf. With 163,735 inhabitants (2024) the quarter is the second-most densely populated of Berlin after Prenzlauer Berg. Since the early 13th century, the local settlements, villages and cities down to the present day have always been a popular destination for colonists and immigrants. In modern times, it was originally shaped by the working class and gastarbeiters, but western immigration since the turn of the millennium has led to gentrification and a rejuvenation of the quarter's culture and night life.

Neukölln is on the North European Plain, which is typically characterized by low-lying marshy woodlands with a mainly flat topography. The quarter lies on the geological border between the shallow Weichselian Warsaw-Berlin Urstromtal glacial valley and the northernmost edge of the Teltow young drift ground moraine plateau, specifically the Rollberge,^{[note 1]} a small range of glacial hills rising to the south of Hermannplatz, Rixdorf, and the streets Karl-Marx-Straße and Hasenheide. Neukölln's natural elevation is 52 m (172 ft) above NHN, with the highest elevation at 67.9 m (223 ft) achieved by the Rixdorfer Höhe, a trümmerberg in the Volkspark Hasenheide. Neukölln's geographical center, based on a minimum bounding box, is located east of Richardstraße 101 near Kirchgasse at a linear distance of approximately 2.3 km (1.43 mi) to the river Spree.

The quarter of Neukölln is south-east of the Berlin city center, in the north of the Neukölln borough. The quarter is known in German as an Ortsteil or Stadtteil, and the Neukölln borough as a Verwaltungsbezirk (administrative district), in Berlin officially called Bezirk (district). Different from the borough, the quarter of Neukölln (as a non-administrative district) has no mayor or representatives of its own. To distinguish the quarter from the borough, the latter is sometimes informally called Groß-Neukölln ("Greater Neukölln"), while the quarter is also called Berlin-Neukölln or Nord-Neukölln.^{[note 2]}

The quarter Neukölln lies adjacent to the quarter Britz in the south, which is also part of greater Neukölln, to the SO 36 and Kreuzberg 61 neighborhoods of the quarter Kreuzberg in the north and north-west (in the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough), and to the quarter Tempelhof in the west (in Tempelhof-Schöneberg). In the east and north-east, Neukölln borders on the quarters Alt-Treptow, Plänterwald and Baumschulenweg, which are all part of the Treptow-Köpenick borough.

Neukölln is separated from Kreuzberg by the park Volkspark Hasenheide, the Landwehr Canal, and the streets Kottbusser Damm and Hasenheide as far as the city square Südstern, which conforms to Berlin's historical Weichbildgrenze (1861–1919). Neukölln shares part of the Tempelhofer Feld with Tempelhof, the vast field of the former Tempelhof Airport, now a popular recreation area. The green corridor Heidekamppark with the trench Heidekampgraben, the Kiefholzstraße and several urban streets in the Bouché neighborhood separate Neukölln from the quarters of Treptow-Köpenick in former East Berlin. Finally, the Stadtring motorway with the Carl-Weder-Park, streets like Britzkestraße, Juliushof and Grenzallee, as well as the southern end of the Neukölln Ship Canal and the Britz Canal, form the administrative border with the Britz quarter. The Britz and Teltow Canals, on the other hand, form the geographical and demographic border within the borough Neukölln, which separates the dense urban areas of Neukölln and northern Britz, with its higher share of immigrants and lower-income citizenry, from the borough's southern quarters, which, with the exception of Gropiusstadt, are mainly characterized by a larger number of family homes and residents with middle-class income.

Neukölln is divided into nine neighborhoods (Kieze or Stadtquartiere, officially called Ortslagen),^[2] among them the historical sites of Neukölln's foundation south-east of the quarters's geographical center, Richardplatz-Süd^[3] to the south and south-east of the central plaza Richardplatz, and Böhmisch-Rixdorf^[4] to the north and north-west, which together are commonly referred to as Rixdorf or Alt-Rixdorf ("Old Rixdorf"). The other official neighborhoods are (from north to south):

• Reuterkiez,^[5]
• Flughafenstraße,^[6]
• Schillerpromenade,^[7]
• Rollberg,^[8]
• Weiße Siedlung,^[9]
• Körnerpark,^[10] and
• High-Deck-Siedlung.^[11]

Other recognized neighborhoods and urban sites, which are sometimes distinguished in the city's official LOR framework or the focus of current or former neighborhood management, are the Donaukiez along Donaustraße between Sonnenallee and Karl-Marx-Straße,^[12] Ganghoferstraße around the border between Donaukiez and Böhmisch-Rixdorf,^[13] the Weserkiez around Weserstraße between Weigandufer and Sonnenallee,^[14] the Warthekiez around Wartheplatz,^[15] the Bouchékiez, a larger residential area north of the Neukölln Ship Canal,^[16] and neighborhoods south of the Berlin Hermannstraße and Berlin Neukölln stations like Silbersteinstraße.^[17] At the western and eastern outskirts there are recreational spaces, namely a large area of privately leased garden allotments in the east at the site of the former Cöllnische Heide (Cölln Heath), and the neighborhood Hasenheide in the west,^[18] while industrial areas have formed mostly to the south and east of the Berlin Ringbahn. At the south-eastern end of Neukölln in the area of the former Cölln Heath are two additional neighborhoods from the 1920s, situated between Weiße Siedlung and High-Deck-Siedlung around Köllnische Heide station, namely Schulenburgpark to the south,^[19] and the Dammwegsiedlung to the north.^[20] Both Schulenburgpark and Dammwegsiedlung are sometimes amalgamated with the other two socially problematic neighborhoods in the east and southeast, Weiße Siedlung and High-Deck-Siedlung, and the nearby industrial parks around the Neukölln Harbor to form the larger region Köllnische Heide.^[21]

In urban planning, the divisions of Berlin's boroughs and quarters are more precise. Here Neukölln, non-administrative district 10 in borough 08, as of 2024, is divided into five regions, each of them further compartmentalized into a total of 21 so-called Lebensweltlich orientierte Räume (LOR) ("lifeworld-oriented regions"):^[22]

• Schillerpromenade (01) in the west, comprising Hasenheide (01), central Schillerpromenade as Schillerpromenade Nord (02) and Schillerpromenade Süd (03), as well as Wartheplatz (04) and Silbersteinstraße (05);
• Neuköllner Mitte/Zentrum (02) in the center, comprising most of Flughafenstraße (06), plus Rollberg (07) and Körnerpark (08), as well as Glasower Straße (09);
• Reuterstraße (03) in the north, comprising the Reuterkiez as Maybachufer (10), Reuterplatz (11) and Weichselplatz (12) including the Friedelkiez and the western parts of the Weserkiez, as well as Bouchéstraße (13), plus a minor part of Flughafenstraße, namely the Donaukiez as Donaustraße (14);
• Rixdorf (04) in the center to the north-east, comprising Ganghoferstraße (15), Böhmisch-Rixdorf and Richardplatz-Süd as Alt-Rixdorf (16), Braunschweiger Straße (17), the eastern parts of the Weserkiez as Hertzbergplatz (18), as well as Treptower Straße Nord (19); and
• Köllnische Heide (05) in the east, comprising the Weiße Siedlung (20) and Schulenburgpark (21), and including the High-Deck-Siedlung and the Dammwegsiedlung.

The industrial parks Ederstraße and Köllnische Heide are no longer part of the city's LOR framework as independent regions.

The modern jocular social toponym Kreuzkölln, a portmanteau of "Kreuzberg" and "Neukölln",^[23] describes a loosely defined inofficial neighborhood, which developed since the mid-naughties. The toponym originally stood for the western part of the Reuterkiez, excluding the Bouchékiez, and comprising the LORs Maybachufer, Reuterplatz and Weichselplatz, which are geographically wedged between the adjacent city blocks of the quarter Kreuzberg, whose neighborhoods SO 36 and Kreuzberg 61 border to the north and west respectively. The toponym formed in the wake of Neukölln's early gentrifying wave, which slowly resurrected the neighborhood's culture and night life, attracted an ever increasing number of young new residents, and enticed Berliners to favorably compare the up-and-coming new north of Neukölln with the more established Kreuzberg.^[24] The toponym was at first dismissed by many locals on both sides of the border,^[25] mainly due to the different history and the urban characteristics of the two quarters, which at the time were still very much unequal, with Kreuzberg either more middle-class (Kreuzberg 61) or strongly influenced by the traditional alternative counterculture of Cold War West Berlin (SO 36) vis-à-vis the Reuterquartier's emerging hipster subculture. But as gentrification did not stop at Neukölln's borders, the toponym Kreuzkölln today, for better or for worse, describes the western part of the Reuterkiez together with the adjacent city blocks of Kreuzberg,^[26] which together have now formed an almost fully integrated, albeit gentrified, social and urban sphere.^[27]

As of 2024, Berlin ranks among the greenest cities in Germany with only 44.48% of sealed ground, an average of 4.24 m³ per square meter (4.64 cu yd per square yard) of vegetation, and a 48% share of surface area with green space or water bodies, which provides a cooler urban climate and many options for natural habitats and urban recreation.^[28]

The borough of Neukölln, like the homonymous quarter, is densely populated and urbanized, and only has 3.1% (2019) of natural land and forested areas, second to last before the borough Tempelhof-Schöneberg.^[29] However, the lack of true forests, which in Neukölln are only 0.1% of the overall surface area, is offset by many green plazas, parks and other vegetated recreational areas, not counting active cemeteries,^[30] which actually make Neukölln one of the greenest of all Berlin boroughs, even taking the city's top spot with 19.9% of parks and meadows.^[31]

Green space in the quarter Neukölln is dominated by small to medium-sized parks, but the two major parks in the western part of Neukölln, the Volkspark Hasenheide and the Tempelhofer Feld, more than make up for the lack of large green areas in other spots. Smaller parks are found in all neighborhoods, many of which are among Neukölln's historical garden monuments,^[32] for example the Anita-Berber-Park (Schillerpromenade), a former cemetery, and the stadium park of the Werner Seelenbinder sporting grounds, both of which connect to the Tempelhofer Feld, the recently decommissioned cemetery Neuer St. Jacobi Friedhof (Schillerpromenade), now mostly used as a park, with parts under management by the Prinzessinnengärten gardening project, Lessinghöhe and Thomashöhe (Körnerpark), the Körnerpark itself, a former gravel quarry, with the Rübelandpark connecting Thomashöhe and Körnerpark, the Comenius Garden (Rixdorf), Herbert-Krause-Park and Schulenburgpark, both part of the High-Deck-Siedlung, and extensive stretches of garden allotments like Helmutstal and Märkische Schweiz close to the quarter's eastern border, including the Heidekamppark, a long green corridor adjacent to the Heidekampgraben. On the southern and south-western borders to the quarters Britz and Tempelhof respectively is the Carl-Weder-Park, a stretched park above the underground Stadtring autobahn west of the Britzer Damm. Immediately adjacent to the north is the Emmauswald, a former cemetery and Neukölln's largest and only true forest, with the Emmauskirchhof, a still active graveyard, connecting to the east. Several inner-city squares and building complexes have been designed with green stretches, for example monuments like the Reuterpark on Reuterplatz or the Richardpark on Richardplatz, smaller parks like Trusepark, green plazas like Hertzbergplatz, dedicated plaza parks like Weichselpark on Weichselplatz and Wildenbruchpark on Wildenbruchplatz, as well as special places like the atrium of Neukölln's Stadtbad (public bath house).

