Kleinmachnow is a municipality of about 20,000 inhabitants in the Potsdam-Mittelmark district, in Brandenburg, Germany. It is situated southwest from the borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf and east from Potsdam. First mentioned in the Landbuch of Karl IV in 1375, the place played an important role at the Bäke crossing, secured by multiple medieval castles. The last of these castles belonged to the Knights of Hake, a family which shaped the local history until the 20th century. The replacement of the Bäke with the Teltow Canal in 1906 brought the village the now listed historic Kleinmachnow Floodgate. In the first half of the 20th century, Kleinmachnow grew from a rural village to a suburb municipality of the Berlin Metropolitan Area. The construction of the Berlin Wall cut Kleinmachnow off from West Berlin. The community's location near the border meant it was relatively isolated in the GDR. Since the German reunification, Kleinmachnow has been part of the growth of the countryside areas outside of Berlin.
Geography
It is situated southwest of the centre of Berlin, immediately neighbouring the borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf, and east of Potsdam. The municipality encompasses the settlement of Dreilinden.
History
Kleinmachnow arose at the former Bäke creek, today replaced by the Teltow Canal built in 1906. Parvo Machenow was first mentioned in the 1375 land registry of Emperor Charles IV, then also Brandenburg Elector. In medieval times the ford was controlled by a castle, recently held by the Hake noble family. Together with the canal the Kleinmachnow lock was erected, soon becoming a landmark. From the early 20th century the former village developed to an affluent suburb of Berlin. In 1937 Wilhelm Ohnesorge, minister of the Reichspost, acquired the Hakeburg mansion as his residence and established a large research facility of communications-electronics here. In World War II Kleinmachnow was the site of a labour camp with about 5,000 inmates, including a subcamp of Sachsenhausen. On the night of 2–3 December 1943, a Lancaster plane of the Royal Australian Air Force was shot down over Kleinmachnow, one of those killed being the well-known Norwegian writer and poet Nordahl Grieg, at the time serving as a war correspondent. In 1946 the Socialist Unity Party of Germany seized the Hakeburg, which hosted the party's academy in the following years. From 1961 to 1989 the municipality was girded by the Berlin Wall on three sides and the motorway near Dreilinden was the site of a major border crossing, counterpart of the Allied checkpoint Bravo in West Berlin. Since German reunification Kleinmachnow has seen a major increase of population, while the restitution of numerous plots in favour of those owners who had fled from the GDR led to fierce conflicts.
Demography
Politics
Seats in the municipal assembly as of 2008 elections:
