Thanks for this. Anhalter Bahnhof was preserved for two main reasons - its age (1841, it's one of the oldest station buildings) and as a memorial because it was used to transport Jews to Theresienstadt.
In the German Technical Museum in Berlin, there is a gorgeous HO (1:87) model of Anhalter Banhof and the approaches, including what is now the Technical Museum with the two turntables. ua-cam.com/video/BjukTuiQ32w/v-deo.html
The 1841 station was replaced by an entirely new building in 1879, though - that was the one that was demolished. The demolition was heavily protested (and proved to be something of a turnaround for the treatment of damaged buildings), but the protests only saved that one bit of the portal. There were relatively few concentration camp trains departing from Anhalter - it would have been far too conspicuous. The ones that were used were regular trains, not the cattle ones. Instead, Jews were usually shipped off from the isolated Grunewald station in the western suburbs.
When I visited Berlin in 1996 the Ostbahnhof was actually called Hauptbahnhof. It was quite odd that the overhead wires ended on the East side of the trainshed roof, meaning electric locos had to drop their pantographs before coasting to a stop. A diesel shunter then shunted them back under the wires. The Stadtbahn at the time was only electrified on the S Bahn lines, not the mainline between Berlin Zoo & Hauptbahnhof.
As far as long-distance connections were concerned, Ostbahnhof was basically two terminuses colliding for a long time, with only a single connecting line (aside from the S-Bahn of course).
Quite a political decision, because the GDR Capital wanted to have a Main Station...they decided to use the former Ostbahnhof (Eastern Station), although Lichtenberg Station already played the main role for many years 😆
Berlin Brandenburg Airport actually did manage to open in October of 2020 and has attracted intercontinental service back to Berlin with the likes of Scoot (Singapore) United (Newark with seasonal service to Washington) Norse (New York and Ft Lauderdale with seasonal service to Los Angeles) Delta (New York) and Hainan (Beijing).
The Anhalter Bahnhof remnants are there because when the station was to be demolished by getting blown up, this was the only part which was still standing (it kind of speaks for the good build quality). It was decided to keep it there and not demolish it as well.
It's been said that the station could easily have been restored but a builder made a good offer for the bricks, so some public functionaries decided to destroy it. Public vandalism.
However, it is interesting as it appears in the video that quite a lot of the station still exists in the form of the area around the Deutsches Technikmuseum. Slightly less prominent than the station building itself, but still important areas for the operation of the station as a whole. I have been there and a visit is recommended. The museum also has a pretty nice model of how the whole station looked before the war.
@@Hvitserk67 The Technikmuseum is located on an area which was formerly the freight terminal and goods yard of the Station, so it was serving a more background and less public role. I was talking about the passenger terminal and the main entrance building in particular, which was built in a very representative style, being the gateway to the city for the passengers. Also, during the N@zi regime, the Anhalter was the station where Shitler would welcome prominent international guests, like politicians etc. BTW, some of the freight platforms, goods sheds and locomotive sheds, including a turntable, are still preserved a part of the museum (some old railway vehicles now belonging to the museum are displayed there), besides of the much larger public transportation collection in the Monumentenhalle (Monuments Hall, named after a street located nearby, the Momumentenstraße / Monument Street), few hundred meters south of the main Museum area. That part of the collection is open the the public during only one particular month of the year AFAIK.
@@thedoublek4816 Thank you very much for a more comprehensive comment of what I tried to highlight. The point is that we obviously share an interest in this part of Berlin and the history of Berlin. I have always been fascinated by how the Anhalter station appeared in the middle of Berlin close to pre-war government buildings. The ruin of the entrance is important, but not decisive for understanding how large the entire station area was. Fortunately, this is shown quite clearly in relation to the area around today's Technikmuseum, which was my point.
@@Hvitserk67 Ah, yes, I sort of missed your point. To be honest, the first thing I think of when hearing / reading "Anhalter Bahnhof" is the underground S-Bahn station (built in 1939), followed by the historical passenger terminal with that vast entry building which can still be seen (at least one chunk which remained). Of course, you've got it right, it's a huge area which was occupied by the station with its all facilities. One can't really grasp it nowadays, given the majority of it being bombed into oblivion, the ruins and what was still working, but deemed not needed or not worthy being restored, being removed and of course all the following decades, the decay, vegetation reclaiming the territory and city development (especially after 1989). The vast majority of the area is now a public park. One can walk across it and barely notice its former purpose. Only some few remaining tracks (kept there on purpose, to keep the memory) and the old bridges over the Yorckstr. are silent witnesses and monuments of the former times. By the way, the original Anhalter Bahnhof area was only a portion of the vast railway area in that place, the eastern part to be precise. There were two more railway companies which have built the Berlin termini of their lines right next to the Anhalter railway. The direct neighbor of the Anhalter Bahnhof area was the Berlin-Dresden railway. Their terminus and passenger station was located somewhere south of the current Gleisdreieck elevated station of the U-Bahn / Subway. The passenger terminal was closed in the 1870s or 1880s (don't remember when exactly) and all of its passenger trains were redirected to the Anhalter. The freight yard and platforms became a part of the Anhalter area. Even further to the west, there was the Berlin-Potsdam railway, the first railway connection in Prussia. The line was leading right next to the S1 S-Bahn line, through the area of the current tunnel approaches of the north-south S-Bahn tunnel, under the current subway elevated viaducts of the current U1, U2 and U3 lines near the Gleisdreieck station, crossed the Landwehr canal on bridges and had their 3 terminals (one for mainline, two for various commuter trains coming from Potsdam and the current S-Bahn circle line) at the Potsdamer Platz. So in short, the entire area from the current Technikmuseum and the surrounding park in the east to the next buildings in west of the current, vast public park, near the Dennewitz place and the like-named church, from the canal in the north to the Yorck street with its many bridges in the south, it was all railway area with hundreds of tracks.