In the borough Neukölln, water bodies make up 1.6% of the whole surface area, with the northern quarter trailing behind Rudow and especially Britz, two of Neukölln's other four quarters. Like its parks and forests, all of Neukölln's water bodies are man-made. Several of the quarter's parks contain artificial lakes and ponds, for example the Volkspark Hasenheide (Rixdorfer Teich), the Comenius Garden (Weltenmeer), the Karma Culture Garden in Rixdorf, and the Von-Der-Schulenburg-Park (High-Deck-Siedlung). Neukölln's prominent waterway is the Neukölln Ship Canal, which connects the Teltow and Britz Canals with the Landwehr Canal and (through Kreuzberg) the river Spree. The Neukölln Harbor, consisting of an upper and lower basin and connected via the Neukölln Watergate, was built in tandem with the Britz Harbor north of the Teltow Canal. Smaller landing stages are located along the Neukölln Ship Canal until Kiehlufer, and these Neukölln Docklands are currently subject to extensive redevelopment.

Like all of inner-city Berlin, Neukölln, despite its high level of urbanization, has a diverse and thriving population of urban wildlife.^[33] The quarter's large share of vegetation, parks and other green areas (see above) not only provides a cooler urban climate, but also promotes the settlement of wildlife. Wild species in Neukölln have usually found their safe retreats along the waterways and in the bigger parks and cemeteries, while using migration routes into the central neighborhoods along train tracks and through the interconnected park and cemetery areas, for example from Tempelhofer Feld to Lessinghöhe. Greener quarters adjacent to Neukölln in the south and east also promote migration into the quarter.

Neukölln's nature and wildlife are primarily managed by rangers from Berlin's Stiftung Naturschutz (Charity for Nature Conservation). Political measures over the past years have improved natural habitats and the ecological component of Berlin's path toward a more sustainable development. Among them are a strict urban tree planting and replacement policy, an emphasis on discreetly controlled rank growth, both in parks and on median strips, protected nature areas in larger parks, and more neighborhood-oriented action like roof gardens, for example the Kranichgarten at the Neukölln Arcaden, vegetated and partially fenced Baumscheiben around road trees instead of tree grates, as well as vegetated parklets. The Tempelhofer Feld is home to several protected and endangered plant and animal species like the Italian locust and the wood white butterfly. Almost half of the vast park's bird species are on the list of highly endangered species, among them the whinchat and the wheatear.^[34]

Generally, Neukölln's wildlife is no different from that of other inner-city quarters of Berlin, so red foxes, rabbits and smaller rodent species like the red squirrel and several muroidea as well as urban birds like doves, crows and (on the quarter's canals) swans, geese and ducks are almost ubiquitous. Less noticeable species include the badger, the beech marten, the hedgehog, bats, the true toad and other species of frog. In recent years, otters and beavers have also made a comeback in Neukölln, for example at the Landwehr Canal.^[35] An average of 50–100 kills of wild boar are usually registered every year in the borough of Neukölln. However, boars only seldomly migrate into inner-city quarters, which need to be directly interconnected with the large forests in Berlin's periphery, for example like the western parts of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf.^[36] To date, no cases have been recorded for the quarter Neukölln.^[37]

While the plain and unadorned surfaces of modern architecture have all but pushed out traditional urban bird species like the common swift and the house martin, Berlin, unlike other German cities, is still a safe haven for many others. A prominent example is the sparrow, and Berlin is now regarded as the "sparrow capital" of Germany.^[38] Predatory birds, though common to Berlin,^[39] are not native to the quarter of Neukölln, but sometimes intrude from other peripheral areas, for example the common kestrel from the borough's southern quarters. Rank growth and gardening policies have been the basis for a slight revival of the urban insect population, including endangered or almost extinct species like the vine weevil, which also reattracts bird species to the urbanized areas. Furthermore, Neukölln is now home to 300 species of wild bees.

Like all cities in today's globalized world, Berlin and Neukölln are also home to several invasive species like the raccoon or the Himalayan balsam.^[40] Neukölln in particular has a fairly large population of nutria and muskrat. Several foreign species of fish and crustaceans have settled in Berlin's waterways, and have markedly shifted the balance of indigenous species. Especially the population of red swamp crayfish has risen sharply in the past decade, including in the Landwehr Canal, and the reintroduction of eels into Berlin's waterways is planned as a countermeasure.^[41]

At the time of its official foundation in 1360 as a Knights Hospitaller angerdorf, Rixdorf was called Richarsdorp (Richardsdorf, "Richard's Village"), while a proposed earlier toponym for the preceding Knights Templar hamlet is *Richardshof^[42] ("Richard's Court"). Two alternate Low German spellings, Richarstorp and Richardstorff, are already present in the foundational charter. The village's name was usually pronounced "rickasdorp" with mostly elided or shifted consonants. Alternate spellings of the 14th century were Richardsdorp and Richardstorpp, while the 15th century introduced Reicherstorff, Richerstorp and Rigerstorp (1435).

From the 16th century onward, vernacularly contracted forms took hold.^[43] Ricksdorf (1525) became the accepted spelling for two centuries, with many alternate forms appearing in historical records, for example Reichstorff (1541), Richstorff, Rigstorff (1542) and Richsdorf (1543), and in the 17th and 18th century Rechsdorff, Rechsdorp, Risdorf, Reichsdorp, Rieksdorf, Riecksdorff (1693) and Riechsdorf (1737). The earliest known source for Rixdorf is from the year 1709, and it became the official modern High German spelling in 1797.

The mainstream theory on the etymology of Richardsdorf, and therefore of Rixdorf, assumes an eponymous individual called Richard,^[44] allegedly a Knight Templar, bailiff or commander of the Tempelhof commandery, or even the original administrator of *Richardshof in the early 13th century. However, no Richard is mentioned in historical sources in connection with the Templar villages of the Teltow, let alone an actual Knight Templar per Alemanniam et Slaviam, so over the centuries, exaggerating folk etymologies emerged and alternatively connected the toponym to many important historical Richards.^[45] In modern times, alternate spellings like Reichsdorp spawned secondary folk etymologies different from Richard, namely from Reich ("empire") or the surname Reich, but without taking the documented earlier variants and vernacular contractions into account.^[46]

In the 12th and early 13th centuries, during the time of Albert the Bear's and his successors' foundational advances into the region of modern-day Brandenburg and Berlin, Latin had been the administrative lingua franca of the Mediaeval Holy Roman Empire. The immigrating colonists mostly spoke dialects of the German common language,^[47] while the Hevelli and Sprevane, the Slavic tribes who had replaced the original Germanic natives of the region, spoke West Slavic languages, for example Old-Polabian. For this reason, the toponyms of many of Berlin's localities have a Slavic origin, including Berlin itself, whose name, inspite of the early latinization as Berolinum,^[48] possibly stems from Proto-Slavic *berl-/*brl-, an obscure root which is usually interpreted as "bog", "moor" or "swamp".^[49]

The name Neukölln, however, is in many ways an exception to Berlin's toponymic rules. When Rixdorf was rechristened Neukölln in 1912, the city's new name was a catch-all term. It logically referenced several places in the vicinity, namely the Cölln Heath to the east, as well as Cölln itself, Alt-Berlin's historical twin city, which had been Rixdorf's feudal parent city for several generations (see below). The primary reference, however, was to the Neucöllner Siedlungen (Neucölln Estates), which had been constructed on the Berlinische Wiesen north of the old Rixdorf in the decades before the renaming. The estates' name recalled the meadows' old name Cöllnische Wiesen (Cölln Meadows), and thereby, whether intentionally or not, imitated Neu-Cölln, an old district south of the medieval part of Berlin and Cölln proper. This historical Neu-Cölln, sometimes written Neu-Cöln or neu Cölln, was at first also called Neu-Cölln am Wasser ("New Cölln by the water").^[50] It was built in 1662 as the southern military extension of the city of Cölln, and remained a small district of Berlin until the Greater Berlin Act of 1920, when it was dissolved in the new Mitte quarter of the homonymous borough.^[51]

The etymology of Cölln, and therefore of Neukölln ("New Cölln"), is from imperial Latin colonia ("colony", "settlement", "colonial town"),^[52] and the colonial town in Brandenburg was at first called Colonia (1237)^[53] and Colonia juxta Berlin (1247, "colony near Berlin"). In the same manner as the toponym of modern-day Köln (Cologne), the former Roman Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (50 CE) and Colonia Agrippina (322), was gradually germanized from post-Roman Colonia (since 450) to its Mediaeval names Colne, Coellen, and Cölln, so was Brandenburg's Holy Roman Colonia, first partially to Colne prope Berlin (1344, "Colne near Berlin"), then to Collen (1440), before settling on Cölln in later centuries.^[54] Latin literature kept referring to Cölln as Colonia. To distinguish it from Cologne, toponym extensions were often applied, for example Marchiae ("of the March [Brandenburg]"), or ad Spream, ad Spreeam or ad Spreham ("on the [river] Spree"), or Brandenburgica ("Brandenburgian").^[55] Even though neither Neukölln nor the historical Neu-Cölln were ever officially called Nova Colonia,^[56] etymologically Neukölln still translates as "New Colony", which was a fitting new name for a city that since the first German colonists of the early 13th century until today has always been a prominent destination for settlers and immigrants.

Archeological finds on the Rixdorf lot point to a Germanic prehistory of Neukölln,^[60] with evidence of a settlement since the late Neolithic age, like early flint tools, potsherds from the Bronze Age on Richardplatz, or Iron Age burial urns in the Hasenheide.^[61] Finds from the era of the Roman Empire were ubiquitous in Berlin, which includes West-Germanic terps and ceramics on the Richardplatz, a Gordianic bronze coin on the Rollberge,^[62] and nearby the important Reitergrab von Neukölln (equestrian tomb) south-west of Richardplatz at the Körnerpark, which stems from the onset of the Merowingian era in the first half of the 6th century.^[63]

The original tribes that lived in the Berlin region belonged to the Elbe-Germanic Suevian Semnones. They eventually migrated southwestward during the era of the Barbarian Invasions^[64] and were superseded by the West Slavic Sprevane and Hevelli, historically called the Wends, but archeological traces pertaining to a successive Sprevane settlement were never found in the area of modern-day Neukölln.^[65] From the early era of post-Germanic German colonization, only scanty potsherds were excavated, and the remnants of mediaeval chain mail were typical of the 13th or 14th century, the times when the Knights Templar and Hospitaller already ruled over nascent Neukölln.

After four centuries of colonization, the region around modern-day Berlin came under lasting Holy Roman rule in the 12th century as part of the Ascanian Margraviate of Brandenburg, founded by Albert the Bear in 1157.^[66] The region was situated near the borders to the Principality of Copnic, ruled by Sprevan prince Jaxa of Köpenick,^[67] and the Duchy of Pomerania-Demmin, ruled by Casimir I, which had all fought for dominance during the colonization of the Teltow and the formation of Brandenburg. Albert's successor Otto I defeated Casimir I in 1180, and following the rule of Otto II, margrave Albert II managed to secure a large part of the Teltow until 1212, but lost the Duchy of Pomerania again to the House of Griffin. His two sons, margraves John I and Otto III, jointly ruled Brandenburg from 1220 to 1266/67, secured the remaining parts of the Teltow, established many new towns, and are regarded as the conditores (framers) of Colonia (Cölln) and the old town of Berlin.^[68]

Denarius, ca. 1250

Statue, 1905

Margraves John I and Otto III

Around the year 1200, a military hamlet, at some point possibly called Richarshove (*Richardshof,^[69] "Richard's Court"), together with an unnamed folwark near Slavic Trebow, was established^[70] at the foot of the Teltow on the edge of the grasslands later known as Cöllnische Wiesen (Cölln Meadows)^[71] on the road to Copenic as an eastern Knights Templar stronghold,^[72] administered by the neighboring Commandery Tempelhof (Tempelhove),^[73] which had developed during the early days of the Holy Roman Empire along the old Via Imperii.^[74] The Templar functioned as a neutral institution, and after the primary conflicts had ended in 1231,^[75] the stronghold was at some point abandoned by the military and rededicated as a Templar access yard, probably after the end of the Teltow and Magdeburg Wars between the Houses of Ascania and Wettin (1239–45), which definitively ended the major regional conflicts of the Ostsiedlung era.^[76]

On 21 November 1261, margrave Otto III, gifted the forest region Mirica, parts of which would later belong to Rixdorf and Neukölln, to the city of Cölln in what is also the first historical mention of Berlin's aula. Soon after, the heath would be known as Cöllnische Heide, and its western marshes and grasslands as Cöllnische Wiesen. The windmills of Cölln and Alt-Berlin along the river Spree were mentioned for the first time in a document dated 2 January 1285, which also refers to a royal domain office, the Amt Mühlenhof, which would administrate the Bohemian colony Böhmisch-Rixdorf for most of the 18th and 19th century.

