The old Berlin Ostbahnhof, more commonly referred to as ''Küstriner Bahnhof'', was a short-lived passenger

railway terminus A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track and a station building providing suc ...

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 ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, opened on 1 October 1867 as the terminus of the

Prussian Eastern Railway The Prussian Eastern Railway (german: Preußische Ostbahn) was a railway in the Kingdom of Prussia and later Germany until 1918. Its main route, approximately long, connected the capital, Berlin, with the cities of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) ...

(''Ostbahn'') to Küstrin (now Kostrzyn) and

Königsberg Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was name ...

(

Kaliningrad Kaliningrad ( ; rus, Калининград, p=kəlʲɪnʲɪnˈɡrat, links=y), until 1946 known as Königsberg (; rus, Кёнигсберг, Kyonigsberg, ˈkʲɵnʲɪɡzbɛrk; rus, Короле́вец, Korolevets), is the largest city and ...

History

The station building was the first constructed by the Prussian state instead of a private company, and intended as the terminus of the Prussian ''Ostbahn'' (Eastern Railway) to Danzig and

, and on to Russia. It was located on Küstriner Platz (since 1972: Franz-Mehring-Platz) in the present-day

Friedrichshain Friedrichshain () is a quarter (''Ortsteil'') of the borough of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg in Berlin, Germany. From its creation in 1920 until 2001, it was a freestanding city borough. Formerly part of East Berlin, it is adjacent to Mitte, Prenzl ...

quarter, slightly north of Frankfurter Bahnhof (the current Ostbahnhof). The station concourse was projected by the Prussian building official

Adolf Lohse Adolf (Hermann) Lohse (30 August 1807 in Berlin – 15 January 1867) was a Prussian master builder and architect. He was a student of Karl Friedrich Schinkel and one of his projects was the Schloss Albrechtsberg in Dresden Dresden (, ; Uppe ...

(1807–1867) and upon his death completed by railway architect Hermann Cuno (1831–1896). As a passenger station it was used until 1882, when the

Stadtbahn ' (; German for "city railway"; plural ') is a German word referring to various types of urban rail transport. One type of transport originated in the 19th century, firstly in Berlin and followed by Vienna, where rail routes were created that co ...

line was opened, the Silesian Railway company had been nationalized, and the Ostbahn traffic moved to neighbouring Frankfurter Bahnhof, which had been rebuilt as the Schlesischer Bahnhof through station. The rear freight yard later became part of the Wriezener Bahnhof complex opened in 1903. Berlin Plaza Portal 015997

Some years after the closure the Old Ostbahnhof was used as a balloon factory, and later as a shelter of the

Red Cross The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and ...

. On 1 February 1929 the building was converted to a music hall, named ''Varieté Plaza'',History and pictures of the ''Plaza''
then one of the largest in Berlin providing seating for up to 3,000 spectators. "

Aryanized Aryanization (german: Arisierung) was the Nazi term for the seizure of property from Jews and its transfer to non-Jews, and the forced expulsion of Jews from economic life in Nazi Germany, Axis-aligned states, and their occupied territories. I ...

" after the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, it was used from 1938 by the state leisure organization ''

Kraft durch Freude NC Gemeinschaft (KdF; ) was a German state-operated leisure organization in Nazi Germany. Richard Grunberger, ''The 12-Year Reich'', p. 197, It was part of the German Labour Front (german: link=no, Deutsche Arbeitsfront), the national labour or ...

''. The station building was finally damaged in the

Bombing of Berlin in World War II A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechanic ...

and destroyed during the final Battle of Berlin; the premises were cleared by 1952. Several years later, from 1969 to 1974, the large office building of the East German Socialist Unity Party (SED) newspaper ''

Neues Deutschland ''Neues Deutschland'' (''nd''; en, New Germany, sometimes stylized in lowercase letters) is a left-wing German daily newspaper, headquartered in Berlin. For 43 years it was the official party newspaper of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany ...

'' was erected on the ground of the former railway terminus. A former cogeneration plant in the rear, built in 1953/54, today is home of the

Berghain Berghain () is a nightclub in Berlin, Germany. It is named after its location near the border between Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain in Berlin, and is a short walk from Berlin Ostbahnhof main line railway station.

nightclub.

Notes and references

External links

*
"The Lost Termini of Berlin, Part 9 – Küstriner Bahnhof, the weird one"; Page about the history of the station (Hydrarchos.org)
Accessed 24 November 2022. {{Coord, 52, 30, 42, N, 13, 26, 25, E, region:DE-BE_type:landmark, display=title Ostbahnhof Old Ostbahnhof Old Ostbahnhof Old Railway stations in Germany opened in 1867 Railway stations closed in 1882