History of Neukölln

Neukölln is the northernmost inner-city quarter (Ortsteil) in Neukölln, one of the twelve boroughs of Berlin. The quarter's history begins with its foundation as a Knights Templar stronghold during the Ostsiedlung era in the late 12th to early 13th century. Following its demilitarization and rededication as an agricultural Templar estate around 1245, its ownership was transferred to the Knights Hospitaller in 1318. The estate was legally elevated to the status of village in its foundational charter of 1360, which is the earliest source for its original toponym, Richardsdorf, which was later contracted to Ricksdorf.

In the 15th century, Ricksdorf became a shared treasury village of the Cölln and Alt-Berlin magistracies, a status that lasted for three centuries through the breakup and reunification of Cölln and Berlin. In the 18th century, its official modern name Rixdorf emerged, and the village was expanded with a large colony of Bohemian refugees. In the 19th century, the colony Böhmisch-Rixdorf eventually united with the historical Deutsch-Rixdorf, and the new village grew into the largest town of Prussia, becoming an important industrial center of the region. In 1899, Rixdorf was granted the status of an independent and free city. In 1912, the city was renamed to Neukölln.

With the 1920 Greater Berlin Act, Neukölln merged with the city of Berlin and, together with the former villages and towns of Britz, Buckow and Rudow, formed Neukölln, a large borough of Germany's capital, which stretches all the way from the city center's lower east side to the southern border with Brandenburg. Since the Weimar Republic, Neukölln's fate has been closely intertwined with the history of Berlin. Over its long history, the quarter Neukölln has always been a popular destination for colonists, migrant workers, refugees and immigrants.

At its official foundation in 1360 as a Knights Hospitaller angerdorf, Rixdorf had already been called Richarsdorp (Richardsdorf, "Richard's Village") for a long time.^{[note 1]} Two alternate Low German spellings, Richarstorp and Richardstorff, are already present in the foundational charter. The village's name was usually pronounced with mostly elided or shifted consonants (German: [rˈɪkasdˌɔɾp]). Alternate spellings of the 14th century were Richardsdorp and Richardstorpp, while the 15th century introduced Reicherstorff, Richerstorp and Rigerstorp (1435).^{[note 2]}

From the 16th century onward, vernacularly contracted forms took hold.^{[note 3]} Ricksdorf (1525) became a widely accepted spelling for two centuries, with many alternate forms appearing in historical records, for example Reichstorff (1541), Richstorff, Rigstorff (1542) and Richsdorf (1543), and in the 17th and 18th century Rechsdorff, Rechsdorp, Risdorf, Reichsdorp, Rieksdorf, Ryksdorf, Riecksdorff (1693) and Riechsdorf (1737). The earliest known source for Rixdorf is from the year 1709, and it became the official modern High German spelling in 1797. Still, the central historical localities Richardplatz and Richardstraße have retained the town's original etymology, and were never renamed to Rixplatz ("Rix Plaza") or Rixstraße ("Rix Road").^{[note 4]}

The mainstream theory on the etymology of Richardsdorf, and therefore of Rixdorf, assumes an eponymous individual called Richard,^{[note 5]} allegedly a local Knight Templar, bailiff or commander of the Tempelhof commandery, or even the original administrator or chief settler (Lokator) of Richardsdorf in the early 13th to 14th century. However, no Richard is mentioned in historical sources in connection with the Templar villages of the Teltow, let alone an actual Knight Templar per Alemanniam et Slaviam, so alternate etymologies were eventually propagated,^{[note 6]} while exaggerating folk etymologies also emerged and tried to connect the toponym to important historical or canonized Richards.^{[note 7]} In modern times, alternate spellings like Reichsdorp spawned secondary folk etymologies different from Richard, namely from Reich ("empire") or the surname Reich or Ryk, but without taking the documented earlier variants and vernacular contractions into account.^{[note 8]} Ideas of a Slavic origin were non-academic and anecdotal at best, and are disregarded in modern literature.^{[note 9]} Instead, Rixdorf is regarded as a classic example of a toponym based on a founder's or important leader's name, comparable to other localities of Berlin like Heinersdorf (from Hinrick, Heinrich) and Reinickendorf (from Reginhard, Reinicke, Reinhard).

In the 12th and early 13th centuries, during the time of Albert the Bear's and his successors' foundational advances into the region of modern-day Brandenburg and Berlin, Latin had been the administrative lingua franca of the Mediaeval Holy Roman Empire. The immigrating colonists mostly spoke dialects of the German common language,^{[note 10]} while the Hevelli and Sprevane, the Slavic tribes who had replaced the original Germanic natives of the region, spoke West Slavic languages, for example Old-Polabian. For this reason, the toponyms of many of Berlin's localities have a Slavic origin, including Berlin itself, whose name, in spite of its earliest Latin form as Berolinum,^{[note 11]} possibly stems from Proto-Slavic *berl-/*brl-, an obscure root which is usually interpreted as "bog", "moor" or "swamp".^{[note 12]}

The name Neukölln, however, is in many ways an exception to Berlin's toponymic rules. When Rixdorf was rechristened Neukölln in 1912, the city's new name was a catch-all term. It logically referenced several places in the vicinity, namely the Cölln Heath to the east, as well as Cölln itself, Alt-Berlin's historical twin city, which had been Rixdorf's feudal parent city for several generations (see below). The primary reference, however, was to the Neucöllner Siedlungen (Neucölln Estates), which had been constructed on the Berlinische Wiesen just north of the old Rixdorf in the decades before the renaming.^[1] The estates' name recalled the meadows' old name Cöllnische Wiesen (Cölln Meadows), and thereby, whether intentionally or not, imitated Neu-Cölln, an old district south of the medieval part of Berlin and Cölln proper. This historical Neu-Cölln, sometimes written Neu-Cöln or neu Cölln, was at first also called Neu-Cölln am Wasser ("New Cölln by the water").^{[note 13]} It was built in 1662 as the southern military extension of the city of Cölln, and remained a small district of Berlin until the Greater Berlin Act of 1920, when it was dissolved in the new Mitte quarter of the homonymous borough.^{[note 14]}

The etymology of Cölln, and therefore of Neukölln ("New Cölln"), is from imperial Latin colonia ("colony", "settlement", "colonial town"),^{[note 15]} and the colonial town in Brandenburg was at first called Colonia (1237)^{[note 16]} and Colonia juxta Berlin (1247, "colony near Berlin"). In the same manner as the toponym of modern-day Köln (Cologne), the former Roman Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (50 CE) and Colonia Agrippina (322), was gradually Germanized from post-Roman Colonia (since 450) to its Mediaeval names Colne, Coellen, and Cölln, so was Brandenburg's Holy Roman Colonia, first partially to Colne prope Berlin (1344, "Colne near Berlin"), then to Collen (1440), before settling on Cölln in later centuries.^{[note 17]} Latin literature kept referring to Cölln as Colonia. To distinguish it from Cologne, toponym extensions were often applied, for example Marchiae ("of the March [Brandenburg]"), or ad Spream, ad Spreeam or ad Spreham ("on the [river] Spree"), or Brandenburgica ("Brandenburgian").^[2] Even though neither Neukölln nor the historical Neu-Cölln were ever officially called Nova Colonia,^{[note 18]} etymologically Neukölln still translates as "New Colony", which was a fitting new name for a city that since the first German colonists of the early 13th century until today has always been a prominent destination for settlers and immigrants.

