Kladow

The Militärhistorisches Museum der Bundeswehr – Flugplatz Berlin-Gatow (Bundeswehr Museum of Military History – Berlin-Gatow Airfield; formally known as Luftwaffenmuseum der Bundeswehr), is the Berlin branch of the Bundeswehr Military History Museum. The museum acts as an independent military department. The museum is in Berlin at a former Luftwaffe and Royal Air Force (RAF) airfield, RAF Gatow. The focus is on military history, particularly the history of the post-war German Air Force. The museum has a collection of more than 200,000 items, including 155 aeroplanes, 5,000 uniforms and 30,000 books. There are also displays (including aeroplanes) on the history of the airfield when it was used by the RAF. Aircraft include World War I planes such as the Fokker E.III as reproductions, and World War II planes such as the Bf 109, as well as at least one aircraft of every type ever to serve in the air forces of East and West Germany. Most of those postwar aircraft are stored outside on the tarmac and runways, however, and many are in bad condition. There are long term restoration projects, including a Focke-Wulf Fw 190. Because of that the museum is under construction, some exhibits are shortly removed for restoration, repainting or lending to other museums.

The Großer Wannsee (German: [ˈɡʁoːsɐ ˈvanˌzeː] (listen), "Great Wannsee") is a bight of the Havel river near the locality of Wannsee and Nikolassee (in the borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf), a south-western suburb of the German capital Berlin not far from Potsdam. Between the river itself and the Wannsee lies the Breite, or Grosse Breite (Broad, or Great Broad). To the north lies the island of Schwanenwerder and, opposite from the Greater Wannsee on the other side of the Havel, is the locality of Kladow (in Spandau).

The Verein Seglerhaus am Wannsee (VSaW) (meaning: "Sailing house by the Wann Lake Union") is the second oldest yacht club in Germany after Segelclub RHE. It is located on the shores of the Greater Wannsee lake, southwest of Berlin. The club has mooring space for 250 yachts. It organizes yearly regatta series with both domestic and international participation. Together with the Yacht Club of Kiel, the Norddeutscher Regattaverein and the Hamburger Sailing Club, the Verein Seglerhaus am Wannsee organizes the Kiel Week. Taking place in the Bay of Kiel, this annual event is one of the largest and most prestigious sailing regattas in the world. Members of the Verein Seglerhaus am Wannsee have won Olympic, World and European competitions. The Olympic section of the club consists of six teams.

The 1948 Gatow air disaster was a mid-air collision in the airspace above Berlin, Germany that occurred on 5 April, sparking an international incident. A British European Airways (BEA) Vickers VC.1B Viking airliner crashed near RAF Gatow air base, after it collided with a Soviet Air Force Yakovlev Yak-3 fighter aircraft. All ten passengers and four crew on board the Viking were killed, as was the Soviet pilot. The disaster resulted in a diplomatic standoff between the United Kingdom and United States on one hand, and the Soviet Union on the other, and intensified distrust leading up to the Berlin Blockade in the early years of the Cold War.

Royal Air Force Gatow, or more commonly RAF Gatow, was a British Royal Air Force station (military airbase) in the district of Gatow in south-western Berlin, west of the Havel river, in the borough of Spandau. It was the home for the only known operational use of flying boats in central Europe, and was later used for photographic reconnaissance missions by de Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunks over East Germany. Part of the former airfield is now called General Steinhoff-Kaserne, and is home to the Luftwaffenmuseum der Bundeswehr, the German Air Force Museum. Also on the site of the former Royal Air Force station, but not part of General Steinhoff-Kaserne, is a school, the Hans-Carossa-Gymnasium, as well as houses for government employees of the Federal Republic of Germany. This part of the former airfield has since 2003 been part of the district of Berlin-Kladow.

Pfaueninsel (pronunciation , "Peacock Island") is an island in the River Havel situated in Berlin-Wannsee, in the district of Steglitz-Zehlendorf in southwestern Berlin, near the border with Potsdam in Brandenburg. The island is part of the Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin UNESCO World Heritage Site and a popular destination for day-trippers. Pfaueninsel is also a nature reserve in accordance with the EU Habitats Directive and a Special Protection Area for wild birds.

Schwanenwerder (German pronunciation: [ˌʃvaːnənˈvɛʁdɐ] (listen); English: "Swan Ait") is an island in the locality of Nikolassee in southwestern Berlin, located in a wider stretch of the Havel close to the eastern bank and adjacent to the Großer Wannsee to the south of it. The neighbourhood is considered an affluent residential area and was home to known people such as Alexander Parvus, Joseph Goebbels, Gustav Fröhlich, Ernst Udet, and Axel Springer.

Groß Glienicke [ɡʁoːs ˈɡliːnɪkə] is a village located both in Berlin and Potsdam, the capital of the German state of Brandenburg. Until 2003, when it was merged into Potsdam, the Brandenburg—and main—side, was an autonomous municipality. The Berlin side is part of Kladow in the Spandau district.

Groß Glienicker See (German pronunciation: [ˈɡʁoːs ˈɡliː.nɪkɐ zeː] (listen)) is a lake in the states of Brandenburg and Berlin, Germany. At an elevation of 31.6 m, its surface area is 0.66 km². The border between the city of Potsdam and the city of Berlin runs in a north–south direction through the center of the lake, with the Potsdam locality of Groß Glienicke on the left shore and the Berlin locality of Kladow on the right shore.

The Wannsee Conference (German: Wannseekonferenz, German pronunciation: [ˈvanseːkɔnfeˌʁɛnt͡s] (listen)) was a meeting of senior government officials of Nazi Germany and Schutzstaffel (SS) leaders, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. The purpose of the conference, called by the director of the Reich Security Main Office SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, was to ensure the co-operation of administrative leaders of various government departments in the implementation of the Final Solution to the Jewish question, whereby most of the Jews of German-occupied Europe would be deported to occupied Poland and murdered. Conference participants included representatives from several government ministries, including state secretaries from the Foreign Office, the justice, interior, and state ministries, and representatives from the SS. In the course of the meeting, Heydrich outlined how European Jews would be rounded up and sent to extermination camps in the General Government (the occupied part of Poland), where they would be killed.Discrimination against Jews began immediately after the Nazi seizure of power on 30 January 1933. Violence and economic pressure were used by the Nazi regime to encourage Jews to voluntarily leave the country. After the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the extermination of European Jewry began, and the killings continued and accelerated after the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. On 31 July 1941, Hermann Göring gave written authorization to Heydrich to prepare and submit a plan for a "total solution of the Jewish question" in territories under German control and to coordinate the participation of all involved government organisations. At the Wannsee Conference, Heydrich emphasised that once the deportation process was complete, the fate of the deportees would become an internal matter under the purview of the SS. A secondary goal was to arrive at a definition of who was Jewish. One copy of the Protocol with circulated minutes of the meeting survived the war. It was found by Robert Kempner in March 1947 among files that had been seized from the German Foreign Office. It was used as evidence in the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials. The Wannsee House, site of the conference, is now a Holocaust memorial.

The Pfaueninsel Palace (German: Schloss Pfaueninsel) is a Romantic-style building on the shore of the Havel in Berlin. Constructed on behalf of Frederick William II, the Lustschloss was completed in 1797. Today, the palace is a museum of the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg.

The Liebermann Villa is the former summer residence of the German painter Max Liebermann. It is located directly at the shores of Lake Wannsee in Berlin. It has been open to public since April 30, 2006 and shows a collection of Liebermann's paintings of his villa and its garden.