Tierra del Fuego (Berlin)

In the middle of the 19th century , the vernacular referred to the industrial nucleus of Berlin as Tierra del Fuego . It was located in the Oranienburger suburb in what is now the Mitte district .

development

In the area northeast of the Oranienburger Tor , between Chausseestrasse , the Berlin customs wall (along today's Torstrasse ), Gartenstrasse and Liesenstrasse , many companies from the up-and-coming metal industry , particularly mechanical engineering , settled.

Borsig's mechanical engineering institute on Chausseestrasse, painting by Karl Eduard Biermann (1847)

• In 1804, the Royal Prussian Iron Foundry started production in Invalidenstrasse, not far from what would later become “Tierra del Fuego”.
• In 1826, Franz Anton Egells moved his iron foundry and mechanical engineering company to Chausseestrasse 2-4, later expanded to 5/6.
• In 1837 August Borsig's workshops in Chausseestrasse 1 (and Torstrasse 46-52) went into operation.
• In 1839 Friedrich Adolf Pflug started at Chausseestrasse 7–9.
• In 1842 Johann Friedrich Ludwig Wöhlert opened an "iron foundry and mechanical engineering company" at Chausseestrasse 29.
• In 1852 Louis Schwartzkopff's “iron foundry and machine factory” followed .

In 1847 33 metalworking companies with over 3000 employees were based in this narrowly defined area.

designation

The publicist Robert Springer documents the designation in 1854 in the journal Die Gartenlaube : “The most original character of this part of the city is given by the number of factories, almost exclusively machine shops and metal foundries. Wherever one turns the eye one sees towering, pointed chimneys; a wide area covered with obelisks built by the pharaoh of industry. The Berlin folk joke calls this area the "Tierra del Fuego," because those foods spray sparks and exhale black smoke, like the fireplaces of the volcano. "

Other, less popular names are known from the Oranienburger Vorstadt. In the Berlin People's Calendar of 1855 it was called "Birmingham der Mark", after the English industrial city of Birmingham . “Forge of Cyclop” is also handed down; the mythical Cyclopes forged weapons inside volcanoes .

Post-history

The heavy industrial companies stopped their production or moved from the cramped area to the outskirts of the city until the 1880s, first to Gesundbrunnen and Moabit , in a second wave after 1900 on to Spandau or Reinickendorf ( Borsigwalde ). Street names such as Borsigstrasse, Pflugstrasse , Schwartzkopffstrasse and Wöhlertstrasse as well as individual remaining buildings are reminiscent of this time. An information board on the corner of Chaussee- and Tieckstraße is dedicated to Tierra del Fuego.

Web links

• Street name dictionary of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein :
  • Borsigstrasse near Luise
  • Pflugstrasse near Luise
  • Schwartzkopffstrasse near Luise
  • Wöhlertstrasse near Luise

Individual evidence

1. ^ Robert Springer: A. Borsig's mechanical engineering institute in Berlin . In: The Gazebo . Issue 25, 1854, pp. 288–290 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
2. ^ Ingo Materna, Wolfgang Ribbe : Brandenburg history . Berlin 1995, p. 437, online
3. ^ City archive of the capital of the GDR: Berlin History, Edition 8, 1987, books.google.de

Coordinates: 52 ° 32 ′ 0 ″  N , 13 ° 23 ′ 0 ″  E