Prussia's garden city — Sanssouci's rococo palaces and the Potsdam Conference
Potsdam is Brandenburg's state capital and one of Germany's most elegant cities — a UNESCO World Heritage landscape of palaces, parks, and lakes that was the summer residence of the Prussian kings and later the German emperors. Park Sanssouci alone contains six major palaces including Frederick the Great's beloved rococo summer palace, the Italianate Orangerie, and the Chinese Teahouse. The New Garden holds Cecilienhof Palace, where Churchill, Truman, and Stalin divided post-war Europe in 1945.
Potsdam became the residence of the Hohenzollern dynasty in 1660 when Elector Frederick William chose it as his summer retreat. Frederick the Great (r. 1740–1786) transformed it into a showcase of Enlightenment culture — building Sanssouci as his personal pleasure palace, corresponding with Voltaire, and playing flute concerts in the music room. The city was heavily bombed in 1945 and almost entirely rebuilt in the Soviet era; reunification brought massive restoration work, and today Sanssouci rivals Versailles as a European royal landscape.