When the Knights Templar became too powerful, the order was proscribed and effectively dissolved in 1312 by Pope Clement V under accusations of apostasy, but different from other Templar possessions, the Tempelhof commandery including *Richardshof did not immediately transfer into Hospitaller ownership, probably because the remaining Knights Templar offered resistance.^[77] Instead, the estate was fiducially held by Waldemar the Great for six years, and legally transferred to the Knights Hospitaller only in 1318.^[78]

Charter, 1360

Roger de Pins

Richardsdorf's foundation

When first mentioned in its foundational charter of 26 June 1360, the only known foundational charter for a Brandenburg village, the angerdorf 5.5 km (3.4 mi) south-east of Cölln and Alt-Berlin around the present-day Richardplatz,^[79] and approximately 3 km (1.86 mi) from the river Spree, was already called Richarsdorp (Richardsdorf, "Richard's Village"), signifying decades of development from yard (hove) to village (dorp), now officially recognized under the sovereignty of Knights Hospitaller grand master Roger de Pins and the joint Electors of Brandenburg Otto VII and Louis II, and under the regional authority of Hermann von Werberg, Statthalter (Governor) and first Herrenmeister (Lord of the Knights) of the Brandenburg bailiwick.^[80] The historical document containing the Richardsdorf charter, itself a mid-15th century copy of the original deed, has been lost since World War II, but its contents have been preserved,^[81] and 26 June 1360 has since been commemorated as the official date of Neukölln's foundation.^[82]

The village with its twelve farmers was mentioned again in 1375 as Richardstorpp in the Landbuch der Mark Brandenburg.^[83] Around the beginning of the 15th century, Richardsdorf erected its first official chapel.^[84] After ongoing border disputes and an ill-fated armed conflict,^[85] the Knights Hospitaller were forced to sell their possessions into permanent fiefdom to the cities of Alt-Berlin and Cölln on 23 September 1435, including Richardsdorf.^[86]

The village was mentioned again in deeds of 1525 as Ricksdorf, for the first time officially in its modern contracted form. On 1–2 November 1539, margrave Joachim II converted to the teachings of Martin Luther, and the Reformation was introduced in Ricksdorf.^[87] Disputes over Ricksdorf continued between Cölln and Berlin,^[88] and with a compromise settlement Ricksdorf became the sole fief and a kämmereidorf (treasury village) of Cölln on 24 August 1543.^[89] The documents of 1543 already mention a tavern at the crossing of the postal and trade road through Ricksdorf to Mittenwalde and the Ricksdorfscher Damm, modern-day Kottbusser Damm, which in 1737 became Rixdorf's famous tavern Rollkrug at Hermannplatz. On 2 February 1546, the right to inaugurate priests in Tempelhof and Ricksdorf was transferred to the parishes of Cölln and Berlin. On 14 April 1578, a fire destroyed most of the village's infrastructure. Ricksdorf then created Die alte Kufe, a pond on the central meadow on Richardplatz, which was not only used as a horse pond, but also as a reservoir for the new fire hose.

In 1624 the population had grown to 150,^[90] and the village had built a forge for traveling blacksmiths, which after several renovations and enlargements remains in operation to this day as Berlin's oldest forge, the Schmiede am Richardplatz. During the Thirty Years' War (1618–48)^[91] Ricksdorf was mostly depopulated, with buildings and parts of the chapel destroyed by fire.^[92] At the end of the war, the village was also plagued by the Black Death, and in 1652 only seven farmers and cotters (Kossäten) and their relatives remained. In 1650, the Great Elector Frederick William gifted Ricksdorf its first windmill. In 1678, he created a hares' garden in the forest Hasenheide. The first mention of a village tavern (Dorfkrug) at the central Richardplatz is found in the town's oldest preserved court report from 29 January 1685.^[93] The first mention of a school in Ricksdorf is from the year 1688, when the local authorities deposed the schoolmaster.^[94] On 26 June 1693, Ricksdorf's chapel left the Tempelhof parish and joined the Britz parish, and the village's first parish register was opened by incumbent priest Johann Guthke. On 29 November 1700, the first official brewery concession and distribution rights were granted to Johann Wolfgang Bewert, the proprietor of Ricksdorf's schultheiß court.

On 17 January 1709, the old city of Cölln merged with Alt-Berlin, Friedrichswerder, Friedrichstadt and Dorotheenstadt, forming the Königliche Haupt- und Residenzstadt Berlin (Royal Capital and Seat Berlin). At the time, Ricksdorf was already spelled Rixdorf in several documents, and when Berlin's new municipal constitution came into effect on 1 January 1710, Rixdorf became a treasury village of the Berlin magistracy. In 1712, the new postal, trade and military road from Berlin to Dresden, the Dresdener Heerstraße, today's Hermannstraße, opened south of Hermannplatz as an extension of the Ricksdorfscher Damm. On 28 September 1717, the royal administration introduced general compulsory schooling in Berlin, Rixdorf and the rest of Prussia. Rixdorf financed the construction of its first windmill in 1729,^[95] and five years later the population had grown to 224.

In 1737, King Frederick William I of Prussia invited 18 families of Hussite Moravian Protestants, who had been driven out of Bohemia, to settle near the village,^[96] where they built new houses, industrial infrastructure^[97] and eventually their own chapels^[98] off the village center along the road to Berlin, today called Richardstraße. 31 May 1737 is regarded as the official date of the Bohemian village's foundation, although the first settlers had already arrived in Rixdorf on 25 March of the same year. Twenty more colonists were granted their own land and construction rights in 1748. Already in 1751, the new settlement received its own cemetery, the Böhmischer Gottesacker. In 1753, the oldest school building of Neukölln was constructed on the Bohemian Kirchgasse,^[99] which from 1797 onward also housed the village's assembly hall. Rixdorf suffered from destruction and pillaging by Austrian and Russian troops during the second year of the Seven Years' War (1756–63), but this did not prevent its subsequent development. In 1760, Berlin statesman Ewald Friedrich von Hertzberg became the proprietor of Rixdorf's Schulzengericht (schultheiß court). The original village of Rixdorf was further expanded in 1764 with new residential buildings and a brickyard, and since 1801 it was mostly called Deutsch-Rixdorf. In 1765, Frederick the Great gifted Böhmisch-Rixdorf its first windmill. Inspite of its expansion, Deutsch-Rixdorf at first remained the smaller of the two villages, with roughly 200 residents in 1771, while the new Bohemian village Böhmisch-Rixdorf^[100] had counted 300 residents already in 1747.

In 1797, Böhmisch-Rixdorf was granted its own administration, and the two villages settled on the official modern spelling Rixdorf, which had been in use since 1709. In the same year, Deutsch-Rixdorf acquired the forge on Richardplatz and sold it to a local resident, who was therefore allowed to operate the forge permanently, which until then had been prevented by the Berlin blacksmiths' guild to stifle competition. The French Army under Napoleon occupied Rixdorf in 1806. The overall population in 1809 was 695.^[101] In 1811, Germany's first public outdoor gymnasium was established in the Hasenheide forest by Turnvater Jahn. The Hasenheide itself temporarily became a Regierungsbezirk of Berlin (governmental district) from 1816 to 1821, before coming under Rixdorf's jurisdiction. Rixdorf residents fought in the 1813 Wars of Liberation, for example at the Battle of Großbeeren, and the subsequent sovereign and political liberty, also gained from the Prussian abolition of serfdom on 11 November 1810, laid the foundation for Rixdorf's rapid development and industrialization, which began in the early second half of the 19th century. In 1827, the street to Berlin was paved, and by 1830 Rixdorf had already become the largest village of the Berlin periphery with more than 2,000 inhabitants. On 28 April 1849, more than a quarter of the buildings in both Rixdorf villages were destroyed in a firestorm, and reconstruction lasted until 1853.^[102]

On 1 January 1853, the parish of Deutsch-Rixdorf was declared an independent parish by the Berlin Evangelical Consistory. In 1854, the first horsebus connection was established between Berlin and the two Rixdorf villages, followed by the first regular bus line from Hermannplatz to Berlin since 1 May 1860, the Ringbahn launch on 17 July 1871, and an additional bus line from Bergstraße, today's Karl-Marx-Straße, to Hallesches Tor in 1876. Meanwhile, the construction of new streets, plazas and residential estates in the Berlin periphery had been set in motion as part of the 1862 Hobrecht-Plan, which created what would come to be known architecturally as the Wilhelmine Ring. In 1866, the Rixdorf villages were hit by epidemics of cholera and smallpox with at least 170 fatalities. In 1867, Deutsch-Rixdorf had a population of approximately 5,000, and Böhmisch-Rixdorf of 1,500. In 1870 the villages received their first train station, the Bahnhof Rixdorf, which still exists today as Neukölln station.^[103] On 10 August 1872, the original Jahndenkmal memorial for Turnvater Jahn was inaugurated in the Hasenheide forest. On 13 December 1872, Berlin's administration merged both Rixdorf villages and the commune Britz into the 24th Amtsbezirk (bailiwick).

Both villages were united as Rixdorf on 1 January 1874 by royal decree of 11 July 1873,^[104] and the new town became a municipality of the Kreis Teltow. On 4 February 1874, Hermann Boddin became the first principal municipal magistrate (Amts- und Gemeindevorsteher) of the unified Rixdorf^[105] and oversaw its evolution into the largest village of the Prussian monarchy with 90,000 residents in 1895. The inaugural meeting of Rixdorf's municipal committee commenced on 27 April 1874 at the old schultheiß court on Richardplatz. In 1874, Rixdorf had 12,300 inhabitants, growing to 15,328 the next year, mainly due to thousands of new residents, who since 1870 had been immigrating from Pomerania, Silesia and other primarily Eastern regions of the German Empire as far as East Prussia, looking for work in the town's growing industry, a migration wave that would not significantly weaken until the year 1910.^[106]

Rixdorf's first daily newspaper, the Gemeinnütziger Anzeiger (Public Gazette), was published since 1874, later reestablished as Rixdorfer Zeitung (Rixdorf Newspaper) by editor-in-chief Wilhelm Hecht in 1882.^[107] The city's first telegraph station opened the same year. On 1 October 1874, the Vereinsbrauerei, which had been founded in 1872 and would later become Berlin's Kindl brewery, opened to the public in Rollberg after almost a year of inofficial pourage. Urbanization quickly took off with new residential estates, schools, churches, infrastructure, paved streets with sewers, and an increasing number of industrial settlements. The first Kremser horsebus line to Berlin started its operations on 2 July 1875 under private management. The city's first gasworks and the original Amtshaus (administrative building) were built in 1878, the first municipal court (Amtsgericht) in 1879, which was quickly replaced in 1901 by the new municipal court and prison, and the city's new telegraph office in 1882. Rixdorf's first public open-air bath opened in 1883 south of the Ringbahn, but had to close again in 1913, when Neukölln's harbor and docklands were built. On 14 August 1884, Richardplatz was hit by a large fire. On 6 November 1884, Rixdorf sold its old village chapel to the Bohemian-Lutheran parish for 6,300 silver mark, approximately $31,800 (2024).

