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43-552: The Lehrter Straße (also: Lehrter Strasse , Lehrterstraße , and Lehrterstrasse ) is a residential street in Moabit , a sub district of Mitte , one of Berlin 's 12 boroughs of which the borders were redefined following the 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall . It runs for an almost completely straight length, except for a small kink shortly before its southern extremity. The street is approximately 1,500 metres (0.93 miles) long and lies in

86-767: A migration background, making it one of the highest percentages alongside Gesundbrunnen , Neukölln , Kreuzberg and Wedding . Moabit is mentioned in countless books and films taking place in Germany or Berlin, primarily in reference to criminal court cases or incarcerations at the Central Criminal Court (Kriminalgericht) and detention centre. The district features briefly in Jonathan Franzen 's 2015 novel Purity and also extensively in Dan Fesperman's 2018 novel Safe Houses. The Berlin-based band No Nebraska! released

129-464: A modern harbor by Fritz Gehrke  [ de ] . It featured 83 elevators and two glass-roofed atriums. With the construction of the corner pavilion on the Leipziger Platz frontage, with its deep portico, in 1904, Messel created nothing less than the incunabulum of progressive department store architecture. The traditional formal language, with the quasi-ecclesiastical sculpture employed,

172-547: A song entitled "Moabit is an Island" on their EP "Serves Six" in 2007. Wertheim (department store) In 1875, Georg's parents, Ida and Abraham Wertheim  [ de ] (who sometimes went by the name Adolf), had opened a modest shop selling clothes and manufactured goods in Stralsund , a provincial town on the Baltic Sea. An extensive network of family members ensured a low-priced supply of goods. In 1876, one year after

215-732: A southeasterly direction from the Perleberger Strasse near the Fenn Bridge, to the west of, and parallel to the disused Lehrter railway complex which was disbanded in the 1950s. It joins the Invalidenstraße a few hundred metres from the new Berlin Hauptbahnhof (Berlin's central railway station), near the site of the former Invalidenstraße East-West Berlin Cold War checkpoint. The street consists of 75 houses numbered in horseshoe fashion. After

258-637: Is based in Moabit. The origin of the name Moabit is disputed. According to one account, it can be traced back to the Huguenots , in the time of King Frederick William I of Prussia . These French refugees are said to have named their new residence in reference to the Biblical description of the Israelites in the country of Moab , where they stayed before being allowed to enter Canaan . Other possible origins include

301-620: Is fully surrounded by three watercourses, which define its present-day border. Between 1945 and 1990, Moabit was part of the British sector of West Berlin and directly bordered East Berlin . Until the administrative reform in 2001, Moabit was a part of the district of Tiergarten . Colloquially, the name Moabit also refers to the Central Criminal Court ( Strafgericht ) and detention centre, which deals with all criminal cases in Berlin and

344-575: The Museum für Gegenwart . The Center for Art and Urbanism (ZK/U) is located on the grounds of the Stadtgarten Moabit, in the former Berlin-Moabit freight station. For a long time, Moabit was sparsely inhabited. Its population grew considerably after its incorporation into Berlin in 1861: Moabit's modern-day population is among Berlin's most diverse. As of 2022 , out of 84,148 inhabitants, 29,533 (35.10%) were non-German citizens. 46,113 (54.80%) had

387-695: The Poststadion sport stadium at No. 59 including the indoor swimming pool. The Lehrter Straße is served in its length by the bus route 123. The nearest U-Bahn station (tube/subway) for the northern end is Birkenstrasse on Line U9, about a 15 minute walk from the street's junction with the Perlebergerstrasse. The southern end of the Lehrterstrasse is served directly by the Berlin Central Station which in addition to it main railway lines, includes

430-555: The S-Bahn (a surface metro railway) Lines S3, S5, S7, and S9; the U-Bahn Line U55, and tram (Metrotram) lines M5, M8, and M10. Moabit Moabit ( German: [moaˈbiːt] ) is an inner city locality in the 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 and working-class neighbourhood

