Tiergarten (, literally ''Animal Garden'', historically for ''Deer Garden'') is a locality within the

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle Ag ...

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-Kreuzb ...

, in central

Berlin 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 constitue ...

(

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 ...

). Notable for the great and homonymous urban park, before

German reunification German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...

, it was a part of

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 ...

. Until

Berlin's 2001 administrative reform Berlin is both a city and one of Germany’s federated states (city state). Since the 2001 administrative reform, it has been made up of twelve districts (german: Bezirke, ), each with its own administrative body. However, unlike the municipaliti ...

, Tiergarten was also the name of a borough (Bezirk), consisting of the current locality (''Ortsteil'') of Tiergarten (formerly called ''Tiergarten-Süd'') plus

Hansaviertel The Hansaviertel () is the smallest ''Ortsteil'' (district) of Berlin and is between Großer Tiergarten and the Spree River, within the central Mitte borough of Berlin. The district was almost completely destroyed during World War II but was reb ...

and

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 ...

. A new system of road and rail tunnels runs under the park towards Berlin's main station in nearby Moabit.

History

Historical notes

Once a hunting ground of the Electors of

Brandenburg Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a states of Germany, state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an ar ...

the ''Großer Tiergarten'' park of today was designed in the 1830s by landscape architect

Peter Joseph Lenné Peter Joseph Lenné (the Younger) (29 September 1789 – 23 January 1866) was a Prussian gardener and landscape architect. As director general of the Royal Prussian palaces and parks in Potsdam and Berlin, his work shaped the development of 19 ...

. In the course of industrialization in the 19th century, a network of streets was laid out in the

Hobrecht-Plan The Hobrecht-Plan is the binding land-use plan for Berlin in the 19th century. It is named after its main editor, James Hobrecht (1825–1902), who served for the royal Prussian urban planning police ("Baupolizei"). The finalized plan "Bebauun ...

in an area that came to be known architecturally as the Wilhelmine Ring. In 1894 the

Reichstag building The Reichstag (, ; officially: – ; en, Parliament) is a historic government building in Berlin which houses the Bundestag, the lower house of Germany's parliament. It was constructed to house the Imperial Diet (german: Reichstag) of the ...

by architect

Paul Wallot Johann Paul Wallot (26 June 1841 Oppenheim am Rhein – 10 August 1912 Bad Schwalbach) was a German architect of Huguenot descent, best known for designing the Reichstag building in Berlin, erected between 1884 and 1894. He also built the adjacent ...

opened as the seat of the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

parliament. The lawn between the contemporary ''

Haus der Kulturen der Welt The Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), in English House of the World's Cultures, in Berlin is Germany's national center for the presentation and discussion of international contemporary arts, with a special focus on non-European cultures and so ...

'' (House of World Cultures) and the Reichstag building was the site of the

Krolloper The Kroll Opera House (german: Krolloper, Kroll-Oper) in Berlin, Germany, was in the Tiergarten district on the western edge of the '' Königsplatz'' square (today ''Platz der Republik''), facing the Reichstag building. It was built in 1844 as ...

opera house, built in 1844, which served as parliament house after the

Reichstag fire The Reichstag fire (german: Reichstagsbrand, ) was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of ...

on 27 February 1933 and was demolished by air raids in 1943. On 15 January 1919 the socialist

Karl Liebknecht Karl Paul August Friedrich Liebknecht (; 13 August 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a German socialist and anti-militarist. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) beginning in 1900, he was one of its deputies in the Reichstag from ...

was shot by

Freikorps (, "Free Corps" or "Volunteer Corps") were irregular German and other European military volunteer units, or paramilitary, that existed from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. They effectively fought as mercenary or private armies, regar ...

soldiers within the park near the lake ''Neuer See''. The corpse of

Rosa Luxemburg Rosa Luxemburg (; ; pl, Róża Luksemburg or ; 5 March 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a Polish and naturalised-German revolutionary socialist, Marxist philosopher and anti-war activist. Successively, she was a member of the Proletariat party, ...

, murdered on the same day, was found in the nearby

Landwehrkanal The Landwehr Canal (german: Landwehrkanal), is a canal parallel to the Spree river in Berlin, Germany, built between 1845 and 1850 to plans by Peter Joseph Lenné. It connects the upper part of the Spree at the eastern harbour () in Friedric ...

on 1 June 1919. The first ''

Institut für Sexualwissenschaft The was an early private sexology research institute in Germany from 1919 to 1933. The name is variously translated as ''Institute of Sex Research'', ''Institute of Sexology'', ''Institute for Sexology'' or ''Institute for the Science of Sexua ...

'' (Institute for Sex Research) of

Magnus Hirschfeld Magnus Hirschfeld (14 May 1868 – 14 May 1935) was a German physician and sexologist. Hirschfeld was educated in philosophy, philology and medicine. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Com ...

was situated at the former ''In den Zelten'' street, near the contemporary ''Haus der Kulturen der Welt'', from 1919 until it was closed by the Nazis in 1933. A site next to the Tiergarten park is the former location of a villa at Tiergartenstrasse 4 where more than 60 Nazi bureaucrats and doctors worked in secret under the " T4" program to organize the mass murder of sanatorium and psychiatric hospital patients deemed unworthy to live. The German national memorial to the people with disabilities systematically murdered by the Nazis was dedicated in 2014 in Berlin at that site. As well, although the villa was destroyed, a plaque set in the pavement on Tiergartenstraße marks its location and historic significance. After 1944, the park was largely deforested because it served as a source of firewood for the devastated city. In 1945, the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

built a

war memorial A war memorial is a building, monument, statue, or other edifice to celebrate a war or victory, or (predominating in modern times) to commemorate those who died or were injured in a war. Symbolism Historical usage It has ...

along the

Straße des 17. Juni The Straße des 17. Juni (, en, 17th of June Street), is a street in central Berlin, the capital of Germany. Its name refers to the 1953 East German uprising, 17 June 1953 uprising in East Germany. It is the western continuation of the boule ...

