Königs Wusterhausen


Königs Wusterhausen is a town in the Dahme-Spreewald district of the state of Brandenburg in Germany a few kilometers outside Berlin.

Geography

Geographical location

Königs Wusterhausen – locally known as "KW" or "KWh" – lies on the Notte canal and the river Dahme southeast of Berlin. Much further away to the west lies the state capital Potsdam.
The abbreviation "KW" is also a reminder of the Königs Wusterhausen radio transmitter as "KW" is also the abbreviation for "Kilowatt" and "Kurzwelle".

Parts of town

Königs Wusterhausen is the biggest town in the Dahme-Spreewald district. The municipal reforms in 2003 brought about seven amalgamations, since which time the communities of Zeesen, Kablow, Diepensee, Niederlehme, Senzig, Wernsdorf and Zernsdorf have belonged to Königs Wusterhausen, the town's land area has grown sixfold, and its population has doubled.

History

In 1320, in connection with an investiture on 19 September, the settlement and the castle received their first-known documentary mentions. By 1400, the two were both a fiefdom held by the noble family of Schlieben. In 1500 the estate of Wendisch Wusterhausen was verified for the first time by the Schenken of Landberg zu Teupitz.
On 14 October 1669 Privy Councillor Friedrich von Jena acquired the castle and the village of Wendisch Wusterhausen. In early July 1683, Kurprinz Friedrich, later Elector Friedrich III, and later still King Frederick I in Prussia, acquired the castle and the village. In 1698, Kurprinz Friedrich Wilhelm was given the castle along with the attached estate as a gift by his father. After his accession to the throne, King Frederick William I in Prussia, remodelled the castle into a hunting lodge, which his son Frederick II despised. In 1718, the town, hitherto known as Wusterhausen, was given its current name, Königs Wusterhausen.
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-10678, Königswusterhausen, Arbeiter auf Sendeturm.jpg|thumb|right|180px|Checking the radio transmitter tower, 1930
In 1862, novelist and poet Theodor Fontane visited Königs Wusterhausen for his Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg.
Since 1901, Königs Wusterhausen has been home to the Brandenburg School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, endowed by the Hamburg merchant Hermann Schmidt.
In 1920 came the launch of Germany's first radio transmitter, the Transmitter Königs Wusterhausen, and in 1935, Königs Wusterhausen was raised to town status. In 1937, Saint Elisabeth's Catholic Church was built and consecrated.
In 1938, the Berlin Autobahn ringroad – now Bundesautobahn 10 – was dedicated, and now serves cities and towns around Berlin, including Königs Wusterhausen. By now, the National Socialists were in power, and in 1944 they built a concentration camp for Jews and Poles at the railway goods station.
After the Second World War and until 1990, Königs Wusterhausen lay in the former East Germany.
In 1972, Germany's deadliest-ever aviation accident occurred when an Interflug passenger flight crashed near Königs Wusterhausen, killing 156 people. 1972 also saw the collapse of Königs Wusterhausen's tower (Königs Wusterhausen)|central tower], which at 243 m tall was the most prominent structure at the radio transmission facility.

Worship

Christianity

In Königs Wusterhausen, there is a Catholic parish as well as congregations of the Protestant church body named Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia. The oldest church in town is the village Wehrkirche in Deutsch Wusterhausen, built in the 13th century. In 1998 the Evangelical Königs Wusterhausen deanery merged in the Berlin-Neukölln deanery. The Protestant congregations in Königs Wusterhausen, Deutsch Wusterhausen, Niederlehme, Senzig, Zeesen, and Zernsdorf as well as that in Schenkendorf, today make up the ecclesiastical Region 9.
The Catholic parish belongs to the Deanship of Köpenick-Treptow of the Archdiocese of Berlin. Both communities have very active youth groups, the Evangelical Junge Gemeinde and the Katholische Jugend.
In January 2013, the Freie Baptistengemeinde Königs Wusterhausen was organized. They are located near the post office and hold weekly services as well as other Bible studies including "Jungschar" and a monthly "Jugendtreff".

Politics

City council

Königs Wusterhausen's town council consists of 36 councillors, with the mayor as head. According to the results of the latest local election in May 2019, they were apportioned as follows:

Twin towns – sister cities

Königs Wusterhausen is twinned with:

Culture and sightseeing

Buildings

Museums

Of the once great number of building works on the Funkerberg, very little is preserved nowadays, as many transmission towers were dismantled for technical reasons after the Central Tower collapsed and fell on 15 November 1972. Today, only a 210-m-high mast and two small freestanding towers are found there. It along with the remaining buildings form a technological monument. Until 1999, this mast bore the transmitting antenna that served as the reserve antenna for the longwave stations at Zehlendorf bei Oranienburg and Donebach.
In 1994, a 67-m-high precast concrete cellular transmission tower was put up. It is today the only active transmitter on the Funkerberg.
The first attempts at transmissions were in 1908. On 22 December 1920, music and speech were transmitted wirelessly from the Funkerberg for the first time on "Welle 2400" – longwave. It went down in history as the German postal system's Christmas concert. Königs Wusterhausen is thus also said to be the cradle of German radio. The artists in that broadcast were, incidentally, postal employees. The initiative was German radio pioneer Hans Bredow's brainchild.
Until 1926, the popular Sonntagskonzerte were broadcast. The station's studio was at first a remodelled bathroom in the first broadcasting house on the Funkerberg.

Economy and infrastructure

Transport

Notable people