Archeological finds on the Rixdorf lot point to a Germanic prehistory of Neukölln,^{[note 24]} with evidence of a settlement since the late Neolithic age, like early flint tools, potsherds from the Bronze Age on Richardplatz, or Iron Age burial urns in the Hasenheide.^[3] Finds from the era of the Roman Empire were ubiquitous in Berlin, which includes West-Germanic terps and ceramics on the Richardplatz, a Gordianic bronze coin on the Rollberge,^{[note 25]} and nearby the important Reitergrab von Neukölln (equestrian tomb) south-west of Richardplatz at the Körnerpark, which stems from the onset of the Merowingian era in the first half of the 6th century.^{[note 26]}

The original tribes that lived in the Berlin region belonged to the Elbe-Germanic Suevian Semnones. They eventually migrated southwestward during the era of the Barbarian Invasions^{[note 27]} and, after a short period of Burgundian through-migration, were superseded by the West Slavic Sprevane and Hevelli, historically called the Wends, but archeological traces pertaining to a successive Sprevane settlement were never found in the area of modern-day Neukölln.^{[note 28]} From the early era of post-Germanic German colonization, only scanty potsherds were excavated, and the remnants of mediaeval chain mail were typical of the 13th or 14th century, the times when the Knights Templar and Hospitaller already ruled over nascent Neukölln.

After four centuries of colonization, the region around modern-day Berlin came under lasting Holy Roman rule in the 12th century as part of the Ascanian Margraviate of Brandenburg, founded by Albert the Bear in 1157.^{[note 29]} The region was situated near the borders to the Principality of Copnic, ruled by Sprevan prince Jaxa of Köpenick,^{[note 30]} and the Duchy of Pomerania-Demmin, ruled by Casimir I, which had all fought for dominance during the colonization of the Teltow and the formation of Brandenburg. Albert's successor Otto I defeated Casimir I in 1180, and following the rule of Otto II, margrave Albert II managed to secure a large part of the Teltow until 1212, but lost the Duchy of Pomerania again to the House of Griffin. His two sons, margraves John I and Otto III, jointly ruled Brandenburg from 1220 to 1266/67, secured the remaining parts of the Teltow, established many new towns, and are regarded as the conditores (framers) of Colonia (Cölln) and the old town of Berlin.^{[note 31]}

Around the year 1200, a military hamlet, at some point called Richardsdorf,^{[note 32]} was established^{[note 33]} together with two unnamed folwarks^{[note 34]} at the foot of the Teltow on the edge of the grasslands later known as Cöllnische Wiesen (Cölln Meadows)^{[note 35]} on the road to nearby Slavic Trebow and Copenic as an eastern Knights Templar stronghold,^{[note 36]} administered by the neighboring Commandery Tempelhof (Tempelhove),^{[note 37]} which had developed during the early days of the Holy Roman Empire close to the old Via Imperii.^{[note 38]} The Templar functioned as a neutral institution, and after the primary conflicts had ended in 1231,^{[note 39]} the stronghold was at some point abandoned by the military and rededicated as an agricultural Templar manor, probably after the end of the Teltow and Magdeburg Wars between the Houses of Ascania and Wettin (1239–45), which definitively ended the major regional conflicts of the Ostsiedlung era.^{[note 40]}

On 21 November 1261, margrave Otto III gifted the forest region Mirica, parts of which would later belong to Rixdorf and Neukölln, to the city of Cölln in what is also the first historical mention of Berlin's aula. Soon after, the heath would be known as Cöllnische Heide, and its western marshes and grasslands as Cöllnische Wiesen. The windmills of Cölln and Alt-Berlin along the river Spree were mentioned for the first time in a document dated 2 January 1285, which also refers to a royal domain office, the Amt Mühlenhof, which would administrate the Bohemian colony Böhmisch-Rixdorf for most of the 18th and 19th century.

When the Knights Templar became too powerful, the order was proscribed and effectively dissolved in 1312 by Pope Clement V under accusations of apostasy, but different from other Templar possessions, the Tempelhof commandery including Richardsdorf did not immediately transfer into Hospitaller ownership, probably because the remaining Knights Templar offered resistance.^[4] Instead, the estate was fiducially held by Waldemar the Great for six years, and legally transferred to the Knights Hospitaller only in 1318.^{[note 41]}

When first mentioned in its foundational charter of 26 June 1360, the only known foundational charter for a Brandenburg village, the angerdorf 5.5 km (3.4 mi) south-east of Cölln and Alt-Berlin around the present-day Richardplatz,^{[note 42]} and approximately 3 km (1.86 mi) from the river Spree, was already called Richarsdorp (Richardsdorf, German: [rˈɪçaɾtsdˌɔɾf], "Richard's Village"), signifying decades of development from yard (hove) to village (dorp), now officially recognized under the sovereignty of Knights Hospitaller grand master Roger de Pins and the joint Electors of Brandenburg Otto VII and Louis II, and under the regional authority of Hermann von Werberg, Statthalter (Governor) and first Herrenmeister (Lord of the Knights) of the Brandenburg bailiwick.^{[note 43]} The historical document containing the Richardsdorf charter, itself a mid-15th century copy of the original deed, has been lost since World War II, but its contents have been preserved,^{[note 44]} and 26 June 1360 has since been commemorated as the official date of Neukölln's foundation,^{[note 45]} even though the quarter's history dates back at least another 150 years.

The village with its twelve farmers was mentioned again in 1375 as Richardstorpp in the Landbuch der Mark Brandenburg.^{[note 46]} Around the beginning of the 15th century, Richardsdorf erected its first official chapel.^{[note 47]} After ongoing border disputes and an ill-fated armed conflict,^{[note 48]} the Knights Hospitaller were forced to sell their possessions into permanent fiefdom to the cities of Alt-Berlin and Cölln on 23 September 1435, including Richardsdorf.^{[note 49]}

The village was mentioned again in deeds of 1525 as Ricksdorf, for the first time officially in its modern contracted form. On 1–2 November 1539, margrave Joachim II converted to the teachings of Martin Luther, and the Reformation was introduced in Ricksdorf.^{[note 50]} Disputes over Ricksdorf continued between Cölln and Berlin,^{[note 51]} and with a compromise settlement Ricksdorf became the sole fief and a kämmereidorf (treasury village) of Cölln on 24 August 1543.^{[note 52]} The documents of 1543 already mention a tavern at the crossing of the postal and trade road through Ricksdorf to Mittenwalde and the Ricksdorfscher Damm, modern-day Kottbusser Damm, which in 1737 became Rixdorf's famous tavern Rollkrug at Hermannplatz. On 2 February 1546, the right to inaugurate priests in Tempelhof and Ricksdorf was transferred to the parishes of Cölln and Berlin. On 14 April 1578, a fire destroyed most of the village's original infrastructure. Ricksdorf then created Die alte Kufe ("the old trough"), a small pond on the central meadow on Richardplatz, which was not only used as a horse pond, but primarily as a Feuerkufe, a reservoir for the new fire hose.

In 1624 the population had grown to 150,^{[note 53]} and the village had built a forge for traveling blacksmiths, which after several renovations and enlargements remains in operation to this day as Berlin's oldest forge, the Schmiede am Richardplatz. During the Thirty Years' War (1618–48)^{[note 54]} Ricksdorf was mostly depopulated, with buildings and parts of the chapel destroyed by fire.^{[note 55]} At the end of the war, the village was also plagued by the Black Death, and in 1652 only seven farmers and cotters (Kossäten) and their relatives remained. In 1650, the Great Elector Frederick William gifted Ricksdorf its first windmill. In 1678, he created a hares' garden in the forest Hasenheide. The first mention of a village tavern (Dorfkrug) at the central Richardplatz is found in the town's oldest preserved court report from 29 January 1685.^{[note 56]} The first mention of a school in Ricksdorf is from the year 1688, when the local authorities deposed the schoolmaster.^{[note 57]} On 26 June 1693, Ricksdorf's chapel left the Tempelhof parish and joined the Britz parish, and the village's first parish register was opened by incumbent priest Johann Guthke. On 29 November 1700, the first official brewery concession and distribution rights were granted to Johann Wolfgang Bewert, the proprietor of Ricksdorf's schultheiß court.

