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The Tiergarten (, ), formal German name: (, or deer park, game hunting park), is a prominent park in
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 ...
's inner-city area, located completely in the district of the same name. It is one of the most popular parks in the city and at in size, is among the largest urban gardens in Germany. Only the '' Tempelhofer Park'' (previously Berlin's Tempelhof airport) and Munich's '' Englischer Garten'' are larger.


History


16th century

The beginnings of the Tiergarten can be traced back to 1527. It was founded as a hunting area for the Elector of Brandenburg, and was situated to the west of the
Cölln Cölln () was the Twin cities, twin city of Old Berlin (Alt-Berlin) from the 13th century to the 18th century. Cölln was located on the Fischerinsel, Fisher Island section of Spree Island, opposite Altberlin on the western bank of the River ...
city wall, which was the sister town of Old Berlin. It also sat in the same vicinity as the City Palace (''Stadtschloss''). In 1530 the expansion began; acres of land were purchased and the garden began to expand towards the north and west. The total area extended beyond the current Tiergarten, and the forests were perfect for hunting deer and other wild animals (''Tiergarten'' might literally be translated as ''animal garden''). The Elector of Brandenburg had wild animals placed within the Tiergarten, which was fenced off from the outside to prevent the creatures from escaping, and was the main hunting ground for the electors of
Brandenburg Brandenburg, officially the State of Brandenburg, is a States of Germany, state in northeastern Germany. Brandenburg borders Poland and the states of Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony. It is the List of Ger ...
. This hobby, however, began to fade away as the city of Berlin began to expand and the hunting area shrank to accommodate the growth.


17th–18th centuries

Frederick Wilhelm I (1688–1740), Elector of Brandenburg (1713–1740), feeling the need to bring change to his private hunting grounds, built many structures that are still visible today. As the King was expanding Unter den Linden, a roadway that connected the City Palace and the Tiergarten, he had a swathe of forest removed in order to connect his castle to the newly built Charlottenburg Palace. '' Der Große Stern'', the central square of the Tiergarten, and ''Kurfürstenplatz'', the electoral plaza, were added, with seven and eight boulevards respectively. This is seen as the beginning of a transformation in the Tiergarten, a movement from the king's personal hunting territory to a forest park designed for the people. Frederick Wilhelm I's son and successor, Frederick II (''Frederick the Great'') (1712–1786) did not appreciate the hunt as his predecessors did, In 1740, he opened the park's first public gardens. In 1742 he instructed the architect Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff to tear down the fences that surrounded the territory and to turn the park into a ''Lustgarten'' (literally "
pleasure garden A pleasure garden is a park or garden that is open to the public for recreation and entertainment. Pleasure gardens differ from other public gardens by serving as venues for entertainment, variously featuring such attractions as concert halls, b ...
"), one that would be open to the people of Berlin. In the
baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...
style popular at the time he added flowerbeds, borders and espaliers in geometrical layouts, along with
maze A maze is a path or collection of paths, typically from an entrance to a goal. The word is used to refer both to branching tour puzzles through which the solver must find a route, and to simpler non-branching ("unicursal") patterns that lead ...
s, water basins and ornamental ponds; he also commissioned sculptures to add cultural significance. Unique to the time period, areas of congregation called "salons" were established along the many different walkways in the park. These salons were blocked off from the walking path by hedges or trees and often furnished with seating, fountains and vases, offering guests a change of pace and a place to discuss intellectual matters in private. Such freedom was common under the rule of Frederick II; there were even residents allowed to live within the Tiergarten. Refugees,
Huguenot The Huguenots ( , ; ) are a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, ...
s in hiding from the French, were allowed to erect tents and sell refreshments to the pedestrians walking through the park. In 1786, the year of the king's death, his youngest brother Prince Augustus Ferdinand of Prussia moved into Bellevue Palace, which he had built inside the Tiergarten (on the premises of a former mansion on the banks of the Spree river which Knobelsdorff had built for himself in 1743). Furthermore a pheasant house was erected inside the park, which would later become the core of the
Zoological Garden A zoo (short for zoological garden; also called an animal park or menagerie) is a facility where animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for Conservation biology, conservation purposes. The term ''zoological garden ...
, a zoo founded in 1844 that lies within the greater Tiergarten. During the
revolutions of 1848 The revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the springtime of the peoples or the springtime of nations, were a series of revolutions throughout Europe over the course of more than one year, from 1848 to 1849. It remains the most widespre ...
, the park hosted the first assembly demanding the abolishment of the national censors.


