Leipziger Straße
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Leipziger Straße is a street in central Berlin, capital of Germany. It runs east-west from Potsdamer Platz to Spittelmarkt in the borough of Mitte. At its western end is Leipziger Platz, an octagonal square which before World War II was one of the centres of German national administration, being the location of various economic ministries and for a time the War Ministry. Further east was the Reich Post Office headquarters.
Leipziger Straße has existed along this line since about 1700, when Potsdamer Platz was known as the Potsdamer Tor (Potsdam Gate), one of the western entrances to what was then the walled city of Berlin. The street ran from this gate to the market place at Spittel Markt. Leipziger Platz was given its current name in 1815 in celebration of the Allied victory over the French at the Battle of Leipzig, and it is sometimes assumed that Leipziger Straße was named at the same time: in fact it has always had this name, since it led to the royal road to Leipzig.
Near the eastern end of the street stood the Jerusalemer Kirche, one of Berlin's oldest churches, dating from the late 15th century, embellished in the nineteenth century by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. The church was heavily damaged by Allied bombing in World War II and its ruins were demolished by the German Democratic Republic authorities in 1961.
Between 1933 and 1936 Herman Göring oversaw the construction of the Reich Air Ministry building at Leipziger Straße 7, on the corner of Wilhelmstraße. After 1949, when Leipziger Straße was located in the German Democratic Republic, this became the headquarters of the GDR Council of Ministers. Today it houses the German Finance Ministry.
The building which now houses the Bundesrat, the upper house of the German Parliament, was built between 1899 and 1903 to house the House of Lords (Herrenhaus) of the Kingdom of Prussia within the German Empire. This body was abolished in 1918, and the building became the seat of the Prussian State Council within the Weimar Republic, where delegates from the German states met for annual sittings. Konrad Adenauer was president of this body in the early 1930s. During the Nazi regime, the building was the seat of the Preussenhaus Foundation, controlled by Göring. The building suffered severe damage during World War II, but was repaired and was used during the GRD period to house government offices. The Bundesrat held its first session in this building in 2000.
Other buildings along Leipziger Straße include the Bundesministerium für Post und Telekommunikation and the Bulgarian and New Zealand embassies.