On 17 January 1709, the old city of Cölln merged with Alt-Berlin, Friedrichswerder, Friedrichstadt and Dorotheenstadt, forming the Königliche Haupt- und Residenzstadt Berlin (Royal Capital and Seat Berlin). At the time, Ricksdorf was already spelled Rixdorf in several documents, and when Berlin's new municipal constitution came into effect on 1 January 1710, Rixdorf became a treasury village of the Berlin magistracy. In 1712, the new postal, trade and military road from Berlin to Dresden, the Dresdener Heerstraße, today's Hermannstraße, opened south of Hermannplatz as an extension of the Ricksdorfscher Damm. On 28 September 1717, the royal administration introduced general compulsory schooling in Berlin, Rixdorf and the rest of Prussia. Rixdorf financed the construction of its first windmill in 1729,^{[note 58]} and five years later the population had grown to 224.

In 1737, King Frederick William I of Prussia invited 18 families of Hussite Moravian Protestants, who had been driven out of Bohemia, to settle near the village,^{[note 59]} where they built new houses, industrial infrastructure^{[note 60]} and eventually their own chapels^{[note 61]} off the village center along the road to Berlin, today called Richardstraße. 31 May 1737 is regarded as the official date of the Bohemian village's foundation, although the first settlers had already arrived in Rixdorf on 25 March of the same year. Twenty more colonists were granted their own land and construction rights in 1748. In 1751, the new settlement received its own cemetery, the Böhmischer Gottesacker. In 1753, the oldest school building of Neukölln was constructed on the Bohemian Kirchgasse,^{[note 62]} which from 1797 onward also housed the village's assembly hall. Rixdorf suffered from destruction and pillaging by Austrian and Russian troops during the second year of the Seven Years' War (1756–63), but this did not prevent its subsequent development. In 1760, Berlin statesman Ewald Friedrich von Hertzberg became the proprietor of Rixdorf's Schulzengericht (schultheiß court). The original village of Rixdorf was further expanded in 1764 with new residential buildings and a brickyard, and since 1801 it was mostly called Deutsch-Rixdorf. In 1765, Frederick the Great gifted Böhmisch-Rixdorf its first windmill. In spite of its expansion, Deutsch-Rixdorf at first remained the smaller of the two villages, with roughly 200 residents in 1771, while the new Bohemian village Böhmisch-Rixdorf^{[note 63]} had counted 300 residents already in 1747.

In 1797, Böhmisch-Rixdorf was granted its own administration, and the two villages settled on the official modern spelling Rixdorf, which had been in use since 1709. In the same year, Deutsch-Rixdorf acquired the forge on Richardplatz and sold it to a local resident, who was therefore allowed to operate the forge permanently, which until then had been prevented by the Berlin blacksmiths' guild to stifle competition. The French Army under Napoleon occupied Rixdorf in 1806. The overall population in 1809 was 695.^[5] In 1811, Germany's first public outdoor gymnasium was established in the Hasenheide forest by Turnvater Jahn. The Hasenheide itself temporarily became a Regierungsbezirk of Berlin (governmental district) from 1816 to 1821, before coming under Rixdorf's jurisdiction. Rixdorf residents fought in the 1813 Wars of Liberation, for example at the Battle of Großbeeren, and the subsequent sovereign and political liberty, also gained from the Prussian abolition of serfdom on 11 November 1810, laid the foundation for Rixdorf's rapid development and industrialization, which began in the early second half of the 19th century. In 1827, the street to Berlin was paved, and by 1830 Rixdorf had already become the largest village of the Berlin periphery with more than 2,000 inhabitants. On 28 April 1849, more than a quarter of the buildings in both Rixdorf villages were destroyed in a firestorm,^{[note 64]} and reconstruction lasted until 1853.^{[note 65]} Around 1850, both Rixdorf villages had begun to extend their residential areas to the north and northeast, and these Neucöllner Siedlungen (Neukölln Estates) reached all the way to the emerging industrial lots at the newly constructed Landwehr Canal.

On 1 January 1853, the parish of Deutsch-Rixdorf was declared an independent parish by the Berlin Evangelical Consistory. In 1854, the first horsebus connection was established between Berlin and the two Rixdorf villages, followed by the first regular bus line from Hermannplatz to Berlin since 1 May 1860, the Ringbahn launch on 17 July 1871, and an additional bus line from Bergstraße, today's Karl-Marx-Straße, to Hallesches Tor in 1876. Meanwhile, the construction of new streets, plazas and residential estates in the Berlin periphery had been set in motion as part of the 1862 Hobrecht-Plan, which created what would come to be known architecturally as the Wilhelmine Ring. In 1866, the Rixdorf villages were hit by epidemics of cholera and smallpox with at least 170 fatalities. In 1867, Deutsch-Rixdorf had a population of approximately 5,000, and Böhmisch-Rixdorf of 1,500. In 1870 the villages received their first train station, the Bahnhof Rixdorf, which still exists today as Neukölln station.^{[note 66]} On 10 August 1872, the original Jahndenkmal memorial for Turnvater Jahn was inaugurated in the Hasenheide forest. On 13 December 1872, Berlin's administration merged both Rixdorf villages and the commune Britz into the 24th Amtsbezirk (bailiwick).

Both villages were united as Rixdorf on 1 January 1874 by royal decree of 11 July 1873,^{[note 67]} and the new town became a municipality of the Kreis Teltow. On 4 February 1874, Hermann Boddin became the first principal municipal magistrate (Amts- und Gemeindevorsteher) of the unified Rixdorf.^{[note 68]} For the next decades, Boddin would conduct Rixdorf's evolution into the fastest-growing and eventually largest village of the Prussian monarchy with 90,000 residents in 1895, which also created a poverty gap and social problems. Boddin's responsibilities were immense, and he soon fought for an equalization of burdens, and for Rixdorf's admission into the Greater Berlin city alliance. He became known as an upright and resilient, though also dominant and self-centered patriarch, but was still venerated by Rixdorf's officials and citizens alike.^[6]

The inaugural meeting of Rixdorf's municipal committee commenced on 27 April 1874 at the old schultheiß court on Richardplatz. In 1874, Rixdorf had 12,300 inhabitants, growing to 15,328 the next year, mainly due to thousands of new residents, who since 1870 had been immigrating from Pomerania, Silesia and other primarily Eastern regions of the German Empire as far as East Prussia, looking for work in the town's growing industry, a migration wave that would not significantly weaken until the year 1910.^[7] One of the more important early ordinances of 1874 was to revoke the herding warrant for the Berlinische Wiesen, formerly called Cöllnische Wiesen, which created a large area for residential developments, among them an expansion of the Neucöllner Siedlungen (Neucölln Estates), whose name later inspired the city's renaming to Neukölln.

