Berlin Wollankstraße () is a

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

in the

Pankow Pankow () is the second largest and most populous Boroughs and quarters of Berlin, borough of the German capital Berlin. In Berlin's 2001 administrative reform, it was merged with the former boroughs of Prenzlauer Berg and Weissensee (Berlin), W ...

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 ...

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 ...

. It is served by the

Berlin S-Bahn The Berlin S-Bahn () is a rapid transit railway system that services the reigon in and around Berlin, the capital city of Germany. It has been in operation under the name since December 1930, having been previously called the special tariff are ...

and several local buses.

History

The station opened as ''Bahnhof Prinzenallee'' on 10 July 1877 at the Nordbahn (Berlin–Stralsund Northern railway) from Berlin to

Neubrandenburg Neubrandenburg (, Low German ''Niegenbramborg'', both lit. ''New Brandenburg an der Havel, Brandenburg'') is a city in the southeast of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is located on the shore of a lake called Tollensesee and forms the urban c ...

. In 1893 it received the name ''Pankow (Nordbahn)'', while the former Pankow railway station was called ''Pankow-Schönhausen''. The ''Nordbahn'' line was connected to the S-Bahn system on 5 June 1925 and the station was renamed ''Wollankstraße'' on 3 October 1937. After

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 ...

traffic restarted first with steam on 11 June 1945. On 19 July 1945 the electric train service resumed. From 1945 the station was situated next to the border between

East East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that ea ...

and

West Berlin West Berlin ( or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin from 1948 until 1990, during the Cold War. Although West Berlin lacked any sovereignty and was under military occupation until German reunification in 1 ...

, on the east side, in Berlin's Pankow district. In 1961 the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the B ...

was built just to the east of the station. The station remained in service within the West Berlin S-Bahn system, and could only be reached by passengers from the adjacent West Berlin locality of Gesundbrunnen (then part of Wedding borough). The entrances to the east remained bricked up until

1989 1989 was a turning point in political history with the "Revolutions of 1989" which ended communism in Eastern Bloc of Europe, starting in Poland and Hungary, with experiments in power-sharing coming to a head with the opening of the Berlin W ...

. Nevertheless, during this period, the station was staffed and controlled by East German railway officials, and while the West Berlin S-Bahn trains were passing between Wollankstraße station and Friedrichstraße station, they were driven by an East German State railway driver who returned home to East Berlin every day. This was at a time when only the select few were allowed to exit East Germany. Friedrichstraße station was situated inside East Berlin, but the West Berlin S-Bahn service operating from that station was not accessible to East Berliners.

In popular culture

The station features prominently in the 2011 thriller '' The Debt'' as a location along the border where an attempt is made to smuggle a

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

war criminal from East Berlin to West Berlin. The film suggests that it would be possible to access a train stopped at the station from an adjacent property. In reality, the scenes depicted in the film could not have taken place, since the station is built on a viaduct and trains are elevated above street level.

References

External links

Station information
{{commons category Berlin S-Bahn stations Railway stations in Berlin Buildings and structures in Pankow Berlin Wollankstrasse