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Although “Old Fritz”, as Frederick the Great was nicknamed, preferred the isolation of Sanssouci to the bustle of Berlin, in 1740 he began to transform the city into a new metropolis. In particular, the “Forum Fridericianum” in Unter den Linden brought new splendours to the town, and masterpieces such as the national opera house helped transform Berlin into one of the most important European cities.

Between 1919 and 1933, Berlin flourished culturally and became an important metropolis. Film, theatre, cabaret shows and thousands of restaurants and bars transformed the town into an international centre of entertainment. In the realms of fine art and architecture, too, Berlin set new standards.

Signed in Berlin-Karlshorst on 8 May 1945, Germany’s unconditional surrender marked more than the end of World War II. The previous Jewish population of 161,000 had virtually disappeared and Berliners called their city “the empire’s fields of rubble”.

The building of the Berlin Wall, which commenced during the night of 12 August 1961, was, after the surrender of 1945, the second most traumatic event for many Berliners. Many families were torn apart by the concrete wall and more than 100 people were to be killed over the following 30 years at the border dividing East and West.

No other politician was as enthusiastically received in Berlin as the US President John F. Kennedy. On 17 July 1963, in front of Rathaus Schöneberg, he declared to the cheering crowd: “I am a Berliner”. Berliners had forgiven the US for staying silent when the Wall was built. Kennedy confirmed once more that the Western Allies would stand by Berlin and support the town, just as they had done during the blockade of 1948–9, when the US and Britain air-lifted food to the “island” of West Berlin.

During the late 1960s, West Berlin students transformed Germany. Rudi Dutschke and others propounded political change, free love and a reappraisal of Germany’s Nazi past. The movement came to an untimely end when Dutschke was assassinated in April 1968.