In 1873, Rixdorf had already had 8 paved streets, and 24 in 1876, which grew exponentially in the following decade, enabling additional bus lines to Berlin, followed by the introduction of the first tram lines, beginning in 1884 with the so-called Pferde-Eisenbahn from Rollberg to Spittelmarkt in Berlin, and a communal line from the Rollkrug tavern at Hermannplatz to Knesebeckstraße near Kurfürstendamm a year later, which formed the basis for the Straßenbahnen der Stadt Berlin (SSB), the first communal public transportation company of Berlin, which was established with grants from the Rixdorf citizenry. On 20 March 1892, the first issue of the daily newspaper Rixdorfer Tageblatt (Daily Rixdorf) was published, renamed Neuköllner Tageblatt in 1912. The city's infrastructure continued to grow with the introduction of a telephone network in 1885, the first public telephone installation at Rixdorf's post office in 1886, a new water network connection to the Charlottenburg waterworks in 1887–88, a new sewage system and drainage facility between 1891 and 1895, the building of a new inner-city hospital, a community hall and a poorhouse in 1893, the 1895 reconstruction of Rixdorf station, and the 1899 opening of Hermannstraße station on the Ringbahn. On 9 February 1899, the first electric tram line began its operation.

Rixdorf's 1899 independence was executed in two legal steps. On 1 April, the town was chartered as an independent city and released from the Kreis Teltow,^[108] and Hermann Boddin immediately transitioned into his new office as the city's mayor. Rixdorf then declared itself a free city (Kreisfreie Stadt) on 1 May, and Boddin received the official title Erster Bürgermeister auf Lebenszeit (First Mayor for Life) from district president Robert Earl Hue de Grais on 4 May. On 1 November, the city obtained its own police force and law enforcement agency, including a criminal investigation unit, with the first precinct established on Hermannstraße south of Hermannplatz. At year's end, Rixdorf's population stood at 90,422.

On 17 December 1900, the last Pferde-Eisenbahn of Rixdorf was converted to electric operation, while the omnibus lines continued to be horse-drawn at first. The new city received its coat of arms in 1903, and its population quickly grew to 237,289 in 1910.^[109] It was during this boomtown era that the architect Reinhold Kiehl was called on by Rixdorf's assembly to further upgrade the city's infrastructure, which led to some of the quarter's most iconic buildings and locations being constructed, such as the city hall (Rathaus Neukölln) between 1905 and 1908, which gradually replaced the older Amtshaus,^[110] the 1912 Stadtbad Neukölln, a public bath house, and many more after 1912 like the Körnerpark and its orangerie.^[111] The Rixdorf Harbor in the southern part of the city was built between 1900 and 1906 together with the Teltow Canal, the Britz Canal and the Britz Harbor. The first stage of the harbor's watergate was constructed in 1902, at first used as part of a drainage facility for the surrounding wetlands. In the north, the Landwehr Canal was extended eastward between 1902 and 1905 with the Rixdorfer Stichkanal (Rixdorf Branch Canal) to the city's new gasworks, replacing the old Wiesengraben (Meadow Trench), which had originally been called Schlangengraben (Snake Trench). The year 1909 saw the inauguration of Rixdorf's first municipal hospital (Rixdorfer Krankenhaus), situated outside of the city near modern-day Buckow.^[112]

It was during the 1850s when construction began in what is today the Reuterkiez. After the completion of the Landwehr Canal in 1850 near the location of the older Müllen-Graben (Mühlengraben, Mill Trench),^[113] industry and workshops began to settle along its shores in the marshes and meadows south of the Berlin Customs Wall,^[114] on and near today's Maybachufer. The Cottbuserdamm (Kottbusser Damm)^[115] and several parallel streets like the Friedelstraße,^[116] an important street in Berlin's first communal electric tram network,^[117] were built shortly afterwards.^[118] Between 1871 and 1905, the population increased, as several Gründerzeit apartment blocks were erected, often with industrial backyards that are still typical of Berlin today. Construction was temporarily set back due to a devastating fire in 1886 that destroyed nearly all of the city block between Kottbusser Damm, Maybachufer and Schinkestraße. Different from other neighborhoods of northern Rixdorf, most residential development in the Reuterkiez had from the beginning always been aimed at more affluent residents and a higher quality of living, but except for the Reuterplatz forgone any development of green urban plazas. Due to the marshy substrate, the new neighborhood was at first only developed between Kottbusser Damm and Weichselstraße,^[119] and was instead extended southward into and beyond the modern Donaukiez of the Flughafenstraße neighborhood. In the decades that followed, Rixdorf, the new Reuterkiez and Donaukiez were expanded west- and southward respectively, forming Neukölln's younger neighborhoods of Schillerpromenade, Körnerpark and the historical Rollberg.

Starting in 1875 after the approval of a new development plan, the areas immediately to the south, namely present-day Rollberg and the remainder of Flughafenstraße, were developed first, mainly as working-class outskirts with backyard manufacturing and larger industries,^[120] tightly packed tenements, small apartments and tiny residential backyards.^[121] To this end, and to also furnish raw material for construction in the rest of Berlin, most of the rolling agricultural hills of the Rollberge range were excavated and leveled, and Rixdorf's sixteen windmills torn down,^[122] with the last windmill dismantled in 1899. In the first wave, four new parallel streets as well as the Kopfstraße between Bergstraße, present-day Karl-Marx-Straße, and Hermannstraße were constructed together with the crossways Falk- and Morusstraße on the flattened Rollberge slopes. The working-class tenements, even in the front buildings, were small and overcrowded,^[123] sunless and unaerated, and unsanitary without personal water closets or rooms for hygiene, which promoted diseases and epidemics, infant and child mortality, violence and crime, but also turned Neukölln into a Socialist heartland, fueling the class struggles of the 1920s and '30s, and later also the quarter's potent resistance movement against the Nazis (1933–45). However, the financial crises and wars in early 20th century Germany prevented any contemporary redevelopment in Rollberg until the 1960s and '70s.

Schillerpromenade and parts of Körnerpark, on the other hand, followed the Reuterkiez model with apartment buildings for wealthier residents, and the two quarters still have a large Gründerzeit architectural foundation with broad streets and sidewalks, and Berlin's usual grid plan street layout that originated mostly in this era.^[124] For the Körnerpark quarter, this development was a natural evolution due to its proximity to Alt-Rixdorf, though the street blocks further south were for the most part developed in the 1920s and '30s, so the quarter has not evolved as uniformly. Schillerpromenade benefited from its location on even farmland adjacent to the Tempelhofer Feld, which was better suited than the area on the Rollberge slopes. Construction of the new residential park in present-day Schillerkiez began with Rixdorf's 1901 development plan. The ambitious Gründerzeit estates, the broad promenade parallel to Hermannstraße and the circular central plaza (Herrfurthplatz) with the Genezareth Church were markedly aimed at wealthier settlers, as a counterpoint to the older Rollberg quarter of ill repute. In 1905, residential construction was in full swing, schools and an academy were built, and main development ended around 1914 except for the westernmost city blocks at Oderstraße, which were developed only in 1927 by Bruno Taut according to modern reformist ideals. The large sports grounds in the quarter's south-western corner (Sportpark Tempelhofer Feld), today the Werner-Seelenbinder-Sportpark, opened in 1928.

Rixdorf had become notorious for its taverns, amusement sites and red-light districts, which dampened investments, economic development and the immigration of wealthier citizens, so in 1912 the local authorities took up former mayor Boddin's original plan, which until then had been consistently rejected, to get rid of this reputation by assuming the name Neukölln,^[125] which referenced both Rixdorf's historical parent city Cölln and the Cöllnische Heide (Cölln Heath) to the east, but was mainly derived from the Neucöllner Siedlungen ("Neucölln Estates") north of Rixdorf,^[126] whose name imitated Neu-Cölln, a historical district south of the medieval part of Berlin and Cölln proper. The renaming was petitioned by mayor Curt Kaiser and eventually granted by Emperor William I on 27 January 1912. At the time, Neukölln's population stood at 253,000.

In 1913, the city of Neukölln bought the Spree island Abteiinsel, today's Insel der Jugend (Youth Island), which had originally been owned by one of Rixdorf's citizens in 1868, and constructed the Abteibrücke between the exclave and the mainland of Alt-Treptow, one of Germany's first reinforced concrete bridges.^[127] Neukölln's bath house opened to the public on 10 May 1914. From 1912 to 1913, the Rixdorf Branch Canal became the Neukölln Ship Canal, further extended southward to the Neukölln Harbor and the Teltow Canal. Construction of the second stage at the Neukölln Watergate concluded in 1914, and the canal officially opened on 1 April of the same year. 6,600 of Neukölln's residents fell serving at the frontlines in World War I (1914–18). Despite the war years, urban development had continued unabated at first, and Rixdorf had become one of the most important suburban cities outside of Berlin. From 1 October 1917, waste management services were provided directly by the city. At the end of the war, the November Revolution led to the formation of the city's Workers' and Soldiers' Council, and in late 1918, the council seized executive power in Neukölln, dissolving the city's assembly and forcing mayor Curt Kaiser to resign, who was succeeded by Alfred Scholz (SPD). The workers, employees and officers of Neukölln threatened a general strike, but the conflict was resolved in 1919 by the Prussian government. The revolutionary council was barred from attending the city's assembly meetings, and the Prussian Army's 17th infantry division was deployed and laid siege to Neukölln, which eventually led to the dissolution of the Workers' and Soldiers' Council.

The newly forming societies and infrastructures of Berlin and its periphery created problems and threatened to thwart further development, because the disparity between the different communities, which naturally aimed to expand beyond the old municipal boundaries, now created cross-border administrative conflicts and gridlock. Therefore, the Greater Berlin Act was passed by the Prussian parliament in the spring of 1920, and the city of Neukölln ceased to exist on 1 October 1920 after only two decades of independence, when it was incorporated as a part of Greater Berlin together with a large number of other suburban communes and cities. Together with the quarters Britz, Rudow and Buckow, Neukölln now formed the new homonymous borough of Neukölln, Berlin's 14th (and since the 2001 reform 8th) administrative district, which eventually added the new quarter of Gropiusstadt in 2002. At the time of the merger, the city of Neukölln had a population of 262,128.^[128] The old Rixdorf continued to exist, and is today represented by two neighborhoods in the center of Neukölln, Böhmisch-Rixdorf and Richardplatz-Süd. In preparation for Neukölln's incorporation, the first election of the new assembly of borough representatives (Bezirksverordnetenversammlung, BVV) was held on 20 June 1920, but had to be repeated on 16 October 1921.^[129]

In the Weimar Republic, Neukölln's population eventually grew to 278,208 in 1930.^[130] Berlin Tempelhof Airport, whose airfield was part of Neukölln and Tempelhof, opened on 8 October 1923 and was expanded in several phases until 1941. To relieve the older tram networks, the Berlin S-Bahn was electrified starting in 1926, while Neukölln's Südring (south ring) lines were modernized in 1928. Additionally, two lines of the Berlin U-Bahn, the Nord-Süd-Bahn and the GN-Bahn, were extended through Neukölln between 1926 and 1930.^[131]

Neukölln remained a working-class quarter and communist stronghold, especially in the Rollberg neighborhood. This led to increasing tensions between left-wing radicals like the KPD and the Berlin police, culminating in the Bloody May riots of 1929 (Blutmai) with 14 fatalities and 17 injured. The Nazis viewed the quarter as "Red Neukölln", and tensions with the rivaling socialist and communist groups ensued as early as November 1926, when Joseph Goebbels sent over 300 men of the Sturmabteilung (SA) on a propaganda march through Neukölln, ending in clashes on the Hermannplatz. The emerging resistance against National Socialism also spilled over into regional church politics as the 1929 Neuköllner Kirchenstreit (Neukölln church conflict), when Protestant priest Arthur Rackwitz was only granted his inauguration at Neukölln's Philipp Melanchthon Church after an intervention by cultural minister Adolf Grimme, which had previously been denied due to his religious-socialist and anti-fascist positions, as well as his open criticism of the Protestant authorities' support for the Nazis. The beer hall Neue Welt on Hasenheide near Hermannplatz was the 1930 location of one of Adolf Hitler's early speeches in Berlin.^[132] The conflicts eventually intensified until the end of the republic, leading to occasional armed engagements like the Rixdorf shootout of October 1931, when communists attacked the Richardsburg, a Sturmlokal of the SA.

