Tempelhof is a

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prep ...

in the

district A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municipa ...

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 ...

with the same name. It is served by the

S-Bahn The S-Bahn is the name of hybrid urban-suburban rail systems serving a metropolitan region in German-speaking countries. Some of the larger S-Bahn systems provide service similar to rapid transit systems, while smaller ones often resemble c ...

lines , , and and the

U-Bahn Rapid transit in Germany consists of four U-Bahn systems and fourteen S-Bahn systems. The U-Bahn commonly understood to stand for Untergrundbahn (''underground railway'') are conventional rapid transit systems that run mostly underground, while ...

line . The S-Bahn station is on an

embankment Embankment may refer to: Geology and geography * A levee, an artificial bank raised above the immediately surrounding land to redirect or prevent flooding by a river, lake or sea * Embankment (earthworks), a raised bank to carry a road, railwa ...

at the junction of Tempelhofer Damm and

Bundesautobahn 100 is an Autobahn in Germany. The A 100 partially encloses the city centre of the German capital Berlin, running from the Wedding district of the Berlin- Mitte borough in a southwestern arc through Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf and Tempelhof- ...

, about 1 km south of the entrance to the former

Tempelhof Airport Berlin Tempelhof Airport (german: Flughafen Berlin-Tempelhof) was one of the first airports in Berlin, Germany. Situated in the south-central Berlin borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg, the airport ceased operating in 2008 amid controversy, leav ...

. The U-Bahn station, officially called ''Tempelhof (Südring)'' (South Ring),Tempelhof (Südring)
at Untergrundbahn.de is under Tempelhofer Damm immediately south of the S-Bahn station.

History

The S-Bahn station opened on 1 January 1872 as part of the opening of the

Ringbahn The Ringbahn (German for circle railway) is a long circle route around Berlin's inner city area, on the Berlin S-Bahn network. Its course is made up of a double-tracked S-Bahn ring and a parallel freight ring. The S-Bahn lines S41 and S42 prov ...

. It was originally located somewhat further west,Tempelhof
at Stadtschnellbahn-Berlin.de but was relocated in 1895 to Tempelhofer Damm (then called Berliner Straße) in order to provide better integration into the rail network for a base of the

Train In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often ...

Battalion of the Prussian Guard which was then located there. A

goods station A goods station (also known as a goods yard or goods depot) or freight station is, in the widest sense, a railway station where, either exclusively or predominantly, goods (or freight), such as merchandise, parcels, and manufactured items, are l ...

remained to the west. The Ringbahn was electrified in 1928; a power station was built between the Tempelhof and Papestraße (now Südkreuz) stations, accessible from both. In 1930, it was integrated into the Berlin S-Bahn. The extension of the U-Bahn line southwards to provide an interchange station at Tempelhof occurred during the same period: the U-Bahn station opened on 22 December 1929 under Tempelhofer Damm where the South Ring crossed it, and was thus called Tempelhof (Südring). It was designed by

Alfred Grenander Alfred Frederik Elias Grenander (26 June 1863 – 14 March 1931) was a Swedish architect, who became one of the most prominent engineers during the first building period of the Berlin U-Bahn network in the early twentieth century. Biography Gr ...

in an unusually spare style with open mezzanine galleries at both ends of the platform. The exit at the north end leads directly into the S-Bahn station building, which was an innovation at the time.Der Tempelhofer Abzweig der Nord-Süd-Bahn
at Berliner-Untergrundbahn.de Sabine Bohler-Heintzenberg, ''Architektur der Berliner Hoch- und Untergrundbahn: Planungen, Entwürfe, Bauten bis 1930'', Berlin: Ahrenhövel, 1980,
p. 173
Until 1966 it was the southern terminus of the CII line, now the U6; the tunnel to Alt-Tempelhof was almost completely excavated when work was suspended in 1941 because of World War II. On 7 May 1944, the ceiling broke through at this station. Three bomb blasts were accumulated on 21 June 1944. The tunnel wall was attacked on the Battle of Berlin. In July 1945 a fire broke out in the turnaround and train storage area at the Tempelhof station and caused so much damage that trains terminated at

Mehringdamm The Mehringdamm is a street in southern Kreuzberg, Berlin. In the north it starts at Mehringbrücke and ends - with its southernmost houses already belonging to Tempelhof locality - on Platz der Luftbrücke. It is the historical southbound Berlin- ...

until February 1946. Bahnhof Berlin-Tempelhof U-Bahn

After the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961, West Berliners boycotted the S-Bahn to put pressure on the GDR government, which controlled the parent

Deutsche Reichsbahn The ''Deutsche Reichsbahn'', also known as the German National Railway, the German State Railway, German Reich Railway, and the German Imperial Railway, was the German national railway system created after the end of World War I from the regiona ...

. The boycott led to extremely reduced S-Bahn passenger numbers, and after a strike by West Berlin S-Bahn employees to the ending of service over large stretches of the system in the West. The West Berlin portion of the Ringbahn, including the Tempelhof station, was taken out of service in September 1980. The U-Bahn station, named simply ''Tempelhof'' since 1962, remained in service. It was renovated in 1985; the ceiling had sustained bad water damage and was plastered over. The brightly coloured rectangular patterns on the ceiling date to this time. Service was only restored on the Ringbahn after German reunification, although the

Berlin Senate The Senate of Berlin (german: Berliner Senat) is the executive body governing the city of Berlin, which at the same time is a state of Germany. According to the the Senate consists of the Governing Mayor of Berlin and up to ten senators appoint ...

had been working on plans to reopen it even before the Wall fell, since the S-Bahn had been transferred in January 1984 to the BVG (Berlin Transport). ''Südring'' was again appended to the name of the Tempelhof U-Bahn station on 31 May 1992, and the S-Bahn station reopened on 17 December 1993 when the segment of the South Ring between Baumschulenweg and Westend was placed back in service, and thus the station is once more a transfer point between the S-Bahn and the U-Bahn.

References

External links

Tempelhof S-Bahn station and Tempelhof (Südring) U-Bahn station on 1932 Berlin street map
{{coord, 52, 28, 14.72, N, 13, 23, 07.26, E, dim:5000_region:DE-BE_type:railwaystation_source:dewiki, display=title

Tempelhof Tempelhof () is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg. It is the location of the former Tempelhof Airport, one of the earliest commercial airports in the world. The former airport and surroundings are now a park called ...

U6 (Berlin U-Bahn) stations

Buildings and structures in Tempelhof-Schöneberg Railway stations in Germany opened in 1872