Steinstücken

Steinstücken, a small settlement with approximately 200 inhabitants, is the southernmost territory of the Berlin borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf, belonging to Wannsee. From the division of Germany in 1949 until a connecting corridor was created in 1971–72, Steinstücken was the only permanently inhabited of twelve original exclaves of West Berlin in East Germany, while West Berlin itself was an enclave controlled by the Western Allies, surrounded either by East Berlin or East German (GDR) territory.

Steinstücken is located on farmland that once belonged to the village of Wendisch Stahnsdorf, which had probably already been abandoned by the time it was mentioned in the list of villages, towns, and cities commissioned in 1375 by Emperor Charles IV. In 1787 the village Stolpe purchased 151 acres of this land, which included part of the Potsdam Forest. A small settlement was established here in 1817 and was called Steinstücken after a piece of village land where rocks from the ice age had once been found.

The exclave originated in 1787, when farmers of the nearby village of Stolpe acquired plots of land outside of their municipality. In 1898 Stolpe joined the new rural community of Wannsee. When Wannsee became part of the Zehlendorf borough with the incorporation of "Greater Berlin" in 1920, Steinstücken (with the exception of the Potsdam Forest section) came with it, although it was not physically connected to the city. Until 1945 this fact was of little significance; daily life was orientated towards Babelsberg, a district of Potsdam, where Steinstücken is located.

At the end of World War II in 1945, West Berlin's city boundary became the dividing line between the Soviet zone of Germany and the American, British and French sectors of Berlin. For the first couple of years, the border still remained open.

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