Danke lieber David für die Doku-Reise durch Berlin's S-Bahn-Geschichte. Ich bin selbst Berliner und dachte, ich wüsste schon alles über die ENTSTEHUNGSGESCHICHTE. Das war offensichtlich nach diesen Film ein Irrtum. Ich wäre gern mit dir mal auf Entdeckungsreise gegangen. Aber ich wohne leider nicht mehr in meinem geliebten Berlin.
I spent a day in East Berlin as the wall was opening at the end of 1989, crossing at Friedrichstrasse as it was the only way a Brit could cross with Germans. I don't recall all the details but we visited a ghost bahnhof, raised up with much of its glass roof gone and 1930s era signage remaining. I also used the U bahn and saw how those stations in the East that also had ghost lines running through them had the passenger tunnels to those platforms roughly bricked up - they didn't even bother to plaster or paint them.
I wouldn't say it was bombed to dust, the building itself was largely intact. The main roof and tracks were destroyed but it was certainly more salvageable than the Reichstag was.
The Anhalter reopened after the war. Potsdamer Bahnhof, on the other hand, was far too damaged to be used again, with the exception of the Ringbahnhof.
Great video with many informations! But only one things: There are two major railway constructions. The new Nord- Süd S Bahn Tunnel with the same route as the trains from Hauptbahnhof and Potsdamer Platz and a new subway connection between the sations Brandenburger Tor and Alexanderplatz for the U5.
Yes, it’s such a big city, with a good network of trains to explore it with. You would at least need a week to soak it all in. Munich feels so small compared to Berlin.
13 Years here and still didn't see everything. BTW, if someone wants to walk on the abandoned Siemensbahn line and explore its structures, then I'd recommend to hurry up, as it will be reactivated in the near future, the embankment is going to be freed from trees and other vegetation which has spread over there since 1980 in this or the next year at last.
Schoenfeld was actually just outside of East Berlin and is now in Brandenburg state. It will be retained for the time being as Terminal 5 of Berlin Brandenburg Airport.
I gather it was no coincidence that Schoenefeld airport was technically outside the boundary of Berlin, in DDR territory. Part of the four-power agreement between the occupying Allies was that air access to Berlin was restricted to the four allies, which meant that no German carriers could serve any part of Berlin; as a result, Lufhansa could not use Tegel or Tempelhof and therefore could not serve West Berlin. But the East German airline Interflug could use Schoenefeld, because it didn't count as being in Berlin.
The Anhalter bahnhof was destroyed during WW2. I was told during a tour, that the facade was left in place to commemorate those Berlin Jews who started their final journey from this station.
Thank you for this, it was genuinely informative, and there was a distinct improvement in the quality of your German pronunciation between parts one and two, even if you did have a bit of a mare with Eberswalder and Gesundbrunnen. I had no idea that the original name of Ostbahnhof was Frankfurter Bahnhof, but it makes sense, in that the line goes to the other Frankfurt (an der Oder), which is now the border town with Poland, as opposed to the more famous Frankfurt (am Main) in the west. Keep up the good work!
Very confusingly, the Ostbahnhof was renamed Hauptbahnhof (main station) for a time during the division of Berlin. Not long after the Pilzkoncept had been decided upon, it was switched back to being the Ostbahnhof ready for the opening of the new Hauptbahnhof a decade later... but I remember being confused when trying to ask for directions in 1996 by people referring to the Hauptbahnhof and having to work out that they meant what by then was called Ostbahnhof! Thanks for a very informative video, David, anyway!
Thank you for this additional information. I hope you won’t mind me making one small correction. It’s Schlesischer Bahnhof, not Schlesier, schlesisch (as I’m sure you know) being an adjective and Schlesier being a person. There used to be a train called der fliegende Schlesier (the flying Silesian) that went from Berlin to Breslau (now Wrocław) in about half the time it takes now. Hopefully upgrading the lines in that direction will be the next big project once they’ve finished to stretch from Berlin to Warsaw.
Great Video. I enjoyed it. I didn’t know Berlin in the olden days had all these individual railroad stations. Maybe they can use one of the old stations to make a railroad museum. The remnants of one of the old stations which was next to a park can be used for something, maybe they could build a railroad history museum there. Then they can use part of the building for something.
What's that Buick Roadmaster station wagon doing in Berlin? See 2:36. I imagine a member of the US military had it shipped over in the early 90s and decided to leave it there when they went home. I can't imagine what it must cost to maintain it to TÜV standards 25 years after it was discontinued.
Stettiner and Schleischer Bahnhof were of course named after places (Stettin and Silesia) that ceased being part of Germany in 1945, so it's obvious that the GDR would change them.
Ahhh, good that you mention the new airport! Tegel airport is gonna get shut down on the 8. November this year. I'm gonna miss how fast you were able to check out from there. :) :( Gotta make one last stroll around there.
I had a couple hours there so I paid the €2 to walk around on the roof. But U or S-Bahns don't go there. And it seems like an added to over the years small regional airport.
@@emjayay the original plans for Tegel were much bigger, but they decided that it would be too big and build just the half of it in the beginning. Later they just added pieces to keep up with the demand. Tegel Airport has an interesting story itself :)
It was designed for the quick boarding and departure of much of the West Berlin population in the event of a Soviet incursion. Hence the 'quick checkout ' mentioned by @Quast above. With the removal of the wall and the reunification of the city the need for a planned identical second terminal was no more and a more conventional building (Terminal C) was constructed on approximately the same site@@dustydiamond
Thank you for this very good video, showing history and present time of railways in Berlin. And really you show us in addition some nice corners and ancient railway-buildings in Berlin we germans did not know until now. So its really a very good video production. 👍👍👍 -- By the way, it is for a native german speaking viewer very, very funny to read the youtube automatically generated subtitles. They are nearly not to understand and so they don't help a hard hearing viewer to know what you mean. 🙂 Too bad for the subtitle machine to write german words into an english text. -- I think you understand that this should not criticize your video.
