Few districts embody the spirit of reinvention quite like Neukölln. Once a rural village called Rixdorf, it grew into an industrial powerhouse, a working-class playground and now one of Berlin’s most rapidly gentrifying neighbourhoods. The story of how Rixdorf became Neukölln is written not only in its streets and tenements, but also in its green spaces. Nowhere captures this transformation better than Körnerpark – a manicured, sunken oasis that began as a millionaire’s garden and has arguably become a symbol of Neukölln’s shifting identity.
But long before it became a public refuge for Berliners, Körnerpark was the private domain of industrialist Franz Körner. The site began as a gravel pit in the late 19th century before Körner transformed it into a neo-baroque garden and, during World War I, donated most of it to the city council of Rixdorf. Built to echo palace gardens and nicknamed the ‘Sanssouci of Neukölln’ by locals, Körnerpark was a centrepiece of the council’s plan to gentrify the area – an effort to lure wealthier residents to a neighbourhood whose reputation was, at the time, firmly in the mud.
A population booms
Before the surge of factories and apartment blocks, Rixdorf was a modest village on the outskirts of Berlin, and a world away from the industrial bustle to come. When the German Empire formed in 1871, Rixdorf had fewer than 10,000 inhabitants. Fifty years later, the population had swelled to just under 300,000. This remarkable transformation, driven by the rapid industrialisation, urbanisation and modernisation of the imperial capital and its hinterland, coupled with the opening of the Rixdorf (now Neukölln) S-Bahn in 1872, fuelled a wave of construction. This gave rise to the proliferation of so-called ‘rented barracks’ – the densely packed, five-storey apartment blocks that are still a feature of Berlin’s inner suburbs.
Rixdorf’s overcrowded neighbourhoods – which, according to professor of urban history Peter Hall, rivalled downtown Manhattan for population density – did not happen by accident. Speculators snapped up properties ahead of the surge, cramming in small apartments to rent to the growing working class. The resulting overcrowding caused an abundance of social and health problems, yet cheap rents and access to Berlin’s technologically advanced job market continued to attract migrants from the countryside right up until the outbreak of World World I.
A city with a bad reputation
The rise of Rixdorf’s working-class neighbourhoods went hand in hand with the growth of a thriving entertainment scene. Dance halls, theatres, Eckkneipen, sports venues and amusement parks became the beating heart of the area’s new modern culture.
With more than 150 venues, Rixdorf earned a reputation as one of Berlin’s liveliest spots. The jewel in its hedonistic crown was The New World, a sprawling complex between Hermannplatz and Hasenheide. Packed with a beer garden, a boxing ring, a miniature railway and its own brewery, it could host up to 20,000 revellers at a time.
Rixdorf’s excesses, hedonism and booze-fuelled antics, perpetuated by these entertainment venues, were frowned upon by the conservative bourgeoisie, who dominated politics and the bureaucracy. In 1908, bureaucrats at the Royal Tax Office , whose office was right next to The New World, complained: “You only need to mention the name [Rixdorf], and everywhere you turn, you hear that it is a place where no upstanding person could live.” Cheap rents and even cheaper entertainment, they added, attracted anyone who couldn’t afford to live elsewhere.
What’s in a name?
In 1899, Rixdorf officially became a city. Thanks to Prussia’s three-tier voting system, the new city council was stacked in favour of wealthy, conservative politicians – the poorest 80% of residents were represented by only a third of the seats, while the richest 20% controlled the rest. The council quickly set about reshaping the city’s image to attract wealthier residents. By 1911, Mayor Carl Kaiser appealed directly to Kaiser Wilhelm II for Rixdorf’s name to change: “Prejudice [against Rixdorf] is holding back middle-class individuals from seeking residency here.” The following year, Kaiser Wilhelm II obliged: Rixdorf was reborn as Neukölln.
Leading up to the name change, the council’s eyes also fell upon a property close to the heart of Rixdorf, which was owned by the elderly industrialist Franz Körner. Part of the eight-hectare site had been a gravel pit during the early years of Rixdorf’s construction boom. Körner later built a five-storey summer residence there – his main home was in Tiergarten – and transformed the gravel pit into an ornate private garden.
Körner, the man
Körner’s private grounds were well known to Rixdorf’s city councillors. He earned a reputation in bourgeois circles for lavish parties, a meticulously decorated garden – complete with neoclassical statues, a carp pond and orchards – and giant sunflowers that towered up to four metres. As Museum Neukölln noted on the park’s centenary in 2016, it was a ‘cultural oasis’ and a magnet for Berlin’s and Rixdorf’s cultural elite.
Franz Körner sympathised with the city council’s plans to gentrify Rixdorf, but he was also a man who knew how to drive a hard bargain. The son of a mill owner from Spandau, Körner had risen to millionaire status, pulling in around seven million euros a year (roughly the equivalent of a billionaire today) and had earned a reputation as a tough negotiator. The council hoped Körner would hand over the gravel pit plot for free, saving him the cost of refilling it. He agreed to this, but on the condition that they also purchased the remainder of his property at a cut-price rate (though that was still more than six times what he had paid 25 years earlier) and allowed his heirs to avoid inheritance tax (which was about 5%). In return, the park would carry his name forever and feature a public museum showcasing items from his private collection, including the lower jaw of a woolly mammoth, now part of Museum Neukölln’s main exhibition.
It’s almost absurd to think that this patch of grass was once the exclusive garden of a single industrialist.
Körner aimed to create a park and museum as a physical testament to his legacy. It would showcase bourgeois taste, from the park’s palace-like design to his private collection, which included fossils dug from his own gravel pits. The space was meant to signal his refinement and sophistication, and, in true gentrifier style, raise the ‘quality’ of the neighbourhood’s residents.
Things didn’t go according to plan for Körner or the city council. Parts of the park were owned by other landholders who held out for higher prices, driving up costs and causing delays. World War I only made matters worse. When the museum finally opened in 1920, Emil Fischer, director of the Neukölln Heimatmuseum, grumbled that Körner’s gift was a “trojan horse” – not just for the budget blowouts, but also for the poor quality of his private collection.
Today, Körnerpark is one of Neukölln’s most beloved public spaces. It’s almost absurd to think that this patch of grass was once the exclusive garden of a single industrialist. Yet that irony is what makes Körnerpark such a perfect emblem of Neukölln itself: a place built on cycles of reinvention, where yesterday’s working-class grit and today’s waves of gentrification are part of the same long story – the city forever remaking itself, one name, one neighbourhood and one park at a time.
