History of the City

Potsdam was first mentioned in a document of King Otto III on July 3,993 - as a gift to the Abbess of the Quedlinburg convent. The then "Poztupimi" consisted of a Slavic castle with adjacent settlements. It was located opposite the confluence of the Nuthe and the Havel rivers, in the area of today's senior citizens' home.

The second documented mention of Potsdam dates back only to 1317. Many inhabitants of Potsdam lived by fishing. The members of fishing communities who belonged to the castle were not citizens of the town. There were also some masters of net fishing, "the yarn lords", who caught fish on a grand scale. Most of the craftsmen were bakers, butchers, shoemakers, linen-weavers, and tailors. Since about 1400, weavers of wool also lived here. The castle, mentioned in documents for the first time in 1375, received a stone tower around 1400 and developed gradually into a fortress castle through incorporating older structures. Otherwise the Brandenburg margraves, who were also electors since 1356, didn't concern themselves much about the little town. Not even 1,000 people lived here in barely 100 houses, surrounded by wall and moat (no town wall). In order to obtain money, Potsdam was mortgaged more often than practically any other town in the Mark Brandenburg by the margraves and electors of the Wittelsbachs (from 1323), Luxemburger (from 1373), and the Hohenzollern (from 1415) dynasties that succeeded one another after the Ascanier line had died out in March of 1319. During the Thirty-Years War famines and epidemics snatched the inhabitants away. The Black Death took the lives of 308 Potsdamers in 1631 alone.