Good news! The airport is now open! I flew into Berlin on September 30 2024 and most of it was fully functional! Access to the train station however leaves much to be desired. It was incredibly confusing and the RB-23 train I needed to take was mislabeled.
Sadly, yours is a rare example of the type of historical appreciation lacking in your generation, I was hooked at age 5, and it never abated. Hence, 30 years as a history teacher. 😃
David, you did not mention the Berliner Verbindungsbahn - a first attempt to connect the termini stations with a road level railway, operating from the 1840s to 1877 and used for freight trains only. This was then replaced by the ring railway.
@@DavidFrankal ua-cam.com/video/H_yW3l973vQ/v-deo.html - in German, but this Video has pretty good information. There is almost no trace left of this line today.
I'm wondering about the number of tracks in hauptbahnhof though, you said there were 16 but also that there were 6 on the one and 8 on the other level. What's right? Or is there a U_bahn adjacent that also counts into this somehow? Or did they just cahnge the plans and not build the full thing?
Astutely observed. That was an error on my part, there are 14 platforms in use at the moment (not counting U-Bahn/tram), but they are numbered 1-8 and 10-16. Platforms 9 and 10 will be served by the S21 (not sure if they're already built and sitting empty or under construction) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S21_(Berlin)
Was so jarred to see a traditional Korean gazebo ("jeongja") in Potsdamer Platz at 1:40! Apparently the South Korean embassy built it in 2015 with hopes that the Koreas would be able to peacefully unify like Germany and Berlin did 25 years earlier. I wonder if Berliners rest in it a lot or if it's generally ignored. Great video as always ;)
@Unraisinable_Relaxation Cool! As a Korean, I tend to feel that most of our government's efforts to promote our culture ends up being too awkward or out of place, so I'm actually glad to hear that the jeongja has blended in with your city landscape. Good luck with your sister's studies! 😊
@@seungjunrhee thats really interesting, barely overlook this. But no wonder, in Berlin its very easy to be met with many different cultures and building styles, so people are more accepting
0:45 Can we just marvel at how beautiful those stations were? Berlin is such a sad city; it was really beautiful back in the day but war and cold war destroyed it. I wish they'd do like the stadtschloss and just remake everything as it were in 1914. Forget all the awfulness that happened afterwards. :) Great video!
Not gonna work, though. The Exile Museum is the most realistic future for the site at the moment. To be honest, a reconstruction would make it a very weird phenomenon in a neighborhood that was subjected to the very worst kind of low-budget 1960s reconstruction architecture. You'd have to re-do that entire section of the city.
I can't see how Anhalter could be resurrected. The original structure was gigantic, virtually a railway cathedral. Any accurate reconstruction would need millions of a particular type of brick, much more challenging than the reconstruction of the Dresden Frauenkirche. And if you're rebuilding Anhalter, shouldn't you also be rebuilding the railway routes that served the original, to give it some sense of daily purpose and get it to pay its way?
David, this video (in German, but the English subtitles are satisfactory) discusses a connection railway that linked all the passenger stations listed in 0:44 during the mid-to-late 19th century. (Incidentally, the old Nordbahnhof wasn't a passenger station even early on, though it was used as such while a nearby station was being worked on.) Thus, the track (even before the Reichstag was built) connected these stations: Hamburger > Lehrter > Potsdamer > Dresdner > Anhalter > Görlitzer > Schlesischer. "It was laid in the streets, which disrupted traffic as well as local residents. Thus, in order to reduce disruption of traffic, trains ran at night, as the train bell had to be rung constantly." It was eventually replaced by the Ringbahn . I might add that Leningrad's first Metro (red) line connected that city's four long-distance railway stations, crossing under the vast Neva River. (That Russian city, both before the Communist period and after, was and is called St. Petersburg.)
Well spotted, I was thrown by the platform numbering (which includes 15 and 16). Apparently Platforms 9 and 10 are for the S21, which hasn't yet opened, which was not mentioned in the video. Perhaps a video for next time I visit!
@@DavidFrankal Guess you'll have to return, and cover not only the opening of the U5 extension from Alex to Hauptbahnhof, but also the new BER airport accompanied by the S9 extension.
Stettiner Bahnhof. Stettin on the Baltic coast was the port of Berlin. In 1945, the allies placed it "under Polish jurisdiction". The town was effectively annexed by Poland and its German population ethnically cleansed. This explains why in 1950 the station was renamed Nord Bahnhof (North Station). Frankfurter/Schlesier/Ost Bahnhof. The Frankfurt referred to is Frankfurt an der Oder, 85km east of Berlin, not Frankfurt am Main. Schlesischer (Silesian) Bahnhof. Silesia is a territory - two entire provinces - formerly in the southeast of Germany which suffered the same fate as Stettin. Since 1945 it has been part of southwestern Poland. Only a tiny part of Silesia - a triangular wedge from the western part of the town of Görlitz to Hoyerswerda - remains in present-day Germany, though this sliver has been incorporated into the federal state of Saxony. As few trains, if any, were running from Berlin to Silesia after Germany lost it and the Poles ethnically cleansed it, this explains why in 1950 the Silesian name was dropped and changed to Ostbahnhof (Eastern Station) - it was the main station in the eastern part of Berlin, and although both Germany and Berlin had been divided since the previous year, there was still a widespread expectation that all occupied sectors of what remained of Germany post-war would be reunited into one country again. Stalin is believed to have offered reunification in 1952, and reunification of the Soviet and western zones actually did happen in occupied Austria in 1955. The East German authorities detested having their state and its capital referred to as East Germany and East Berlin. They always insisted on the German Democratic Republic and Berlin, Capital of the GDR - Berlin, Hauptstadt der DDR. As they became more confident that their state would endure, particularly after the state visit of communist chief, Erich Honecker, to the West in 1987, in that year the East German authorities renamed the Ostbahnhof (East Station) as the Hauptbahnhof (main, central or capital station) to reflect that this wasn't just the eastern station of Berlin but the main (HAUPT) station of the capital (HAUPTstadt) of the German Democratic Republic. If I may claim my own small place as a footnote in history, I was working as a translator for the state translation agency of the German Democratic Republic in 1987 and was the person who translated all the content of the tourist information machines at the Ostbahnhof/Hauptbahnhof from German into English. After reunification, this station reverted to the name Ostbahnhof, and a new Hauptbahnhof was built in West Berlin.
