Potsdamer Platz
Potsdamer Platz (English Potsdam Square,[1]) is an important public square and traffic intersection in the centre of Berlin, Germany, lying about one kilometre south of the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag (German Parliament Building), and close to the southeast corner of the Tiergarten park. It is named after the city of Potsdam, some 25 km to the south west, and marks the point where the old road from Potsdam passed through the city wall of Berlin at the Potsdam Gate. After developing within the space of little over a century from an intersection of rural thoroughfares into the most bustling traffic intersection in Europe, it was totally laid waste during World War II and then left desolate during the Cold War era when the Berlin Wall bisected its former location, but since the fall of the Wall it has risen again as a glittering new heart for the city and the most visible symbol of the new Berlin.
Historical background
Potsdamer Platz began as a trading post where several country roads converged just outside Berlin's old customs wall. The history of Potsdamer Platz can probably be traced back to 29 October 1685, when the Tolerance Edict of Potsdam was signed, whereby Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia from 1640 to 1688, allowed large numbers of religious refugees, including Jews from Austria and Huguenots expelled from France, to settle on his territory (indeed, for a while as much as 20% of Berlin’s population was French-speaking). Two other things resulted from this huge influx. Firstly, Berlin’s medieval fortifications, recently rebuilt from 1658-74 in the form of a Dutch-style star fort, on an enormous scale and at great expense (and similar to examples still in extant today in the Netherlands like Naarden and Bourtange), became virtually redundant overnight; and secondly, the already crowded city became even more congested.
So several new districts were founded around the city's perimeter, just outside the old fortifications. The biggest of these was Friedrichstadt, just south west of the historic core of Berlin, begun in 1688 and named after new Elector Frederick William III, who later became King Frederick I of Prussia. Its street layout followed the Baroque-style grid pattern much favoured at the time, and was based on two main axes: Friedrichstraße running north-south, and Leipziger Straße running east-west. All the new suburbs were absorbed into Berlin around 1709-10. In 1721-3 a south-westwards expansion of Friedrichstadt was planned under the orders of King Frederick William I, and this was completed in 1732-4 by architect Johann Philipp Gerlach (1679-1748). In this expansion, a new north-south axis emerged: Wilhelmstraße.
In 1735-7, after Friedrichstadt’s expansion was complete, a customs or excise wall, 17 km long and 4.2 m high, was erected around Berlin’s new perimeter. Consisting of a wooden palisade at first, it was later replaced with a brick and stone wall, pierced by 14 gates (later increased to 18), where roads entered the city. Here taxes were levied on goods passing through, chiefly meat and flour. The most prestigious gate was the Brandenburg Gate, for the important road from Brandenburg, but 1 km to the south was the entry point of another road that gained even greater significance.
This road had started out in the Middle Ages as a lane running out from Berlin to the hamlet of Schöneberg, but it had developed into part of a trading route running right across Europe from Paris to St. Petersburg via Aachen, Berlin and Königsberg. In 1660 the Elector Frederick William had made it his route of choice to Potsdam, the location of his palace, which had recently been renovated. Starting in 1754 a daily stagecoach ran between Berlin and Potsdam, although the road was in poor shape. But in 1740 Frederick II had become King. Not a great lover of Berlin, he later built a new palace, the Sanssouci, at Potsdam in 1744-7, followed by the New Palace in 1763-9, so the road now had to be made fit for a King, plus all his courtiers and staff. After numerous other improvements, in 1791-3 this section was made into Prussia's first all-weather road. It later became Potsdamer Straße; its point of entry into Berlin, where it passed through the customs wall, became the Potsdamer Tor (Potsdam Gate); once inside the gate Leipziger Straße was its eastwards continuation, and Wilhelmstraße was the first north-south thoroughfare that intersected with it. It was around this gate that Potsdamer Platz was to develop.
Early days
As a physical entity, Potsdamer Platz began as a few country roads and rough tracks fanning out from the Potsdam Gate. According to one old guide book, it was never a proper platz, but a five-cornered traffic knot on that old trading route across Europe. Just inside the gate was a large octagonal area, created at the time of Friedrichstadt's expansion in 1732-4 and bisected by Leipziger Straße; this was one of several parade grounds for the thousands of soldiers garrisoned in Berlin at the height of the Kingdom of Prussia. Initially known appropriately as the "Achtech" (Octagon), on 15 September 1814 it was renamed Leipziger Platz after the site of Prussia's final decisive defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Leipzig, 16-19 October 1813, which brought to an end the Wars of Liberation that had been going on since 1806. The Potsdam Gate itself was redesignated the Leipziger Tor (Leipzig Gate) around the same time, but reverted to its old name a few years later.
By this time however, Leipziger Platz was no longer a parade ground, and there was much speculation about a possible complete redesign for the whole area. Back in 1797 had come the first of two proposed schemes that would have afforded the future Potsdamer Platz the appearance of a proper square. Under both schemes the old rural intersection just outside the Potsdam Gate, and the Octagon (Leipziger Platz) just inside, were to be joined together to create a long rectangular space, with a gargantuan edifice standing in the middle of it (indeed, Potsdamer Platz and Leipziger Platz, being side by side, have frequently been regarded and discussed as one entity). The 1797 scheme came from the renowned Prussian architect Friedrich David Gilly (1772-1800), who proposed a monument to the former Prussian King, Friedrich II. Though containing some Egyptian and French neo-Classicist features, the design was basically a huge Greek temple in the Doric style, loosely modelled on the Parthenon in Athens, though raised up on an enormous geometric plinth and flanked by numerous obelisks (the Egyptian element). A grand new Potsdam Gate formed part of the design. It was never built, but eighteen years later in 1815 Gilly's pupil, Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841), put forward plans for a National Memorial Cathedral to commemorate the recent victories in the Wars of Liberation. To be known as the Residenzkirche, it was again, never built due to lack of funds, and in any case the national fervour of the period favoured the long-awaited completion of Cologne Cathedral over a new building, but Schinkel went on to become one of the most prolific and celebrated architects of his time.
