The Bebelplatz (formerly and colloquially the Opernplatz) is a

public square A town square (or public square, urban square, city square or simply square), also called a plaza or piazza, is an open public space commonly found in the heart of a traditional town or city, and which is used for community gatherings. Relat ...

in the central

Mitte Mitte () is the first and most central borough of Berlin. The borough consists of six sub-entities: Mitte proper, Gesundbrunnen, Hansaviertel, Moabit, Tiergarten and Wedding. It is one of the two boroughs (the other being Friedrichshain-Kreuz ...

district of

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, the capital of

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. Following

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the square was renamed after

August Bebel Ferdinand August Bebel (; 22 February 1840 – 13 August 1913) was a German socialist activist and politician. He was one of the principal founders of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Bebel, a woodworker by trade, co-founded the Sa ...

, a founder of the

Social Democratic Party of Germany The Social Democratic Party of Germany ( , SPD ) is a social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the party's leader since the 2019 leadership election together w ...

in the 19th century. The square is located on the south side of the

Unter den Linden Unter den Linden (, "under the Tilia, linden trees") is a boulevard in the central Mitte (locality), Mitte district of Berlin, Germany. Running from the Berlin Palace to the Brandenburg Gate, it is named after the Tilia, linden trees (known ...

boulevard, a major east-west thoroughfare that runs through Berlin's

city center A city centre, also known as an urban core, is the commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart of a city. The term "city centre" is primarily used in British English, and closely equivalent terms that exist in ...

. It consists of a green area to the east and an open area to the west of the State Opera building, which it surrounds (hence its prewar name). It is bounded to the east by the Prinzessinnenpalais, to the west by the Alte Bibliothek and the Old Palace, and to the southeast by

St. Hedwig's Cathedral St. Hedwig's Cathedral () is the Catholic cathedral of the Archdiocese of Berlin on Bebelplatz in the historic centre of Berlin. Dedicated to Hedwig of Silesia, it was erected from 1747 to 1773 by order of Frederick the Great according to pla ...

, the first

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

church built in

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

after the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

History

Early history

Parts of the fortification of Berlin built in the aftermath of the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in History of Europe, European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine ...

(the baroque

Berlin Fortress The Berlin Fortress (German "Festung Berlin") was the fortification of the historic city of Berlin. Construction started in 1650. The ramparts, walls, moats and glacis of the 17th-century bastion fort ran around the historic city limits. The demo ...

) were later integrated into the boulevard ''

'' when the fortifications had become useless through the advance of artillery pieces. The site of the fortifications is visible until today as there are no linden trees on this stretch up to the

Berlin Palace The Berlin Palace (), formerly known as the Royal Palace (), is a large building adjacent to Berlin Cathedral and the Museum Island in the Mitte area of Berlin. It was the main residence of the Electors of Brandenburg, Kings of Prussia and Ge ...

on the Spree river island itself. The avenue of trees in the direction of the

Brandenburg Gate The Brandenburg Gate ( ) is an 18th-century Neoclassical architecture, neoclassical monument in Berlin. One of the best-known landmarks of Germany, it was erected on the site of a former city gate that marked the start of the road from Berlin t ...

begins where it once began outside the fortifications. The square, then called ''Platz am Opernhaus'' (i.e. square at the opera house), was laid out between 1741 and 1743 under the rule of King

Frederick II of Prussia Frederick II (; 24 January 171217 August 1786) was the monarch of Prussia from 1740 until his death in 1786. He was the last Hohenzollern monarch titled ''King in Prussia'', declaring himself '' King of Prussia'' after annexing Royal Prus ...

. Frederick "the Great" had planned a much larger ''Forum Fridericianum'', but his distant cousin,

Frederick William, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt Frederick William of Brandenburg-Schwedt (17 November 1700 – 4 March 1771) was a German nobleman. In his lifetime, from 1711 to 1771, he held the titles Prince in Prussia and Margrave of Brandenburg, with the style Royal Highness. He was made ...

, refused to sell his palace, the predecessor of today's Old Palace, for the purpose of demolition. So the king felt compelled to take this house, which was in the middle of his plans, into consideration and to scale these down significantly. In return, however, he forced his cousin to give up his garden and some outbuildings, whereupon the Royal Library was built, which is directly adjacent to the back of the margravial house. The Opernplatz (today Bebelplatz), which was a bit cramped as a result, has survived almost unchanged: State Opera,

, the ''Old Library Building'' and the ''Palace of Prince Henry'', the king's brother, today the main building of

Humboldt University The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public university, public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III of Prussia, Frederick W ...

, giving the square an almost complete surround of 18th-century buildings. On 12 August 1910, it was renamed for Emperor

Francis Joseph I of Austria Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I ( ; ; 18 August 1830 – 21 November 1916) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, and the ruler of the Grand title of the emperor of Austria, other states of the Habsburg monarchy from 1848 until his death ...