Rixdorf's first daily newspaper, the Gemeinnütziger Anzeiger (Charitable Gazette), was published since 1874, later reestablished as Rixdorfer Zeitung (Rixdorf Newspaper) by editor-in-chief Wilhelm Hecht in 1882.^[8] The city's first telegraph station opened the same year. On 1 October 1874, the Vereinsbrauerei, which had been founded in 1872 and would later become Berlin's Kindl brewery, opened to the public in Rollberg after almost a year of unofficial pourage. Urbanization quickly took off with new residential estates, schools, churches, infrastructure, paved streets with sewers, and an increasing number of industrial settlements. The first Kremser horsebus line to Berlin started its operations on 2 July 1875 under private management. The city's first gasworks and the original Amtshaus (administrative building) were built in 1878, the first municipal court (Amtsgericht) in 1879, which was quickly replaced in 1901 by the new municipal court and prison, and the city's new telegraph office in 1882. Rixdorf's first public open-air bath opened in 1883 south of the Ringbahn, but had to close again in 1913, when Neukölln's harbor and docklands were built. On 14 August 1884, Richardplatz was hit by a large fire. On 6 November 1884, Rixdorf sold its old village chapel to the Bohemian-Lutheran parish for 6,300 silver mark, approximately $31,800 (2024).

In 1873, Rixdorf had already had 8 paved streets, and 24 in 1876, which grew exponentially in the following decade, enabling additional bus lines to Berlin, followed by the introduction of the first tram lines, beginning in 1884 with the so-called Pferde-Eisenbahn from Rollberg to Spittelmarkt in Berlin, and a communal line from the Rollkrug tavern at Hermannplatz to Knesebeckstraße near Kurfürstendamm a year later, which formed the basis for the Straßenbahnen der Stadt Berlin (SSB), the first communal public transportation company of Berlin, which was established with grants from the Rixdorf citizenry. On 20 March 1892, the first issue of the daily newspaper Rixdorfer Tageblatt (Daily Rixdorf) was published, renamed Neuköllner Tageblatt in 1912. The city's infrastructure continued to grow with the introduction of a telephone network in 1885, the first public telephone installation at Rixdorf's post office in 1886, a new water network connection to the Charlottenburg waterworks in 1887–88, a new sewage system and drainage facility between 1891 and 1895, the building of a new inner-city hospital, a community hall and a poorhouse in 1893, the 1895 reconstruction of Rixdorf station, and the 1899 opening of Hermannstraße station on the Ringbahn. On 1 October 1897, local teacher Emil Fischer (1865–1932) founded the Naturhistorisches Schulmuseum (School Museum of Natural History), the precursor to the Museum Neukölln, in the old school building on Hohenzollernplatz, today's Karl-Marx-Platz, to counter the social and educational deficits of Rixdorf's working class. On 9 February 1899, the first electric tram line began its operation.

Rixdorf's 1899 independence was executed in two legal steps. On 1 April, the town was chartered as an independent city and released from the Kreis Teltow,^{[note 69]} and Hermann Boddin immediately transitioned into his new office as the city's mayor. Rixdorf then declared itself a free city (Kreisfreie Stadt) on 1 May, and Boddin received the official title Erster Bürgermeister auf Lebenszeit (First Mayor for Life) from district president Robert Earl Hue de Grais on 4 May. On 1 November, the city obtained its own police force and law enforcement agency, including a criminal investigation unit, with the first precinct established on Hermannstraße south of Hermannplatz. At year's end, Rixdorf's population stood at 90,422.

Rixdorf's only professional association football club, Rixdorfer TuFC Tasmania, was officially founded on 2 June 1900, but might have been active already since 1890.^{[note 70]} On 17 December 1900, the last Pferde-Eisenbahn of Rixdorf was converted to electric operation, while the omnibus lines continued to be horse-drawn at first. The new city received its coat of arms in 1903, and its population quickly grew to 237,289 in 1910.^[9] It was during this boomtown era that the architect Reinhold Kiehl was called on by Rixdorf's assembly to further upgrade the city's infrastructure, which led to some of the quarter's most iconic buildings and locations being constructed, such as the city hall (Rathaus Neukölln) between 1905 and 1908, which gradually replaced the older Amtshaus,^{[note 71]} the 1912 Stadtbad Neukölln, a public bath house, and many more after 1912 like the Körnerpark and its orangerie.^{[note 72]} The Rixdorf Harbor in the southern part of the city was built between 1900 and 1906 together with the Teltow Canal, the Britz Canal and the Britz Harbor. The first stage of the harbor's watergate was constructed in 1902, at first used as part of a drainage facility for the surrounding wetlands. In the north, the Landwehr Canal was extended eastward between 1902 and 1905 with the Rixdorfer Stichkanal (Rixdorf Branch Canal) to the city's new gasworks, replacing the old Wiesengraben (Meadow Trench), which had originally been called Schlangengraben (Snake Trench). The year 1909 saw the inauguration of Rixdorf's first municipal hospital (Rixdorfer Krankenhaus), situated outside of the city near modern-day Buckow.^{[note 73]} By 1911, Rixdorf had become largely defined by its multifaceted industries and artisanry.^{[note 74]}

It was during the 1850s when construction of the first residential areas, the Neucöllner Siedlungen (Neukölln Estates), began north and northwest of the old Rixdorf,^[10] first along the road to modern-day Hermannplatz. Today, the area is known as the Donaukiez. Development east of the Cottbuserdamm (Kottbusser Damm)^{[note 75]} in the Berlinische Wiesen, modern-day Reuterkiez, followed soon after. After the completion of the Landwehr Canal in 1850 near the location of the older Müllen-Graben (Mühlengraben, Mill Trench),^{[note 76]} industry and workshops began to settle along its shores in the marshes and meadows south of the Berlin Customs Wall,^{[note 77]} on and near today's Maybachufer. The Cottbuser Damm and several parallel streets like the Friedelstraße,^{[note 78]} an important street in Berlin's first communal electric tram network,^{[note 79]} were built shortly afterwards.^{[note 80]} Between 1871 and 1905, the population increased, as several Gründerzeit apartment blocks were erected, often with industrial backyards that are still typical of Berlin today. Construction was temporarily set back due to a devastating fire in 1886 that destroyed nearly all of the city block between Kottbusser Damm, Maybachufer and Schinkestraße. Different from other neighborhoods of northern Rixdorf, most residential development in the Reuterkiez had from the beginning always been aimed at more affluent residents and a higher quality of living, but except for the Reuterplatz forgone any development of green urban plazas. Due to the marshy substrate, the new neighborhood was at first only developed between Kottbusser Damm and Weichselstraße,^[11] and was instead extended southward beyond the old Donaukiez and into the modern-day neighborhood of Flughafenstraße. In the decades that followed, Rixdorf and the early residential areas were expanded west- and southward respectively, forming Neukölln's younger neighborhoods of Schillerpromenade, Körnerpark and the historical Rollberg.

Starting in 1875 after the approval of a new development plan, construction also began in the areas immediately west of Rixdorf as an extension of the original Neucöllner Siedlungen. Present-day Rollberg and the remainder of Flughafenstraße, were developed first, with Rollberg mainly as working-class outskirts with backyard manufacturing and larger industries,^{[note 81]} tightly packed tenements, small apartments and tiny residential backyards.^{[note 82]} To this end, and to also furnish raw material for construction in the rest of Berlin, most of the rolling agricultural hills of the Rollberge range were excavated and leveled, and Rixdorf's sixteen windmills torn down,^{[note 83]} with the last windmill dismantled in 1899. In the first wave, four new parallel streets as well as the Kopfstraße between Bergstraße, present-day Karl-Marx-Straße, and Hermannstraße were constructed together with the crossways Falk- and Morusstraße on the flattened Rollberge slopes. The working-class tenements, even in the front buildings, were small and overcrowded,^{[note 84]} sunless and unaerated, and unsanitary without personal water closets or rooms for hygiene, which promoted diseases and epidemics, infant and child mortality, violence and crime, but also ignited the spark that changed Rixdorf and Neukölln into a Socialist heartland, fueling the city's widespread support for the November Revolution, the class struggles of the 1920s and '30s, and later also the quarter's potent resistance movement against the Nazis (1933–45). However, the financial crises and wars in early 20th century Germany prevented any contemporary redevelopment in Rollberg until the 1960s and '70s.

