Ernst-Reuter-Platz underground station
The Ernst-Reuter-Platz is a station of Berlin U2 of the metro . It was opened on December 14, 1902 as the Knie subway station and is located in the Charlottenburg district under the square of the same name . Since the beginning of October 1953 the square and the train station have been named after the former mayor of Berlin, Ernst Reuter .
The station, designated with the abbreviation RP in the station directory of the BVG , has two 111.5 meter long and 3.5 meter wide side platforms in a simple location, so it is located directly below the square and Hardenbergstrasse without an intermediate distribution level . It has no elevator, so it is not barrier-free . The Technical University is located near the train station , so students in particular are among the users of this train station. There is also a connection to several BVG bus routes on Ernst-Reuter-Platz .
The station also served as a model for the construction of Victoria Station on the Athens Metro .
history
Preliminary planning and construction for the zoo
After Werner von Siemens had presented the elevated railway system to the city fathers of Berlin, Schöneberg and Charlottenburg several times in different versions, he received approval from the city of Berlin in 1895 to build an elevated railway from Warschauer Strasse to Bülowstrasse . In a second contract in the summer of 1896, Siemens agreed with Charlottenburg and Schöneberg to extend this stretch from Bülowstrasse to the Zoological Garden . It was planned that an elevated railway system with a house passage should be built on the former Auguste-Viktoria-Platz , today's Breitscheidplatz , in order not to spoil the shine of the new Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. But soon resistance to these plans arose in Charlottenburg. In 1897 the Charlottenburg municipal council announced that an extension beyond the Zoologischer Garten station would only be possible if the Charlottenburg area was completely tunneled. Since the extension was definitely worth striving for and Siemens & Halske was able to save the costly house passage in this way, the company had no objections to it.
In the years that followed, Siemens & Halske built the line between Warschauer Strasse and Zoologischer Garten station. As planned, the entire section between the city limits of Charlottenburg / Schöneberg and the train station was underground.
Construction, opening and architecture at the knee
As early as 1898, the city of Charlottenburg commissioned an extension of the future main line of the elevated and underground railway from the Zoologischer Garten station to today's Ernst-Reuter-Platz, known at the time as the knee , at the intersection between Bismarckstrasse and Berliner Strasse (today: Otto-Suhr-Allee ), Marchstraße, Charlottenburger Chaussee (today: Straße des 17. Juni ) and Hardenbergstraße . This was already the first stage of the extension into Charlottenburg city center on Wilhelmplatz . Siemens & Halske, or the elevated railway company that later carried out the operation, could hope for an extension to the west.
Construction work on the main route between Warsaw bridge, Potsdamer Platz and Zoologischer Garten were the new construction site for knees combined, a common could, among other Bauloren stretch for the stations knees and Zoologischer Garten can be used.
On February 15, 1902, representatives from politics and society celebrated the inauguration of the first line of the elevated and underground railway between Potsdamer Platz and Stralauer Tor station. In the following months, the line was expanded to include additional stations, so that by August 1902 the trains were already running on 10.9 kilometers of operating line. Due to the later construction work, the 991 meter long tunnel from the Zoological Garden and the Knie train station could not be put into operation until December 14, 1902.
Alfred Grenander , the architect of the elevated railway company, designed the station similar to the other underground stations on the line, the Zoologischer Garten, Wittenbergplatz and Potsdamer Platz stations. The rather insignificant route opening around the end of 1902 is not documented in an opening brochure, so that little is known about the design. Grenander had the station with its two side platforms, which were 95.6 meters long at the time, equipped with white tiles . To avoid exposing passengers to the weather, there is also a narrow tunnel that connects both side platforms.
In addition, for the first time, the ticket office was not built above ground, but underground. Another similarity with the other stations was the access portals with hanging lamps in Art Nouveau style , which are strongly reminiscent of the entrances to the Paris Métro designed by Hector Guimard shortly before . Ulrike Jordan describes the entrance portal as "Grenander's earliest portal types with pylon-like masts, executed with floral curved iron rods merging with the iron border of the exit, to which in turn freely hanging lamps are attached." Christoph Brachmann describes it as a "bizarre [...] entrance portal" and "Not trend-setting".
After the opening, it was now possible to travel from Charlottenburg Knie with the trains of the Berlin elevated and underground railway to the Warschauer Brücke. At the time, line names were not common.
After the opening until the war
But the knee only stayed at the terminus for a short time; just three and a half years later, the trains continued to the former Bismarckstrasse underground station , today: Deutsche Oper . Passenger numbers continued to rise over the years, despite temporary economic crises, so that the Knie station soon reached the limits of its capacity. The operating elevated railway company, under Grenander's supervision, had the platforms extended to 110 meters in 1927/1928 so that eight-car trains could now stop here. This happened at the same time at other stations on Line A. As part of the station renovation and the parallel redesign of Hardenbergstrasse, Grenander's Art Nouveau portals also disappeared; now common standard inputs replace these.
As part of the “ Germania planning ” of the National Socialists with the construction of the so-called “ East-West Axis ”, from 1939 the square on the knee was given significantly greater importance in the inner-city building structure. The Second World War , which began in the same year, had serious consequences for the city, the underground and the Knie station . Although there were no bomb hits or other damage to the station itself, the BVG had to cease operations on the last underground line between Ruhleben and Wittenbergplatz by the end of April 1945 at the latest , as there was no longer any traction current .
