For centuries, Werder was an overlooked little town in the Mark Brandenburg on an island in the Havel River, which was handed over to the Lehnin monastery by the margrave in 1317 and incorporated into its lordship. After the dissolution of the monastery in 1542, it was placed under the ownership of the electoral bailiff of Lehnin. Following the introduction of the Stein city ordinance in 1808, which granted the citizens municipal self-governance, they took their fate firmly into their own hands and promoted their extraordinary economic success through fruit cultivation on the land owned by the town, which they managed to maintain despite the political upheavals of the 20th century. The flowering town on the Havel is and remains a truly special town in Brandenburg, whose 700-year development is overviewed in the five contributions of this volume.