Schillerpromenade and parts of Körnerpark, on the other hand, followed the Reuterkiez model with apartment buildings for wealthier residents, and the two neighborhoods still have a large Gründerzeit architectural foundation with broad streets and sidewalks, and Berlin's usual grid plan street layout that originated mostly in this era.^{[note 85]} For the Körnerpark neighborhood, this development was a natural evolution due to its proximity to Alt-Rixdorf, though the street blocks further south were for the most part developed in the 1920s and '30s, so the area has not evolved as uniformly. Schillerpromenade benefited from its location on even farmland adjacent to the Tempelhofer Feld, which was better suited than the area on the Rollberge slopes. Construction of the new residential park in present-day Schillerkiez began with Rixdorf's 1901 development plan. The ambitious Gründerzeit estates, the broad promenade parallel to Hermannstraße and the circular central plaza (Herrfurthplatz) with the Genezareth Church were markedly aimed at wealthier settlers, as a counterpoint to the older Rollberg neighborhood of ill repute. In 1905, residential construction was in full swing, schools and an academy were built, and main development ended around 1914 except for the westernmost city blocks at Oderstraße, which were developed only in 1927 by Bruno Taut according to modern reformist ideals. The large sports grounds in the neighborhood's south-western corner (Sportpark Tempelhofer Feld), today the Werner-Seelenbinder-Sportpark, opened in 1928.

Rixdorf had become notorious across Germany for its taverns, amusement sites and red-light districts, which dampened investments, economic development and the immigration of wealthier citizens, exacerbated by the enduring popularity of the 1889 proletarian song Der Rixdorfer. So in 1912 the local authorities took up former mayor Boddin's earlier plan, which until then had been consistently rejected, to get rid of this reputation by assuming a new name. Voting against Boddin's original proposal, the city officials chose Neukölln,^{[note 86]} which referenced both Rixdorf's historical parent city Cölln and the Cöllnische Heide (Cölln Heath) to the east, but was mainly derived from the Neucöllner Siedlungen ("Neucölln Estates") just north of Rixdorf,^{[note 87]} whose name, whether intentionally or not, imitated Neu-Cölln, a historical district south of the medieval part of Berlin and Cölln proper. The renaming was primarily lobbied for by real estate speculators, local industrialists in fear of market losses, and the Crown, represented by a group of imperial supporters, and was swiftly adopted by the conservative council majority against the dissenting populace and social democrats, who, much to the dismay of the conservatives, had gained a lot of political traction in the years before.^{[note 88]} The renaming was then petitioned pro forma by mayor Curt Kaiser and eventually granted by Emperor William I on 27 January 1912. At the time, Neukölln's population stood at 253,000.

In 1913, the city of Neukölln bought the Spree island Abteiinsel, today's Insel der Jugend (Youth Island), which had originally been owned by one of Rixdorf's citizens,^{[note 89]} and constructed the Abteibrücke between the exclave and the mainland of Alt-Treptow, one of Germany's first reinforced concrete bridges.^{[note 90]} Neukölln's bath house opened to the public on 10 May 1914. From 1912 to 1913, the Rixdorf Branch Canal became the Neukölln Ship Canal, further extended southward to the Neukölln Harbor and the Teltow Canal. Construction of the second stage at the Neukölln Watergate concluded in 1914, and the canal officially opened on 1 April of the same year. 6,600 of Neukölln's residents fell serving at the frontlines in World War I (1914–18). Despite the war years, urban development had continued unabated at first, and Rixdorf had become one of the most important suburban cities outside of Berlin. From 1 October 1917, waste management services were provided directly by the city.

At the end of the war, the November Revolution led to the formation of the city's Workers' and Soldiers' Council. On 8 November 1918, the first soldiers who were stationed at Mahlower Straße in the Schillerkiez, joined the new revolutionary movement.^[12] One day later, the council seized power in Neukölln, dissolved the city's assembly, and disempowered Lord Mayor Curt Kaiser. The ruling council, consisting of 24 SPD members, 24 independents, who were mostly Spartacists, and 24 soldiers, now decided on all political issues from executive orders to decrees on food rationing. On 25 November, an interregional convention of revolutionary councils passed a comprehensive socialist action plan. It meant that Neukölln's council would abolish all municipal authorities, take over the city's banks, and declare all private real estate as communal property, while threatening to expropriate uncooperative local industrialists without indemnity. However, a faction of the Prussian Army's 17th infantry division, presumably ordered by the provisional government and Gustav Noske, deployed in January 1919 and laid siege to Neukölln, eventually occupying and dissolving the Workers' and Soldiers' Council. The counter-putsch angered the populace, and many of Neukölln's workers, employees and officers threatened a general strike, forcing the troops to reinstate the council and retreat. The SPD, however, was barred from the reformed council, as the party was blamed for the short-lived counter-putsch.^[13]

Shortly before their executions at the hand of the Freikorps, revolutionaries Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht found refuge in Neukölln, probably in the Weisestraße (Schillerkiez), before relocating to Wilmersdorf, where they were captured by the local militia (Bürgerwehr). Alfred Scholz (SPD), whose wife Gertrud had been the only female member of Neukölln's Workers' and Soldiers' Council, was elected mayor in April 1919, while Neukölln's Lord Mayor Curt Kaiser stayed in office until the end of his term on 1 November 1919. The revolutionary councils eventually disbanded after the inauguration of the Weimar National Assembly in 1919, and Neukölln's council was dissolved on 7 November 1919, which resulted in riots at City Hall. Even though the councils were short-lived, Neukölln's prominent and early role in the November Revolution sustainably mainstreamed socialist ideals in local politics.

During the Kapp Putsch (13–17 March 1920), which aimed to undo the German Revolution and overthrow the new Weimar Republic, parts of Neukölln were temporarily occupied by the Reichswehr, until the coup d'état was aborted after 100 hours.

The newly forming societies and infrastructures of Berlin and its periphery created problems and threatened to thwart further development, because the disparity between the different communities, which naturally aimed to expand beyond the old municipal boundaries, now created cross-border administrative conflicts and gridlock. Therefore, the Greater Berlin Act was passed by the Prussian parliament in the spring of 1920, and the city of Neukölln ceased to exist on 1 October 1920 after only two decades of independence, when it was incorporated as a part of Greater Berlin together with a large number of other suburban communes and cities. Together with the quarters Britz, Rudow and Buckow, Neukölln now formed the new homonymous borough of Neukölln, Berlin's 14th (and since the 2001 reform 8th) administrative district, which eventually added the newly established quarter of Gropiusstadt in 2002. At the time of the merger, the city of Neukölln had a population of 262,128.^{[note 92]} The old Rixdorf continued to exist, and is today represented by two neighborhoods in the center of Neukölln, Böhmisch-Rixdorf and Richardplatz-Süd. In preparation for Neukölln's incorporation, the first election of the new assembly of borough representatives (Bezirksverordnetenversammlung, BVV) was held on 20 June 1920, but had to be repeated on 16 October 1921.^{[note 93]}

In the Weimar Republic, Neukölln's population eventually grew to 278,208 in 1930.^{[note 94]} On 22 October 1921, a patronage society for Neukölln's museum was founded, which led to a large expansion of the museum's exhibits in 1922. Berlin Tempelhof Airport, whose airfield was part of Neukölln and Tempelhof, opened on 8 October 1923 and was expanded in several phases until 1941. To relieve the older tram networks, the Berlin S-Bahn was electrified starting in 1926, while Neukölln's Südring (south ring) lines were modernized in 1928. Additionally, two lines of the Berlin U-Bahn, the Nord-Süd-Bahn and the GN-Bahn, were extended through Neukölln between 1926 and 1930.^{[note 95]}

