History of the City

On March 21, 1933 Hitler opened the Reichstag with "Potsdam Day" in the Garnisonskirche (Garrison Church). It was here that the alliance between the National Socialists and the Prussian military was formed. During World War II, several officers of the Potsdam Infantry Regiment Number 9 were involved in the preparations for the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944. On the night of April 14, 1945 a British air raid destroyed large parts of Potsdam's center. Also, the Garrison Church and the City Palace were reduced to ruins, but the parks and the palaces within the parks remained relatively untouched. The battles with Soviet troops in the last days of April caused further heavy damage.

Following the end of WWII, negotiations between the victorious Allied powers took place in Cecilienhof Palace in the New Garden from July 17 through August 2, 1945, and the Potsdam Agreement was signed. The reconstruction of the historic city center had already begun in 1948, although the salvageable ruins of the City Palace, the Garrison Church, and the Church of the Holy Ghost were torn down. By 1965 the city canal was filled in, and the excavation of it began later. Large new residential areas were constructed in the south of the city.

Potsdam was named the capital city of the newly founded State of Brandenburg in 1990.