Thats a great read. I have often wondered why more is not said about the population moves from Silesia, Pomerania and East Prussia. I have been to Stettin and Breslau and seen that there is much of the the German (Prussian) history still present. Fascinating subject to investigate.
DB with the red logo is Deutsche Bahnen (plural) not Bahn. This is because it came about through the consolidation of the old DB - the western Deutsche Bundesbahn - and the DR - Deutsche Reichbahn - which, pre-war, served the whole Reich and, post-partition, the German Democratic Republic. It always puzzled me why the eastern communist authorities always retained the REICHSbahn name instead of creating Bahn der DDR or similar. Perhaps there were legal reasons.
Yes, by retaining the original name I think they held onto certain legal or moral rights or entitlements, I heard. I don't remember the details I'm afraid. Your comment about the name of DB is wrong, though. From reunification the two state railways Deutsche Bundesbahn (white on red DB logo with double outline) and Deutsche Reichsbahn operated in close coordination and used the advertising style "Unternehmen Zukunft: Die deutschen Bahnen". In 1994 the firms were merged into a single plc (AG) whose shares were entirely owned by the government. This company, with a red-on-white DB logo with single outline, was and still is called Deutsche Bahn.
I had been to the DDR numerous times during the 60's, 70's and 80's (I have family there) and it always struck me as curious why the regime would retain the pre-war name of the Deutsche Reichsbahn. My guess was that they didn't want to spend the effort to replace the signage or relabel the trains and it was cheaper in terms of money and labor to just go with the old name. Such corner-cutting was very typical of the place. As for the renaming of the bahnhofs, the regime was eager to erase any references by name to places that were once part of Germany proper. For example, in the newspapers, they would never refer to Stettin or Breslau by their German names and instead only using their Polish names, Szczecin and Wroclaw. Interestingly enough though, it was perfectly fine to use the German name of Warsaw, Warschau.
@@robertbutlin3708 Because the term Reich (which meant a bit more than state, having connotations somewhere between 'realm' and 'empire') became so closely associated with the Nazi regime in the 30s (although it originated long before), it was avoided by both the BRD and the DDR for the most part. I understans that the name Reichsbahn was retained in the East because the agreements between the Allies gave it certain privileges (notably, controlling the railway system in West Berlin) which the DDR did not want to risk losing by changing the name.
I am probably of a different generation and although very informative, historically accurate and entertainingly narrated, this documentary is spoiled for me by the use of the extremely irritating music. I am convinced you would reach a larger audience if you left that out....
Berlin Hauptbahnhof is an awful station. The Station has no character, no welcoming feeling, nothing which represents Berlin, it's just a box of glass and concrete. Also it's relatively far away from the city center, has currently no north to south transit connections, except for regional trains.
@Edup12 The biggest problem for me is it is not in any way color coded, so whenever I arrive with an ICE on Tief I need to think hard about where the taxis are + still no proper north/south UBahn/Sbahn connection.
Each architecture has its time, and its value and its beauty or the lack of these properties have to be judged by the coming generations. -- For the present time every architect or designer should obey an important rule: Unify function and design to a good work, but let never dominate a design over the function lead to a bad work.
Thanks for this. Anhalter Bahnhof was preserved for two main reasons - its age (1841, it's one of the oldest station buildings) and as a memorial because it was used to transport Jews to Theresienstadt.
The underground S-Bahn station 'Anhalter Bahnhof' is still open
In the German Technical Museum in Berlin, there is a gorgeous HO (1:87) model of Anhalter Banhof and the approaches, including what is now the Technical Museum with the two turntables. ua-cam.com/video/BjukTuiQ32w/v-deo.html
The 1841 station was replaced by an entirely new building in 1879, though - that was the one that was demolished. The demolition was heavily protested (and proved to be something of a turnaround for the treatment of damaged buildings), but the protests only saved that one bit of the portal. There were relatively few concentration camp trains departing from Anhalter - it would have been far too conspicuous. The ones that were used were regular trains, not the cattle ones. Instead, Jews were usually shipped off from the isolated Grunewald station in the western suburbs.
@@bomcabedal exactly, too complete the information given by Bom there is an memorial near Grünewald with some tracks left.
When I visited Berlin in 1996 the Ostbahnhof was actually called Hauptbahnhof. It was quite odd that the overhead wires ended on the East side of the trainshed roof, meaning electric locos had to drop their pantographs before coasting to a stop. A diesel shunter then shunted them back under the wires. The Stadtbahn at the time was only electrified on the S Bahn lines, not the mainline between Berlin Zoo & Hauptbahnhof.
As far as long-distance connections were concerned, Ostbahnhof was basically two terminuses colliding for a long time, with only a single connecting line (aside from the S-Bahn of course).
I had the chance in 1988 as a teenager. It was a fifferent world.
Quite a political decision, because the GDR Capital wanted to have a Main Station...they decided to use the former Ostbahnhof (Eastern Station), although Lichtenberg Station already played the main role for many years 😆
Berlin Brandenburg Airport actually did manage to open in October of 2020 and has attracted intercontinental service back to Berlin with the likes of Scoot (Singapore) United (Newark with seasonal service to Washington) Norse (New York and Ft Lauderdale with seasonal service to Los Angeles) Delta (New York) and Hainan (Beijing).