Neukölln remained a working-class quarter and communist stronghold, especially in the Rollberg neighborhood. This led to increasing tensions between left-wing radicals like the KPD and the Berlin police, culminating in the Bloody May riots of 1929 (Blutmai) with 14 fatalities and 17 injured. The Nazis viewed the quarter as "Red Neukölln", and tensions with the rivaling socialist and communist groups ensued as early as November 1926, when Joseph Goebbels sent over 300 men of the Sturmabteilung (SA) on a propaganda march through Neukölln, ending in clashes on the Hermannplatz. The emerging resistance against National Socialism also spilled over into regional church politics as the 1929 Neuköllner Kirchenstreit (Neukölln church conflict), when Protestant priest Arthur Rackwitz was only granted his inauguration at Neukölln's Philipp Melanchthon Church after an intervention by cultural minister Adolf Grimme, which had previously been denied due to his religious-socialist and anti-fascist positions, as well as his open criticism of the Protestant authorities' support for the Nazis. The beer hall Neue Welt on Hasenheide near Hermannplatz was the 1930 location of one of Adolf Hitler's early speeches in Berlin.^{[note 96]} The conflicts eventually intensified until the end of the republic, leading to occasional armed engagements like the Rixdorf shootout of October 1931, when communists attacked the Richardsburg, a Sturmlokal of the SA.

After Hitler's Machtübernahme in 1933, the SA extended their campaigns and also targeted rallies and events by moderate parties like the SPD.^[14] Neukölln's borough mayor Alfred Scholz (SPD) and all politically undesirable officials of Neukölln's district office had to resign under pressure from the new ruling Nazi Party and the enactment of the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, which was enforced by the SA, whose riot squads occupied the district office on 15 and 16 March 1933, headed by Nazi politicians like local NSDAP representative and district chairman (Kreisleiter) Hans Fink and Kurt Samson, who was unlawfully appointed borough mayor.^[15] Many of Germany's resistance fighters and activists against Nazi rule operated from "red Neukölln", for example Heinz Kapelle and Ursula Goetze, who coordinated with the Red Orchestra in the quarter.^{[note 97]} Neukölln's museum was reenvisioned as a museum for education and local history in 1934 under its director Felix Woldt. In time for the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, the 1872 Jahndenkmal memorial for Turnvater Jahn in the park Hasenheide was relocated, slightly redesigned and expanded with a commemorative grove, which exists to this day.

As a prelude to the Shoah, Neukölln's only synagogue on Isarstraße (Flughafenkiez) as well as numerous Jewish businesses and property were attacked and demolished during the Kristallnacht of 1938. Today, only a commemorative plaque remains of the synagogue.^{[note 98]} At the same time, Neukölln's remaining Jewish politicians and officers were forced to resign from their posts at the district office. After the onset of World War II in 1939, the Rixdorf factories of the Krupp-Registrierkassen-Gesellschaft and American company National Cash Register, which had merged as the National Krupp Registrierkassen GmbH during the Weimar Republic, were transformed into military production facilities.^{[note 99]} In 1941, the Friedhof Lilienthalstraße in Hasenheide, which had been built by Wilhelm Büning, opened as a cemetery for the fallen soldiers of the Wehrmacht. Today, it is a general cemetery for the victims of World War II. In 1942 a forced labor camp for up to 865 mainly Jewish and Romani women from the conquered Eastern territories and Axis states, especially Hungary, was established on the National Krupp factory grounds. In 1944 it was absorbed as one of several Berlin outposts (Außenlager^[16]) of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, primarily for female Jewish-Polish forced laborers, who had been transferred from the Łódź Ghetto and Auschwitz respectively.^[17] The camp's last remaining barracks stood until the year 1957,^[18] long after the Jewish survivors had emigrated.^{[note 100]}

On 15 March 1945, Neukölln City Hall was damaged by an allied bomb, which forced borough mayor Kurt Samson and his district officers to relocate to a nearby school building, today's Albert-Schweitzer-Gymnasium. Against Samson's will, district chairman Karl Wollenberg then ordered a unit of the Waffen-SS with support from the local Hitler Youth to fortify the abandoned building as part of the Volkssturm's last line of defense against the approaching Soviet Army. In Neukölln, the Battle of Berlin commenced on 26 April 1945, after the enemy's forces had broken through Neukölln's two main points of defense, from the north through antitank barriers on the Treptower Bridge via the Neukölln Ship Canal, and from the south via a temporary bridge across the Teltow Canal. Eventually, the Volkssturm disbanded, and most of the Waffen-SS retreated to defend Berlin's innermost city, leaving primarily the Hitler Youth to defend the quarter's bridges. Neukölln's last stand at the remaining Waffen-SS holdout was around City Hall, which eventually caught fire. The Soviets took Neukölln on 28 April, but not before the Waffen-SS could demolish Europe's largest department store, the Karstadt on Hermannplatz, which cost the lives of many unsuspecting civilians.^[19] At the end of the war, Neukölln's population had decreased by roughly 30,000, and 9% of the quarter's buildings had been destroyed, with 12% severely damaged by allied bombing raids, including the Mercedes-Palast in the Rollberg neighborhood, which since 1927 had housed Europe's largest movie theater.^{[note 101]}

After the fall of the Nazi regime, borough mayor Kurt Samson was arrested and incarcerated as a Soviet prisoner of war at the NKVD special camp 2, the former Buchenwald concentration camp, where he eventually died in early spring of 1947. During Germany's Notzeit ("time of need") after the war, Neukölln was leading Berlin's boroughs in restoring the supply of water, gas and electricity. Responsible for the quick recovery was the borough's new mayor, Martin Ohm (1895–1955), who also worked closely with the Soviet army to stock food depots and supply retailers. The Soviets had appointed him already on 29 April 1945, but the sacrifices were too big, so he was dismissed for health reasons only two months later.^{[note 103]} Following the withdrawal of the Soviet forces after the arrival of the United States Army on 12 July 1945, Neukölln became part of the American sector of Berlin until 1949. During the Berlin Blockade, West Berlin held the 1948 state election, and Neukölln's new representative assembly elected Kurt Exner mayor, who would lead the borough from 1949 to 1959 in the first stable administration after the war. The Cold War fully developed in 1949 after the blockade and the foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany, and Neukölln was now encompassing the south and south-east of West Berlin, an enclave of West Germany within Communist East Germany until German reunification in 1990. The Sonnenallee connected Neukölln with Baumschulenweg in East Berlin, and in 1961, the checkpoint would become an official border crossing of the Berlin Wall until 1990.^{[note 104]}

