Brandenburg an der Havel

The Slavic Hevelli held a stronghold called Brenna here at a crossing of the Havel, and at the Assembly of Princes in Magdeburg in 948 a bishopric of Brandenburg was founded. The Slav uprising of 983 drove the Germans out, and only in 1157 did Albert the Bear take the fortress for good and found the Margraviate of Brandenburg, bringing settlers from the Harz, the Netherlands, the Rhineland and Westphalia. The foundation stone of the cathedral was laid on the island in 1165.

The town spread from the west bank to the east bank of the Havel in 1196, and for centuries it was regarded as three separate towns — the Old Town, the New Town and the cathedral district, which was only added to the town in 1928. Brandenburg was the capital of the margraviate until Berlin replaced it in 1417. Huguenots who settled here after 1685 brought tanning and leatherwork, and in the late 19th century the town became a major industrial centre, with steelworks and bicycle factories making the Brennabor, Corona and Excelsior brands.

Under the Nazis the town became a place of murder. The old prison was turned in 1939 into one of the first killing centres of the euthanasia programme, where people with psychiatric illnesses were gassed, and between 1940 and 1945 more than 1,700 people were executed in the Brandenburg-Görden prison, built in 1927–35 to be the most secure and modern prison in Europe. In East German times the steel and rolling mill dominated the town. After 1990 most industry closed, and the population fell from around 100,000 in 1989 to roughly 75,000 by 2005. In 2015 the town was one of the sites of the Federal Garden Show.

The town's culture rests on its medieval inheritance and its namesake role. The cathedral, the brick Gothic churches of St Catherine and St Gotthardt, the gate towers and the town halls of the Old and New Towns survive from the Middle Ages, and the cathedral museum holds the documents that first mention Cölln and Berlin. The Brandenburger Theater is the town's own stage and home of the Brandenburger Symphoniker, who play concerts in the cathedral, the former monastery of St Paul, the Industrial Museum and in the open air by the Beetzsee.

Water sport runs deep. The regatta course on the Beetzsee has hosted junior and under-23 world rowing championships and the 2009 European canoe sprint championships, and the canoeist Birgit Fischer, eight times an Olympic champion and the most successful German woman Olympian, is an honorary citizen. The humorist Loriot is remembered in town by a figure of his Waldmops, a cartoon pug.

Summer brings the Klostersommer programme in the former monasteries, and Plaue's Fischerjakobi in late July keeps up the fishing tradition of the Havel lakes, while the Slawendorf open-air museum stages a medieval Roland festival.

Brandenburg an der Havel had a population of 73,945 in 2025, making it the third-largest town in the state of Brandenburg. Its area is large and watery: about three-quarters of it is farmland, marsh or water, with the Plauer See and the Beetzsee the largest lakes. Besides the historic centres, people live in the planned districts of Görden, laid out in the 1920s, Nord, begun in 1959, and the prefabricated estate of Hohenstücken, begun in 1972, as well as in villages such as Plaue and Kirchmöser.

The industrial economy largely vanished after 1990; only an electric steelworks and a gearbox plant survived, and the former steel site became a business park. Unemployment rose far above the national average until 2005 and was still above the state average in 2018. The town has been a place of higher education since 1992 and a university town since 2014, with a technical university and a medical school, and it is home to state offices and the waterways authority.

The regional express links the town with Potsdam and Berlin about every half-hour. The trams, running since 1897 as a horse tramway and electrified in 1911, carry two-thirds of local passengers, and in summer life turns to the lakes, boats and riverside paths.

Brandenburg an der Havel eats the food of the Mark Brandenburg rather than dishes of its own, and its lakes have shaped what reaches the table. The Havel and its chain of lakes have supported fishermen for centuries — the Fischerjakobi festival in Plaue is still held around the feast of St James the Great — and today's restaurants serve the region's produce. White asparagus from nearby Beelitz fills menus in spring, and fruit comes from the orchards of Werder on the Havel upstream.

Eating out is centred on the New Town, the town's commercial heart, with cafés and restaurants around the market square and along the streets that lead to the Havel bridges. The Fontane-Klub cultural centre has its own bar and café. Bakeries, Imbiss snack stands and the Currywurst of nearby Berlin cover everyday eating, and the Huguenots who settled here after 1685 are remembered more for their tanneries than for their kitchens.