The Anhalter Bahnhof remnants are there because when the station was to be demolished by getting blown up, this was the only part which was still standing (it kind of speaks for the good build quality). It was decided to keep it there and not demolish it as well.
It's been said that the station could easily have been restored but a builder made a good offer for the bricks, so some public functionaries decided to destroy it. Public vandalism.
However, it is interesting as it appears in the video that quite a lot of the station still exists in the form of the area around the Deutsches Technikmuseum. Slightly less prominent than the station building itself, but still important areas for the operation of the station as a whole. I have been there and a visit is recommended. The museum also has a pretty nice model of how the whole station looked before the war.
@@Hvitserk67 The Technikmuseum is located on an area which was formerly the freight terminal and goods yard of the Station, so it was serving a more background and less public role.
I was talking about the passenger terminal and the main entrance building in particular, which was built in a very representative style, being the gateway to the city for the passengers.
Also, during the N@zi regime, the Anhalter was the station where Shitler would welcome prominent international guests, like politicians etc.
BTW, some of the freight platforms, goods sheds and locomotive sheds, including a turntable, are still preserved a part of the museum (some old railway vehicles now belonging to the museum are displayed there), besides of the much larger public transportation collection in the Monumentenhalle (Monuments Hall, named after a street located nearby, the Momumentenstraße / Monument Street), few hundred meters south of the main Museum area. That part of the collection is open the the public during only one particular month of the year AFAIK.
@@thedoublek4816 Thank you very much for a more comprehensive comment of what I tried to highlight. The point is that we obviously share an interest in this part of Berlin and the history of Berlin. I have always been fascinated by how the Anhalter station appeared in the middle of Berlin close to pre-war government buildings. The ruin of the entrance is important, but not decisive for understanding how large the entire station area was. Fortunately, this is shown quite clearly in relation to the area around today's Technikmuseum, which was my point.
@@Hvitserk67 Ah, yes, I sort of missed your point. To be honest, the first thing I think of when hearing / reading "Anhalter Bahnhof" is the underground S-Bahn station (built in 1939), followed by the historical passenger terminal with that vast entry building which can still be seen (at least one chunk which remained).
Of course, you've got it right, it's a huge area which was occupied by the station with its all facilities. One can't really grasp it nowadays, given the majority of it being bombed into oblivion, the ruins and what was still working, but deemed not needed or not worthy being restored, being removed and of course all the following decades, the decay, vegetation reclaiming the territory and city development (especially after 1989).
The vast majority of the area is now a public park. One can walk across it and barely notice its former purpose. Only some few remaining tracks (kept there on purpose, to keep the memory) and the old bridges over the Yorckstr. are silent witnesses and monuments of the former times.
By the way, the original Anhalter Bahnhof area was only a portion of the vast railway area in that place, the eastern part to be precise.
There were two more railway companies which have built the Berlin termini of their lines right next to the Anhalter railway.
The direct neighbor of the Anhalter Bahnhof area was the Berlin-Dresden railway. Their terminus and passenger station was located somewhere south of the current Gleisdreieck elevated station of the U-Bahn / Subway. The passenger terminal was closed in the 1870s or 1880s (don't remember when exactly) and all of its passenger trains were redirected to the Anhalter. The freight yard and platforms became a part of the Anhalter area.
Even further to the west, there was the Berlin-Potsdam railway, the first railway connection in Prussia. The line was leading right next to the S1 S-Bahn line, through the area of the current tunnel approaches of the north-south S-Bahn tunnel, under the current subway elevated viaducts of the current U1, U2 and U3 lines near the Gleisdreieck station, crossed the Landwehr canal on bridges and had their 3 terminals (one for mainline, two for various commuter trains coming from Potsdam and the current S-Bahn circle line) at the Potsdamer Platz.
So in short, the entire area from the current Technikmuseum and the surrounding park in the east to the next buildings in west of the current, vast public park, near the Dennewitz place and the like-named church, from the canal in the north to the Yorck street with its many bridges in the south, it was all railway area with hundreds of tracks.
Danke lieber David für die Doku-Reise durch Berlin's S-Bahn-Geschichte. Ich bin selbst Berliner und dachte, ich wüsste schon alles über die ENTSTEHUNGSGESCHICHTE. Das war offensichtlich nach diesen Film ein Irrtum. Ich wäre gern mit dir mal auf Entdeckungsreise gegangen. Aber ich wohne leider nicht mehr in meinem geliebten Berlin.
I'd loved to have seen Anhalter Bahnhof in all its glory, it must have been a wonderful building and facility
I visited Berlin in 2012 and was amazed....I can't imagine what it would've been like to visit during the cold war and crossing over to the East.
I spent a day in East Berlin as the wall was opening at the end of 1989, crossing at Friedrichstrasse as it was the only way a Brit could cross with Germans. I don't recall all the details but we visited a ghost bahnhof, raised up with much of its glass roof gone and 1930s era signage remaining. I also used the U bahn and saw how those stations in the East that also had ghost lines running through them had the passenger tunnels to those platforms roughly bricked up - they didn't even bother to plaster or paint them.
A+ Again, Great stuff !! In all my years of watching youtube, you rise above the 1% of quality video content hands down.
Anhalter bahnhof was actually bombed to dust, the remaining train services were indeed diverted to potsdammer platz as long as that station was open.
I wouldn't say it was bombed to dust, the building itself was largely intact. The main roof and tracks were destroyed but it was certainly more salvageable than the Reichstag was.
The Anhalter reopened after the war. Potsdamer Bahnhof, on the other hand, was far too damaged to be used again, with the exception of the Ringbahnhof.
Was "16 platforms, the perfect number of platforms for a city's main station" a dig at the cancelled platforms 15 and 16 at Manchester Piccadilly? :)
Of course!
Lol Copenhagen Central only has 15 tracks :-)
Somehow Sydney has something like 29... idk how we got so many. Some of them are hardly ever used, and 2 don’t even have tracks!
