Potsdam Bridge (Hornwerkgraben)

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Potsdam Bridge as a wooden bascule bridge over the Hornwerkgraben (detail from the Schultz plan ).
The last depiction of the Potsdamer Brücke on a plan from 1786. On the west side of the street you can see the depiction of the colonnade that has been preserved until then and protrudes into the street.

The Potsdam Bridge on the border between Berlin's Dorotheen- and Friedrichstadt was a bridge over a moat.

In the 1670s, the Dorotheenstadt was laid out outside the Berlin city fortifications . This was included in the fortification with a hornwork , which is why the trench belonging to this fortification was named Hornwerkgraben . Two wooden bascule bridges led over the Hornwerkgraben; one to the west into the zoo and one to the south, u. a. Towards Potsdam . In old plans, both bridges are simply called Hornwerk-Graben-Brücke .

The city fortifications of Dorotheenstadt became obsolete just a few years after their construction, when Friedrichstadt was laid out directly south of Dorotheenstadt from 1688. The Hornwerkgraben now represented the border between these two districts and the bridge to the south lay in the course of one of the central axes of the new Friedrichstadt; the Friedrichstrasse . The bridge was now u. a. Representatively expanded with colonnades . From this point in time at the latest, the bridge was known as the “Potsdam Bridge”.

The ramparts of Dorotheenstadt were demolished in 1714/15 and the hornworks ditch was also filled in in the following time. The bridge construction of the Potsdamer Brücke was dismantled around 1740. At least the western colonnade of the bridge was preserved for the time being and was still referred to as Potsdamer Brücke ; now on Friedrichstrasse between Unter den Linden and Behrenstrasse . Around 1790 the colonnades and with them the name "Potsdamer Brücke" disappeared from the cityscape at this point.

From around 1850, the bridge over the newly built Landwehr Canal in the course of Potsdamer Strasse was given the name Potsdamer Brücke .

supporting documents

  1. ^ La Vigne plan from 1685
  2. ↑ a b Eberhard Heinze: Berlin and its bridges . Transpress, Berlin (GDR) 1987, p. 154.
  3. ↑ Johann Christoph Müller, Georg Gottfried Küsters: Old and New Berlin . Berlin 1737.

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 '58 "  N , 13 ° 23' 20.4"  E