, the Tiergarten's main east-west artery, near the Brandenburg Gate. The Tiergarten itself became part of the

British sector British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

Tiergarten today

The locality houses many parliamentary and governmental institutions, among others the

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Commons ...

in the Reichstag building and the new

German Chancellery The German Chancellery (german: Bundeskanzleramt, , more faithfully translated as ''Federal Chancellery'' or ''Office of the Federal Chancellor'') is an agency serving the executive office of the chancellor of Germany, the head of the federal gov ...

. The residence of the German President,

Schloss Bellevue Bellevue Palace (german: Schloss Bellevue, ), located in Berlin's Tiergarten district, has been the official residence of the President of Germany since 1994. The schloss is situated on the banks of the Spree river, near the Berlin Victory Col ...

and the

Carillon A carillon ( , ) is a pitched percussion instrument that is played with a keyboard and consists of at least 23 cast-bronze bells. The bells are hung in fixed suspension and tuned in chromatic order so that they can be sounded harmoniou ...

are also located in the Tiergarten park. It contains several notable sculptures including the four-tiered

Victory Column A victory column, or monumental column or triumphal column, is a monument in the form of a column, erected in memory of a victorious battle, war, or revolution. The column typically stands on a base and is crowned with a victory symbol, such as a ...

(''Siegessäule''), the

Bismarck Memorial The Bismarck Memorial (german: Bismarck-Nationaldenkmal) is a prominent memorial statue in the Tiergarten in Berlin dedicated to Prince Otto von Bismarck, Minister President of the Kingdom of Prussia and the first Chancellor of the German Em ...

and several other memorials to prominent Prussian generals, all of which were located in the ceremonial park facing the Reichstag before they were moved to their present location by the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

s. In addition, the tree-lined pedestrian avenues emanating from the Victory Column contain several ceremonial sculptures of Prussian aristocrats enacting an 18th-century hunt. The

Brandenburg Gate The Brandenburg Gate (german: Brandenburger Tor ) is an 18th-century neoclassical monument in Berlin, built on the orders of Prussian king Frederick William II after restoring the Orangist power by suppressing the Dutch popular unrest. One ...

and the

Potsdamer Platz Potsdamer Platz (, ''Potsdam Square'') is a public square and traffic intersection in the center of Berlin, Germany, lying about south of the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag (German Parliament Building), and close to the southeast corne ...

are situated on the eastern rim of the locality, which itself was the former frontier between

East East or Orient 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 fa ...

and West Berlin. Nearby is the ''Kulturforum'' stretching from the

Berliner Philharmonie The Berliner Philharmonie () is a concert hall in Berlin, Germany, and home to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. The Philharmonie lies on the south edge of the city's Tiergarten and just west of the former Berlin Wall. The Philharmonie is on ...

, a 1963 concert hall by architect

Hans Scharoun Bernhard Hans Henry Scharoun (20 September 1893 – 25 November 1972) was a German architect best known for designing the Berliner Philharmonie (home to the Berlin Philharmonic) and the Schminke House in Löbau, Saxony. He was an important ...

and home of the

Berlin Philharmonic The Berlin Philharmonic (german: Berliner Philharmoniker, links=no, italic=no) is a German orchestra based in Berlin. It is one of the most popular, acclaimed and well-respected orchestras in the world. History The Berlin Philharmonic was fo ...

orchestra to the Neue Nationalgalerie built by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1968. In between are the Neoclassical architecture, neoclassical Saint Matthew Church, built in 1845 by Friedrich August Stüler, the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Gemäldegalerie as well as the new branch of the Berlin State Library (''Staatsbibliothek''). The adjacent area between the park and the Landwehrkanal is home to Emil Fahrenkamp's 1932 Shell-Haus, numerous embassies and the Bendlerblock, where in 1944 Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and the conspirators of the 20 July plot were shot by a firing squad. Today the building serves as second office of Germany's Federal Ministry of Defence (Germany), Federal Ministry of Defense; the headquarters of the Christian Democratic Union (Germany), Christian Democratic Party, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and Friedrich Ebert Foundation academies as well as the Bauhaus Archive and the high schools Französisches Gymnasium Berlin, Französisches Gymnasium and Canisius-Kolleg Berlin, Canisius-Kolleg are located nearby. The adjacent western area at the border to Charlottenburg houses the Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin Zoo. The 1985 album ''Le Parc (album), Le Parc'' by Tangerine Dream contains a track titled ''Tiergarten''. Since 1987, the annual Berlin Marathon starts at Tiergarten near the Brandenburg Gate. Between 1996 to 2003 and then in 2006, the Love Parade music festival took place at the Victory Column and Straße des 17. Juni. On 2 July 2005, the Live 8 concert, Berlin took place at the Victory Column. On 24 July 2008, then-US presidential candidate Barack Obama spoke at the Victory Column in front of a crowd of over 200,000 people.

Großer Tiergarten

Covering , the "Großer Tiergarten" is the largest urban park of Berlin.

Notes

External links