A new Potsdam Gate
So the layout stayed put, although in 1823-4 Schinkel did get to rebuild the Potsdam Gate. Formerly little more than a gap in the customs wall, it was replaced by a much grander affair consisting of two matching Doric-style stone gate-houses, like little temples (a nod to Friedrich Gilly perhaps), facing each other across Leipziger Straße. The one on the north side served as the customs house and excise collection point, while its southern counterpart was a military guardhouse, set up to prevent desertions of Prussian soldiers, which had become a major problem. The new gate was officially dedicated on 23 August 1824. The design also included a new look for Leipziger Platz. Attempts to create a market there to draw off some of the frenetic commercial activity in the centre of the city had not been successful. And so Schinkel proposed to turn it into a fine garden, although this part of the design was not implemented. It was a rival plan by gardener and landscape architect Peter Joseph Lenné (1789-1866), drawn up in 1826, that went ahead in 1828 but with modifications. In later years Lenné would completely redesign the Tiergarten, a large wooded park formerly the Royal Hunting Grounds, also give his name to Lennestraße, a thoroughfare forming part of the southern boundary of the park, very close to Potsdamer Platz, and transform a muddy ditch to the south into one of Berlin's busiest waterways, the Landwehrkanal.
Meanwhile, country peasantry were generally not welcome in the city, and so the gates also served to restrict access. However, the country folk were permitted to set up trading posts of their own just outside the gates, and the Potsdam Gate especially. It was hoped that this would encourage development of all the country lanes into proper roads; in turn it was hoped that these would emulate Parisian boulevards - broad, straight and magnificent, but the main intention was to enable troops to be moved quickly. Thus Potsdamer Platz was off and running.
It was not called that until 8 July 1831, but the area outside the Potsdam Gate began to develop in the early 1800s as a district of quiet villas, for as Berlin became even more congested, many of its richer citizens moved outside the customs wall and built spacious new homes around the trading post, along the newly developing boulevards, and around the southern edge of the Tiergarten. Initially the development was fairly piecemeal, but in 1828 this area just to the west of Potsdamer Platz, sandwiched between the Tiergarten and the north bank of the future Landwehrkanal, received Royal approval for a more orderly and purposeful metamorphosis into a residential colony of the affluent, and gradually filled with houses and villas of a particularly palatial nature. These became the homes of civil servants, officers, bankers, artists and politicians among others, and earned the area the nickname "Millionaires' Quarter" although its official designation was "Friedrichvorstadt" (Friedrich's Suburb), or alternatively the "Tiergartenviertel" (Tiergarten Quarter).
Many of the properties in the neighbourhood were the work of architect Georg Friedrich Heinrich Hitzig (1811-81), a pupil of Schinkel who also built the original "English Embassy" in Leipziger Platz, where the vast Wertheim department store would later stand, although Friedrichvorstadt's focal point and most notable building was the work of another architect - and another pupil of Schinkel. The Matthiaskirche (St. Matthew's Church), built in 1844-6, was an Italian Romanesque-style building in alternating bands of red and yellow brick, and designed by Friedrich August Stüler (1800-65). This church, one of fewer than half a dozen surviving pre-World War II buildings in the entire area, forms the centrepiece of today's Cultural Forum.
Food and drink
Meanwhile, many of the Hugenots fleeing religious persecution in France, and their descendants, had also been living around the trading post and cultivating local fields. Noticing that traffic queues often built up at the Potsdam Gate due to delays in making the customs checks, these people had begun to offer coffee, bread, cakes and confectionery from their homes or from roadside stalls to travellers passing through, thus beginning the tradition of providing food and drink around the future Potsdamer Platz. In later years larger and more purpose-built establishments had begun to take their place, which in turn were superseded by even bigger and grander ones. The former district of quiet villas was by now anything but quiet: Potsdamer Platz had taken on an existence all its own whose sheer pace of life rivalled anything within the city.
By the mid-1860s direct taxation had made the customs wall redundant, and so in 1866-7 most of it was demolished along with all the city gates except two – the Brandenburg Gate and the Potsdam Gate. Though deprived of their function, Schinkel’s temples lived on for eight more decades. More significantly though, the removal of the customs wall allowed its former route to be turned into yet another road running through Potsdamer Platz, thus increasing still further the amount of traffic passing through. This road, both north and south of the platz, was named Königgrätzer Straße after the Prussian victory over Austria at the Battle of Königgrätz on 3 July 1866, in the Austro-Prussian War.
The railways arrive
The railway had first come to Berlin in 1838, with the opening of the Potsdamer Bahnhof, terminus of a 26 km line linking the city with, perhaps appropriately, Potsdam, opened throughout by 29 October (in 1848 the line would be extended to Magdeburg and beyond). Since the city authorities would not allow the new line to breach the customs wall, still standing at the time, it had to stop just short, at Potsdamer Platz, but it was this that kick-started the real transformation of the area, into the bustling focal point that Potsdamer Platz would eventually become.
Just three years later a second railway terminus opened in the vicinity. Located 600 metres to the southeast, with a front facade facing Askanischer Platz, the Anhalter Bahnhof was the Berlin terminus of a line opened on 1 July 1841, as far as Juterbog and extended to Dessau, Kothen and beyond later.