473-783: The Weimar Republic , the 20-year-old Communist activist Olga Benário and several of her comrades managed to break into Moabit's prison and free the incarcerated Otto "Li De" Braun , a prominent party member and at the time Benario's lover. Despite being hotly hunted, the two lovers succeeded in escaping to Moscow and later rose (separately) to prominence in the International Communist movement (in Brazil and China respectively). Between 1941 and 1945, around 1900 Jews were deported predominantly to Auschwitz , Theresienstadt or Minsk . Approximately as many survived by escaping abroad. After

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516-418: The reunification of Germany in 1990, Lehrterstraße suddenly found itself in the centre of the reunited city. The old buildings, some of which had previously been slated for demolition, were restored and renovated, even before the road was designated as a redevelopment area. In 2010, two hotels were built, and terraced houses with small gardens were built on the corner of Seydlitzstrasse. The district office in

559-474: The " separate system " of Pentonville Prison . In 1878 Max Hödel , who had shot at Emperor Wilhelm I of Germany , was beheaded here. Political activists like Karl Radek , Erich Mühsam and Musa Cälil were detained in Moabit. Wilhelm Voigt , the "Hauptmann von Köpenick", and the writer Wolfgang Borchert served their prison sentences in the prison. The vast building of the Criminal Court on Turmstraße

602-448: The 1970s due to a plan to lay an urban expressway through the neighbourhood; the late 19th and early 20th century, partly derelict, traditional working-class tenements, warehouses, and factories were mostly empty. The plan was shelved and by the end of the 1970s, the houses on the northern end of the street began to be occupied by squatters, a Hells Angels chapter, and a vibrant community of struggling artists, musicians, and students. On

645-517: The 20th century the residential tenement buildings were constructed . A military complex of nine buildings was built around 1900 on the parade ground in Berlin's Moabit district by the Prussian army. After the Second World War, the complex was no longer needed and from the 1970s, the empty houses being on the edge of West Berlin near the wall fell largely abandoned and became partly derelict. Before

688-509: The German ( Berlin dialect ) "Moorjebiet" (swamp area). In the 13th century the waste area along the road to Spandau known as Grosse Stadtheide ("great city heath ") was a hunting ground of the electors of Brandenburg . Settlement began in 1685 with the erection of the Staakensetzerhaus at the western border of what is now Moabit. 1716 saw the formation of the colony of Old Moabit by

731-455: The Huguenots, who were meant to cultivate white mulberry trees for silkworms , but failed because of the low soil quality. In 1818 New Moabit was founded and grew together with Old Moabit to an industrial suburb district, which was incorporated into the city of Berlin in 1861. The industrialization started in 1820 when, with the financial support of court counsellor Baillif, a simple bridge

774-532: The Invalidenstrasse intersection the traffic route continues south on Clara-Jaschk Strasse. Formerly called Torfstraße running in a straight north-south direction, it was bisected by the construction of the railway line. The southern part beginning at the junction with the Perlebergerstrasse received its new name, Lehrterstraße on 6 August 1872 on the commissioning of the Lehrter railway station in 1871. A number of

817-485: The Leipziger Platz opened in 1896 and attracted an upmarket clientele, who until then had held back from patronising his department stores, with all their needs satisfied under one roof. In the following years, Messel had to constantly expand the building. Other stores on Rosenthaler Straße  [ de ; sv ] (1903), Königsstraße (1911) and, again, on Moritzplatz (1913) were rebuilt or expanded. The Moritzplatz  [ de ] Wertheim store helped to finance

860-552: The Leipziger Platz to the Wilhelmstraße . During construction the night-time electric lighting and steel scaffolding caused a sensation, and when the store opened on 15 November 15, 1897, the result was traffic chaos on the Leipziger Straße. The innovative, vertically structured façade of narrow pillars extending from the ground floor to the roof and interspersed with windows received high praise, not least because it alluded to

903-428: The building's function. After passing through a vestibule two-storeys high, one entered a rectangular light well 22 meters high and 450 square meters in size. On the opposite wall an imposing stairway led to the upper sales floors. On the landing was a 6-meter-high (20 ft) statue symbolizing “Labor” by Ludwig Manzel , and the wall above was decorated with monumental frescoes showing an ancient harbor by Max Koch and

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946-401: The buildings in the street have been placed under historical monument protection. In the 19th century, the west side of Lehrter Straße was largely barracks, officers' residences and a parade ground. On the eastern side, the facilities of the Lehrter railway lines ran behind or over prison grounds and military buildings. Accommodation was provided for the railway employees and at the beginning of

