In 1660, Elector Frederick William, who had ruled since 1640, purchased the city of Potsdam back from the Hacke family, making the town, with its approximately 700 inhabitants, his second residence alongside Berlin. In the following years, he acquired the villages of Bornim, Bornstedt, Geltow, Golm, Grube, Drewitz, and Glienicke, uniting them under the lordship of Potsdam. He gradually eliminated the visible traces of the Thirty Years’ War from the town's landscape, initiated the reconstruction of the Potsdam City Palace (1662–1674), renewed the Lange Brücke (Long Bridge), built the Glienicke Bridge and the Baumgarten Bridge, and laid out the "Allee gegen Panenberg" (now Breite Straße/Feuerbachstraße) and the "Allee gegen Eichberg" (now Jägerallee).
New Baroque residential houses were constructed on Breite Straße for the residents displaced by the palace construction and the growing court. The first streets were paved in the 1680s. In 1685, the Great Elector signed the "Edict of Potsdam" in the City Palace, offering asylum in Brandenburg to Huguenots expelled from France.
His son, Elector Frederick III, initiated the construction of the Königsstraße (now Berliner Straße) in 1693 as the main connection between the two residence cities, Potsdam and Berlin. After proclaiming himself King Frederick I in Prussia in Königsberg in 1701, he marked the occasion in Potsdam by commissioning the Fortunaportal at the City Palace.
However, it was his son, Frederick William I, crowned King of Prussia in 1713, who transformed Potsdam into a garrison town, shaping its character for centuries. The new monarch prioritized building a strong army, earning him the nickname "Soldier King." Upon his accession, he began relocating soldiers to Potsdam, increasing their number to 3,500 by 1738. They were housed in citizens' homes, where residents were required to accommodate and feed two to six soldiers, depending on their space and means, for minimal compensation. The Lustgarten near the City Palace was repurposed as a drill and parade ground. Adjacent to the Garrison Church, the Lange Stall was built in 1734 as a riding and drill hall.
To accommodate the growing military population, Potsdam experienced significant construction activity in the first half of the 18th century. The city moat was straightened, deepened, and lined with oak planks. Behind the renewed city canal, the first Baroque urban expansion in the 1720s added 130 new houses in the area up to today's Charlottenstraße and Lindenstraße. Shortly thereafter, the newly built city wall was removed to allow for the second urban expansion, extending the city to today's Schopenhauerstraße and Hegelallee in the 1730s. These two expansions increased the city's area from 44 to 145 hectares. The new city wall featured representative gateways, including the Brandenburg Gate, Jägertor, and Nauener Tor. The orderly street grid and two-story row houses with standardized designs remain characteristic features of this era.
The Soldier King brought craftsmen from across Central Europe, including the Netherlands, to Potsdam to support the extensive construction. He built the Dutch Quarter to house them. The growing city attracted tradespeople, merchants, and artisans, and by the end of Frederick William I's reign, 11,700 civilians (excluding military personnel) lived in the city.
In 1724, Potsdam gained a military orphanage modeled after the Francke Foundations in Halle/Saale. Over the following decades, the orphanage grew to accommodate up to 2,500 children. They received basic schooling before being employed as inexpensive labor in the city's factories. For the other children, Frederick William I had already established several schools, for example the Große Stadtschule, inaugurated in 1739. The initials of the Soldier King can still be seen on the balcony of its Baroque building on Nauener Straße (now Friedrich-Ebert-Straße).
Between 1721 and 1735, the king also commissioned the construction of the Nikolai Church (Nikolaikirche), the Heilig-Geist Church, and the Garrison Church (Garnisonkirche). The latter two served as simultaneum churches, hosting services for both Lutheran and Reformed congregations. The church towers became iconic as the "Three-Church View," defining the silhouette of Potsdam as a residence and garrison town.
Author: Dr. Johannes Leicht (Geschichtslotsen)
