Potsdam is other-worldly. Here, in a palace called Sans Souci - meaning 'without worry' or 'carefree' - the King of Prussia discussed philosophy with Voltaire, listened to Bach perform, then tended his vineyard in a region unknown for wine. Here, a baroque city was built, with an imitation Dutch town and a replica Russian village. Here are royal parks with fake medieval ruins, pseudo-Roman villas and a pump-house disguised as a Moorish mosque. Here was the dream factory of early German cinema, of Metropolis and Marlene Dietrich. Here, Albert Einstein worked on his Unified Field Theory for 20 years. Here, in a 1945 summit, the Big Three powers calmly carved up the world as if it belonged to them. Here, on the subsequent border of east and west, the Cold War was played out in spy games on a ghostly steel bridge.
Located an hour from Berlin's city centre by train, in a leafy land graced by lakes and woods, with swathes of ancien regime splendour and 20th-century fantasy, Potsdam is a relaxed contrast to the purposeful energy of the remade German capital. It is the polar opposite of the glitzy, ritzy Potsdamer Platz commercial centre that epitomises the new downtown Berlin and for which it provides the name. But there are sinister undertones - for here also are some of the origins and engines of successive German war machines: Prussian army parade grounds, the palace of the Imperial Crown Prince (the Kaiser's son and heir), the Nazis' propaganda film factory.
Potsdam is a multi-layered experience, worth weeks of investigation and resonating with the forces of good and evil, with fevered fantasy and vaulting ambition, artistic creation and power lust, scientific discovery and superpower chicanery. It's also a nice walk in the park (500 hectares to roam) and great for messing about in boats on the impressive River Havel. Much of it is a Unesco World Heritage site, confirming its cultural and scenic significance.
Now the capital of Brandenburg state, with a popu-lation of about 130,000 and a history reckoned to have begun in AD993, Potsdam celebrated its millennium in 1993. But the former country town really hit the map in the 17th century when the Great Elector, Friedrich Wilhelm, built a road lined with lime trees from his Berlin palace to his new summer palace in the 'burbs. In the 18th century, Frederick William I, the Soldier King, turned Potsdam into a military town, the base of the fearsome Prussian army.
Then came the era of fantasy. Frederick the Great, the philosopher king, built an exquisite palace called Sans Souci with a sloping vineyard in front of it. Voltaire, Bach, Casanova and Mozart came to the court in the great park. For more than two centuries the Hohenzollern kings filled the town with handsome buildings, rambling parks and whimsical follies. An Egyptian pyramid was built to store ice; a steam-powered pump house was disguised as a Moorish mosque; a reservoir was hidden amid Greco-Roman classical ruins; the Chinese House was built for summer tea parties. Everything was frivolous and unreal: Potsdam became a place where king and court could escape Berlin's pressures, wandering across green lawns or soaking in marble baths as the ancient Romans did. Today, happily, most of these pleasures remain and are open to the public, especially the palaces and parks.
Although the first world war brought the curtain down on the royal house, fantasy didn't end with it, for that's when the dream factory arrived. From 1919, the greatest film studios in Europe arose in the district of Babelsberg. Technically the most advanced in the world and possessing the most innovative directors of the era, the UFA studios produced classics such as Fritz Lang's futuristic Metropolis, Nosferatu, which was the first film to be based on Bram Stoker's Dracula, and The Blue Angel, in which Germany's greatest film star, Marlene Dietrich, rose to fame. In the 1930s, however, the studios fell into the grimy hands of Joseph Goebbels, becoming little more than a propaganda machine for the Nazis, then for the communists after 1945 as the DEFA studios.
These days, Studio Babelsberg is a leader in film technology, producing amazing war-torn sets for the likes of Enemy At The Gates and The Pianist. The studios aren't open to the public, but visitors can go to Filmpark Babelsberg, where they can wander through the weird expressionist scenery of The Cabinet of Dr Caligari and watch a Mad Max-style stunt show. Film buffs should also head to the excellent Potsdam Film Museum in the old Prussian royal stables in the town centre. The museum includes more expressionist sets, a recreation of Dietrich's studio dressing-room and continuous projections of the classics made down the road.