Bebelplatz

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B2B5Bebelplatz
Opernplatz
Coat of arms of Berlin.svg
Place in Berlin
Bebelplatz
View over Bebelplatz in south-east direction, 1979
Basic data
place Berlin
District center
Created 1740
Newly designed 1928
Confluent streets Unter den Linden ,
Behrenstrasse ,
Hedwigskirchgasse,
behind the Catholic Church
Buildings State Opera Unter den Linden ,
St. Hedwig's Cathedral ,
former business headquarters of Dresdner Bank ,
Old Library ,
Old Palace ,
Prinzessinnenpalais
use
User groups Pedestrians , cyclists
Technical specifications
Square area 19,000 m²

The Bebelplatz (colloquially: Opernplatz ) is a square in the Berlin district of Mitte . It was created in 1740 as part of the of Frederick II. Planned and Georg Wenceslaus von Knobelsdorff executed Forum Fridericianum . The Unter den Linden State Opera is located on the 19,000 m² square, which has been named after the SPD leader August Bebel since 1947 . It is bordered by the boulevard Unter den Linden in the north, the Prinzessinnenpalais in the east, St. Hedwig's Cathedral and Behrenstrasse in the south and the Old Library and the Old Palace in the west.

history

View over Opernplatz towards the south, 2018
View over Bebelplatz towards the southwest, 2014
Book burning memorial on Opernplatz

Until the 19th century

The square, located in the historic Dorotheenstadt district , forms the center of the Forum Fridericianum designed by King Friedrich II himself . Initially, after the construction of the Royal Court Opera, the square was called Platz am Opernhaus and comprised the area between the opera and the chest of drawers, from today's Humboldt University to Hedwig's Cathedral. Between 1845 and 1850 the space between the opera and the library was planted according to plans by Peter Joseph Lenné and was given the name Opernplatz . The area north of the opera was still called Platz am Opernhaus .

Since the 20th century

Since the beginning of the century the name refers to the current size. Since then, the opera has been getting up and not on Opernplatz. In 1910 it was renamed Kaiser-Franz-Joseph-Platz after the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I , but was still called Opernplatz in colloquial terms . In 1928 the green spaces on Kaiser-Franz-Joseph-Platz, west of the opera, were removed and the entire area was redesigned by Eduard Fürstenau . Here was Linde tunnel tram filled in, the Empress Augusta Monument in the park of Schloss Monbijou added and the green area of the Linden replaced by a paved with granite stones parking.

On May 10, 1933, the Opernplatz area was the main venue for the book burnings planned and carried out by the German student body in Germany . In Berlin, around 70,000 students, professors and members of the SA and SS burned books by authors designated as "un-German", including writings by Sigmund Freud , Erich Kästner , Heinrich Mann , Karl Marx and Kurt Tucholsky . Kästner had gone among the fanatical spectators, he “heard the greasy tirades of the small, cunning liar [note: Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels is meant ]. Funeral weather hung over the city ”.

The historical buildings suffered severe damage in the Second World War . During the redesign of the East Berlin city ​​center, the buildings on the square were restored while preserving the historical facades, in part after they had been gutted . The building ensemble around the square is a listed building .

On March 20, 1995, the memorial in memory of the book burning by the Israeli artist Micha Ullman was inaugurated. Through a glass floor slab in the middle of the square, you can see an underground room with empty, white, concrete bookshelves that can hold around 20,000 books (so many were burned). The United Buddy Bears exhibition, which unites nations , returned to Berlin after three years of world tour, and in 2006 it was presented on Bebelplatz around this Sunken Library memorial . Since 2010 , the German translation of his novel Bebelplatz by the Israeli author Chaim Be'er has also been available, in which the square and this monument play an important role.

Since December 2004 an underground car park with two basement floors for 462 vehicles with direct access to the State Opera Unter den Linden has been located under the square. A door leads from the connecting corridor to the remaining part of the Lindentunnel , the western ramp of which was between the opera house and the “commode” from 1916 to 1926.

The narrowing of the Unter den Linden boulevard in the 2000s, which in this area had developed into an overcrowded road, is intended to help revalue the historic urban space “Forum Fridericianum”. In 2006 the exclusive Rocco Forte Hotel de Rome opened in the south of the square .

Naming

From 1743 it was named Platz am Opernhaus , from 1910 Kaiser-Franz-Joseph- Platz . On August 31, 1947, the square was named after August Bebel (1840-1913), the co-founder and leader of German social democracy .

Web links

Commons : Bebelplatz  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Landesdenkmalamt Berlin (Ed.): Parks and town squares, garden monuments in Berlin , contributions to monument preservation in Berlin 39, Berlin 2013, p. 173
  2. ↑ Sineck Plan 1871
  3. ^ Kaiser-Franz-Joseph-Platz . In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein
  4. ↑ Landesdenkmalamt Berlin (Ed.): Parks and town squares, garden monuments in Berlin , contributions to monument preservation in Berlin 39, Berlin 2013, p. 173
  5. ^ Eduard Fürstenau: Conversion and extension of the State Opera in Berlin . In: Journal of Construction . No. 78 . Berlin 1928, p. 182 .
  6. ↑ Erich Kästner: From the Kleinmaleins of being . Atrium, 2010, ISBN 978-3-85535-374-3 , p. 91.
  7. ↑ Wolfgang Becker : The disturbed idyll of the place. Public space and modern art: a model of thought. In: die waage, Zeitschrift der Grünenthal GmbH 36, 1997, No. 1, pp. 38–44, here: p. 42.
  8. ^ Dorothee Dubrau: Architectural Guide Berlin-Mitte. Volume 2. Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-938666-07-4 , pp. 1078-1079.
  9. ↑ Chaim Be'er: Bebelplatz. Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-8270-0861-9 .
  10. ↑ Jürgen Meyer-Kronthaler: Lindentunnel - a new chapter . In: Berliner Verkehrsblätter . Volume 2, 2005, pp. 19-20 .
  11. ↑ Hans-Joachim Pohl: The Lindentunnel . In: Verkehrsgeschichtliche Blätter . Issue 7, 1980, pp. 134-150 .
  12. ↑ Bebelplatz. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
  13. ↑ Horst Fritzsche: Signposts to Berlin's street names, center . Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-89542-073-5

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 '59 "  N , 13 ° 23' 38"  E