@@anderslarsen6009 nope - 13: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Central_Station#Layout
@@griffinrailsThat’s to prove Australian greatness, along with the most opulent town hall and opera house 😊
Great video with many informations!
But only one things: There are two major railway constructions. The new Nord- Süd S Bahn Tunnel with the same route as the trains from Hauptbahnhof and Potsdamer Platz and a new subway connection between the sations Brandenburger Tor and Alexanderplatz for the U5.
I spent 2 nights in Berlin and realize now how much I didn't see.
I'm living in Berlin for 25 years since my birth here and I am realizing the same every time I see such videos. ^^
Yes, it’s such a big city, with a good network of trains to explore it with. You would at least need a week to soak it all in. Munich feels so small compared to Berlin.
13 Years here and still didn't see everything. BTW, if someone wants to walk on the abandoned Siemensbahn line and explore its structures, then I'd recommend to hurry up, as it will be reactivated in the near future, the embankment is going to be freed from trees and other vegetation which has spread over there since 1980 in this or the next year at last.
Schoenfeld was actually just outside of East Berlin and is now in Brandenburg state. It will be retained for the time being as Terminal 5 of Berlin Brandenburg Airport.
Still hasn't been finished?
@@sweet813one The airport is finished and open.
Interflug used to fly from there....
I gather it was no coincidence that Schoenefeld airport was technically outside the boundary of Berlin, in DDR territory. Part of the four-power agreement between the occupying Allies was that air access to Berlin was restricted to the four allies, which meant that no German carriers could serve any part of Berlin; as a result, Lufhansa could not use Tegel or Tempelhof and therefore could not serve West Berlin. But the East German airline Interflug could use Schoenefeld, because it didn't count as being in Berlin.
@@Shalott63 As a further update to this, Schoenefeld has now permanently closed.
I feel safe in assuming bahnhof means train station. Or is it terminal or something else?
Yep, train station
'Railway Station' to be correct, Bahn, short for Eisenbahn = Railway, Hof = House or Station
Bahn = way; it’s an abbreviation of Eisenbahn (Eisen = Iron) Hof = yard
The Anhalter bahnhof was destroyed during WW2. I was told during a tour, that the facade was left in place to commemorate those Berlin Jews who started their final journey from this station.
I call 'em irontrack courtyards.
I really like Berlin HbF. The only thing I dislike is the rather slow speed between the outskirts and the station, which increases travel times.
Nice video. It explains several buildings that I saw when I was Berlin recently and also the strange open place near Potsdammer Platz.
Gatow Airport, in the British Sector, was a thing till shortly after Germany reunited.
I was testing the BER Airport in July and its almost finished. I see no troubles opening it this time.
Entrauchungsanlage sagte nein :P
Hannes Peter ich meine diesen Juli, Gebäude ist abgenommen, TÜV sagt auch ja, wird definitiv öffnen
Thank you for this, it was genuinely informative, and there was a distinct improvement in the quality of your German pronunciation between parts one and two, even if you did have a bit of a mare with Eberswalder and Gesundbrunnen. I had no idea that the original name of Ostbahnhof was Frankfurter Bahnhof, but it makes sense, in that the line goes to the other Frankfurt (an der Oder), which is now the border town with Poland, as opposed to the more famous Frankfurt (am Main) in the west. Keep up the good work!
Very confusingly, the Ostbahnhof was renamed Hauptbahnhof (main station) for a time during the division of Berlin. Not long after the Pilzkoncept had been decided upon, it was switched back to being the Ostbahnhof ready for the opening of the new Hauptbahnhof a decade later... but I remember being confused when trying to ask for directions in 1996 by people referring to the Hauptbahnhof and having to work out that they meant what by then was called Ostbahnhof! Thanks for a very informative video, David, anyway!
I have written extensively about the names of this station in a new comment.
Thank you for this additional information. I hope you won’t mind me making one small correction. It’s Schlesischer Bahnhof, not Schlesier, schlesisch (as I’m sure you know) being an adjective and Schlesier being a person. There used to be a train called der fliegende Schlesier (the flying Silesian) that went from Berlin to Breslau (now Wrocław) in about half the time it takes now. Hopefully upgrading the lines in that direction will be the next big project once they’ve finished to stretch from Berlin to Warsaw.
Great Video. I enjoyed it. I didn’t know Berlin in the olden days had all these individual railroad stations. Maybe they can use one of the old stations to make a railroad museum. The remnants of one of the old stations which was next to a park can be used for something, maybe they could build a railroad history museum there. Then they can use part of the building for something.
What's that Buick Roadmaster station wagon doing in Berlin? See 2:36. I imagine a member of the US military had it shipped over in the early 90s and decided to leave it there when they went home. I can't imagine what it must cost to maintain it to TÜV standards 25 years after it was discontinued.
“Sixteen platforms, the perfect number for a city’s main station...”
The shade 😂
Stettiner and Schleischer Bahnhof were of course named after places (Stettin and Silesia) that ceased being part of Germany in 1945, so it's obvious that the GDR would change them.
Tempelhof is also a common movie location, among others parts of the Hunger Games-franchise were filmed there.
Very interesting presentation.
A Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon was pretty much the last car I expected to be parked behind the Anhalter Bahnhof facade. Props to the owner!
Tom Anderson at what point in the video as it? You know if you put the time into your comments, it provides a direct link to that point in the video.
@@paulsz6194 2:34
@@tomanderson6335 About one of the most american cars ever made. Lol
Ahhh, good that you mention the new airport!
Tegel airport is gonna get shut down on the 8. November this year.
I'm gonna miss how fast you were able to check out from there. :) :(
Gotta make one last stroll around there.
I had a couple hours there so I paid the €2 to walk around on the roof. But U or S-Bahns don't go there. And it seems like an added to over the years small regional airport.