After Hitler's Machtübernahme in 1933, the SA extended their campaigns and also targeted rallies and events by moderate parties like the SPD.^[133] Neukölln's borough mayor Alfred Scholz (SPD) and all officials of Neukölln's district office had to resign under pressure from the new ruling Nazi Party and the enactment of the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service.^[134] Many of Germany's resistance fighters and activists against Nazi rule operated from "red Neukölln", for example Heinz Kapelle and Ursula Goetze, who coordinated with the Red Orchestra in the quarter.^[135] In time for the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, the 1872 Jahndenkmal memorial for Turnvater Jahn in the park Hasenheide was relocated, slightly redesigned and expanded with a commemorative grove, which exists to this day.

As a prelude to the Shoah, Neukölln's only synagogue on Isarstraße (Flughafenkiez) as well as numerous Jewish businesses and property were attacked and demolished during the Kristallnacht of 1938. Today, only a commemorative plaque remains of the synagogue.^[136] After the onset of World War II in 1939, the Rixdorf factories of the Krupp-Registrierkassen-Gesellschaft and American company National Cash Register, which had merged as the National Krupp Registrierkassen GmbH during the Weimar Republic, were transformed into military production facilities.^[137] In 1941, the Friedhof Lilienthalstraße in Hasenheide, which had been built by Wilhelm Büning, opened as a cemetery for the fallen soldiers of the Wehrmacht. Today, it is a general cemetery for the victims of World War II. In 1942 a forced labor camp for up to 865 mainly Jewish and Romani women from the conquered Eastern territories was established on the National Krupp factory grounds. In 1944 it was absorbed as one of several Berlin outposts (Außenlager^[138]) of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, primarily for female Jewish-Polish forced laborers, who had been transferred from the Łódź Ghetto and Auschwitz respectively.^[139] The camp's last remaining barracks stood until the year 1957,^[140] long after the Jewish survivors had emigrated.^[141] At the end of the war, Neukölln's population had decreased by roughly 30,000, and 9% of the quarter's buildings had been destroyed, with 12% severely damaged by allied bombing raids, including the Mercedes-Palast in the Rollberg neighborhood, which since 1927 had housed Europe's largest movie theater.^[142]

Following the withdrawal of the occupying Soviet forces in 1945, Neukölln became part of the American sector of Berlin from 1945 to 1949, encompassing the south and south-east of what would later become West Berlin, an enclave of West Germany within Communist East Germany from 1949 until German reunification in 1990. The Sonnenallee, connecting Neukölln with Baumschulenweg in former East Berlin, was the site of a border crossing of the Berlin Wall from 1961 to 1990.^[143] After a long war hiatus since 31 August 1944, Neukölln's daily newspaper Neuköllner Tageblatt returned to the newsstands on 28 May 1953, before being discontinued for good on 18 August of the same year due to low profits.^[144] On 2 October 1960, Neukölln's new borough library opened on Erlanger Straße.^[145] In 1963, the U-Bahn line C^I was extended from Grenzallee station further into the Britz quarter. In 1966, Neukölln's last remaining tram line was shut down.^[146] In 1967, Europe's largest poultry farm, the so-called Hühnerhochhaus ("chicken high-riser") opened in Neukölln's industrial park Nobelstraße, but was closed down again in 1972 due to unprofitability, and after continuing animal rights protests, which evolved into the spearhead of sustainable and free-range farming in Germany. During the Cold War, Neukölln retained its status as a traditional working-class area and one of Berlin's red-light districts. Many gastarbeiters, especially from Turkey and Greece, settled in Kreuzberg and Neukölln since the 1950s, later followed by Palestinian and Arabic refugees from the Lebanese Civil War.^[147] Neukölln's current U-Bahn network into the southern quarters via the U7 was constructed between 1970 and 1972, while the final U8 section between Leinestraße and the S-Bahn wasn't implemented until 1996. The Körnerpark, which after the war had fallen into disrepair due to its location beneath the nearby airport's eastern approach path, was restored in its historical form since 1977 and reopened to the public on 4 August 1983, with its orangerie following on 10 October of the same year. The Neukölln Opera, which had originally been founded in 1972, received its own venue in 1988 and became one of Berlin's four opera houses. Another important cultural venue, the Saalbau Neukölln, the location of the former Bürgersalon Niesigk ("citizens' parlor"), reopened in 1990 and is today known as Heimathafen Neukölln.

Since the 1970s and '80s, Neukölln, like the neighboring Kreuzberg, has embraced independent forms of living like alternative trailer parks, for example the Rollheimer in the Schillerkiez, Germany's oldest Wagenburg,^[148] squatting,^[149] and an often anti-establishment and anti-fascist counterculture that is still active to this day. In the 1990s, late repatriates from formerly Soviet states like Ukraine and Russia, including many Russian Jews, resettled in Germany, and especially in Berlin and Neukölln. An honorary statue of John Amos Comenius, who had been the last bishop of Rixdorf's Moravian colonists before their flight from Bohemia, was unveiled in Böhmisch-Rixdorf on 21 March 1992, followed on 15 November of the same year by the founding of the new German Comenius Society in Rixdorf's Moravian oratory. The decade after German reunification mainly transformed the eastern parts of the city, but western quarters like Neukölln were able to benefit as well. In 1994, the Estrel Hotel with convention center opened in Rixdorf's former industrial outskirts on the eastern shore of the Neukölln Ship Canal, and many new shopping malls and cultural locations sprung up all over Neukölln. In 1995, ethnologist Brigitte Walz and Anett Szabó developed the concept of a multiethnic carnival at Neukölln's transcultural Werkstatt der Kulturen, which became Berlin's famous Karneval der Kulturen one year later.^[150]

Over the generations, all of Neukölln's southern neighborhoods of Rixdorf, Körnerpark and Schillerpromenade have gradually expanded south- and southeastward, while the Reuterkiez was finally expanded onto the marshy areas to the east. Major settlement constructions occurred as part of the new objective movement of the 1920s and '30s, in Germany often called Neues Bauen (New Building). In that era, many modern estates were constructed within Neukölln proper, for example the areas around Ossastraße, a 1927 Reuterkiez housing estate by Bruno Taut, or around the crossing of Innstraße and Weserstraße in Rixdorf (1924–26), but a notable example for a complete early modern settlement is the Dammwegsiedlung south-east of Rixdorf, which was constructed between 1920 and 1922, based on earlier designs by Reinhold Kiehl.

After World War II, almost a quarter of the buildings in Neukölln were destroyed or severely damaged. This affected all neighborhoods except the Schillerkiez, where the destruction remained minimal, though the quarter, like Körnerpark, was eventually expanded and compacted further south beyond the Ringbahn. Other neighborhoods quickly began to rebuild in the bombing gaps from the war, but naturally had to disregard the classical models of Neukölln's original architecture. Quick modern construction was the order of business, at best with a social reformist slant. In the 1960s, however, a public housing boom ensued in Berlin, which also changed the face of many parts of Neukölln's neighborhoods. Most older Gründerzeit areas were only expanded with compacting measures and discreet perimeter block development, but the bulk of Rollberg and the new quarters southeast of Rixdorf were built during this era.

Flächensanierung (district redevelopment)^[151] in the Rollberg neighborhood began in the 1960s,^[152] which meant completely demolishing and reconstructing most of its old working-class estates. Of Rollberg's more than 5,000 apartments, only about 340 remained, 200 of them in Gründerzeit estates, and 140 in existing houses from pre-war developments and initial post-war reconstructions. Furthermore, Berlin's historical grid plan street layout was partially dismantled. The modernist meandering block structures (Mäanderbauten) in the eastern part were constructed first, while the rest of the newly designed quarter, including Die Ringe ("The Rings") in the western part, was finished in the mid to late 1970s.^[153] Approximately 2,000 new apartments were constructed, but many of the original residents had left and never returned, opening up rental space for Neukölln's new immigrant population. These developments created new problems, which persist to this day, because the new neighborhood is neither urbanistically nor socially integrated with the rest of Neukölln.

During the same era, the Weiße Siedlung southeast of Rixdorf was built as a typical 1970s modernist suburban housing estate north of the older Dammwegsiedlung. Due to its distinctive high-rise design, the quarter is widely visible. Construction of the youngest neighborhood further south, the High-Deck-Siedlung, began in 1975 and ended in 1984 as a follow-up to the earlier large-scale housing developments Gropiusstadt and Märkisches Viertel. Both settlements suffer from a fate similar to that of Rollberg, being foreign architectural bodies with geographical and social separation from the rest of urban Neukölln.

After the end of Neukölln's public housing wave, the Schillerpromenade neighborhood at last became part of the borough's official urban renewal program, which was passed by the assembly of representatives on 23 January 1990. At first, the focus was on modernizing the deficits of the old infrastructure, but from 1996 onward, specific emphasis was placed on conservation and neighborhood management, to counter gentrification and the displacement of the old-established citizenry. This proved complicated, as many former tenements had already been converted into condominiums. In addition, more recent gentrification could not be blocked completely, since the neighborhood, beside the Reuterkiez, became one of the most popular destinations for 21st century western immigrants.

In contrast, conservation efforts had been placed on a more solid footing in the historical neighborhoods of Böhmisch-Rixdorf and Richardplatz-Süd. The new 1990 development procedures officially designated both the Bohemian and the contiguous German areas of Alt-Rixdorf as a Kulturdenkmal von europäischem Rang (cultural monument of European importance). This measure, which had been demanded since 1979 by Rixdorf's Bohemian descendants and supported by the local society Förderkreis Böhmisches Dorf since its foundation in 1984, has since preserved Rixdorf's old infrastructure and prevented any large-scale modern redevelopment.

