Gorlitzer Bahnhof: Jay's Historical Archaeology Tour

Gorlitzer Park, from a vantage point I would not be able to get.

"Gorlitzer Bahnhof" is a line stop on the U12 in Berlin's Kreuzberg district. It is two stops from the end of the line at Warschauer Strasse. We pass through Gorlitzer every day riding the train into work. When I bike commute in, I cross through the nearby Gorlitzer Park on my way to the Oberbaumbrucke bridge over the Spree to get to the office. Beyond the parallel mention of Gorlitzer in these two instances I had not given it a second thought.

One day I wondered why the stop was called Gorlitzer "Bahnhof." Bahnhof means "Train Station." Strange that there is no apparent Bahnhof at Gorlitzer Bahnhof. A few days later while riding through the park of that name I spotted a strange relic of half-buried, crumbling concrete in the center of a large bowl situated in the middle of the park.  Why would you lay something like that in the middle of a park?

Now my interest was getting going, so I checked in on Google Maps to have the birdseye view of the area and noticed a curious green swath extending southeast from the park in a gentle curve through residential neighborhoods. It continued mysteriously until dissolving into a green delta at the intersection of the S-Bahn train tracks that form the outer rail ring around the city. Why would there be a broad sweep like this right through neighborhoods filled tightly with apartment blocks, I wondered. One of the wonderful things about Berlin is that anything that looks slightly out of place has a really interesting reason to be this way. So I dove in!

In 1867 Gorlitzer Bahnhof, constructed in the Palazzo style architecture of the Italian Renaissance, opened to the public. It was an immediate hit, carrying 70,000 passengers daily within a few months of its opening. In its first full year of operation it carried 1.5M passengers. Gorlitzer served the industrial areas of Gorlitz to the south of Berlin (hence the name) and the popularity of the line spawned many cafes and other businesses to locate near the station. Because the station was laid out in a general East-West format it tended to disrupt North-South foot traffic through this part of Kreuzberg, so in 1910 a pedestrian tunnel was drilled underneath the station.

Ah but then the war came along. Railheads were easy and obvious targets, so the allied air attacks targeted the stations often. The air attack on 3 February 1945 on this sector of Kreuzberg put the station out of commission, in addition to leaving 119,000 homeless and killing over 3,000. When the Russians arrived, the area was the scene of intense fighting since the railroad bridges over the Landwehr Canal provided a valuable route into the city for the invading Red Army.

Patched up, Gorlitzer continued to offer some level of service after the war, but the problem was that all the southbound trains went into Communist GDR territory. Gorlitzer Bahnhof was inside West Berlin. The GDR did not want trains under its control terminating in a West Berlin station, so they cut off passenger train service in 1951.

With the arrival of the Berlin Wall ten years later, there was even less of a reason to keep the station around, so between 1962 and 1967 much of the historic infrastructure and buildings were leveled. This was a precursor to a Berlin City initiative in the 1970's to clean up the city. This mandate claimed many historical structures.

Cleaning up the grounds in the 80's.

September 2015. The historic goods sheds/warehouses.

After the Wall fell in 1990, the area was turned into a public park. One of the central features of the park was a massive "crater" be built in the center of the green space to form a natural ampitheatre. This feature went right on top of the old pedestrian underpass, so most of the tunnel was excavated out. But they left a partial line of concrete that formed the wall of the tunnel as a nod to history, which is what I spied on the bike that one day.

Pedestrian Underpass, pre-demolition in the 80's.

Same viewpoint today..Buildings changed. Tunnel remnants in center.

Tunnel remnants they left for the spray painters.

Tunnel ruins and ampitheatre.

Today at the north end of the site there still stands a couple goods sheds and an old office building, which has been turned into an artists co-op and biergarten.

At the eastern end of the park there stands one of the old railway bridges over the Landwehr Canal that used to carry passengers out of the city. The mysterious green swatch I noticed on the satellite view of the area is of course the former train tracks and brick aqueduct that carried them. Hidden underneath the trees are the old brick archways of that aqueduct.

Being a curious type, I went out and explored it to see the remains of history that somehow quietly persist amid this bustling, renovating and restoring-everything-in-sight metropolis.

Heading south over the Landwehr Canal, mid-80s. The Wall is visible at left and on tracks.

Same spot today, except tracks over bridge from above picture were removed, leaving just a single set crossing the canal.

Main line bridge over the Landwehr Canal, looking SE. Signal bridge visible amid the trees.

They've dismantled one of the old bridges (you can still see the support platform on each bank of the Canal) and turned the old railroad bed into a raised bike path.

Old railway support platform, looking North over Landwehr Canal.

Looking north, just before the bridge.

A little further out towards the ring railline, this is the bridge over Bouchestrasse, looking Southeast.

The old railway embankment is supported on top of a brick aqueduct that is now mostly obscured by trees and bushes.

Arches have been filled in to deter street-squatter activity (?)

On top of the railway embankment heading out of town. Rail debris.

Bike trail. Here is another street bridge where they dismantled one set of tracks and took down the bridge so that just one remains. This is about the point where a dog started chasing me.

Bridge supports. Dog still chasing me, barking and snarling, making it difficult to take urban explorer pictures.

End of the trail. Dog got bored and took off. Embankment continues out to the S-Bahn ring railline around the city. Eventually I will come at it from that direction and see how much infrastructure is still sitting around beyond the fence. 

That brings us to the end of this edition of Jay's Historical Archaeology Tour of Berlin. Next up: Flak Towers from the WWII defense of the city. Yes they are still here.

For detail nuts, here is the original Bahnhof plans. Engine turntable at lower right is now a hill with a slide.