19th century

At the end of the 18th century, Knobelsdorff's late-
baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...
form had been all but replaced by ideas for a new, scenic garden ideal. The castle park Bellevue and Rousseau Island were laid out by court gardener Justus Ehrenreich Sello in the late 18th century. It was then in 1818 that the king commissioned the help of Peter Joseph Lenné, a young man who was at the time the gardener's assistant at Sanssouci in
Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and largest city of the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the Havel, River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...
. His plans involved the creation of a rural ''Volkspark'', or people's park, that would also serve as a sort of
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, ...
n national park that would help lift the spirits of those who visited. However, the King Frederick William III rejected Lenné's plan. Against the opposition of a hesitant bureaucracy, Lenné submitted a modified version of his concept. This plan was accepted and realized between 1833 and 1840. The park was modeled after English gardens, but Lenné made sure to pay attention to Knobelsdorff's structures and layouts. By draining forests areas he allowed for more footpaths, roadways, and bridleways to be laid down. Several features became characteristic components of the Tiergarten. Wide-open grass lawns traversed by streams and clusters of trees, lakes with small islands, countless bridges like the Löwenbrücke, and a multitude of pathways became distinguishing features of the new garden. Up until 1881, the Tiergarten was owned by the monarchy, and came under the direct control of the King and later the
Emperor The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...
. Soon after Emperor William I abolished his rights to the forest, he added the boundaries to the new 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 ...
, so that the people may use and uphold it. However, until the middle of the twentieth century, the Tiergarten remained in the style that Lenné had left it in. The biggest changes came in the form of nationalistic memorials that began construction in 1849 under the directorship of Eduard Niede and Hermann Geitner. These monuments were seen as patriotic contributions to the culture of the Tiergarten. The Siegesallee ("Victory Avenue") could be considered the most famous addition. Built under the orders of Emperor William II, it was lined with statues of former Prussian royal figures of varying historical importance. The Prachtboulevard ("Magnificence Boulevard") was added in 1895 and became the area known as the Königsplatz, which would later become Platz der Republik. The park is covered in statues commemorating those famous to the Prussians and the activities they enjoyed doing. Animal statues are to be found throughout the park, playing the counterpart to the stone hunters that also inhabit the area. Built by famous sculptor Friedrich Drake, a statue to Queen Louise, beloved queen of the Prussians, is also to be found here alongside her husband, Frederick William III. Statues of
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...
,
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (; ; 22 January 1729 – 15 February 1781) was a German philosopher, dramatist, publicist and art critic, and a representative of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the dev ...
, Theodor Fontane,
Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...
and Albert Lortzing were also erected. The ''Komponistendenkmal'', or the Beethoven-Haydn-Mozart Memorial, is another example of how the Germans wanted to respect and honor the men and women who gave them a unique culture.