989-524: The center of Berlin has drawn up development plans for a new district behind the historic brick wall of the former railway site. This would take in most of the large derelict railway yard on the eastern side of the Lehrterstraße which is currently home to 34 garden allotments and other railway buildings, The Berlin City Mission built an office and congress center at Lehrterstraße 68 near the southern end of

1032-517: The eastern side of the middle section of the road between the sports facilities at the Poststadion and the Europacity on the 3.7 hectares of the former railway depot of the since 1952 obsolete Lehrter station, a new city subdistrict, Mittenmang, with about 1000 rental and condominiums and the associated urban infrastructure, is being developed as of 2018. The proposal has not been entirely well-received by

1075-480: The end this was unsuccessful, even though they divorced to keep the shares in purely "Aryan" hands. The family was forced to sell all their shares at reduced prices to "Aryans" and in 1939 the store was renamed AWAG, an acronym for Allgemeine Warenhandelsgesellschaft A.G. (General Retailing Corporation). The Wertheim family fled Nazi Germany. The new owner Karstadt operated under the Wertheim name. The flagship store

1118-620: The isolation of the tuberculosis bacterium. A teaching hospital from 1920 on, the Krankenhaus Moabit employed notable physicians like the Nobel Laureate Werner Forssmann , Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner and the resistance fighter Georg Groscurth . A first prison, the Zellengefängnis (Cell Prison) on Lehrter Strasse was built between 1842 and 1849 by order of King Frederick William IV of Prussia , according to

1161-468: The limitations, which arose due to the shops' locations within an older-style structures with rooms that were not especially large and this made further expansion difficult. A store was established on Leipziger Strasse in 1892, and in 1894 began the sale of goods in the first purpose planned and built department store on the Oranienstraße  [ de ; fr ; sv ] . The flagship Wertheim store on

1204-540: The local population due to its upmarket costs. Several buildings in the street have been placed under historical monument protection: the prison, the houses 6 to 10, and 27 to 30; the house at No.48, a tenement block; built in 1894. The former Berlin Royal Military Clothing Department made uniforms at No.57 and 58. The Werthheim House at No. 35 was a factory and warehouse of the Wertheim company. Parts of

1247-499: The main shopping street." The store did not survive World War II. In March 1943 it was damaged by three exploding bombs, and its final destruction was caused by a fire started by a phosphorus bomb. The ruins were cleared away in 1955–56 to make way for a border strip demarcating the Russian sector of Berlin. When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, the Wertheim department store chain

1290-458: The new department store on the general public as well as on architecture experts is documented in newspaper and magazine articles and statements by famous architects and their critics. These included Peter Behrens , Henry van de Velde, August Endell, Bruno Taut, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe , Hermann Muthesius, Karl Scheffler, Walter Curt Behrendt, Fritz Stahl, Alfred Lichtwark, Heinrich Schliepmann amongst others. Brian Ladd called it “the crown jewel of

1333-522: The opening of the Olympia Stadium for the 1936 Olympics, the listed Poststadion , built in 1929 for the sports club of the German Reichspost at the site of a former Prussian Uhlan parade ground, was Berlin's major stadium with a capacity of 55,000 spectators. Undergoing an ongoing programme of restoration since 2003, the Poststadion and its sport park is one of the city's largest sport complexes. By

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1376-449: The population and the subsequent construction of tenements in Moabit and neighbouring Wedding , facilitating the spread of a smallpox epidemic. In consequence, Berlin's city council, exhorted to do so by Rudolf Virchow , built a second hospital (after the Charité ), the Krankenhaus Moabit in 1872. In the 1880s, Robert Koch worked here on the sterilization of surgical instruments and

1419-557: The redirecting of the U-Bahn (Underground) (copying the model of his competitor Rudolph Karstadt) in order that customers could go directly from the underground platform to the entrance. The chain's most famous store, on Leipziger Platz in Berlin, was the biggest department store in Europe at the time, and was one of the three largest department stores ( Warenhäuser ) in Berlin, the others being Hermann Tietz and Kaufhaus des Westens . This store

