Around 1230 the Knights Templar founded Mariendorf. It was a broad street village. A branch village of the Tempelhof commandery. The Mariendorf village church appeared in the second quarter of the 13th century. In 1312 the Knights Hospitaller became successors to the dissolved Templar Order on the Teltow. Mariendorf’s first mention as Mergendorp is in a 1348 document. The Landbuch of Charles IV (1375) mentioned Mariendorf. It was Margendorpe Margendorff Mariendorff with 48 holdings. Three were parsonage holdings. Three taverns were mentioned. In 1435 Berlin and Cölln bought Tempelhof Marienfelde and Mariendorf from the Knights Hospitaller. The services of the farmers went to the Electoral Amt Mühlenhof in 1448. In 1450 the place was re-measured. There were only 47 holdings now. There was also a church holding and an inn. A freischulze was mentioned in 1591.
The Reformation happened around 1539/1540. In 1590 Berlin sold its share of Tempelhof Marienfelde and Mariendorf to Cölln. In 1611 the plague raged in Mariendorf. From 1630 to 1648 the Thirty Years’ War caused multiple plague returns. The church tower got its wooden structure in 1737. It is still preserved today. A fire on July 13 1748 burnt the south side of the church to the village inn. The peasant liberation happened in 1807 as part of the Stein-Hardenberg reforms. The Chaussee from Berlin to Dresden through Mariendorf was completed in 1838. The village street was paved in 1864. Two marshes were filled in. In 1872 the Südende villa colony was founded. A new schoolhouse was built parallel. The horse-drawn railway between Hallesches Tor and Tempelhof was extended to Mariendorf in 1887. The Adlermühle was built in 1888. The Mariendorf station on the Dresden railway (now Attilastraße S-Bahn station) opened in 1895.
From 1903 to 1905 the Mariendorf town hall was built on Kaiserstraße. The adjacent street was renamed Rathausstraße. The town hall was destroyed in a bombing raid in 1943. The rubble was cleared in 1949. In 1911 the Mariendorf Realgymnasium (named Eckener-Gymnasium after Hugo Eckener in 1930) moved in. It was opposite the town hall. The fire station and police building were built in 1912-1913. The Public Lyceum Berlin-Mariendorf opened in 1913. It was a girls’ high school. From 1937 to 1953 it was named Gertrud-Stauffacher-Schule. Rosa Luxemburg lived in Lindenstraße 2 (now Biberacher Weg) in Südende from 1911 to 1919. Hugo Eberlein another prominent USPD Spartakusbund and KPD founding member was active in Mariendorf. A record of his speech on November 19 1918 during the short takeover by workers’ and soldiers’ councils in the November Revolution exists.
The Mariendorf trotting track opened in 1913. The first longer high-voltage overhead line in Germany was built in 1918. It ran from the Zschornewitz power plant to Rummelsburg. It passed the southern edge of today’s Ankogelbad. It supported war-related aluminum production. Construction of the Gartenstadt Siedlung Daheim east of the Mariendorf trotting track began in 1919. In 1920 Tempelhof Mariendorf Marienfelde and Lichtenrade became part of Berlin. They formed the 13th district Tempelhof of Greater Berlin. The Mariendorf district Südende was separated and became part of Steglitz. A housing complex was built on Tauernallee between 1929 and 1930. It is now a listed building. Volkspark Mariendorf developed in 1923 and was officially opened in 1931.
After World War II Mariendorf and Tempelhof were in the American sector. A Jewish DP camp for displaced persons was set up in 1946. It was between Eisenacher Straße 39 Rixdorfer Straße Dirschelweg and Aeneas/Dido streets. The Mariendorf-Bialik Center closed in 1948. Residents went to the DP camp in Berlin-Düppel. Others went to DP camps in West Germany. From 1949 to 1965 the Berliner Fruchthof a central wholesale market for fruit and vegetable trade was in the Askania-Werke halls. U-Bahn construction from Tempelhof to Mariendorf began in 1961. The section from Tempelhof U-Bahn station to Alt-Mariendorf U-Bahn station of line U6 opened in 1966. This eliminated tram line 99.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall American troops left Mariendorf. Military facilities were used for housing. Business and cultural buildings were used by the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district office. Parts of the Dreifaltigkeitsfriedhof on Eisenacher Straße are to be redeveloped for housing. The project plans 250-500 homes. The historic tree-lined avenue will remain.