In the 21st century, further residential development in Neukölln is still possible by repurposing many of the garden allotments, the largest of which have primarily formed on or near the historical border to former East-Berlin. However, important recreational areas would be lost, and there are no plans by the administration to let the relevant leases expire. Alternative plans to clear green spaces like the forest Emmauswald, a former cemetery, regularly encounter strong resistance,^[154] but the assembly of borough representatives generally favors a partial development of Neukölln's old cemeteries over nature conservation.^[155] Similarly, the plans for a residential boundary development of the Tempelhofer Feld are a recurring topic of contention in Berlin politics.^[156] Unconfrontational development mainly has to rely on compacting measures by covering the last remaining bombing gaps from World War II or undeveloped properties, on redeveloping former industrial neighborhoods like the Neukölln Docklands,^[157] and on perimeter block development, where possible. A recent example can be found in the Bouché neighborhood, where the mainly industrial block Harzer Straße/Elsenstraße will be undergoing residential redevelopment.^[158]

As part of Berlin's administrative reform, the city's 14th borough Neukölln was reorganized as the 8th borough of Berlin on 1 January 2001, whereas Gropiusstadt joined the new borough a year later. In 2002, the final restoration stage concluded at the Körnerpark with the reopening of the park's cascade and adjacent water passages. The closedown of Tempelhof Airport on 30 October 2008 relieved many of Neukölln's central residential areas, which had been located beneath the airport's eastern approach path, of aircraft noise, especially Körnerpark and the Schillerkiez. In 2010, the city opened the Tempelhofer Feld to the public, the former airfield, which had been shared by the quarters Neukölln and Tempelhof.^[159] Over night, this created a new and unique area for recreation, sporting activities, small and large cultural events like Lollapalooza, sustainability projects and natural habitats for many wild species. During the 2020–23 COVID-19 pandemic, Neukölln was one of the early hotspots of Germany,^[160] resulting in more than 600 fatalities.^[161]

Following the 1990s as a typical inner-city hot spot with high rates of immigration, poverty, crime, educational discrimination^[163] and inadequate asylum laws,^[164] early 21st century Neukölln had experienced an influx of students, creatives and other young professionals of mostly Western origin avoiding higher rents charged in other parts of Berlin.^[165] It was during this time that the inofficial social toponym Kreuzkölln developed, as the northern neighborhood's culture and night life was slowly being resurrected. The trend increased with the 2008 financial and 2010 European debt crises, when many young EU citizens left their home countries for Germany in search of work, leading to rapid cultural shifts in certain neighborhoods within Neukölln, especially the neighborhoods to the north and west from Reuter- to Schillerkiez. Coupled with increasing domestic and foreign real estate investments, this had caused a knock-on effect of rents to rise in many parts of Neukölln. Gentrification eventually stalled in the early 2020s,^[166] but since then, rent inflation has mainly shifted from residential to commercial real estate, which now threatens to favor corporatized lighthouse projects over Neukölln's smaller entrepreneurs and traditional businesses, who were initially saved by the federal stimulus during the COVID-19 lockdowns.^[167]

The gentrifying migration, together with later migrational waves after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and primarily the ongoing European migrant crisis from mainly Islamic countries,^[168] have significantly increased Neukölln's population since the 2010s, also leading to social and religious conflicts in some neighborhoods, and to a shift in the political climate with wider repercussions across Germany.^[169] Nevertheless, the vibrant immigrant culture and recent cosmopolitan evolution, especially in the northern Reuterkiez neighborhood, have turned the centuries-old melting pot Neukölln into one of the trendiest districts of Berlin and the epitome of socioeconomic change in the city,^[170] and the quarter has often ranked as one of the world's most desirable places to visit and live.^[171]

Rixdorf

Neukölln

Maltese cross

Cölln eagle^[172]

Hussite flag with chalice

Mural crown of Berlin's boroughs

Berlin

Neukölln's coat of arms is a modern variant of Rixdorf's original coat. After Rixdorf's independence on 1 April 1899, the city's first coat of arms had been commissioned on 10 November of the same year. The final design, which swapped the placement of the cross and chalice, was ordered by emperor Wilhelm II and approved on 29 May 1903.

The most prominent heraldic element is at the bottom of the coat, the silver on red Maltese Cross, which signifies the official foundation of the historic village of Richardsdorf on 26 June 1360 under the sovereignty of the Catholic Johannite Knights Hospitaller, who had assumed the angerdorf from the Knights Templar in the year 1318.

In the upper right is the red and gold heraldic eagle on silver background, which is actually a double reference, mainly to Rixdorf's feudal parent city of Cölln (23 September 1435 – 17 January 1709^[173]), but also to the later Province of Brandenburg, which likewise used Cölln's historical eagle on its coat of arms.^[174]

In the upper left is the silver on black common chalice of the Protestant Hussite colonists, who began to settle on the Rixdorf lot in the year 1737 and eventually built their own village, which as Böhmisch-Rixdorf was granted its own administration in 1797, before both Rixdorf villages were united on 1 January 1874. A representation of Rixdorf's historical Hussite chalice can be found in the pediment of the 1753 Bohemian school building on Kirchgasse.

The original red and black mural crown was similar to the modern variant, but contained a city gate as its central element, signifying Rixdorf's 1899 independence. Inofficially, the historical coat of arms remained in use at first, after Rixdorf, then already renamed Neukölln, had joined the new Neukölln borough of Greater Berlin on 1 October 1920. On 13 May 1954, Berlin passed legislation which allowed its boroughs to carry official heraldic emblems. To this end, Rixdorf's old coat of arms was slightly redesigned, and the only major change was applied to the crown, which was altered into the official mural crown now used by all of Berlin's boroughs, including the silver shield with black bear, as found in Berlin's own coat of arms. The changes were approved by Neukölln's district exchange and representative assembly by 12 March 1956. The new coat of arms was admitted by the city of Berlin in April 1956 and awarded to the borough Neukölln on 16 May 1956. Today, it is used by the quarter of Neukölln, together with the borough's other quarters of Britz, Buckow, Rudow and Gropiusstadt.^[175]

As of 2024, Neukölln with its 163,735 inhabitants is the second-most densely populated quarter of Berlin after Prenzlauer Berg. The borough's current budget deficit stands at €10.2 million ($11,39 million), and in 2024 Neukölln's district exchange declared the third spending freeze in a year.^[176] In 2023, the unemployment rate in Neukölln was at 14.1%. The poverty rate was at 29%, more than a third of Neukölln's children and adolescents were poor or at risk of poverty,^[177] and the borough is currently the only German district with its own poverty commissioner.^[178]

In 2019, 46% of Neukölln's residents had been first or second-generation immigrants,^[179] with roots in 155 countries.^[180] The percentage rose to 48% in 2021 due to the ongoing European migrant crisis,^[181] and the number of Ukrainians in the borough Neukölln increased by 11.9% in 2023 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.^[182] Due to the quarter's dense urban character, only far less than five percent of Berlin's refugees can be accommodated in Neukölln.^[183] As of 2024, the percentage of foreigners without German citizenship is 21.8% on the low end in Bouchéstraße (LOR 100313), and as high as 40.9% in both Donaustraße (LOR 100314) and Glasower Straße (LOR 100209).^[184] The bulk of the most recent migration originated in Islamic countries,^[185] and over the years this development, coupled with a strong local grassroots radical left counterculture, has led to a significant increase in antisemitism^[186] and pro-Palestinian propaganda,^[187] also fueled by the politicians of Neukölln's chapter of Die Linke.^[188]

Two out of Berlin's seven so-called "crime-burdened locations" (Kriminalitätsbelastete Orte, kbOs) are in Neukölln, Hermannplatz with Donaukiez including Sonnenallee, and Hermannstraße around Hermannstraße Station.^[189] Especially in these neighborhoods, Neukölln is also characterized by social and religious conflicts, manifesting in educational challenges,^[190] violent felonies,^[191] organized crime by Islamic clans with recurring gang and drug violence,^[192] occasional rioting and arson, transphobia and homophobia.^[193] Among the critical annual events for the Berlin Police are the so-called Revolutionary 1st of May Demonstration, which usually takes place in Kreuzberg and Neukölln as part of the local May Day, and the New Year's Eve festivities, which in recent past have often resulted in rioting and arson.^[194]

Neukölln, together with the borough Neukölln, is part of the Directorate 5 of the Berlin Police. The quarter Neukölln is patrolled by Precinct 54 (Sonnenallee) and Precinct 55 (Rollbergstraße). The police's special authorities, for example warrantless searches, extend from the kbOs into the S-Bahn and the trains and stations of the U-Bahn lines U7 and U8, the latter of which directly connects Neukölln's and two other important kbOs, Kottbusser Tor in Kreuzberg and Alexanderplatz in Mitte, with two other kbOs close by, the Görlitzer Park with Wrangelkiez in Kreuzberg and (via the U-Bahn line U1) Warschauer Brücke in Friedrichshain.^[195]

As with the police, Neukölln is part of the Directorate 5 of the Berlin Fire Brigade. It is served by the Fire Stations 5000 and 5001, whereas the latter is part of Berlin's volunteer fire department. Both stations are in the center of Neukölln on Kirchhofstraße in Rixdorf, so the neighborhoods of Neukölln are often served by stations in adjacent quarters, for example the Reuterkiez by Fire Stations 1600 and 1601 on Wiener Straße in Kreuzberg nearby.

The old village of Rixdorf had been part of the Holy Roman Empire as a Knights Templar and Hospitaller settlement, so it was historically a Roman Catholic village. However, the Reformation in the 16th century changed the religious makeup of many German regions, especially in the northern and eastern parts of the empire. Furthermore, in the early 18th century, Rixdorf came under Prussian political and cultural hegemony, which included Protestantism as the effective church of the state, so the Christian affiliative distribution gradually shifted away from the Roman faith. Rixdorf in particular was a prominent example of this development, because it eventually obtained a strong Protestant community, descended both from the early 18th century Moravian colonists and the industrial immigrants from the Eastern parts of the German Empire (1870–1910).^[196] In the course of the 20th and 21st centuries, the Christian parishes of Berlin, and in particular of Neukölln, hemorrhaged a significant share of their members. Following the secularization in the age of Enlightenment after the Reformation, many of the 20th century's global secular, atheist and sometimes downright antireligious political ideologies like communism, socialism and national socialism flourished (and clashed) in Berlin (see above), and a Marxist-Leninist regime eventually ruled over the Eastern parts of Germany and East Berlin for many decades. For this reason, a large part of Germany's population today is not affiliated with any religion, and Berlin in particular is often called the "atheist capital of the world".^[197] Beyond that, Neukölln had always been a left-leaning working class district, and a home to progressive voices from social reformists to Biblical critics like Bruno Bauer, so the effects with regard to irreligion are visible to this day.

German statistics offices are not required to gather information on the religious affiliations of the citizenry. The German church tax system, however, offers insight into the membership strength of at least the two primary Christian denominations in the borough of Neukölln. As of 2024, only 20% of Neukölln's residents are Christian, of which 7.5% are Catholic, while 12.4% belong to one of Germany's associated mainstream Protestant denominations (EKD). At roughly 72%, the vast majority of Berlin's residents, however, is irreligious, while 1.5% are of other faiths, not counting Islam, with similar numbers to be expected for Neukölln.^[198] Due to the quarter's ethnic makeup and history of Ottoman, Turkish and modern Muslim immigration, a significant minority adheres to the Islamic faiths, of which the Sunni branch forms the majority. Statistics for the quarter itself do not exist, but based on reliable, but partially outdated numbers for the whole of Berlin (4%) and the borough Neukölln (7–9%), the share of the Muslim population in the quarter Neukölln would be at least twice as high as the borough's overall share. In 2012, residents of Turkish descent made up 45% of the immigrant and 12% of the overall population, accounting for two thirds of the quarter's Muslim population, which at the time stood at a share of 18%.^[199] Increasing immigration from Islamic countries since 2015 therefore suggests that inofficial estimates of at least 20% and up to 25% (2024) are not false.^[200] Either way, Islam and (more precisely) Sunni Islam forms the largest religious cohort in the quarter Neukölln, dwarfed only by the number of irreligious residents at approximately 50–60%.

Within Neukölln's cosmopolitan citizenry, many other religions and denominations are present and thriving. The borough of Neukölln is home to several thousand Hindus, mainly from India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, and especially the number of Indian expats has been rising steadily since the 2022 enactment of the Deutsch-indisches Migrationsabkommen (German-Indian Treaty on Migration). Still, the religious and cultural diversity of German society, not least in Berlin, has suffered greatly in the past 90 years, namely from the loss of Jewish culture due to the Shoa and Jewish exodus from Germany. Jewish life cautiously resurged in the 1990s with the immigrating late repatriates from Eastern Europe, and the trend continued with the 21st century influx of young people from all around the world, many of whom come from Israel. However, in 2022 only 1% of Berlin's residents had been Jewish.

