Oranienburger Vorstadt is a historic district of

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

in what is now the northwestern part of Mitte and the adjacent Gesundbrunnen area, in the modern Mitte borough.

Geography

The former suburb was located between the

Berlin-Spandau Ship Canal The Berlin-Spandau Ship Canal, or Berlin-Spandauer Schifffahrtskanal in German, is a canal in Berlin, Germany. It was built between 1848 and 1859 to a plan created by Peter Joseph Lenné, and was formerly known as the Hohenzollern Canal or Hohenz ...

in the west (bordering

Moabit Moabit () is an inner city locality in the borough of Mitte, Berlin, Germany. As of 2016, around 77,000 people lived in Moabit. First inhabited in 1685 and incorporated into Berlin in 1861, the former industrial and working-class neighbourhood i ...

) and the Brunnenstraße arterial road in the east. In the south it was confined by the 18th century

Berlin Customs Wall The Berlin Customs Wall (German: "Berliner Zoll- und Akzisemauer", literally ''Berlin customs and excise wall'' the German term had been originally "Akzisemauer" / excise wall but with the fading knowledge of the term "excise" most references inco ...

(today marked by Torstraße and Hannoversche Straße), in the north it bordered on the

Wedding A wedding is a ceremony where two people are united in marriage. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes. Most wedding ceremonies involve an exchange of marriage vo ...

area along the Panke River.

History

Maschinenbau-Anstalt Borsig, Berlin Chausseestraße, 1847, Karl Eduard Biermann

The district derived its name from the Oranienburger Tor, a city gate in the Customs Wall from where the country road (present-day Chausseestraße) led northwestwards to the town of

Oranienburg Oranienburg () is a town in Brandenburg, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Oberhavel. Geography Oranienburg is a town located on the banks of the Havel river, 35 km north of the centre of Berlin. Division of the town Oranienburg ...

, thus the toponym's translation is about "suburb towards Oranienburg". The name appeared by 1824. A first settlement of immigrants arriving from the Upper Saxon

Vogtland Vogtland (; cz, Fojtsko) is a region spanning the German states of Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia and north-western Bohemia in the Czech Republic. It overlaps with and is largely contained within Euregio Egrensis. The name alludes to the former ...

region arose in the mid 18th century on

Ackerstraße The Ackerstraße is a street in Berlin which runs northwest from near the Liesenstraße – Scheringstraße traffic circle in Gesundbrunnen to Invalidenstraße, where it turns south, terminating at the Linienstraße in Mitte. History On 22 ...

near

Rosenthaler Platz Rosenthaler Platz in Berlin, Berlin's Mitte district, district Mitte, forms a crossroads where Rosenthaler Strasse, Brunnenstrasse and Weinbergsweg meet Torstrasse, and is therefore not a square in the true sense of the word. It is located on th ...

. In 1830 the suburb was incorporated into the city of Berlin. From about 1800 the area on Chaussestraße and

Invalidenstraße The Invalidenstraße is a street in Berlin, Germany. It runs east to west for through the districts of Mitte and Moabit. The street originally connected three important railway stations in the northern city centre: the Stettiner Bahnhof (today N ...

evolved to the

industrial Industrial may refer to: Industry * Industrial archaeology, the study of the history of the industry * Industrial engineering, engineering dealing with the optimization of complex industrial processes or systems * Industrial city, a city dominate ...

nucleus of Berlin, becoming the site of several ironworks and

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...

shops, among them the August Borsig and Johann Friedrich Ludwig Wöhlert locomotive companies established in 1837 and 1842 respectively. Due to the many fireplaces and smoke stacks the quarter was colloquially called '' Feuerland'' by Berliners. In 1842 the large Stettiner Bahnhof railway terminus opened on Invalidenstraße. By the 1880s most of the industrial sites had been relocated to the city's outskirts. After the

German unification The unification of Germany (, ) was the process of building the modern German nation state with federal features based on the concept of Lesser Germany (one without multinational Austria), which commenced on 18 August 1866 with adoption of t ...

of 1871, Oranienburger Vorstadt was largely rebuilt as a densely settled residential area with numerous

tenement A tenement is a type of building shared by multiple dwellings, typically with flats or apartments on each floor and with shared entrance stairway access. They are common on the British Isles, particularly in Scotland. In the medieval Old Town, i ...

houses (''Mietskasernen''). The district ceased to exist as an administrational unit with the 1920 Greater Berlin Act. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

the Mitte part belonged to East Berlin, while the Gesundbrunnen territory was part of the French sector within

West Berlin West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...

. In 1961 the Berlin Wall was erected along the border on

Bernauer Straße Bernauer Straße is a street of Berlin situated between the localities of Gesundbrunnen and Mitte, today both belonging to the Mitte borough. It runs from the Mauerpark at the corner of Prenzlauer Berg to the Nordbahnhof. The street's name refe ...

. Since 1998 the

Berlin Wall Memorial Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constituen ...

(''Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer'') marks the site. Today it's customary to apply the name ''Oranienburger Vorstadt'' only to the part in the Mitte locality.

Main sights

Museum für Naturkunde The Natural History Museum (german: Museum für Naturkunde) is a natural history museum located in Berlin, Germany. It exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history and in such domain it is one of three major muse ...

Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (german: Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz, ), abbreviated BMWK (was BMWi), is a cabinet-level ministry of the Federal Republic of Germany. It was previously known as ...

Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure The Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport (german: Bundesministerium für Digitales und Verkehr, ), abbreviated BMDV, is a cabinet-level ministry of the Federal Republic of Germany. Its main office is located in Berlin, while the majority ...

with

Chapel of Reconciliation The Chapel of Reconciliation (german: Kapelle der Versöhnung) is a place of worship in Berlin, Germany. It stands on the site of the old Church of Reconciliation ( de) (german: Versöhnungskirche), on Bernauer Strasse in the Mitte district. ...

* Invalid's Cemetery on the

Dorotheenstadt cemetery The Dorotheenstadt Cemetery, officially the Cemetery of the Dorotheenstadt and Friedrichswerder Parishes, is a landmarked Protestant burial ground located in the Berlin district of Mitte which dates to the late 18th century. The entrance to the ...

on Chauseestraße *

Friedhof II der Sophiengemeinde Berlin The Friedhof II der Sophiengemeinde Berlin is a Protestant cemetery of the Sophienkirche in Berlin-Mitte, Germany. Notable interments (*) = An Ehrengrab awarded by the "Landes Berlin" * Adam Weishaupt German philosopher, professor of civil ...

References

External links

Oranienburger Vorstadt article on bfss-berlin.de
{{Berlin-Mitte Zones of Berlin Mitte