After a long war hiatus since 31 August 1944, Neukölln's daily newspaper Neuköllner Tageblatt returned to the newsstands on 28 May 1953, before being discontinued for good on 18 August of the same year due to low profits.^[8] On 2 October 1960, Neukölln's new borough library opened on Erlanger Straße,^{[note 105]} and the Heimatmuseum Neukölln moved into the library's former building on Ganghoferstraße. In 1963, the U-Bahn line C^I was extended from Grenzallee station further into the Britz quarter, eventually leading to Neukölln's last remaining tram line being shut down in 1966.^{[note 106]} In 1965, Neukölln's professional association football club SC Tasmania 1900 Berlin was promoted from the Berlin conference of Germany's second league system directly to the Bundesliga for political reasons,^{[note 107]} and in the 1965–66 season, the club only won two games and became the worst-performing club in Bundesliga history, a notorious record that stands to this day.^{[note 108]} In 1967, Europe's largest poultry farm, the so-called Hühnerhochhaus ("chicken high-riser") opened in Neukölln's industrial park Nobelstraße, but was closed down again in 1972 due to unprofitability, and after continuing animal rights protests, which evolved into the spearhead of sustainable and free-range farming in Germany. During the Cold War, Neukölln retained its status as a traditional working-class area and one of Berlin's red-light districts. Many gastarbeiters, especially from Turkey and Greece, settled in Kreuzberg and Neukölln since the 1950s, later followed by Palestinian and Arabic refugees from the Lebanese Civil War.^[20] Neukölln's current U-Bahn network into the southern quarters via the U7 was constructed between 1970 and 1972, while the final U8 section between Leinestraße and the S-Bahn wasn't implemented until 1996. The Körnerpark, which after the war had fallen into disrepair due to its location beneath the nearby airport's eastern approach and climb path, was restored in its historical form since 1977 and reopened to the public on 4 August 1983, with its orangerie following on 10 October of the same year. From 1981 to 1985, the Heimatmuseum Neukölln was reconceived under the administrative guidance of Dorothea Kolland to also focus on Neukölln's social and cultural history, including decentralized cultural projects all over the borough. The Neukölln Opera, which had originally been founded in 1972, received its own venue in 1988 and became one of Berlin's four opera houses. Another important cultural venue, the Saalbau Neukölln, the location of the former Bürgersalon Niesigk ("citizens' parlor"), reopened in 1990 and is today known as Heimathafen Neukölln.

Since the 1970s and '80s, Neukölln, like the neighboring Kreuzberg, has embraced independent forms of living like alternative trailer parks, for example the Rollheimer in the Schillerkiez, Germany's oldest Wagenburg,^{[note 109]} squatting,^{[note 110]} and an often anti-establishment and anti-fascist counterculture that is still active to this day. In the 1990s, late repatriates from formerly Soviet states like Ukraine and Russia, including many Russian Jews, resettled in Germany, and especially in Berlin and Neukölln. An honorary statue of John Amos Comenius, who had been the last bishop of Rixdorf's Moravian colonists before their flight from Bohemia, was unveiled in Böhmisch-Rixdorf on 21 March 1992, followed on 15 November of the same year by the founding of the new German Comenius Society in Rixdorf's Moravian oratory. The decade after German reunification mainly transformed the eastern parts of the city, but western quarters like Neukölln were able to benefit as well. In 1994, the Estrel Hotel with convention center opened in Rixdorf's former industrial outskirts on the eastern shore of the Neukölln Ship Canal, and many new shopping malls and cultural locations sprung up all over Neukölln. In 1995, ethnologist Brigitte Walz and Anett Szabó developed the concept of a multiethnic carnival at Neukölln's transcultural Werkstatt der Kulturen, which became Berlin's famous Karneval der Kulturen one year later.^[21]

Over the generations, all of Neukölln's southern neighborhoods of Rixdorf, Körnerpark and Schillerpromenade have gradually expanded south- and southeastward, while the Reuterkiez was finally expanded onto the marshy areas to the east. Major settlement constructions occurred as part of the new objective movement of the 1920s and '30s, in Germany often called Neues Bauen (New Building). In that era, many modern estates were constructed within Neukölln proper, for example the areas around Ossastraße, a 1927 Reuterkiez housing estate by Bruno Taut, or around the crossing of Innstraße and Weserstraße in Rixdorf (1924–26), but a notable example for a complete early modern settlement is the Dammwegsiedlung south-east of Rixdorf, which was constructed between 1920 and 1922, based on earlier designs by Reinhold Kiehl.

After World War II, almost a quarter of the buildings in Neukölln were destroyed or severely damaged. This affected all neighborhoods except the Schillerkiez, where the destruction remained minimal, though the quarter, like Körnerpark, was eventually expanded and compacted further south beyond the Ringbahn. Other neighborhoods quickly began to rebuild in the bombing gaps from the war, but naturally had to disregard the classical models of Neukölln's original architecture. Quick modern construction was the order of business, at best with a social reformist slant. In the 1960s, however, a public housing boom ensued in Berlin, which also changed the face of many parts of Neukölln's neighborhoods. Most older Gründerzeit areas were only expanded with compacting measures and discreet perimeter block development, but the bulk of Rollberg and the new quarters southeast of Rixdorf were built during this era.

Flächensanierung (district redevelopment)^{[note 111]} in the Rollberg neighborhood began in the 1960s,^{[note 112]} which meant completely demolishing and reconstructing most of its old working-class estates. Of Rollberg's more than 5,000 apartments, only about 340 remained, 200 of them in Gründerzeit estates, and 140 in existing houses from pre-war developments and initial post-war reconstructions. Furthermore, Berlin's historical grid plan street layout was partially dismantled. The modernist meandering block structures (Mäanderbauten) in the eastern part were constructed first, while the rest of the newly designed quarter, including Die Ringe ("The Rings") in the western part, was finished in the mid to late 1970s.^[22] Approximately 2,000 new apartments were constructed, but many of the original residents had left and never returned, opening up rental space for Neukölln's new immigrant population. These developments created new problems, which persist to this day, because the new neighborhood is neither urbanistically nor socially integrated with the rest of Neukölln.

During the same era, the Weiße Siedlung southeast of Rixdorf was built as a typical 1970s modernist suburban housing estate north of the older Dammwegsiedlung. Due to its distinctive high-rise design, the quarter is widely visible. Construction of the youngest neighborhood further south, the High-Deck-Siedlung, began in 1975 and ended in 1984 as a follow-up to the earlier large-scale housing developments Gropiusstadt and Märkisches Viertel. Both settlements suffer from a fate similar to that of Rollberg, being foreign architectural bodies with geographical and social separation from the rest of urban Neukölln.

After the end of Neukölln's public housing wave, the Schillerpromenade neighborhood at last became part of the borough's official urban renewal program, which was passed by the assembly of representatives on 23 January 1990. At first, the focus was on modernizing the deficits of the old infrastructure, but from 1996 onward, specific emphasis was placed on conservation and neighborhood management, to counter gentrification and the displacement of the old-established citizenry. This proved complicated, as many former tenements had already been converted into condominiums. In addition, more recent gentrification could not be blocked completely, since the neighborhood, beside the Reuterkiez, became one of the most popular destinations for 21st century western immigrants.

In contrast, conservation efforts had been placed on a more solid footing in the historical neighborhoods of Böhmisch-Rixdorf and Richardplatz-Süd. The new 1990 development procedures officially designated both the Bohemian and the contiguous German areas of Alt-Rixdorf as a Kulturdenkmal von europäischem Rang (cultural monument of European importance). This measure, which had been demanded since 1979 by Rixdorf's Bohemian descendants and supported by the local society Förderkreis Böhmisches Dorf since its foundation in 1984, has since preserved Rixdorf's old infrastructure and prevented any large-scale modern redevelopment.