20th century


Under Nazi control

The
Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...
took control of Germany in 1933, causing a dramatic change of idealism. This change was not just social; in fact,
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
had planned the complete renovation of the city of Berlin. " Welthauptstadt Germania", or World Capital Germania, was the idea the Nazis wanted to bring to fruition. The Tiergarten was to be a central location in the new city. The Charlottenburger Chaussee, today known as the Straße des 17. Juni, was to be the central line between the east and west, and was widened from to , the same width as the current street. The Berlin Victory Column was also moved to the Großer Stern, where it remains to this day. The
Second World War 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 ...
caused significant damage to the Tiergarten and its various cultural elements. Many statues were destroyed or damaged. Some of the Berlin citizens even buried statues in the grounds of the nearby Bellevue Palace in order to prevent further destruction. They were not recovered until 1993."On the Desperate Edge of Now"
from '' The Living Dead'' by
Adam Curtis Adam Curtis (born 26 May 1955) is an English documentary filmmaker. Curtis began his career as a conventional documentary producer for the BBC throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The release of '' Pandora's Box'' (1992) marked the in ...
(BBC, 1995).
After the war, the Tiergarten became part of the British Occupation sector of
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 ...
. The area however underwent a sudden, violent change; much of the wooded area was felled and turned to firewood due to the shortage of coal, and the now empty fields were turned into temporary farmland by order of British troops. There were around 2,550 plots of land available for growing potatoes and vegetables. However, these two factors caused the once great forest to nearly disappear; only 700 trees survived out of over 200,000 that once lined the parkway, the bodies of water turned silty, every bridge was destroyed, the monuments lay on their sides and were badly damaged. Plans to fill the waterways with debris from the war were also suggested, but were prevented by the head of the Berlin Central Office of Environmental Planning, Reinhold Lingner. In 1945, almost directly after the fall of Berlin, the occupying Soviets erected a Soviet War Memorial (Tiergarten) for the fallen soldiers of the
Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...
on the north side of the current Straße des 17. Juni. Situated less than a mile away from the Reichstag, it was built at such short notice that it was located in the planned British sector. When 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 ...
went up around
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 ...
in 1961, the monument became inaccessible to the people for whom it was built, although Soviet honour guards were allowed to be stationed at the monument, with approval from the British occupying forces.


Post-war restoration

On June 2, 1945, the Berlin Magistrate decided they would restore the Greater Tiergarten. The first suggestions came in 1946/47. Reinhold Lingner and Georg Pniower, Professor of Garden Design at Berlin University, were the first to offer plans, but both were rejected during the division of Berlin by the Allied powers. Instead, they decided to follow the plans of the Tiergarten Director Willy Alverdes, whose plan seemed to be a more pragmatic approach: instead of rebuilding the park in a new fashion, Alverdes' plans depended on the existing design of the park. He wanted to establish a tranquil, spacious park where one could relax and recover. The Tiergarten was re-forested between 1949 and 1959. On March 17, 1949, the Lord Mayor Ernst Reuter planted the first tree, a linden, to signify the beginning of the restoration. West Germany took over the operation and sponsorship with about 250,000 young trees being delivered to the former capital from all over the Bundesrepublik, even being delivered via plane during the Berlin Blockade. Alverdes's plan did away with the pre-existing baroque-styled structures in the park, claiming the style was not in keeping with the period. The combination of baroque and regional art was tossed out. Being a very natural park landscape, the Tiergarten was a very important large green space for rest and relaxation for the West Berliners, who were separated from the surrounding East German countryside by the Berlin Wall. Several buildings have been added to the area surrounding the park, many of which were constructed by foreign architects. The Haus der Kulturen der Welt is a prime example. It began construction in 1956 under the initiative of Eleanor Dulles as an American contribution to the Interbau, an International Architecture Exhibition employed to exhibit new social, cultural, and ecological ideas in architecture.


Post-re-unification

The Tiergarten's culture began to stagnate until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. After the reunification of East and West Berlin in 1990, many of the outskirts of the park changed drastically. For instance, along the streets that border the southern boundary of the park, dilapidated embassy buildings that had stood for decades were reoccupied and others were rebuilt from the ground up, such as the Nordic embassies. On the northern border the new German Chancellery was built, along with office buildings for the everyday work of the delegates. The Reichstag was refurbished with a new, glass dome that has become a popular tourist attraction. Several overgrown areas that had been used for picnics and
football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
were replaced with open spaces and grassy lawns that have added to the prestige of the park. Due to its status as a garden memorial of the city of Berlin, encroachment onto the Tiergarten from businesses and residents has been illegal since 1991. A large tunnel, commissioned in 2006, has been built under the Tiergarten, allowing easy movement from north to south for motor vehicles, trams, and more recently
S-Bahn The S-Bahn ( , ), , is a hybrid urban rail, urban–suburban rail system serving a metropolitan region predominantly in German language, German-speaking countries. Some of the larger S-Bahn systems provide service similar to rapid transit syst ...
trains. The original proposal for the tunnel was met with great opposition from environmentalists, who believed the vegetation would be damaged due to shifts in ground-water levels; in fact, the first plans for construction were denied by a court order. Two memorial monuments are located towards the eastern end of the park—the Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted Under Nazism, built 2008, and the Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism, built 2012.


