Berlin Hauptbahnhof at 20: Transport hub with symbolic power

Berlin Hauptbahnhof opened on May 26, 2006 on a historically neglected site near the former Berlin Wall. After World War II, Berlin’s rail network was split between West and East, with Ostbahnhof serving East Berlin and long-distance trains departing from Bahnhof Zoo in West Berlin. After reunification in 1990, planners sought a new central station to reconnect the city physically and symbolically. The site had been occupied by Lehrter Bahnhof, opened in 1871 as the landing point for Germany’s key east-west rail line. The station was heavily damaged in World War II, its remains were bulldozed in the late 1950s, and an S-Bahn station with the same name remained as the last suburban stop in West Berlin before crossing into East Berlin.

"“This is a symbolic day, since this is also such a symbolic location. Right next to the former [Berlin] Wall, a new bridge is now being built between different directions, connecting the once-separated parts of Berlin in a completely new way,” said then-Chancellor Angela Merkel in her speech marking the inauguration of Berlin Hauptbahnhof, the capital's new central train station, on May 26, 2006."

"Merkel went on to praise the multilevel transportation hub as “a modern, open-minded and cosmopolitan structure” that also embodied the spirit of recently reunified Berlin and Germany. The location was particularly symbolic, because the modern station was built on a site that had spent years in neglect, along a historical no-man's land. Its opening in 2006 was celebrated with fireworks seen by hundreds of thousands of people"

"After World War II, when Berlin was divided between the capitalist West and the communist East, the city's rail network was also split in two. East Berlin had its Ostbahnhof while long-distance trains ran from the infamous Bahnhof Zoo in West Berlin. After German reunification in 1990, planners wanted a completely new central station that would physically and symbolically reconnect the city."

"The chosen site was on the location of a former 19th-century station, Lehrter Bahnhof. When that station opened in 1871, it quickly became the landing point of Germany's most important east-west rail line. During World War II, Lehrter Bahnhof was heavily damaged. Then, between 1957 and 1959, the building's remains were bulldozed. However, the S-Bahn station with the same name was retained; it was the final stop in the suburban train network on the West Berlin side, before crossing the border into the East."

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