Between the Brandenburg and Nauen Gates

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We can read the following lines written by Friedrich Nicolai in 1786: "As is well known, King Frederick William had a particular love for this town. Under his reign began the glorious period for Potsdam. He had two large sections added to the town, and benefited it immensely by stationing his soldiers there, by developing many industries, and by his own almost permanent presence."

"Frederick Williams' decision in 1713 to make Potsdam the permanent post of his guard, was so overwhelming that all the previously normal local standards had to be broken," Friedrich Mielke wrote in his book "The Potsdam Architecture."

Frederick William I initiated the First Town Extension in 1722 to create a suitable environment for stationing soldiers, locating the related services, and promoting handicrafts and trade. The town's area grew well beyond the City Canal and doubled in size. The whole town was surrounded by a town wall, which, inter alia, ran along today's Charlottenstraße and Lindenstraße. The newly-built residential buildings featured standardized large parlor rooms, each of 25 square meters, for billeting soldiers.

Only 11 years later, the size of the town had again proven too small for the growing garrison. Starting in 1733, the baroque city received its final limits with the Second Town Extension (1733-1742). The town wall was shifted, and now ran to the north along the Kurfürstenstraße, Behlertstraße, and Schopenhauerstraße, and between the Nauen, Jäger, and Brandenburg Gates.

When Frederick William I died in 1740, the Second Town Extension was completed, except for parts of the Dutch Quarter. Out of a small village with 199 houses and 1,500 inhabitants (in 1715), grew a town with 1,154 houses and 11,708 inhabitants.

Today, instead of the town wall, a promenade links the three gates.