On 1 August 1844, the Zoological Garden of Berlin opened its gates for the very first time. Back then, the Zoo lay outside the city, its buildings were unfinished, and its animal stock was rather small. This book tells the story of how that makeshift zoo grew to house more species than any other zoo in the world, attracting millions of visitors every year from Germany and abroad.

It is a story not only of structural developments, animal acquisitions and improvements in keeping conditions. The history of Zoo Berlin is also a history of Germany and its capital city: it lived through the colonial era with its human zoos, Nazism and the expulsion of its Jewish shareholders, the Cold War and rivalry with the Tierpark in the East, and German reunification when the Zoo and Tierpark came together. Although the Zoological Garden was always used as a platform by those in the power, from the outset it was primarily a project of the people of Berlin, who gladly supported it as shareholders and visitors. And so this book is a reflection of their city - vivid, enlightening, and full of fascinating stories.