@@emjayay the original plans for Tegel were much bigger, but they decided that it would be too big and build just the half of it in the beginning. Later they just added pieces to keep up with the demand. Tegel Airport has an interesting story itself :)
It was designed for the quick boarding and departure of much of the West Berlin population in the event of a Soviet incursion. Hence the 'quick checkout ' mentioned by @Quast above. With the removal of the wall and the reunification of the city the need for a planned identical second terminal was no more and a more conventional building (Terminal C) was constructed on approximately the same site@@dustydiamond
Thank you for this very good video, showing history and present time of railways in Berlin. And really you show us in addition some nice corners and ancient railway-buildings in Berlin we germans did not know until now. So its really a very good video production. 👍👍👍 -- By the way, it is for a native german speaking viewer very, very funny to read the youtube automatically generated subtitles. They are nearly not to understand and so they don't help a hard hearing viewer to know what you mean. 🙂 Too bad for the subtitle machine to write german words into an english text. -- I think you understand that this should not criticize your video.
nice history video from the berlin trains
6:39 Ostbahnhof was named Hauptbahnhof from 1987 to 1998.
Good news! The airport is now open! I flew into Berlin on September 30 2024 and most of it was fully functional!
Access to the train station however leaves much to be desired. It was incredibly confusing and the RB-23 train I needed to take was mislabeled.
Sadly, yours is a rare example of the type of historical appreciation lacking in your generation, I was hooked at age 5, and it never abated. Hence, 30 years as a history teacher. 😃
Interesting second part of documentary showing some historic stations and how transport in Berlin reunited after Germany became one nation again
David, you did not mention the Berliner Verbindungsbahn - a first attempt to connect the termini stations with a road level railway, operating from the 1840s to 1877 and used for freight trains only. This was then replaced by the ring railway.
Didn't even know about it until now!
@@DavidFrankal ua-cam.com/video/H_yW3l973vQ/v-deo.html - in German, but this Video has pretty good information. There is almost no trace left of this line today.
They should just have build a maglev train to Leipzig Airport.
I'm wondering about the number of tracks in hauptbahnhof though, you said there were 16 but also that there were 6 on the one and 8 on the other level. What's right? Or is there a U_bahn adjacent that also counts into this somehow? Or did they just cahnge the plans and not build the full thing?
Astutely observed. That was an error on my part, there are 14 platforms in use at the moment (not counting U-Bahn/tram), but they are numbered 1-8 and 10-16. Platforms 9 and 10 will be served by the S21 (not sure if they're already built and sitting empty or under construction) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S21_(Berlin)
Was so jarred to see a traditional Korean gazebo ("jeongja") in Potsdamer Platz at 1:40! Apparently the South Korean embassy built it in 2015 with hopes that the Koreas would be able to peacefully unify like Germany and Berlin did 25 years earlier. I wonder if Berliners rest in it a lot or if it's generally ignored.
Great video as always ;)
@Unraisinable_Relaxation Cool! As a Korean, I tend to feel that most of our government's efforts to promote our culture ends up being too awkward or out of place, so I'm actually glad to hear that the jeongja has blended in with your city landscape. Good luck with your sister's studies! 😊
Berlin is also one of the few places with a North Korean embassy.
@@seungjunrhee thats really interesting, barely overlook this. But no wonder, in Berlin its very easy to be met with many different cultures and building styles, so people are more accepting
0:45 Can we just marvel at how beautiful those stations were?
Berlin is such a sad city; it was really beautiful back in the day but war and cold war destroyed it. I wish they'd do like the stadtschloss and just remake everything as it were in 1914. Forget all the awfulness that happened afterwards. :)
Great video!
A lot of stuff in modern Berlin is built so that we don't forget, and I personally find that very important :D
nice piece at 7:33
Really good video! 👍👍👍😁
There is a movement to reconstruct Anhalter Bahnhof
Not gonna work, though. The Exile Museum is the most realistic future for the site at the moment. To be honest, a reconstruction would make it a very weird phenomenon in a neighborhood that was subjected to the very worst kind of low-budget 1960s reconstruction architecture. You'd have to re-do that entire section of the city.
I can't see how Anhalter could be resurrected. The original structure was gigantic, virtually a railway cathedral. Any accurate reconstruction would need millions of a particular type of brick, much more challenging than the reconstruction of the Dresden Frauenkirche. And if you're rebuilding Anhalter, shouldn't you also be rebuilding the railway routes that served the original, to give it some sense of daily purpose and get it to pay its way?
2:29 that's the Tempodrom
Greetings from Germany 🇩🇪
Very good indeed
David, this video (in German, but the English subtitles are satisfactory) discusses a connection railway that linked all the passenger stations listed in 0:44 during the mid-to-late 19th century. (Incidentally, the old Nordbahnhof wasn't a passenger station even early on, though it was used as such while a nearby station was being worked on.) Thus, the track (even before the Reichstag was built) connected these stations: Hamburger > Lehrter > Potsdamer > Dresdner > Anhalter > Görlitzer > Schlesischer. "It was laid in the streets, which disrupted traffic as well as local residents. Thus, in order to reduce disruption of traffic, trains ran at night, as the train bell had to be rung constantly." It was eventually replaced by the Ringbahn . I might add that Leningrad's first Metro (red) line connected that city's four long-distance railway stations, crossing under the vast Neva River. (That Russian city, both before the Communist period and after, was and is called St. Petersburg.)
Thanks for this, I enjoyed the video!
In Berlin they are building a new s bahn route
Yup, the S21. A video for another day, I'm afraid.
Potsdammer Bahnhof is not now PotsdammerPlatz..... its adjacent to it
Only 14 tracks racks without the u bahn
Well spotted, I was thrown by the platform numbering (which includes 15 and 16). Apparently Platforms 9 and 10 are for the S21, which hasn't yet opened, which was not mentioned in the video. Perhaps a video for next time I visit!
