Mohrenstrasse underground station
The mohrenstraße located on the subway line U2 in Berlin district of Berlin-Mitte of the district of the same . It is a double-track station with a central platform .
The train station is at the western end of the eponymous Mohrenstrasse , which runs in an east-west direction. Its western entrance opens to the north-south intersecting Wilhelmstrasse and is opposite the confluence with Vossstrasse . The east entrance is on Glinkastrasse .
history
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d8/Berlin_U-Bahnhof_Kaiserhof_westlicher_Eingang.jpg/220px-Berlin_U-Bahnhof_Kaiserhof_westlicher_Eingang.jpg)
At the time of its opening on October 1, 1908, the Kaiserhof underground station at that time was located under two prominent Berlin city squares, namely to the west under Wilhelmplatz adjoining Wilhelmstrasse and to the east under Zietenplatz (like the widened former confluence of Mohrenstrasse on Wilhelmplatz since the middle of 19th century). The station got its name from the " Kaiserhof " on the corner of Wilhelmplatz and Zietenplatz , at that time one of the most luxurious hotels in Berlin. Originally the station was to be named Wilhelmplatz , but there was already a station with this name in Charlottenburg , which has been called Richard-Wagner-Platz since 1935 and has been on the U7 line since 1978 .
Because of the settlement of large hotels and some ministries in the immediate vicinity of the train station, great importance was attached to its architectural design. The architect was Alfred Grenander , who laid out the station with white walls and black tiles as a color code.
On the occasion of the 1936 Summer Olympics , Wilhelmplatz was redesigned by the National Socialists . In order to create space for marches, the linden trees and lawns on the square were removed , and the striking pergola entrance of the subway station in the middle was replaced by an unadorned, scaled-down version.
The station was largely destroyed during the Second World War . Since the Second World War, political and urban development changes have resulted in the station being renamed several times. The first took place on August 18, 1950, with walls, pillars, fixtures and benches being clad with Saalburg marble in the royal red variety . Various sources alleged, after a misinformation by the Spiegel without citing the source, that the material came from the destroyed New Reich Chancellery . However, this has now been refuted.
One year after Wilhelmplatz was renamed Thälmannplatz after the former chairman of the KPD Ernst Thälmann , the station was also renamed accordingly. Since the modern development on Otto-Grotewohl-Straße (as Wilhelmstraße was called since September 1964) had gradually made the former plaza disappear and to avoid confusion with the residential area Ernst-Thälmann-Park in Prenzlauer Berg, which was inaugurated in 1986, the Name Thälmannplatz for the area that is now de facto narrowed to the western end of Mohrenstrasse. Since April 15, 1986, the train station on the street was given the new name Otto-Grotewohl-Straße .
During the existence of the Berlin Wall, the underground station was the terminus of the then East Berlin underground line A to Pankow (Vinetastraße) .
Since the first anniversary of German reunification (October 3, 1991), the underground station has been called 'Mohrenstrasse'. The Berlin Senator for Transport took this day as an opportunity to rename subway stations that were named after socialist politicians and officials. Since November 13, 1993, the subway has been running continuously over the Mohrenstrasse station towards Potsdamer Platz and Gleisdreieck .
The barrier-free expansion of the station was completed with the lift that opened on June 1, 2017. In this context, the ceiling and floor of the vestibule on Ziethenplatz were also renewed. The cost of the expansion amounted to around 1.4 million euros.
Since the 1990s, numerous anti-racist organizations and movements have criticized the name of the street and the subway station. In the course of the anti-racist demonstrations and the accompanying debate about structural racism in Germany after the death of George Floyd in June 2020, the Berlin public transport company announced that it would rename the station. As a possibility, the public transport company announced that they wanted to use the name of the adjacent "Glinkastraße". This led to criticism pointing to the anti-Semitic statements made by the Russian composer Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka .
Connection
At the underground station you can change from the U2 line to the BVG bus lines M48 and 300 .
literature
- Axel Mauruszat, Klaus Topel: Marble myth Mohrenstrasse . In: Verkehrsgeschichtliche Blätter , Issue 4/2008, pp. 106-109.
Web links
- Entry in the Berlin State Monument List with further information
- BVG map of the station (PDF; 113 kB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Angela Ehling, Federal Institute for Geosciences and Raw Materials: "Saalburger Marble" (November 2006); Accessed July 4, 2020
- ↑ Maritta Tkalec: “On August 10, 1950, the magazine knew exactly about the Thälmannplatz underground station. […] Der Spiegel refrained from citing sources. However, this gives us an exemplary source for the legend of the Führer marble. ”Quotation from: The myth of Hitler marble at Mohrenstrasse underground station. In: Berliner Zeitung , April 4, 2016
- ↑ Axel Mauruszat: News on the marble myth Mohrenstrasse. In: Verkehrsgeschichtliche Blätter , Volume 43, No. 1 (February 2016), pp. 23–24.
- ↑ Pale Eberhard has to go. In: Der Spiegel , October 28, 1991
- ↑ Opportunity for promotion. (PDF) Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe , June 1, 2017, accessed on July 8, 2017 .
- ↑ Judith Kessler: Bad choice. In: Jüdische Allgemeine. July 6, 2020, accessed July 7, 2020 .
- ^ Mohrenstrasse underground station is being renamed. In: Berliner Morgenpost . July 3, 2020, accessed July 3, 2020 .
- ^ After the racism debate: BVG wants to rename Mohrenstrasse underground station. In: Der Tagesspiegel . July 3, 2020, accessed July 4, 2020 .
Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 41.8 " N , 13 ° 23 ′ 4.9" E