Both termini began life as fairly modest affairs, but in order to cope with increasing demands both went on to much bigger and better things in later years, a new Potsdamer Bahnhof, destined to be Berlin's busiest station, opening on 30 August 1872 and a new Anhalter Bahnhof, destined to be the city’s biggest and finest, following on 15 June 1880. This latter station benefitted greatly from the closure of a short-lived third terminus in the area - the Dresdener Bahnhof, located south of the Landwehrkanal, which lasted from 17 June 1875 until 15 October 1882.
In addition, a railway line once ran through Potsdamer Platz itself. This was a connecting line opened in October 1851 and running around the city just inside the customs wall, crossing numerous streets and squares at street level, and whose purpose was to allow goods to be transported between the various Berlin stations, thus creating a hated traffic obstruction that lasted for twenty years. Half a dozen or more times a day, Potsdamer Platz ground to a halt while a train of 60 to 100 wagons trundled through at walking pace preceded by a railway official ringing a bell. The construction of the Ringbahn around the city's perimeter, linked to all the major stations, allowed the connecting line to be scrapped in 1871, although the Ringbahn itself was not complete and open for all traffic until 15 November 1877.
In later years Potsdamer Platz was served by both of Berlin's two local rail systems. The U-Bahn arrived first, from the south; begun on 10 September 1896, it opened on 18 February 1902, with a new and better sited station being provided on 29 September 1907, and the line itself being extended north and east on 1 October 1908. In 1939 the S-Bahn followed, its North-South Link between Unter den Linden and Yorckstraße opening in stages during the year, the Potsdamer Platz S-Bahn station itself opening on 15 April.
Heart of a metropolis
By the second half of the 19th century, Berlin had been growing at a tremendous rate for some time, but its growth accelerated even faster after the city became the capital of the new German Empire on 18 January 1871. Potsdamer Platz and neighbouring Leipziger Platz really started coming into their own from this time on. Now firmly in the centre of a metropolis whose population eventually reached 4.4 million (the third largest city in the world after London and New York City), the area was ready to take on its most celebrated role. Vast hotels and department stores, hundreds of smaller shops, theatres, dance-halls, cafes, restaurants, bars, beer palaces, wine-houses and clubs, all started to appear. Some of these places became internationally known.
Also, a very large government presence, with many German imperial departments, Prussian state authorities and their various sub-departments, came into the area, taking over 26 former palaces and aristocratic mansions in Leipziger Platz, Leipziger Straße and Wilhelmstraße. Even the Reichstag itself, the German Parliament, occupied the former home of the family of composer Felix Mendelssohn (1809-47) in Leipziger Straße before moving in 1894 to the vast new edifice near the Brandenburg Gate, erected by Paul Wallot (1841-1912). Next door, the Upper House of the Prussian State Parliament occupied a former porcelain factory for a while, before moving to an impressive new building erected on the site of the former Mendelssohn family home in 1899–1904 by Friedrich Schulze Colditz (1843-1912). This building backed on to an equally grand edifice in the next street (Prinz-Albrecht-Straße), also by Colditz, that had been built for the Prussian Lower House in 1892-9.
In addition, the former Millionaires' Quarter just to the west of Potsdamer Platz became a much favoured location for other countries to site their embassies. Hence the area gradually acquired the new designation "Diplomatic Quarter."
Interwar heyday
The heyday of Potsdamer Platz was in the 1920s and 1930s. By this time it had developed into the busiest traffic center in all of Europe, and the heart of Berlin's nightlife. It represented the geographical centre of the city, the meeting place of five of its busiest streets in a star-shaped intersection deemed the transport hub of the entire continent. These were:
- Königgrätzer Straße (northern portion), earlier names Brandenburgische Communication and then Schulgartenstraße, running along the former route of the customs wall and leading north to the Brandenburg Gate. After a brief spell as Budapesterstraße in the late 1920s (although this name was not widely recognised), on 6 February 1930 it was renamed Ebertstraße after Friedrich Ebert (1871-1925), first President of the new German republic (termed the Weimar Republic, after Weimar, the city to which its Parliament had effectively relocated, although the name was not coined at the time). In 1935 the Nazis renamed it Hermann Göring Straße after Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, whose official residence was on the east side of the street near the Brandenburg Gate. On 31 July 1947, it reverted back to Ebertstraße again.
- Königgrätzer Straße (southern portion), earlier names Potsdamer Communication and then Hirschelstraße, also running along part of the customs wall's old route, actually leading mainly south east. On 6 February 1930, it was renamed Stresemannstraße after Gustav Stresemann (1878-1929), the first Chancellor to serve under President Ebert. In 1935 the Nazis renamed it Saarland Straße after the region of south western Germany that had been under League of Nations rule since the end of World War I but which in 1935 elected to return to Germany. On 31 July 1947, it reverted back to Stresemannstraße.
- Leipziger Straße, leading east.
- Potsdamer Straße, developed out of that old road to Schöneberg and Potsdam, part of the former trading route across Europe, and leading south west. Today this section is called Alte Potsdamer Straße, a pedestrianised cul-de-sac severed by post-World War II developments and subsequently by-passed by a new section - the Neue Potsdamer Straße, leading due west and then curving southwards to rejoin its old course at the Potsdam Bridge, over the Landwehrkanal.
- Bellevuestraße, earlier name Charlottenburger Allee, leading north west through the Tiergarten to Schloss Bellevue, today the official residence of the Federal President of Germany.
