Volkspark Hasenheide, Berlin

Volkspark Hasenheide is a roughly 50-hectare park in Neukölln, at the boundary with Kreuzberg. Its name reaches back to a hare enclosure created here in 1678, when the Great Elector used the grounds for hunting. The park’s most important historical distinction comes from Friedrich Ludwig Jahn: on 19 June 1811, he opened Prussia’s first outdoor gymnastics ground here.

The Jahn monument near the northern entrance keeps that beginning visible, linking this landscape with the origins of German gymnastics. The park itself is much younger. Construction began in 1936, and it opened in 1954 after wartime rubble had been piled into the Rixdorfer Höhe.

That artificial hill rises 22 metres above its surroundings and reaches 68 metres above sea level. The grounds were landscaped under Kurt Pöthig, Neukölln’s parks chief, and an open-air theatre opened only a few days after the park. At the Graefestraße entrance, a sculpture honours the women who cleared Berlin’s rubble.

In the south-east, the Jahn oak is estimated to be 250 to 300 years old and is protected as a natural monument. Since 2009, the trail has featured the tree selected annually as Tree of the Year.