Brandenburg Gate is Berlin’s most famous landmark. A symbol of Berlin and German division during the Cold War, it is now a national symbol of peace and unity. Fireworks at Brandenburg Gate at the world’s largest New Year’s Eve Party along Straße des 17.

Brandenburg was the nucleus of the dynastic power on which the kingdom of Prussia was founded, and it was merged administratively with that kingdom in 1701. It became a province of Prussia in 1815 and remained such after the unification of Germany (1871) and until the end of World War II.

Ducal Prussia and the Kingdom of Prussia, to 1786. The Teutonic Order’s last grand master in Prussia, Albert of Hohenzollern, became a Lutheran and, in 1525, secularized his fief, which he transformed into a duchy for himself. Thereafter until 1701 this territory (i.e., East Prussia) was known as Ducal Prussia.

Königsberg was the easternmost large city in Germany until World War II. The city was heavily damaged by Allied bombing in 1944 and during the Battle of Königsberg in 1945, when it was occupied by the Soviet Union. In the Final Settlement treaty of 1990, Germany renounced all claim to it.

They destroyed many areas in Prussia, including Truso and Kaup, but failed to dominate the population totally. A Viking (Varangian) presence in the area was “less than dominant and very much less than imperial.”

Königsberg was also heavily bombed during the Battle of Königsberg, in the final weeks of the war. With the aim of retaliation for inflicting airstrikes on the capital of the USSR, Moscow in 1941, Joseph Stalin ordered the Soviet Air Force to bomb Königsberg. Eleven Pe-8 bombers attacked the city on 1 September 1941.

Kaliningrad, formerly German (1255–1946) Königsberg, Polish Królewiec, city, seaport, and administrative centre of Kaliningrad oblast (region), Russia. Detached from the rest of the country, the city is an exclave of the Russian Federation. Kaliningrad lies on the Pregolya River just upstream from Frisches Lagoon.

Brandenburg. Brandenburg, margravate, or mark, then an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire, located in the northeastern lowlands of Germany; it was the nucleus of the dynastic power on which the kingdom of Prussia was founded. After World War I it was a province of the Land (state) of Prussia in Germany.

Potsdam is the state capital and largest city, while other major towns include Cottbus, Brandenburg an der Havel and Frankfurt (Oder). Brandenburg surrounds the national capital and city-state of Berlin, and together they form the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region, the third-largest metropolitan area in Germany.

The early 1200s was a prosperous time for Brandenburg, as its borders were expanding. Land was seized, acquired, or purchased from surrounding tribes and kingdoms. Germans began to migrate to this area to colonize the land and establish cities. Through German colonization the Slavic people were integrated and assimilated into the German society.

The Oder River forms a part of the eastern border, the Elbe River a portion of the western border. The main rivers in the state itself are the Spree and the Havel. In the southeast, there is a wetlands region called the Spreewald; it is the northernmost part of Lusatia, where the Sorbs, a Slavic people, still live.