As well as the stations and other facilities and attractions already mentioned, in the immediate area was also one of the world’s biggest and most luxurious department stores (Wertheim), also mentioned earlier, together with a huge multi-national-themed eating establishment (the Haus Vaterland), that could hold 8,000 people, and containing the world’s largest restaurant, which could seat 2,500 on its own.
Traffic lights
It has been claimed (although this is subject to some disagreement), that the world's first electric street lights were installed at Potsdamer Platz in 1882 by the Berlin-based electrical giant Siemens. What is not refuted is that Europe's first traffic lights were erected here on 20 October 1924, in an attempt to control the sheer volume of traffic passing through. This traffic had grown to extraordinary levels. Even in 1900, more than 100,000 people, 20,000 cars, horse-drawn vehicles and handcarts, plus many thousands of bicycles, had passed through the platz daily. By the 1920s the number of cars had soared to 60,000. The trams had added greatly to this. The first four lines had appeared in 1880, rising to 13 by 1897, all horse-drawn, but after electrification between 1898 and 1902 the number of lines had soared to 35 by 1908 and ultimately reached 40, carrying between them 600 trams every hour, day and night. Services were run by a large number of companies, but in 1929 all these were unified into the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (Berlin Transport Services) company, which has operated Berlin’s trams ever since. Up to 11 policemen at a time had tried to control all this traffic, but with varying success. The traffic lights, again from Siemens, were mounted on a five-sided 8.5 m high tower designed by Jean Kramer, shipped over from the United States, and actually modelled on a similar one erected on Fifth Avenue in New York in 1922, although towers like this had been a feature of the Big Apple since 1918. A solitary policeman sat in a small cabin at the top of the tower and switched the lights around manually, until they were eventually automated in 1926. Yet some officers still remained on the ground in case people did not pay any attention to the lights. The tower remained until c.1936, when it was removed to allow for excavations for the new S-Bahn line (on 26 September 1997, a replica of the tower was erected, just for show, close to its original location by Siemens, to celebrate the company's 150th anniversary. The replica was moved again on 29 September 2000, to the place where it stands today).
At 8.00 p.m. on 8 October 1923, Germany's first radio broadcast was made, using the world's first medium-wave transmitter, from a building (Vox-Haus) close by in Potsdamer Straße. Despite several upgrades between December 1923 and July 1924, the nearby Grand Hotel Esplanade's formidable bulk prevented the transmitter from functioning effectively and so in December 1924 it was superseded by a better sited new one, but Vox-Haus lived on as the home of Germany's first radio station, Radiostunde Berlin, founded in 1923, renamed Funkstunde in March 1924, but it moved to a new home in 1931 and closed in 1934.
- See also 1920s Berlin.
New plans and missed opportunities
The traffic problems that had blighted Potsdamer Platz for decades continued to be a big headache, despite the new lights, and these led to a strong desire to solve them once and for all. By now Berlin was a major centre of innovation in many different fields including architecture. In addition, the city’s colossal pace of change (compared by some to that of Chicago), had caused its chief planner, Martin Wagner (1885-1957), to foresee the entire centre being made over totally as often as every 25 years. These factors combined to produce some far more radical and futuristic plans for Potsdamer Platz in the late 1920s and early 1930s, especially around 1928-9, when the creative fervour was at its peak. On the cards was an almost total redevelopment of the area. One design submitted by Wagner himself comprised an array of gleaming new buildings arranged around a vast multi-level system of fly-overs and underpasses, with a huge glass-roofed circular car-park in the middle. Unfortunately the worldwide Great Depression of the time, triggered by the Wall Street Crash of 1929, meant that most of the plans remained on the drawing board. However, the same depression had brought about the closure and demolition of the Grand Hotel Belle Vue, on the corner of Bellevuestraße and Königgrätzer Straße, and this enabled one revolutionary new building to struggle through to reality despite considerable financial odds.
Columbushaus was the result of a plan by the French retail company Les Galeries Lafayette, whose flagship store was the legendary Galeries Lafayette in Paris, to open a counterpart in Berlin, on the Grand Hotel Belle Vue's former site, but financial worries made them pull out. Undaunted, the architect, Erich Mendelsohn (1887-1953), erected vast advertising boards around the perimeter of the site, and the revenue generated by these enabled him to proceed with the development anyway. Columbushaus was a ten-storey ultra-modern office building, years ahead of its time, containing Germany's first artificial ventilation system, and whose elegance and clean lines won it much praise. However, despite a Woolworths store on its ground floor, a major travel company housed on the floor above, and a restaurant offering fine views over the city on the top floor, the economic situation of the time meant that it would not be followed by more buildings in that vein: no further redevelopment in the immediate vicinity of Potsdamer Platz occurred prior to World War II, and so Columbushaus would always seem out of place in that location. Nevertheless, its exact position showed that the platz was starting to be opened out: the former hotel had mostly stood on a large flagged area laid out in front of it, indicating that the new building curved away from the existing street line; this would enable future street widening to take place.
Hitler and Germania
Columbushaus was completed and opened in January 1933, the same month that the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) came to power. Hitler had big plans for Berlin, to transform it into the Welthauptstadt (World Capital) Germania, to be realised by his architect friend Albert Speer (1905-81). Under these plans the immediate vicinity of Potsdamer Platz would have got off fairly lightly, although the Potsdamer Bahnhof (and the Anhalter Bahnhof a short distance away) would have lost their function. The new North-South Axis, the linchpin of the scheme, would have severed their approach tracks, leaving both termini stranded on the wrong side of it. All trains arriving in Berlin would have run into either of two vast new stations located on the Ringbahn to the north and south of the centre respectively, to be known as Nordbahnhof (North Station) and Sudbahnhof (South Station), located at Wedding and Südkreuz. In Speer's plan the former Anhalter Bahnhof was earmarked to become a public swimming pool; the intended fate of the Potsdamer Bahnhof has not been documented.