After the end of the war and redesign in 1958/1959
After the end of the war, the damage was severe and only gradually individual stations and lines could be put back into operation. The BVG was the first to start using shuttle trains around Hermannplatz again from May 14, 1945 , and line A between Ruhleben and Knie began operating three days later. Little by little, the worst damage could be repaired, so that further parts of the route and lines began to operate again. Line A between Pankow and Ruhleben was open again from November 18, 1945, albeit with two changes. The entire line between Ruhleben and Pankow was not functional again until September 15, 1946, even if individual stations - Kaiserhof and Nollendorfplatz - were still not served due to the severe destruction. The last work could not be finished until August 18, 1950, when the Kaiserhof station was reopened and renamed Thälmannplatz .
In the meantime, the two German states, the two halves of Berlin and also the BVG were founded and divided into a department 'East' and 'West'. The then Mayor of West Berlin , Ernst Reuter , who had become a symbol of the Western resistance during the Berlin blockade in 1948/1949, died on September 29, 1953 of flu. A few days later, on October 2, 1953 , the Berlin Senate and West BVG honored the well-known and respected Reuter with the renaming of the Knie station to Ernst-Reuter-Platz, the square already bearing his name the day before.
This renaming did not correspond to the ideas of the Ost-BVG, which they therefore either ignored in their route plans and continued to use the old name or only noted the new name in lowercase letters. This alluded to the mutual reactions of the two BVG administrations, as the other boycotted the politically motivated station changes .
Due to the above-ground bomb damage on Ernst-Reuter-Platz and the politically motivated will to redesign in general , the Senate launched an urban architecture competition in 1955 , which should entail a complete redesign of the square. Bernhard Hermkes and Werner Düttmann , the winners of the competition, had the square redesigned into a large roundabout with numerous tall buildings. Particularly noticeable is the former Telefunken high-rise , today part of the Technical University that is also located there. In 1958 and 1959, the BVG also had the underground area redesigned: The white tiles of the station disappeared and were replaced by blue, small-scale mosaics and light blue tiles. In addition, the BVG had extensive pedestrian underpasses built; So to this day it is only possible to access the green space in the roundabout via the access from the northern platform, the other former entrances were closed by the BVG. Since then, the exits for the two platforms have been in the middle. In 1964/1965 two exits to the road surface were finally covered. The entrances received the usual, simple barriers made of bar grids and long rectangular light boxes with the station name.
Further station events
For several decades, little changed in and around Ernst-Reuter-Platz station, only line numbers changed frequently. Until 1961 line A I ran from Pankow via Ernst-Reuter-Platz to Ruhleben . When the Wall was built in 1961, this line had to be separated so that the trains could initially only run to Gleisdreieck . At the same time, however, there was also a line swap: Now line B I ran from the Schlesisches Tor to Ruhleben, while only the B II from Gleisdreieck ran to Krumme Lanke . After the political change and German reunification , the BVG and the Berlin Senate had the east-west subway between Nollendorfplatz and Potsdamer Platz restored as quickly as possible. Since November 13, 1993, the U2 has been running between East and West again past Ernst-Reuter-Platz.
Another renovation of the station followed in 1996, and the original, small-scale mosaics have now disappeared; only a few places, for example a few columns, are still visible today. The station walls were given straps with a color that varied between white and blue. The station also received guidance systems for the blind . During the renovation, the earlier station signs with the old name Knie could also be seen at times .
After the fire in the Deutsche Oper underground station in 2000, the Berlin Senate had a security concept drawn up. An appraisal should determine which underground stations with only one exit should receive another. Since the redesign in 1959, the Ernst-Reuter-Platz underground station has only had one entrance in the middle of the two platforms, so the expert opinion recommended that at least one of the closed exits be reopened. The financing is unclear, however, so it is still pending.
By 2016, the station is to be rebuilt to be barrier-free and two elevators installed. Until then, handicapped accessible access is already guaranteed with a Metrobus line coming from the Zoologischer Garten station .
Connection
At the underground station you can change from the U2 line to the BVG bus lines M45, X9 and 245.
Web links
- Entry in the Berlin State Monument List
- BVG map of the train station (PDF; 50 kB)
- Description of the M.-Bartholdy-Park-Ernst-Reuter-Platz route on berliner-untergrundbahn.de
- More station pictures on untergrundbahn.de
- Disappeared entrances to the Ernst-Reuter-Platz underground station on u-bahn-archiv.de
Individual evidence
- ^ Jürgen Meyer-Kronthaler: Berlin's subway stations - the first hundred years. be.bra Verlag, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-930863-16-2 ; P. 147.
- ↑ Aris Fioretos (ed.): Berlin above and below the earth - Alfred Grenander, the subway and the culture of the metropolis , Nicolai'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1st edition, November 2006, ISBN 3-89479-344-9 .
- ↑ Christoph Brachmann: Light and color in the Berlin underground / subway stations of classical modernism , Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-7861-2477-9 ; P. 60.
- ↑ Dieter Kaddoura (Red.): Berlin subway chronicle . GVE-Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-89218-110-1 ; P. 44.
- ↑ Documentation of the war events at the Berlin subway ( Memento of the original from August 20, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on berliner-untergrundbahn.de
- ↑ Ernst-Reuter-Platz. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near Kaupert )
- ^ Berliner Verkehrsblätter , April 1959; P. 15.
- ↑ Berliner Verkehrsblätter , February 1967, p. 34
- ↑ Biagia Bongiorno: Traffic monuments in Berlin - The stations of the Berlin elevated and underground railway . Michael Imhof Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86568-292-5 ; P. 95.
- ↑ Horst Bosetzky et al. a .: Tegel - stay back please! Jaron Verlag, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-89773-000-6 , page 62
- ↑ Notification of further development of the security concept for local public transport in Berlin (PDF; 202 kB) Senate Department for Urban Development Berlin, January 28, 2002
- ↑ Printed matter 17/11609. (PDF; 195 kB) Berlin House of Representatives, March 7, 2013, accessed on April 12, 2013 .
Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 43 ″ N , 13 ° 19 ′ 20 ″ E