In the 21st century, further residential development in Neukölln is still possible by repurposing many of the garden allotments, the largest of which have primarily formed on or near the historical border to former East Berlin. However, important recreational areas would be lost, and there are no plans by the administration to let the relevant leases expire. Alternative plans to clear green spaces like the forest Emmauswald, a former cemetery, regularly encounter strong resistance,^[23] but the assembly of borough representatives generally favors a partial development of Neukölln's old cemeteries over nature conservation.^[24] Similarly, the plans for a residential boundary development of the Tempelhofer Feld are a recurring topic of contention in Berlin politics.^[25] Unconfrontational development mainly has to rely on compacting measures by covering the last remaining bombing gaps from World War II or undeveloped properties, on redeveloping former industrial neighborhoods like the Neukölln Docklands,^{[note 113]} and on perimeter block development, where possible. A recent example can be found in the Harzer Kiez, where the mainly industrial block Harzer Straße/Elsenstraße will be undergoing residential redevelopment.^{[note 114]}

As part of Berlin's administrative reform, the city's 14th borough Neukölln was reorganized as the 8th borough of Berlin on 1 January 2001.^{[note 115]} In 2002, the final restoration stage concluded at the Körnerpark with the reopening of the park's cascade and adjacent water passages. In 2009, the 1907 Hererostein on the grounds of the Columbiadamm cemetery, which honors seven volunteer soldiers who between 1904 and 1907 had fallen while serving in the Imperial Schutztruppe of German South West Africa, was augmented with a plaque commemorating the victims of German colonialism in Namibia, including those of the Colonial War, which resulted in the Herero and Nama genocide, until now the only memorial of its kind in Berlin. The closedown of Tempelhof Airport on 30 October 2008 had relieved many of Neukölln's central residential areas, which had been located beneath the airport's eastern approach path, of aircraft noise, especially Körnerpark and the Schillerkiez. In 2010, the Museum Neukölln, after its 2004 renaming from Heimatmuseum Neukölln, was relocated from the quarter Neukölln to Schloss Britz. In the same year, the city opened the Tempelhofer Feld to the public, the former airfield, which had been shared by the quarters Neukölln and Tempelhof.^{[note 116]} Over night, this created a new and unique area for recreation, sporting activities, small and large cultural events like Lollapalooza, sustainability projects and natural habitats for many wild species. During the 2020–23 COVID-19 pandemic, Neukölln was one of the early hotspots of Germany,^[26] resulting in more than 600 fatalities.^{[note 117]} On 27 August 2025 and after more than ten years of construction, the first of two eastern extensions of the autobahn A 100 through Neukölln to Alt-Treptow opened to the public, including an additional direct connection to the quarter with exits and on-ramps at Sonnenallee.

Following the 1990s as a typical inner-city hot spot with high rates of immigration, poverty, crime, educational discrimination^{[note 119]} and inadequate asylum laws,^[27] early 21st century Neukölln had experienced an influx of students, creatives and other young professionals of mostly Western origin avoiding higher rents charged in other parts of Berlin. It was during this time that the informal cultural toponym Kreuzkölln developed, as the northern neighborhood's culture and nightlife was slowly being resurrected,^{[note 120]} beginning in 2001 in the Friedelkiez with the Kulturverein Kinski,^[28] and soon spreading to the Weserkiez.^{[note 121]} The trend increased with the 2008 financial crisis and Euro area crisis, when many young EU citizens left their home countries for Germany in search of work, leading to rapid cultural shifts in certain neighborhoods within Neukölln, especially the neighborhoods to the north and west from Reuter- to Schillerkiez. Coupled with increasing domestic and foreign real estate investments, this had caused a knock-on effect of rents to rise in many parts of Neukölln. Gentrification eventually stalled in the early 2020s,^{[note 122]} but since then, rent inflation has also shifted from residential to commercial real estate, which now threatens to favor corporatized lighthouse projects over Neukölln's smaller entrepreneurs and traditional businesses, who were initially saved by the federal stimulus during the COVID-19 lockdowns.^{[note 123]}

The gentrifying migration, together with later migrational waves after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and primarily the ongoing European migrant crisis from mainly Islamic countries,^{[note 124]} have significantly increased Neukölln's population since the 2010s, also spawning social and religious conflicts in some neighborhoods, shifting the political climate to the right across Germany, with Neukölln remaining a symbol of societal decline.^{[note 125]} However, Neukölln's partly precarious demographic makeup also led to a contrarian landslide victory in the 2025 German federal election for the socialist party Die Linke and Ferat Koçak, who became the first ever direct socialist representative of a West German electoral district.^{[note 126]} The electorate had broken with the borough's secular centrist voting behavior, and returned Neukölln to its historical pre-war socialist roots. While the borough's southern quarters mostly still voted conservative, the victory was secured by the electorate in the quarter of Neukölln.^[29] Here, the vibrant immigrant culture and recent cosmopolitan evolution, especially in the northern neighborhoods, have consistently defied the more dire academic theories of a fundamental social polarization in Neukölln. Over the years, the quarter has retained its special role as a centuries-old industrious melting pot, which has now also become one of the trendiest and most diverse districts of Berlin, and, for better or worse, the epitome of socioeconomic change in the city.^[30] Accordingly, the quarter and its streets have often ranked as some of the world's most desirable places to visit and live.^[31]

Neukölln's coat of arms is a modern variant of Rixdorf's original shield. After Rixdorf's independence on 1 April 1899, the city's first coat of arms had been commissioned on 10 November of the same year. The final design, which swapped the placement of the cross and chalice, was ordered by emperor Wilhelm II and approved on 29 May 1903.

The most prominent element on Neukölln's shield is in the bottom field, the escutcheon with the silver on red Maltese cross, which signifies the official foundation of the historic village of Richardsdorf on 26 June 1360 under the sovereignty of the Catholic Johannite Knights Hospitaller, who had assumed the angerdorf from the Knights Templar in the year 1318. In the upper right charge is the red and gold heraldic right-facing eagle on silver background, which is actually a double reference, mainly to Rixdorf's feudal parent city of Cölln (23 September 1435 – 17 January 1709^{[note 128]}), but also to the later Province of Brandenburg, which likewise used Cölln's historical eagle on its coat of arms.^[32] In the upper left field is the silver on black common chalice of the Protestant Hussite colonists, who began to settle on the Rixdorf lot in the year 1737 and eventually built their own village, which as Böhmisch-Rixdorf was granted its own administration in 1797, before both Rixdorf villages were united on 1 January 1874.^{[note 129]} The original coronet with the mural crown, consisting of a city wall with three towers made of red bricks with black seams, was similar to the modern variant, but contained a city gate as its central element, signifying Rixdorf's 1899 independence.

Unofficially, the historical coat of arms remained in use at first, after Rixdorf, then already renamed Neukölln, had joined the new Neukölln borough of Greater Berlin on 1 October 1920. On 13 May 1954, however, Berlin passed legislation which allowed its boroughs to carry official heraldic emblems. To this end, Rixdorf's old coat of arms was slightly redesigned, altered from the French to Berlin's official Iberian form, and the only major elemental change was applied to the coronet, which was replaced by the new mural crown now used by all of Berlin's boroughs, including the silver shield with right-facing black bear, as found in Berlin's own coat of arms. The changes were approved by Neukölln's district office and representative assembly by 12 March 1956. The new coat of arms was admitted by the city of Berlin in April 1956 and awarded to the borough Neukölln on 16 May 1956. Therefore, it is now used not only by the quarter of Neukölln, but also by the borough's other quarters of Britz, Buckow, Rudow and Gropiusstadt.^[33]

Around the time of Rixdorf's unification in 1874, the population was approximately 12,300. After Rixdorf's independence in 1899, the population stood at 90,422 (1900), while the final count for the rechristened city of Neukölln was 262,414 (1919), mainly due to early modern industrial immigration. The largest ever population of the quarter Neukölln was 278,208 in 1930. Modern immigration began in the mid-2000s and accounted for a population increase of approximately 20,000 at its peak in 2015, declining to now 12,000 compared to the beginning of the millennium.

• History of the borough Neukölln
  • History of Britz
  • History of Gropiusstadt
  • History of Buckow
  • History of Rudow
• History of Berlin
• Timeline of Berlin
• History of Germany