Meanwhile, the North-South Axis would have cut a giant swathe passing just to the west of Potsdamer Platz, some 5 km long and up to 100 m wide, and lined with Nazi government edifices on a gargantuan scale. The eastern half of the former Millionaires' Quarter, including Stüler's Matthiaskirche, would have been totally eradicated. New U-Bahn and S-Bahn lines were planned to run directly beneath almost the whole length of the axis, and the city's entire underground network reorientated to gravitate towards this new hub. This was in addition to the S-Bahn North-South Link beneath Potsdamer Platz itself, which went ahead, opening in stages in 1939. In the event, a substantial amount of demolition did take place in Potsdamer Straße, between the platz itself and the Landwehrkanal, and this became the location of the one Germania building that actually went forward to a state of virtual completion: architect Theodor Dierksmeier's Haus des Fremdenverkehrs (House of Tourism), basically a giant state-run travel agency. More significantly, its curving eastern facade marked the beginnings of the Runden Platz (Round Platz), a huge circular public space at the point where the North-South Axis and Potsdamer Straße intersected. Additionally, the southern edge of the Tiergarten was to be redefined, with a new road planned to slice through the built-up area immediately to the north of Columbushaus (although Columbushaus itself would remain unscathed); this road would line up with Voßstraße, one block to the north of Leipziger Platz. Here Albert Speer erected Hitler's enormous new Reich Chancellery building, and yet even this was little more than a dry run for an even larger structure some distance further away.
Meanwhile, the Nazi influence was no less evident at Potsdamer Platz than anywhere else in Berlin. As well as Swastika flags and propaganda everywhere, Nazi-affiliated concerns occupied a great many buildings in the area, especially Columbushaus, where they took over most of the upper floors. As if to emphasise their presence, they used the building to advertise their own weekly publication: a huge neon sign on its roof proclaimed DIE BRAUNE POST - N.S. SONNTAGSZEITUNG (The Brown Post - N.S. Sunday Newspaper), the N.S. standing for Nationalsozialist (National Socialist), i.e. Nazi. Probably Potsdamer Platz's most prominent landmark in the mid-1930s, the sign first appears in photographs dated 1935 but was gone again by 1938. On an even darker note, those Nazi concerns included the Gestapo, who set up a secret prison in an upper part of the building, complete with interrogation and torture rooms. Meanwhile, in another part of the building, the Information Office of the Olympic Games Organising Committee was housed. Here much of the planning of the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympic Games took place.
World War II
As was the case in most of Berlin, almost all of the buildings around Potsdamer Platz were turned to rubble by air raids and heavy artillery bombardment during the last years of World War II. The three most destructive raids (out of nearly 400 that the city suffered), occurred on 23 November 1943, and 3 February and 26 February 1945. Things were not helped by the very close proximity of Hitler's Reich Chancellery, just one block away in Voßstraße, and many other Nazi government edifices nearby as well, and so Potsdamer Platz was right in a major target area.
Once the bombing and shelling had largely ceased, the ground invasion began as Soviet forces stormed the centre of Berlin street by street, building by building, aiming to capture the Reich Chancellery and other key symbols of the Nazi government. When the city was divided into sectors by the occupying Allies at the end of the war, the square found itself on the boundary between the American, British and Soviet sectors.
Despite all the devastation, commercial life reappeared in the ruins around Potsdamer Platz within just a few weeks of war’s end. The lower floors of a few buildings were patched up enough to allow business of a sort to resume. The U-Bahn and S-Bahn were partially operational again from 2 June 1946, fully from 16 November 1947, (although repairs were not completed until May 1948), and trams by 1952. Part of the Haus Vaterland reopened in 1948 in a much simplified form. The new East German state-owned retail business H.O. (Handelsorganisation, meaning Trading Organisation), had seized almost all of Wertheim’s former assets in the newly-created German Democratic Republic but, unable to start up the giant Leipziger Platz store again (it was too badly damaged), it opened a new Kaufhaus (department store) on the ground floor of Columbushaus. An office of the Kasernierte Volkspolizei (literally "Barracked People’s Police") - the military precursor of the Nationale Volksarmee (National People’s Army), occupied the floor above. Meanwhile, a row of new single-storey shops was erected along Potsdamer Straße. Out on the streets, even the flower-sellers, for whom the area had once been renowned, were doing brisk business again.
The area around Potsdamer Platz had also become a focus for black market trading. Since the American, British and Soviet Occupation Zones converged there, people theoretically only had to walk a few paces across sector boundaries to avoid the respective Police officials.
The Cold War
Meanwhile, friction between the Western Allies and Soviets was steadily rising. The Soviets even took to marking out their border by stationing armed soldiers along it at intervals of a few metres, day and night, in all weathers. Since there was not, as yet, a fixed marker, the borders were prone to abuse, which eventually resulted in white lines in luminous paint appearing across roads and even through ruined buildings to try to deter the Soviets from making unauthorised incursions into the American and British zones. These measures were only partially successful: after further skirmishes in which shots were fired, barbed wire entanglements were stretched across some roads, a foretaste of things to come.