Facilities and attractions

* The Berlin zoo * Monuments ( Soviet War Memorial) * - a permanent exhibition of historical gas lanterns * spaces suitable for picnics, barbecues, jogging, cycling, and field sports such as soccer * pedal-taxi rentals * a large playground on the park's southeastern corner, near ''Potsdamer Platz''. * During cold winters, it is occasionally possible to go ice-skating on some of the park's small ponds. * English gardens


Geography

The park is located on the northern and central side of Tiergarten ''Ortsteil'' and is bordered, on the northern side, by the river Spree. The little quarter Hansaviertel borders on it at the north-western side and the
Zoological Garden A zoo (short for zoological garden; also called an animal park or menagerie) is a facility where animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for Conservation biology, conservation purposes. The term ''zoological garden ...
is situated on the south-western side. The principal road is the Straße des 17. Juni, which ends at 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 ...
to the east. Other main roads are the ''Altonaer Straße'', ''Spreeweg'' and ''Hofjägerallee''. In the middle of the park is the square named '' Großer Stern'' ("Great Star") with the ''Siegessäule'' (Victory column) located in its centre. In addition to the Brandenburg Gate, other notable buildings and structures located close to the park are the Soviet War Memorial, the Reichstag (seat of the
Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet (assembly), Diet") is the lower house of the Germany, German Federalism in Germany, federal parliament. It is the only constitutional body of the federation directly elected by the German people. The Bundestag wa ...
) and Federal Chancellery (seat of the
Chancellor of Germany The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, is the head of the federal Cabinet of Germany, government of Germany. The chancellor is the chief executive of the Federal Government of Germany, ...
) (all in the eastern borders), the new central railway station (in the north) and, on the southeastern borders, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the Memorial to the Sinti and Roma victims of National Socialism and the central square of Potsdamer Platz. In the northerly neighbouring quarter of
Moabit Moabit () is an inner city locality in the boroughs of Berlin, borough of Mitte, Berlin, Germany. As of 2022, about 84,000 people lived in Moabit. First inhabited in 1685 and incorporated into Berlin in 1861, the former industrial sector, industr ...
a much smaller park bears the same name, thus both are differentiated as Großer and
Kleiner Tiergarten Kleiner Tiergarten ("Small Tiergarten (park), Tiergarten") is a park in Moabit, Berlin, Germany. Location The park is located in Moabit, a division of Mitte, the central borough of Berlin. It is bounded to the north by ''Turmstraße'', ''Alt ...
. The Tiergarten has an area of around , and after Tempelhofer Freiheit, it is the second biggest parkland in Berlin and the third biggest inner-city parkland in Germany.


Transport

The park is principally served by the ''
S-Bahn The S-Bahn ( , ), , is a hybrid urban rail, urban–suburban rail system serving a metropolitan region predominantly in German language, German-speaking countries. Some of the larger S-Bahn systems provide service similar to rapid transit syst ...
'' at the rail stops of Berlin Tiergarten (situated at the western entrance on the Straße des 17. Juni) and Berlin Bellevue (lines S5 S7 S75). The N9 bus also serves the park.


Gallery

File:Bln Tiergtn3.jpg, The "Neue Partie" pond File:Bln Tiergtn8.jpg, Natural environment at "Langgraswiese" File:Berlin Tiergarten4.jpg, A small river in autumn File:Große Tiergarten Berlin winter view from Ahornsteig track.jpg, Winter view from Ahornsteig track File:Löwengruppe von Friedrich Wilhelm Wolff Großer Tiergarten Berlin.jpg, Group of lions sculpture File:Berlin siegessaeule 1603.jpg, The Victory Column


See also

* Carillon in Berlin-Tiergarten * Fasanerieallee * Tiergartenstraße * List of tourist attractions in Berlin


References


External links


Großer Tiergarten page on www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grosser Tiergarten Mitte Tiergarten Tiergarten Tiergarten