A settlement on the small Nuthe creek was first mentioned in the 1375 Landbuch by Emperor Charles IV of Luxembourg, who also ruled as Margrave of Brandenburg since 1373. Then called Neuendorf after its former West Slavic name Nova Ves, it was shelled several times and was severely damaged during the Thirty Years' War. In the mid-18th century the new village of Nowawes was founded by King Frederick II of Prussia and settled with Protestant Bohemian deportees, predominantly weavers who as descendants of the Unity of the Brethren had fled from the suppression in the lands of the Habsburg Monarchy under Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. During the Industrial Revolution the area developed into a centre of textile and carpet manufacturing, and—at the premises of Orenstein & Koppel, from 1899 on—also of the railway production. For decades German Neuendorf and Bohemian Nowawes bordered on each other but remained separate municipalities until their official unification in 1907. Nowawes received town privileges in 1924. From about 1900 the mansion colony of Neubabelsberg arose east of Babelsberg Park on the southern shore of the Griebnitzsee lake. After the Universum Film AG in 1922 had acquired a large backlot nearby, these villas built by famous architects like Hermann Muthesius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe became popular residences of numerous film stars. Marika Rökk, Sybille Schmitz, Lilian Harvey, Willy Fritsch and Brigitte Horney lived and worked here when film production by the UFA continued without a break in the Nazi period, while many Jewish actors and directors were dispossessed and had to flee from Germany. In 1938 Nowawes and Neubabelsberg merged and were incorporated into Potsdam one year later, becoming the district of Potsdam-Babelsberg. During the 1945 Potsdam Conference the representatives of the victorious Allies Joseph Stalin, President Harry S. Truman and Prime Minister Winston Churchill resided in mansions of Neubabelsberg. At the "Truman-Villa" the President issued the Potsdam Declaration and gave orders for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Today the building serves as the seat of the liberal Friedrich Naumann Foundation.
Babelsberg Palace
In 1833 Prince Wilhelm of Hohenzollern had obtained the consent of his father King Frederick William III of Prussia to build a summer residence for him and his spouse Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach on the slope of the Babelsberg hill, overlooking the Havel river. The first plans were designed in a Neo-Gothic style by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, but soon did not satisfy the growing demands of Wilhelm, who - as the marriage of his elder brother King Frederick William IV produced no children - meanwhile had achieved the status of Prussian crown prince. The palace was largely extended according to plans by Friedrich Ludwig Persius and finished in 1849. Babelsberg remained a residence of Wilhelm after his accession to the Prussian and German throne. It was here, after a private conversation on 23 September 1862 he appointed Otto von BismarckMinister President of Prussia and decided not to abdicate.