Remembering how the Nazis had loved propaganda, the opposing camps later began berating one another with enormous signs displaying loud political slogans, facing each other across the border zone. That on the western side was erected first, in direct response to the ban on sales of Western newspapers in East Berlin, and comprised an illuminated display board 30 m wide and 1.5 m deep, supported on three steel lattice towers 25 m high and topped by the words DIE FREIE BERLINER PRESSE MELDET (The Free Berlin Press Announces). Important messages were spelt out on the display board using up to 2,000 bulbs. The sign was switched on for the first time on 25 October 1950 and lasted until 1974, a victim of its own high maintenance costs. Not to be outdone, East Berlin had meanwhile erected its own sign, although this had a much shorter life, proclaiming DER KLUGE BERLINER KAUFT BEI DER H.O. (The Wise Berliner Buys With The H.O.) Underneath were the words NACHSTE VERKAUFSSTELLEN (Next Sales Premises), between two arrows pointing left and right, suggesting that large shopping developments were forthcoming in the immediate vicinity, although these never appeared. Each side occasionally raised or lowered its sign, deliberately to obscure clear sightlines of their opponents' constructions from certain key viewpoints.
Columbushaus got in on the act too, its battered facade providing a ready-made notice board of huge dimensions, which the East Germans were only too quick to exploit in this new propaganda battle.
More significantly, living and working conditions in East Germany were rapidly worsening under Communist rule. Tensions finally reached breaking point and a Workers’ Uprising took place on 17 June 1953, to be quickly and brutally crushed when Soviet tanks rolled in; 401 people were killed including numerous tourists and media reporters who got too close, 105 executed under martial law, 1,838 injured, and 5,100 arrested (1,200 of them later being sentenced to a total of 6,000 years in penal camps), and some of the worst violence occurred at Potsdamer Platz. For the second time in eight years, the "busiest and most famous square in Europe" had been transformed into a bloody battleground. Columbushaus, with its H.O. store on the ground floor and military police station above, had been a prime target in the insurrection and had been burnt out yet again, along with the Haus Vaterland and other premises. This time, they were not rehabilitated.
As Cold War tensions rose still further during the 1950s, restrictions were placed on travel between the Soviet sector (East Berlin) and the western sectors (West Berlin). Lying on this invisible frontier, Potsdamer Platz was no longer an important destination for Berliners. Similarly, neither East Berlin nor West Berlin regarded their half as a priority area for redevelopment, seeking instead to distance themselves from the traditional heart of the city and develop two new centres for themselves, well away from the troubled border zone. West Berlin inevitably chose the Kurfürstendamm and the area around the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, while East Berlin built up Alexanderplatz and turned Frankfurter Allee (which they renamed Stalinallee in 1949, Karl-Marx-Allee in 1961), into their own showpiece boulevard. Potsdamer Platz, meanwhile, was more or less left to rot, as one by one the ruined buildings were cleared away, neither side having the will to repair or replace them. On the western side things did improve later on with the development of the Cultural Forum, whose site roughly equates with the former Millionaires' Quarter.
The Berlin Wall
With the construction of the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961, along the intracity frontier, Potsdamer Platz now found itself physically divided in two. What had once been a busy intersection had become totally desolate. With the clearance of almost all remaining bomb-damaged buildings on both sides (on the eastern side, this was done chiefly to give border guards a clear view of would-be escapees and an uninterrupted line of fire), almost nothing was left in an area of dozens of hectares. The area would remain like this for the next 28 years. Below ground, the U-Bahn section through Potsdamer Platz had closed entirely; although the S-Bahn line itself remained open, it suffered from a quirk of geography in that it briefly passed through East German territory en route from one part of West Berlin to another. Consequently Potsdamer Platz S-Bahn station became the most infamous of several "Geisterbahnhofe" (ghost stations), sealed off from the outside world, patrolled by armed guards and which trains ran straight through without stopping.
During its nearly three decades in limbo, Potsdamer Platz exuded a strange fascination towards many people on the western side, especially tourists and also visiting politicians and heads of state. For the benefit of the former, the row of post-war single-storey shops in Potsdamer Straße now sold a wide variety of souvenir goods, many of which were purchased by coach-loads of curious visitors brought specially to this sad location. An observation platform had been erected, primarily for military personnel and police but used increasingly by members of the public, so that they could gaze over the Wall at the wilderness beyond. Meanwhile, among the many V.I.P.s who came to look were U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy (22 February 1962), H.M. Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom (27 May 1965), H.R.H. Charles, Prince of Wales (3 November 1972), U.S. President Jimmy Carter (15 July 1978), and U.S. Vice President (later President) George H. W. Bush (George Bush Senior) (1 February 1983).
Some scenes of the 1987 Wim Wenders movie Der Himmel über Berlin (English title: Wings of Desire) were filmed on the old, almost entirely void Potsdamer Platz before the Berlin Wall fell. In one scene an old man named Homer, played by actor Curt Bois (1901-91), searches in vain for Potsdamer Platz, but finds only rubble, weeds and the graffiti-covered Berlin Wall. The movie thus gives a good impression of the surroundings at the time, which are completely unlike what can be seen today.
After the Wall
After the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989, ex-Pink Floyd member Roger Waters staged a gigantic charity concert of his former band's rock extravaganza The Wall on 21 July 1990, to commemorate the end of the division between East and West Germany. The concert took place at Potsdamer Platz - specifically an area of the former "No Man's Land" just to the north of the Reich Chancellery site, and featured many guest superstars. Ironically it was preparations for this concert, rather than historical interest, that brought about the first detailed post-Cold War survey of the area with a view to determining what, if anything, was left of Hitler's bunker and any other underground installations. Although sections of the main Führerbunker were found, partially destroyed or filled in, another bunker complex was found further north that even the East German authorities had apparently missed, plus other cavities beneath land bordering the east side of Ebertstraße, although these turned out to be underground garages belonging to a former SS accommodation block.