(''Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Platz'') on the occasion of his 80th birthday. The buildings surrounding the square were subsequently largely destroyed in

by air raids and the

Battle of Berlin The Battle of Berlin, designated as the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, and also known as the Fall of Berlin, was one of the last major offensives of the European theatre of World War II. After the Vistula–Od ...

. The ensemble was restored in the 1950s, and the square was renamed on 31 August 1947 as Bebelplatz after

Nazi book burning

The Bebelplatz is known as the site of one of the infamous

Nazi book burning The Nazi book burnings were a campaign conducted by the German Student Union (, ''DSt'') to ceremonially burn books in Nazi Germany and Austria in the 1930s. The books targeted for burning were those viewed as being subversive or as representin ...

ceremonies held in the evening of 10 May 1933 in many German university cities. The book burnings were initiated and hosted by the nationalist German Student Association, thus stealing a march on the

National Socialist German Students' League The National Socialist German Students' Union ( German: ''Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund'', abbreviated NSDStB) was founded in 1926 as a division of the Nazi Party with the mission of integrating University-level education and ...

. The assembly of the books had started on the sixth, when students dragged the contents of the Institute for the Science of Sexuality library into the square. At the Student Association's invitation Propaganda Minister

Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and philologist who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief Propaganda in Nazi Germany, propagandist for the Nazi Party, and ...

held an inflammatory speech prior to the burning. Besides other spectators, it was attended by members of the Nazi Students' League, the SA ("brownshirts"), SS and

Hitler Youth The Hitler Youth ( , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth wing of the German Nazi Party. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. From 1936 until 1945, it was th ...

groups. They burned around 20,000 books, including works by

Heinrich Mann Luiz Heinrich Mann (; March 27, 1871 – March 11, 1950), best known as simply Heinrich Mann, was a German writer known for his sociopolitical novels. From 1930 until 1933, he was president of the fine poetry division of the Prussian Academy ...

Erich Maria Remarque Erich Maria Remarque (; ; born Erich Paul Remark; 22 June 1898 – 25 September 1970) was a German novelist. His landmark novel '' All Quiet on the Western Front'' (1928), based on his experience in the Imperial German Army during World War ...

Heinrich Heine Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; ; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was an outstanding poet, writer, and literary criticism, literary critic of 19th-century German Romanticism. He is best known outside Germany for his ...

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

and many other authors.

Erich Kästner Emil Erich Kästner (; 23 February 1899 – 29 July 1974) was a German writer, poet, screenwriter and satirist, known primarily for his humorous, socially astute poems and for children's books including ''Emil and the Detectives'' and '' Lisa an ...

, whose books were also among those burned, was present at the scene and described it with bitter irony in his diary. The Empty Library, a

Memorial in memory of the burning of books ''The Empty Library'' (1995), also known as ''Bibliothek'' or simply ''Library,'' is a public memorial by Israeli sculptor Micha Ullman dedicated to the remembrance of the Nazi book burnings that took place in the Bebelplatz in Berlin, Germany ...

Micha Ullman Micha Ullman (; born 11 October 1939) is an Israeli sculptor and professor of art. Biography Ullman was born in Tel Aviv to German Jews who immigrated to Mandate Palestine in 1933.Michal Lando''Art that hints at big questions,''The Forward. Apri ...

consisting of a glass plate set into the cobblestones, gives a view of a group of empty bookcases large enough to hold all 20,000 burned books; its purpose is to commemorate the book burning. Furthermore, a line of

from his play, '' Almansor'' (1821), is engraved on a plaque inset in the square: "Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen." (in English: "That was only a prelude; where they burn books, they will in the end also burn people"). Students at Humboldt University hold a book sale in the square every year to mark the anniversary.

Recent history

In 2006, an exhibition of "

United Buddy Bears ''Buddy Bears'' are painted, life-size fiberglass bear sculptures developed by German businesspeople Klaus and Eva Herlitz, in cooperation with sculptor Roman Strobl. They have become a landmark of Berlin and are considered unofficial ambassa ...

" was held in the square, for the third time in Berlin. The exhibition consisted of more than 180 bear sculptures, each in height and designed by a different artist. Due to its difficult past the use of Bebelplatz remains disputed, recently sparked off by a wintry skating rink and a party tent of the Berlin

fashion week A fashion week is a week-long fashion industry event where fashion designers, brands, or "houses" display their latest collections in runway fashion shows to buyers and the media which influences upcoming fashion trends for the current and appro ...

. In 2012 several protests were caused by the announced plan of an underground carpark serving the attendees of the opera to be erected under the square and around the subsurface memorial.

References

External links