Around the time of Rixdorf's unification in 1874, the population was approximately 12,300. After Rixdorf's independence in 1899, the population stood at 90,422 (1900), while the final count for the rechristened city of Neukölln was 262,414 (1919), mainly due to early modern industrial immigration. The largest ever population of the quarter Neukölln was 278,208 in 1930. Modern immigration began in the mid-2000s and accounted for a population increase of approximately 20,000 at its peak in 2015, declining to now 14,000 compared to the beginning of the millennium.

In Berlin, urban railway services are managed by the S-Bahn Berlin GmbH, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn, while all other public transport systems are managed by the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG). Together with the Brandenburg public transport providers, they form the network group Verkehrsverbund Berlin-Brandenburg (VBB).

Neukölln is served by two U-Bahn (subway) rail lines, the northwest-to-southeast U7 (Rathaus Spandau ↔ Rudow) and the north-to-south U8 (Wittenau ↔ Hermannstraße), with an interchange between the two at Hermannplatz.^[207] Within Neukölln, the U7 has three additional eastbound stations along the Karl-Marx-Straße: Rathaus Neukölln, Karl-Marx-Straße and Neukölln, the latter being an interchange between U- and S-Bahn. The U8 has three additional southbound stations along the Hermannstraße: Boddinstraße, Leinestraße and Hermannstraße, the latter being the quarter's second interchange between U- and S-Bahn.

Three U-Bahn stations just outside of the quarter offer quicker access to certain neighborhoods of Neukölln: Südstern (U7) to the western parts of Hasenheide, Schönleinstraße (U8) to the Reuterkiez, and Grenzallee (U7) to the southern and south-eastern industrial parks including the Neukölln Harbor.

During workday nights, approximately between 1:00 and 4:00, Berlin's subways are not operational, but are replaced by buses. In Neukölln, the U7 and U8 are replaced by the bus lines N7 and N8 respectively. During nights before Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, the U-Bahn lines operate continuously.

Neukölln is served by five S-Bahn (urban railway) lines, with U-Bahn interchanges at Berlin-Hermannstraße (U8) and Berlin-Neukölln (U7), each for all of the five lines. The S45 connects Neukölln and the airport (see below). Two additional important services are the Ringbahn circle lines S41 (clockwise) and S42 (counter-clockwise), connecting i.a. to Südkreuz, Westkreuz, Gesundbrunnen (Nordkreuz) and Ostkreuz. The other two lines are the S47 via Niederschöneweide to Spindlersfeld in the south-east, and the S46, which connects Neukölln to Westend in the far west and the town Königs Wusterhausen south-east of Berlin via Adlershof, Grünau and the town Zeuthen. Overall, Neukölln has four S-Bahn stations, the aforementioned Hermannstraße and Neukölln as well as Sonnenallee on the Ringbahn at the outskirts of Rixdorf, and Köllnische Heide on the southeastbound railway, providing S-Bahn access to the inhabitants of Weiße Siedlung, High-Deck-Siedlung and Schulenburgpark.

Due to sufficient access to U- and S-Bahn for most areas of Neukölln, the quarter is currently not served by any of Berlin's ExpressBus lines. Still, Neukölln has several regular bus lines, connecting for example Marzahn (194) and Marienfelde (277). There are also four MetroBus lines, the most important ones being the M29 connecting to the western city center including Kurfürstendamm, the M41 to Berlin Central Station, and the southbound M44 to Buckow-Süd, the destination of a potential extension of the U-Bahn line U8 (see below). In addition to the U-Bahn replacement bus lines during night hours, Neukölln is served by several regular night bus lines, for example the N47 connecting Hermannplatz and Berlin East railway station (Ostbahnhof).

Since the closing of the airports Tegel and Tempelhof, whose airfield was partially situated in Neukölln, Berlin only has one remaining international airport,^[208] Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER), the former (and greatly extended) Berlin Schönefeld Airport just outside of Berlin. As of 2024, BER passengers to or from Neukölln can only use buses or the S-Bahn for direct connections.^[209]

When using the U-Bahn, an interchange between subway and the airport express bus lines X7 and X71 is necessary at the U7 terminus Rudow.^[210] For S-Bahn access, an interchange is necessary between U-Bahn and the S45 at the stations Hermannstraße (U8) or Neukölln (U7). As of 2024, the S45 operates every 20 minutes from 5:00–24:00 and 7:00–24:00 on Sundays respectively. During the night, the U-Bahn service is replaced by the night bus line N7, which directly connects Neukölln and the airport.^[211]

Neukölln does not offer any regular ferry transport, but several landing stages for charter tours exist in Neukölln. Berlin shipping company Stern und Kreisschiffahrt, which is based at the Treptow Harbor, operates a landing at the Estrel Hotel on the Neukölln Ship Canal, with one route through Neukölln along the Landwehr Canal. Former Kreuzberg shipping company Reederei Riedel, which is now based at the Rummelsburg Harbor in Oberschöneweide, operates two landings, the Kottbusser Brücke at the Landwehr Canal, and the Wildenbruchbrücke at the Neukölln Ship Canal. One of their ships is the 1962 Rixdorf, which has been in their service since 1987.^[212]

There are concrete medium-term plans to extend the U7 south beyond Rudow to directly connect the airport BER to Neukölln and the rest of Berlin via U-Bahn, adding at least three additional stations inbetween, Rudow-Süd (Neuhofer Straße), Lieselotte-Berger-Platz and Schönefeld for an S-Bahn interchange. As of 2024, a performance audit for the extension is under way.^[213] As Greater Berlin has been steadily growing since German reunification to now almost 4.8 million inhabitants, with extensive residential construction happening in Berlin's immediate surrounding regions, public transport extensions to the city's periphery are propagated frequently. With regard to Neukölln, an internal 2023 BVG feasibility study on long-term U-Bahn network expansion included a southbound extension of the U8 beyond Hermannstraße, terminating in Buckow-Süd just outside of Berlin.^[214]

Two new MetroBus and ExpressBus lines are planned, the M94 to Friedrichsfelde-Ost via Treptow and Ostkreuz station, and the X77 from Hermannstraße to Marienfelde via Alt-Mariendorf.^[215]

Mainly two neighborhoods of Neukölln are insufficiently connected to the Berlin public transportation system, either because they were never developed (Schillerpromenade), or because the old and small streets prevent the establishment of bus lines (Alt-Rixdorf). Therefore the Berlin Senate and the BVG plan to create a network of DRT bus lines (Rufbus) for large parts of Neukölln, from the western neighborhoods at the Tempelhofer Feld to the Sonnenallee in the east, covering Schillerpromenade, Flughafenstraße, Rollberg, Körnerpark and both Rixdorf neighborhoods.^[216]

Neukölln currently has no connection to the Berlin MetroTram network, and due to the Teltow slopes and narrower streets in places like Flughafenstraße, only Neukölln's northern neighborhoods in the glacial valley are immediately suitable for tram expansion. A long-gestating plan proposes to extend Berlin's so-called "party tram"^[217] line M10 by the year 2030,^[218] from Kreuzberg (SO 36) through the Görlitzer Park and crossing the Landwehr Canal into Neukölln, with stations planned at Framstraße, Pannierstraße and Urbanstraße near Hermannplatz via Sonnenallee.^[219] This would create a direct public transport connection from Neukölln (Reuterkiez) to Kreuzberg, Friedrichshain, Prenzlauer Berg, Mitte and Moabit via Berlin Central Station.^[220]

To replace Neukölln's overstrained "ghetto bus"^[221] line M41, the Berlin Senate also has concrete plans to create a new tram line from Schöneweide S-Bahn station through Johannisthal along the Königsheide, part of the former Cölln Heath, through Baumschulenweg, Neukölln and Kreuzberg 61 along Sonnenallee and Urbanstraße via Hallesches Tor to Potsdamer Platz.^[222]

Since Neukölln is densely populated and highly urbanized, most of its streets come with a speed limit of 30 km/h for motorized vehicles, including more aggressive measures in recent years aimed at reducing traffic with one-way roads and concepts like the Spielstraße ("play street") or the Kiezblock (fixed or modular diverters). Furthermore, in 2024 the Senate of Berlin and the borough's administration have begun to monetize public parking space in the northern neighborhoods to steer away some of the excess traffic.^[223]

Nevertheless, several main roads function as important arterial connections to other parts of Berlin: Columbiadamm, Urbanstraße and Hasenheide connect to the western parts of Berlin south of the city center via Tempelhof and the eastern neighborhoods of Kreuzberg (61) respectively, while Sonnenallee, Karl-Marx-Straße and Hermannstraße connect to southern and south-eastern parts of Berlin via Britz and Baumschulenweg respectively. The Kottbusser Damm is the main road to the SO 36 neighborhood of Kreuzberg in the north, but traffic calming measures have reduced its importance in recent years. Except for the Columbiadamm, all of the above arterial roads converge at Hermannplatz.

The A100 autobahn just outside of Neukölln's border with Britz connects to the western parts of Berlin, with an eastern extension through parts of Neukölln to Alt-Treptow under construction, and a highly contended^[224] final stage planned to extend further into Friedrichshain and Lichtenberg via Ostkreuz. At the interchange Autobahndreieck Neukölln, the A100 connects to the A113 autobahn, which leads south to BER airport and the A10, Berlin's orbital autobahn.

Most of Neukölln's one-way streets are two-way for cyclists. In recent years, several side streets have been rededicated as bicycle boulevards, especially in the Reuterkiez. In 2017, the western parts of Weserstraße opened as Neukölln's first bicycle boulevard. Larger main roads have been reconstructed to include properly separated bike lanes, for example Kottbusser Damm and Hasenheide, with plans for more reconstruction in the coming years. Berlin and Neukölln have several bicycle-sharing systems with a large fleet of standard and electric bicycles, as well as cargo bikes and e-scooters.

Due to Berlin's usually broad sidewalks, extensive speed limits, especially on side streets, and other measures like play streets and an increasing number of one-way streets, Neukölln has become a rather safe environment for pedestrians. However, compared to other German cities, very few pedestrian zones exist in Neukölln, currently only the "youth street" Rütlistraße (Reuterkiez) and the Tempelhofer Feld. There are proposals and concrete plans to rededicate certain locations as either pedestrian zones or mixed zones for pedestrians and cyclists, for example the Elbestraße and Weichselstraße in the Reuterkiez.

Several hiking trails exist along the waterways within or bordering Neukölln, primarily the Landwehr Canal, parts of the Neukölln Ship Canal, the Britz Canal, and the Heidekampgraben in the east, which is part of Berlin's Mauerweg. Other green trails are limited to Neukölln's parks, especially the Hasenheide, the Tempelhofer Feld, the Carl-Weder-Park, and the eastern garden plots. However, due to Neukölln's highly urbanized and partially industrialized character, few of the trails are sufficiently interconnected, as it is often found in the suburban quarters of Berlin. Still, Trail 18 of Berlin's officially designated Grüne Hauptwege (main green trails) leads from the Tempelhofer Feld through Neukölln's western cemeteries and parks, Alt-Rixdorf and along the Neukölln Ship Canal via Trusepark into Kreuzberg and beyond.^[225]

Almost all of Neukölln's industrial parks are situated in the southern and eastern parts of the quarter. Both the A100 and A113 highways function as vital access ways, not least for connecting to the BER airport's freight terminals.

The Neukölln Harbor alongside Berlin's waterways also plays a prominent role in the transportation of goods, because all major canals of Berlin are part of the network of German Federal Waterways, which connects many German industrial regions, all important international maritime and inland ports, the North and Baltic Sea, and all of Germany's neighboring countries. The infrastructure of Neukölln's harbor sans railways (see below) is managed by the state-owned Berliner Hafen- und Lagerhausgesellschaft (BEHALA). The Neukölln Ship Canal, together with Neukölln Harbor and the Neukölln Watergate, is owned by the state of Berlin and managed by Neukölln's district exchange. All of Neukölln's other waterways, including rivers and canals outside of the quarter and borough, are managed by the Neukölln branch of the federal Wasserstraßen- und Schifffahrtsamt Spree–Havel (Office for Spree–Havel Waterways and Shipping), which is situated in the eastern Britz docklands south of Neukölln Harbor.

