Berlin Potsdamer Bahnhof
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The Potsdamer Bahnhof was a railway station in Berlin. It was located at Potsdamer Platz, about 1 km south of the Brandenburg Gate, and kick-started the transformation of Potsdamer Platz from an area of quiet villas near the south-east corner of the Tiergarten into the teeming focal point it eventually became.
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[edit] Early days
The Potsdamer Bahnhof was the Berlin terminus of the city’s first railway, linking it with Potsdam. Begun in 1835, it was opened from the Potsdam end as far as Zehlendorf on 22nd September 1838, and its entire length of 26 km on 29th October. The first train was hauled by a British-built locomotive, the work of Robert Stephenson at his Newcastle-upon-Tyne works in 1835, and called Adler (Eagle). In 1848 the lines were extended west to Magdeburg, to link up with routes extending across the future German state. The whole area around the Berlin terminus became a major focus for urban growth after its opening. Five major streets eventually converged here, most having started out as mere rough tracks through the Tiergarten and adjoining fields.
[edit] A new terminus
The first Potsdamer Bahnhof lasted until 1869, when it was superseded by a far grander structure in response to growing traffic, built by Julius Ludwig Quassowski (1824-1909) with five platforms, a trainshed roof that was 173m long and 36m wide, and a separate entrance on the west side for royalty. Opened on 30th August 1872, by 1890 over 3 million people a year were using it, and it was holding its own against a larger rival down the road (the Anhalter Bahnhof).
[edit] The Ringbahnhof and Wannsee Bahnhof
Still the facilities could not cope, and so in 1890-1891 two additional termini were built on either side of it for short-haul and suburban traffic: on the east side, the Ringbahnhof, opened on 1st April 1891 to serve the Ringbahn itself, the circular route skirting the city’s perimeter with connections to all the main termini; and the Wannsee Bahnhof on the west side, opened on 1st October 1891 for trains to Wannsee and the south western suburbs. Steam-operated at first, the Ringbahnhof lines were electrified (550v DC) on 4th June 1903 (converted to 800v DC on 2nd July 1929), but those from the Wannsee station and the mainline terminus had to wait until 15th May 1933. The Ringbahnhof ultimately handled many times as many passengers as the mainline terminus.
[edit] The U-Bahn
The U-Bahn, or Untergrundbahn (Underground Railway), was a major revolution in Berlin’s public transport, and the forerunner of similar systems now seen in several German cities. The underground sections alternated with sections elevated above ground on viaducts – hence the alternative name Hochbahn (High Bahn). The first line ran from Stralauer Tor to Potsdamer Platz. Begun on 10th September 1896 and opened on 18th February 1902, the actual Potsdamer Platz station was rather poorly sited. Though it was reached via an entrance right outside the main-line terminus, people then had to walk about 200 m along an underground passage beneath the appropriately named Bahnstrasse (Railway Street).
Later that year the system was developed into a through line running from Warschauer Brücke to Knie, which actually placed Potsdamer Platz on a branch accessed via a triangle of lines (Gleisdreieck) between Möckernbrücke and Bülowstraße stations. The first Potsdamer Platz U-Bahn station saw use for just over five and a half years, until its inconvenient site, and the desire to reach other parts of the city, enabled it to be superseded by a better sited new station on an extension of the line to Spittelmarkt, opened on 29th September 1907 (evidence of the original station's site can still be seen in the tunnel, from passing trains). As the new station lay mostly beneath the adjoining Leipziger Platz, this is was the station was initially called, renamed Potsdamer Platz on 29th January 1923. It was one of a number designed by the Swedish architect Alfred Frederik Grenander (1863-1931). From a technical point of view the station's construction was something of a challenge, as above ground the Hotel Furstenhof was being rebuilt at the same time. The U-Bahn line extension and new station ran right through the hotel's basement, cutting it in half. Contrary to several sources the hotel did not however enjoy a separate entrance directly from the station. The enormous Wertheim Department Store in nearby Leipzigerstrasse did enjoy such an entrance, as in later years did the Hotel Excelsior from the Anhalter Bahnhof.
[edit] The S-Bahn
In 1939 the S-Bahn, or Stadtbahn (City Railway), arrived. The idea for a North-South Link rapid transit rail line from Unter den Linden to Yorckstrasse, via Potsdamer Platz and Anhalter Bahnhof, had first been mooted in 1914, but it was not planned in detail until 1928, and then approval had to wait until 1933. Begun in 1934, it was plagued with disasters. Determination to have it finished in time for the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936 meant vital safety measures were ignored: on 20 August 1935, a tunnel collapse just south of the Brandenburg Gate buried 23 workmen of whom only four survived; then on 28 December 1936, a fire near the Potsdamer Platz station destroyed vital equipment. Needless to say, the line was not ready for the Berlin Olympics; in fact it was another three years before it first saw public use. In spite of all the setbacks, it was opened from Unter den Linden down to Potsdamer Platz on 15 April 1939, extended to Anhalter Bahnhof on 9 October, and then on down to Yorckstrasse, to complete the link, on 6 November. The Potsdamer Platz S-Bahn station also contained an underground shopping arcade, the largest in Europe.
[edit] 1930s heyday
Although smaller than the Anhalter, the Potsdamer Bahnhof was much the busier of the two. By 1939 up to 80,000 people per day were using it. The Wannsee Bahnhof actually closed that year, superseded by the new S-Bahn North-South Link described above.
The previous year (1938), the Potsdamer Bahnhof, together with the line from Potsdam, had reached its centenary, and the celebrations had featured an operational replica of the "Adler" locomotive that had hauled the very first train 100 years previously (the original loco had been scrapped at Augsburg in 1857). The replica was the work of the DRG restoration workshop at Kaiserslautern in 1935.
[edit] World War 2 and its aftermath
During World War II the terminus, like most of Berlin, was devastated by British and American bombs and Soviet artillery shells. Depite some rubble clearance and emergency repairs, damage to rail infrastructure further out was so great that the mainline terminus never saw another train, it and the Ringbahnhof closed on 3rd August 1944. The Ringbahnhof got a reprieve of sorts, temporarily reopening on 6th August 1945 while the U-Bahn and S-Bahn received massive repairs (millions of gallons of water had to be pumped out for starters), before final closure on 27th July 1946. The remains were cleared away in 1957. The Anhalter Bahnhof and all of Berlin’s other rail termini suffered a similar fate, exacerbated in some instances by the Division of Berlin and the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, leaving a network that remained fragmented and inconvenient for decades.
[edit] The site today
Today a number of vast new developments can be seen around Potsdamer Platz. Despite some initial reservations, the new quarter has become a commercial success, and a must-see for the majority of visitors to Berlin. But where the Potsdamer Bahnhof once stood is a long landscaped strip of land named after the Austrian actress Tilla Durieux (1880-1971), stretching for 450 m down to the Landwehrkanal.
On a much sadder note, a major fire at the DB Museum (German State Railway Museum) in Nuremberg on the night of 17th/18th October 2005 destroyed a historical shed and 25 locomotives including the Adler replica featured in the centenary celebratons for the Potsdamer Bahnhof in 1938. Deutsche Bahn have apparently ordered another operational replica in time for the 175th anniversary celebrations in 2010, for the Nuremberg - Fürth railway line, Germany's first.