After 1990, the square became the focus of attention again, as a large (some 60 hectares), attractive location which had suddenly become available in the centre of a major European capital city. It was widely seen as one of the hottest, most exciting building sites in Europe, and the subject of much debate amongst architects and planners. If Berlin needed to re-establish itself on the world stage, then Potsdamer Platz was one of the key areas where the city had an opportunity to express itself. More than just a building site, Potsdamer Platz was a statement of intent. In particular, due to its location straddling the erstwhile border between east and west, it was widely perceived as a "linking element," reconnecting the two halves of the city in a way that was symbolic as well as physical, helping to heal the historical wounds by providing an exciting new mecca attracting Berliners from both sides of the former divide. Whether fairly or unfairly, a great deal was riding on the project, and expectations were high.
Europe's largest building site
The Berlin Senate (city government) organised a design competition for the redevelopment of Potsdamer Platz and much of the surrounding area. Eventually attracting 17 entrants, a winning design was announced in October 1991, that from the Munich-based architectural firm of Hilmer & Sattler. They had to fight off some stiff competition though, including a last-minute entry by British architect Richard Rogers.
The Berlin Senate then chose to divide the area into four parts, each to be sold to a commercial investor, who then planned new construction according to Hilmer & Sattler's masterplan. During the building phase Potsdamer Platz was the largest building site in Europe. While the resulting development is impressive in its scale and confidence, the quality of its architecture has been praised and criticised in almost equal measure.
The largest of the four parts went to Daimler-Benz (later Daimler-Chrysler and now Daimler AG), who charged Italian architect Renzo Piano with creating an overall design for their scheme while sticking to the underlying requirements of Hilmer & Sattler's masterplan. A major development bordering the west side of the former Potsdamer Bahnhof site, some of its 19 individual buildings were then erected by other architects, who submitted their own designs while maintaining Piano's key elements. One of these was Richard Rogers, who played a part in the development after all (his great British rival, Norman Foster, was putting the new dome on the Reichstag at about the same time). The 19 buildings include the remarkable Potsdamer Platz No. 1 by Hans Kollhoff, now home to a number of prestigious law firms. Potsdamer Platz No. 1 is also home to the "Panoramapunkt" viewing platform, located 100 m above ground level, which is accessed by riding Europe's fastest elevator. From the Panoramapunkt one can see such landmarks as the Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag, Federal Chancellery, Bellevue Palace, Cathedral, Television Tower, Gendarmes Market, Holocaust Memorial and Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. The first spade at the start of the Daimler-Benz development was turned by the Mayor of Berlin, Eberhard Diepgen, on 11 October 1993, and the finished complex was officially opened by the Federal President of Germany, Roman Herzog, on 2 October 1998, in a glittering ceremony featuring large-scale celebrations and musical performances.
The second largest part went to Sony, who erected their new European headquarters on a triangular site immediately to the north of Daimler-Benz and separated from it by the re-routed Potsdamer Straße. This new Sony Center, designed by Helmut Jahn, is an eye-catching monolith of glass and steel featuring an enormous tent-like conical roof covering an elliptical central public space up to 100 m across, and thus differs substantially from Hilmer & Sattler's original plan for the site; yet it is considered by many people to be one of the finest pieces of modern architecture in Berlin. Its 26-storey "Bahn Tower" is so named because it houses the corporate headquarters of Deutsche Bahn AG, the German state railway system. Topped out on 2 September 1998, the Sony Center was formally opened on 14 June 2000 (although many of its public attractions had been up and running since 20 January), in another grand ceremony with more music - this time with Sony's Japanese Chairman Norio Ohga himself conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. A keen lover of classical music, he had helped to choose the site because of its close proximity to the orchestra's home in the Cultural Forum.
The third and fourth parts became respectively the Beisheim Center and adjoining buildings, on another triangular site bordered on the east side by Ebertstraße, and the Park Kolonnaden, a range of buildings running down the east side of the Potsdamer Bahnhof site, parallelling Daimler-Benz.
The whole project has been the subject of much controversy from the beginning, and still not everyone applauds how the district was commercialised and replanned. For example, the decision by the Berlin Senate to divide the land between just four investors, when numerous others had submitted bids, had raised many eyebrows. Additionally the remarkably low price for which Daimler-Benz had been allowed to secure their plot had prompted questions from the Berlin Auditor-General's office and the European Union in Brussels, after which Daimler-Benz were billed for an additional sum. There were wrangles over land-usage: although a central feature of the Daimler-Benz development is a top shopping mall - the Arkaden (Arcades), this did not form part of the plans until the Berlin Senate belatedly insisted that a shopping mall be included, and the plans were altered accordingly. Despite its undoubted success, this in turn led to what many saw as an "Americanisation" of the area, with even its private security force kitted out in something resembling New York Police uniforms. Further wrangles effectively brought work on the north side of Leipziger Platz to a complete stop for several years; even now there are some "fake facades" where completed new buildings should be, while a long-running dispute over who owned the Wertheim site (or had claims to the revenue from its sale by the government), has to this day left another large gap in the central Berlin cityscape that is only now finally being redeveloped.
However, the rebuilt Potsdamer Platz now attracts around 70,000 visitors a day, rising to 100,000 at weekends, and some critics have been surprised by the success of the new quarter. Fears that the streets would be dead after 6pm have proven false. At almost any time of the day, the place is alive with people. It is a particularly popular attraction for visitors: the "Arkaden" shopping mall contains around 150 shops and restaurants on three levels, the lowest (basement) level being a food floor; there are also four major hotels, and Europe's largest casino (the "Spielbank Berlin").