Besides S-Bahn services, the stations Hermannstraße, Sonnenallee with its northern terminals along the western shore of the Neukölln Ship Canal into the Treptow freight yards,^[226] and especially Neukölln offer additional capacities for freight traffic via railways. The main lines connect eastbound via Köllnische Heide and westbound alongside Berlin's orbital S-Bahn infrastructure, continuing either westbound via Südkreuz or southbound and southwestbound via Tempelhof.

A smaller historical railroad, parts of which are still in use today, is the Neukölln-Mittenwald railroad (NME), which branches off in the Tempelhof quarter south of the Tempelhofer Feld between the stations Hermannstraße and Tempelhof and traverses the Teltow Canal to connect other industrial areas in the southern quarters of the Neukölln borough, eventually leading back east to the Teltow Canal on the Rudow industrial through track east of Gropiusstadt via Zwickauer Damm and Stubenrauchstraße.^[227]

Furthermore, industrial through tracks, which are managed by the Industriebahn Berlin, connect Neukölln station via the Treptow freight yards north of Sonnenallee to several terminals within the Neukölln quarter. These include the industrial park Nobelstraße north of the Britz Canal near High-Deck-Siedlung, and the northern and eastern docks of the Neukölln Harbor, with an auxiliary track to the western dock.^[228] Due to Neukölln's dense urban development and its inner-city industrial areas, the quarter's freight trains always needed to be switched and shift directions several times.^[229]

• Rixdorf village church, consecrated at the beginning of the 15th century, adopted by the Moravian Protestants in 1737, officially called Bethlehem Church since 1912.
• Şehitlik Mosque, on the Turkish cemetery,^[230] finished in 2005 by the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DİTİB).
• Neuköllner Oper: opera house that hosts a wide range of performances including musicals, baroque opera, operetta, or experimental music theatre. Famous for its aim to bring elitist culture to a wider audience.^[231]
• Stadtbad Neukölln, the local swim hall which consists of antique thermal baths inspired by Greek temples and basilicas.
• Körnerpark: park in neobarock style with fountains, orangerie, exhibition rooms and a cafe, founded 1910.

• 
  Bruno Bauer
• 
  Hermann Boddin
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  Lena Braun
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  Horst Buchholz
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  Jutta Limbach
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  Inge Meysel
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  Susan Neiman
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  Antonio Rüdiger
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  Engelbert Zaschka

Many of Rixdorf's and Neukölln's natives became world-renowned in their respective professions, for example architectural sculptor Lee Lawrie, actor Horst Buchholz, president of Germany's Supreme Court Jutta Limbach, or Real Madrid's centre-back Antonio Rüdiger. Other important people have lived or settled in Rixdorf and Neukölln, for example Bible critic Bruno Bauer, philosopher Susan Neiman, or artist Lena Braun.

Many of Germany's resistance fighters and activists against National Socialist rule operated from Neukölln, for example Heinz Kapelle and Ursula Goetze, who coordinated with the Red Orchestra in the quarter. Some activists also moved to socialist East Germany after World War II and became prominent state officials and politicians, for example Klaus Gysi and Friedel Hoffmann.

Rixdorf became an independent city in 1899 and was incorporated as a borough of Berlin in the 1920 Greater Berlin Act, so the city of Rixdorf (later Neukölln) has only had three mayors and lord mayors respectively.^[232] The Boddinstraße is named after Rixdorf's first mayor, Hermann Boddin. None of Rixdorf's and Neukölln's three city mayors were natives. As part of the borough Neukölln, the quarter of Neukölln has been administered by the borough mayor since 1920. As of 2024, the incumbent is Martin Hikel (SPD).^[233]

During the tenure of Reinhold Kiehl and his colleagues, for example fellow architect Heinrich Best, Rixdorf's Hochbauamt (office of public works service) and building authority received a stellar reputation across the German Empire, which attracted many young architects, who all earned their stripes in Rixdorf and Neukölln before becoming often renowned independent architects, for example Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

• Neukölln, as part of the borough Neukölln, has been a Municipality of Europe since joining the Council of European Municipalities and Regions as a cooperative member on 1 April 1967.
• Neukölln, as part of the borough Neukölln, is a pilot city of the Intercultural Cities Program,^[237] specifically also the International ICC Program,^[238] organized by the Council of Europe together with the European Commission.
• Neukölln, as part of the borough Neukölln, has several twin communes and cities, among them Boulogne-Billancourt, Hammersmith and Fulham, Çiğli, Bat Yam, Marino and Prague 5.^[239]
• Neukölln, as part of Berlin, has several twin cities, among them London, Istanbul, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Tokyo and Windhoek.^[240]

As an urban hotspot and important quarter of Berlin, Neukölln has always been the focus of many nonfiction books and academic works in the fields of history, education, social and political sciences. A few prominent natives and residents of Neukölln received biographies, such as architect Reinhold Kiehl and actor Horst Buchholz, or have written memoirs, for example actor Inge Meysel. Many consumer nonfiction books about Neukölln exist as well. Notable examples are In den Gangs von Neukölln – Das Leben des Yehya E. (2014) by Christian Stahl, and the satirical Gebrauchsanweisung für Neukölln (1988) by Johannes Groschupf, which he wrote as a student under the pseudonym Olga O'Groschen, while the most popular book to this date has been the critical Neukölln ist überall (2012) by former borough mayor Heinz Buschkowsky.

In fiction, several authors have written about or set their stories in Neukölln, for example Käsebier takes Berlin (Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm, 1932) by Gabriele Tergit, Katharina oder Die Existenzverpflichtung (1992) by Iris Hanika, Hinterhofhelden (2009) by Johannes Groschupf, Hund, Wolf, Schakal (2022) by Behzad Karim Khani, Allegro Pastel (Allegro Pastell, 2020) by Leif Randt, the semi-autobiographical Die halbe Stadt, die es nicht mehr gibt (2012) by Ulrike Sterblich, Jesus von Neukölln (2022) by Wolfgang Priewe, or the children's book Nelly und die Berlinchen – Die Schatzsuche (2019) by Neukölln author Karin Beese. Over the decades, urban lyricists have written many poems about Rixdorf or Neukölln, for example Ede Petermann aus Rixdorf singt in der Verbannung by Otto Julius Bierbaum, published in Ausgewählte Gedichte (1921).

Ades Zabel created several musicals, plays and stage performances around the long-term unemployed Neukölln character Edith Schröder, for example Tatort Neukölln and Einfach Edith! 25 Jahre Edith Schröder.^[241] Kurt Krömer, himself a Neukölln native, has regularly emphasized the quarter in his stand-up comedy and other works, for example Pimp my Ghetto (2010) in support of the Körnerkiez. Neukölln author Abdullah Eryilmaz has written monodramatic works like Der Pfarrer von Neukölln (The Priest of Neukölln). In 2003, the Berlin dance company Dorky Park produced the dance theater play Scratch Neukölln for the inauguration of the new Hebbel am Ufer, commissioned by theater manager and Neukölln resident Matthias Lilienthal.

Neukölln has been a favored location for national and international film and television productions, including reality TV shows.^[242] Some works, however, have focused primarily on Neukölln, for example the 2006 motion picture Tough Enough (Knallhart) by Detlev Buck, Zoran Drvenkar and Gregor Tessnow, the 2007 motion picture Straight by Nicolas Flessa, the 2014 television movie The Limits of Patience (Das Ende der Geduld) by Christian Wagner and Stefan Dähnert, the 2017 television series 4 Blocks by Marvin Kren, Oliver Hirschbiegel, Hanno Hackfort, Bob Konrad and Richard Kropf, the 2015 TV miniseries Ecke Weserstraße by Johannes Hertwig, Hayung von Oepen and Mireya Heider de Jahnsen, the TV documentary miniseries Kiez knallhart: Berlin-Neukölln (2021) by Story House Productions, and also a few documentary films, for example Neukölln Unlimited (2010) by Agostino Imondi and Dietmar Ratsch, Gangsterläufer (2011) by Christian Stahl, or Survival in Neukölln (2017, Überleben in Neukölln) by Rosa von Praunheim.

Songs referencing Neukölln or its residents are mostly from German artists, for example the 2017 hip hop song Sonnenallee by AOB (Army of Brothers) and Said, the 2004 indie rock song Wovon lebt eigentlich Peter? by Winson, the 2008 rock song Neukölln, Du alte Hure by Kalle Kalkowski, the 2022 farewell elegy Neukölln by Madeline Juno, the 2013 hip hop song Das ist Neukölln by Exxar and Kiddkey, the 2008 hip hop song Neukölln 44 feat. Kreuzberg 361 by DJ AK in cooperation with several local German and Turkish rappers, the 2011 satirical folk song Neukölln ist auf Scheiße gebaut by Otto Kuhnle, or the proletarian love letter Dit is Neukölln ("This is Neukölln") by Kurt Krömer and Gabi Decker, originally from a television skit and sung to the tune of I Got You Babe, while tangential references are usually found in Deutschrap songs, for example the 2019 U7 Freestyle by Luvre47. Italian progressive rock band Barock Project published their concept album Coffee in Neukölln in 2012.

Several instrumental works also reference Neukölln, most notably the 1977 David Bowie and Brian Eno track Neuköln [sic!], which was later reworked for orchestra by Philip Glass as the fifth movement of his Symphony No. 4 – Heroes (1996), and also inspired the fusion jazz diptych Neuköln (Day) and Neuköln (Night) by Dylan Howe (2007/14). Other instrumental works about Neukölln include the 1983 electronic composition Hasenheide by Dieter Moebius, the 2004 track Neukölln 2 by Kittin, the 2012 deep house track Neukölln Burning by resident producer Deepchild, the 2011 Mogwai release Hasenheide, or the 2012 tech house track Neukoelln Mon Amour [sic!] by Swayzak.

The song that cemented Rixdorf's infamy as a city of vice across Germany, which eventually prompted the renaming to Neukölln, is the 1889^[243] satirical polka march Der Rixdorfer by Eugen Philippi (music) and Oskar Klein (lyrics), also known as In Rixdorf ist Musike,^[244] which was later immortalized in a recording by actor Willi Rose.^[245] The lyrics, recited with a strong Berlin German dialect in the first person by a protagonist called Franz, describe his free and easy Sunday partying and dancing spree in Rixdorf, and his meeting his long-time companion, an older woman called Rieke, who insinuates to also be a prostitute.^[246]

All things which occur through time, vanish with time. Therefore, it is necessary to make them steady, and to cement them, in deeds and tangible form.

— Richardsdorf foundational charter, 1360^[247]

In Rixdorf and Neukölln, aspirations, fears and hopes temporarily concentrated, to escape the "old" homelands and their provincial constrictions, their mental and social hardships. Neukölln as utopia, thus as a non-place, where suffering and happiness fatefully coalesced, and where the desire for escape seems to have a timeless presence.

— Udo Gösswald, "Immer wieder Heimat", 1997^[248]

If we continue to only observe, we in Neukölln-Nord won't be far from Whitechapel in 10 to 15 years.

— Borough mayor Heinz Buschkowsky, interview, 2008^[249]

Depending on how you look at it, you can say: here [in Neukölln] people manage to get along with each other pretty well in a confined space; or: it is more of a side by side, at times also a head-to-head.

— Berlin integration commissioner Derviş Hızarcı, interview, 2024^[250]

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  County court
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  City hall
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  Public bath house
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  Buddy Bear at Neukölln's City hall
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  Readymade art inspired by Duchamp's Fountain
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  Volkspark Hasenheide in winter (2013)