1462-503: The road, and also runs a collection depot for donated clothing in the basement. The largest building in the ensemble - the former uniform clothing factory at Lehrterstraße 57 - was converted and refurbished by Sauerbruch Hutton , an international architecture and design firm, between 2008 and extended in 2010. Outside, the historic listed brick facade remains while inside, the most modern techniques and materials for optimal use have been employed in order to address today's requirements. On

1505-405: The shop opened, the two eldest sons Hugo and Georg (aged 20 and 19 respectively), went to work in the shop following their apprenticeships in Berlin. Three younger sons later joined them. The two brothers quickly brought new ideas into the shop: customers were allowed to replace goods, the price of a good was no longer debatable but reliable, and purchases were made strictly with cash. This concept

1548-877: The war, between 1945 and 1990, Moabit was part of the British sector of West Berlin . Due to its new peripheral location adjacent to the Berlin Wall , Moabit became a remote neighbourhood. Similar to Kreuzberg, it attracted mostly immigrants due to its low rents. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, Moabit's location has anew changed to its former centrality. Post-reunification, Moabit has faced problems such as drug trafficking and abuse (especially around Kleiner Tiergarten ), poverty (most notably in its Western parts), and crime. Similar to neighbouring Wedding, lower rents have recently attracted artists and young people, and there are first unmistakable signs of gentrification . At its eastern edge, bordering Mitte, Moabit's neoclassical train station now serves as Berlin's contemporary art museum,

1591-714: Was built to connect the island to the Berlin mainland. The bridge was followed by factories, a power plant, the Berlin-Spandau Canal, the Westhafen port and the Hamburger Bahnhof train station which connected Berlin with Hamburg . A network of streets was laid out in the Hobrecht-Plan in an area that came to be known architecturally as the Wilhelmine Ring . All of that activity resulted in an exponential growth of

1634-516: Was constructed between 1896 and 1906 by the renowned architect Alfred Messel who also designed other stores for the firm, such as that at Rosenthaler Straße 27–31/Sophienstraße 12–15 (partially surviving) which was built between 1903 and 1906. At its full extent the building covered 26,000 square metres and faced both the Leipziger Strasse and the Voßstraße and stretched nearly all the way from

1677-586: Was described by critics as a "positive catastrophe", contrasting with the much-derided Berliner Dom (Cathedral), which was completed around the same time. The portico's sculptures, featuring figures from the Old Testament and Greek Mythology were the work of Josef Rauch (1868-1921). Fritz Stahl made the comment that the Leipzigerplatz portico was the "first building of the time to restore sculpture to its true architectonic relationship". The tremendous impact of

1720-718: Was erected in 1906. In 1909, architect Peter Behrens built the AEG 's Turbine factory at the north-western Huttenstraße , one of the first works of Modern architecture . Large parts of Moabit are traditional working-class residential areas. Some areas were known for their political activity during the Nazi era, such as the Red Beusselkiez or the neighbouring Rostock Kiez . After the Nazi Machtergreifung in 1933 they were considered Communist resistance cells. On 11 April 1928, during

1763-599: Was on the Kurfürstendamm . It was built in 1969–71 and was converted to a Karstadt in 2008. The other store was on the Schloßstraße  [ de ] in the Steglitz district. It was demolished in 2009 for construction of a new shopping center. The Wertheim family filed claims to try to recover the property taken under the Nazis. Complicated negotiations mediated by former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl between Karstadt ,

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1806-663: Was successful, and after the opening of another branch in Rostock, the first branch in Berlin (Rosenthaler Straße) was founded in 1885. Wertheim quickly realised the changing demand of the growing city in the period of industrialisation and in 1890 opened the first real department store on Moritzplatz/Oranienstraße in Berlin-Kreuzberg. The shop floor was more generous in size and permitted more elaborate presentation of products for sale, products were put on display, and longer runs allowed lower prices. However, it increasingly appeared that

1849-409: Was targeted by the state. Like Tietz , it was owned by a Jewish family. The company was Aryanized —that is, forcibly transferred to non-Jewish owners. Jewish employees were forced from their positions by government mandate. The Wertheim family attempted to avoid losing control of the company by making Georg's wife, Ursula, the principal shareholder, since she was considered "Aryan" under Nazi law. In

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