@@DavidFrankal Guess you'll have to return, and cover not only the opening of the U5 extension from Alex to Hauptbahnhof, but also the new BER airport accompanied by the S9 extension.
With that 16 tracks joke you should go to to Stuttgart
... where there will be eight after the locals campaigned to have the number raised from the planned six.
Stettiner Bahnhof. Stettin on the Baltic coast was the port of Berlin. In 1945, the allies placed it "under Polish jurisdiction". The town was effectively annexed by Poland and its German population ethnically cleansed. This explains why in 1950 the station was renamed Nord Bahnhof (North Station).
Frankfurter/Schlesier/Ost Bahnhof.
The Frankfurt referred to is Frankfurt an der Oder, 85km east of Berlin, not Frankfurt am Main.
Schlesischer (Silesian) Bahnhof.
Silesia is a territory - two entire provinces - formerly in the southeast of Germany which suffered the same fate as Stettin. Since 1945 it has been part of southwestern Poland. Only a tiny part of Silesia - a triangular wedge from the western part of the town of Görlitz to Hoyerswerda - remains in present-day Germany, though this sliver has been incorporated into the federal state of Saxony.
As few trains, if any, were running from Berlin to Silesia after Germany lost it and the Poles ethnically cleansed it, this explains why in 1950 the Silesian name was dropped and changed to Ostbahnhof (Eastern Station) - it was the main station in the eastern part of Berlin, and although both Germany and Berlin had been divided since the previous year, there was still a widespread expectation that all occupied sectors of what remained of Germany post-war would be reunited into one country again. Stalin is believed to have offered reunification in 1952, and reunification of the Soviet and western zones actually did happen in occupied Austria in 1955.
The East German authorities detested having their state and its capital referred to as East Germany and East Berlin. They always insisted on the German Democratic Republic and Berlin, Capital of the GDR - Berlin, Hauptstadt der DDR.
As they became more confident that their state would endure, particularly after the state visit of communist chief, Erich Honecker, to the West in 1987, in that year the East German authorities renamed the Ostbahnhof (East Station) as the Hauptbahnhof (main, central or capital station) to reflect that this wasn't just the eastern station of Berlin but the main (HAUPT) station of the capital (HAUPTstadt) of the German Democratic Republic.
If I may claim my own small place as a footnote in history, I was working as a translator for the state translation agency of the German Democratic Republic in 1987 and was the person who translated all the content of the tourist information machines at the Ostbahnhof/Hauptbahnhof from German into English.
After reunification, this station reverted to the name Ostbahnhof, and a new Hauptbahnhof was built in West Berlin.
Thats a great read. I have often wondered why more is not said about the population moves from Silesia, Pomerania and East Prussia. I have been to Stettin and Breslau and seen that there is much of the the German (Prussian) history still present. Fascinating subject to investigate.
Yellow
DB with the red logo is Deutsche Bahnen (plural) not Bahn. This is because it came about through the consolidation of the old DB - the western Deutsche Bundesbahn - and the DR - Deutsche Reichbahn - which, pre-war, served the whole Reich and, post-partition, the German Democratic Republic.
It always puzzled me why the eastern communist authorities always retained the REICHSbahn name instead of creating Bahn der DDR or similar. Perhaps there were legal reasons.
Yes, by retaining the original name I think they held onto certain legal or moral rights or entitlements, I heard. I don't remember the details I'm afraid.
Your comment about the name of DB is wrong, though. From reunification the two state railways Deutsche Bundesbahn (white on red DB logo with double outline) and Deutsche Reichsbahn operated in close coordination and used the advertising style "Unternehmen Zukunft: Die deutschen Bahnen". In 1994 the firms were merged into a single plc (AG) whose shares were entirely owned by the government. This company, with a red-on-white DB logo with single outline, was and still is called Deutsche Bahn.
I had been to the DDR numerous times during the 60's, 70's and 80's (I have family there) and it always struck me as curious why the regime would retain the pre-war name of the Deutsche Reichsbahn. My guess was that they didn't want to spend the effort to replace the signage or relabel the trains and it was cheaper in terms of money and labor to just go with the old name. Such corner-cutting was very typical of the place.
As for the renaming of the bahnhofs, the regime was eager to erase any references by name to places that were once part of Germany proper. For example, in the newspapers, they would never refer to Stettin or Breslau by their German names and instead only using their Polish names, Szczecin and Wroclaw. Interestingly enough though, it was perfectly fine to use the German name of Warsaw, Warschau.
I thought it was because Reich meant State. So German State Railways, which, given East Germany was “nationalised”, made complete sense.
@@robertbutlin3708 Because the term Reich (which meant a bit more than state, having connotations somewhere between 'realm' and 'empire') became so closely associated with the Nazi regime in the 30s (although it originated long before), it was avoided by both the BRD and the DDR for the most part. I understans that the name Reichsbahn was retained in the East because the agreements between the Allies gave it certain privileges (notably, controlling the railway system in West Berlin) which the DDR did not want to risk losing by changing the name.
I am probably of a different generation and although very informative, historically accurate and entertainingly narrated, this documentary is spoiled for me by the use of the extremely irritating music. I am convinced you would reach a larger audience if you left that out....
East Berlin is real and best Berlin
East Germany is real and best Germany
Berlin Hauptbahnhof is an awful station.
The Station has no character, no welcoming feeling, nothing which represents Berlin, it's just a box of glass and concrete.
Also it's relatively far away from the city center, has currently no north to south transit connections, except for regional trains.
@Edup12 The biggest problem for me is it is not in any way color coded, so whenever I arrive with an ICE on Tief I need to think hard about where the taxis are + still no proper north/south UBahn/Sbahn connection.
Each architecture has its time, and its value and its beauty or the lack of these properties have to be judged by the coming generations. -- For the present time every architect or designer should obey an important rule: Unify function and design to a good work, but let never dominate a design over the function lead to a bad work.