It is also very popular with film fans, as it has nearly 30 screens in three cinemas, including an IMAX cinema and an English speaking cinema, plus a film academy and a film museum. There is also an 1,800-seater theatre, the "Theater am Potsdamer Platz," which doubles up as another cinema (the "Berlinale Palast") and the principal venue of the annual Berlin International Film Festival. This venue sits above a popular night-spot: the "Adagio Nightlife," located entirely underground.
The U-Bahn and S-Bahn stations have both been refurbished and reopened; a new underground main-line station or Regionalbahnhof (Bahnhof Potsdamer Platz) has been constructed. A new U-Bahn station has also been built, although a decision is still pending on whether to proceed with completion of the line passing through it; in the meantime the station area serves as an impromptu art gallery and exhibition space. There are also plans to reintroduce trams to Potsdamer Platz. In addition, many bus routes pass through the platz, while for people with their own cars there are some 4,000 parking spaces, 2,500 of which are underground.
On 2 March 2008, a statue by the Berlin artist Alexander Polzin dedicated to Italian philosopher, priest, cosmologist, and occultist Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), was erected inside one of the entrances to the Potsdamer Platz Regionalbahnhof [1].
Uncertain future?
Whilst on the surface the new Potsdamer Platz appears so far to have lived up to its expectations as a futuristic centre of commerce at the heart of Europe's youngest capital city, there has been much debate as to just how successful it really is, how much of its original remit has actually been achieved, how many of the boxes have been ticked. Certainly its long term success and viability have become much harder to judge in these times of growing worldwide financial instability, a situation compounded by the recent actions of its two principal owner-occupiers. Daimler and Sony caused a major surprise on 2 October 2007 when both announced that they were putting their respective complexes at Potsdamer Platz on the market. Whilst neither intended to move out, both felt it preferable to rent the space from new owners rather than continue to be the owners themselves (and so be responsible for the buildings' upkeep and maintanance). Daimler had recently come through a painful separation from their former American subsidiary Chrysler and needed a quick injection of cash in order to refocus on automotive production. Ironically, the announcement came on the ninth anniversary of their complex's official opening, a fact not lost on many people. Sony meanwhile, put their decision down to a need to review their global strategy in the face of a fast-changing worldwide economic climate. The implications for Potsdamer Platz were ominous, with suggestions that overall confidence in the project was faltering, and more pessimistic claims that the development had largely failed in its original intentions.
On 17 December 2007, Daimler announced that they were selling their entire complex of 19 buildings at Potsdamer Platz to SEB Asset Management, a Frankfurt-based subsidiary of the Swedish banking group SEB. On 28 February 2008, Sony made a similar announcement, of impending sale to a consortium led by American investment banking giant (now bank holding company) Morgan Stanley. Both deals were finalised by the end of March 2008. Whilst the amounts involved have not been publicly disclosed, it is believed that neither Daimler nor Sony recouped all of their original investments (what Daimler managed to get was reportedly well short). The long-term benefits (or otherwise) of these sales, remain to be seen, but whilst they may have baffled many people at the time, they may turn out to have been a shrewd move, as Daimler and Sony have avoided being saddled with something they might have found much harder to sell at a later date, just when they needed the cash the most.
It is unarguable that the development is a considerable commercial success at street level. The numbers of shoppers visiting the Arkaden, guests passing through the doors of the many bars, cafes and restaurants, theatres and cinemas, hotels and casino (not to mention passengers thronging the platforms of the stations), all point to a thriving focal point right at the very heart of Berlin. Detractors however, may draw attention to the floors above and point out the high percentage of office and residential space that allegedly still stands empty more than a decade after its completion. Although examples of "over-provision" like this can be found all over Berlin, it is Potsdamer Platz that, rightly or wrongly, has been used to highlight the problem.
The other major sticking point, which is reportedly causing concern at government level, is that the majority of people going to Potsdamer Platz are visitors to the city, implying that the original vision of the development as a linking element attracting Berliners themselves, and Berliners from both sides of the former divide, has not really materialised. There are criticisms that the development does not sit easily with or connect with its surroundings, and as a result Berliners have had difficulty accepting it as theirs (despite the fact that the choice of Hilmer & Sattler's masterplan was partly because it was the only one to address the way the development juxtaposed with the Cultural Forum immediately to the west, although the Cultural Forum has itself faced similar criticisms of its own). Another, more psychological factor that has played a part here is that a long-standing mutual distrust or antipathy felt between former East Berliners and West Berliners (Ossies and Wessies according to the well-known slang terms), is still very much in evidence in the city and elsewhere in Germany, and bold civil engineering projects and architectural statements are not going to make it go away by themselves. Politicians past and present have been accused of short-sightedness in speculating that they would.
It is feared that the current economic downturn may exacerbate all these problems.
Meanwhile, Deutsche Bahn AG are due to relocate to a purpose-built new structure at Berlin's new main train station (Berlin Hauptbahnhof), when the lease on the Sony Center's Bahn Tower expires in 2010.
References
- ↑ Fodor's Germany 2002. Fodor's Travel. 2001
Sources
- Ulrike Plewina, Horst Mauter, Laszlo F. Foldenyi, Ulrich Pfeiffer, Alfred Kernd'l, Thies Schroder: Potsdamer Platz - A History in Words and Pictures, 1996, Dirk Nishen Verlag, ISBN 3889403344
- Yamin von Rauch, Jochen Visscher: Potsdamer Platz - Urban Architecture for a New Berlin, 2002, Jovis Verlag, ISBN 3931321959
- Raimund Hertzsch: The Potsdamer Platz around 1930 (Number 184 from the series Der Historische Ort), 1998, Kai Homilius Verlag, ISBN 3897069938