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Babelsberg () is the largest quarter of Potsdam, the capital city of the Germany state of Brandenburg. The neighbourhood is named after a small hill on the Havel river. It is the location of Babelsberg Palace and Babelsberg Park, part of the Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin UNESCO World Heritage Site, as well as Babelsberg Studio, a historical centre of the German film industry and the first large-scale movie studio in the world.
In the mid-18th century the new village of Nowawes was founded by King Frederick II of Prussia and settled with Protestant deportees, predominantly Weaving who as descendants of the Moravian Church had fled from the Counter-Reformation's suppression of their faith in the lands of the Habsburg monarchy during Empress Maria Theresa's rule. During the Industrial Revolution the area developed into a centre of textile and carpet manufacturing, and at the premises of Orenstein & Koppel, from 1899 on also railway production. For decades German Neuendorf and Bohemian Nowawes () bordered on each other but remained separate municipalities until their official unification in 1907. Nowawes received town privileges in 1924.
From about 1900 the mansion colony of Neubabelsberg arose east of Babelsberg Park on the southern shore of the Griebnitzsee lake. After the Universum Film AG (UFA) in 1922 had acquired a large backlot nearby, these villas built by famous architects like Hermann Muthesius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe became popular residences of numerous film stars. Marika Rökk, Sybille Schmitz, Lilian Harvey, Willy Fritsch and Brigitte Horney lived and worked here when film production by the UFA continued without a break in the Nazi Germany period, while many actors and directors were dispossessed and had to flee from Germany. In 1938 Nowawes and Neubabelsberg merged and were incorporated into Potsdam one year later, becoming the district of Potsdam-Babelsberg. During World War II, Babelsberg was the location of a subcamp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.Geoffrey P. Megargee (2025). 9780253353283, Indiana University Press, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. ISBN 9780253353283
During the 1945 Potsdam Conference, the representatives of the victorious Allies, Joseph Stalin, President Harry S. Truman, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill (until July 26, when he was succeeded by Clement Attlee) resided in mansions of Neubabelsberg. At the "Truman-Villa", the President issued the Potsdam Declaration and gave orders for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Today the building serves as the seat of the liberal Friedrich Naumann Foundation.
Babelsberg remained a residence of Wilhelm after his accession to the Prussian and German throne. It was here, after a private conversation on 23 September 1862 he appointed Otto von Bismarck Minister President of Prussia and decided not to abdicate.
Since 1990 Babelsberg Palace with the surrounding park laid out by Peter Joseph Lenné and Hermann von Pückler-Muskau is part of the UNESCO Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin World Heritage Site and open to the public as a museum. One campus of the University of Potsdam as well as the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) are situated within the park. Next to Neubabelsberg is the home of the Hasso Plattner Institute for software systems engineering.
The local SV Babelsberg 03 football club is based at the Karl-Liebknecht-Stadion, which is also the home ground of the 1. FFC Turbine Potsdam women's football team.
The German Industrial-Metal band Rammstein used Babelsberg castle to film their music video "Du Riechst So Gut 98".
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