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30-565: Spreebogenpark is a park in the locality of Tiergarten in Berlin , Germany. This German location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Tiergarten (Berlin) Once a hunting ground of the Electors of Brandenburg the Großer Tiergarten park of today was designed in the 1830s by landscape architect Peter Joseph Lenné . In the course of industrialization in

60-770: A war memorial along the Straße des 17. Juni , the Tiergarten's main east–west artery, near the Brandenburg Gate. The Tiergarten itself became part of the British sector . The locality houses many parliamentary and governmental institutions, among others the Bundestag in the Reichstag building and the new German Chancellery . The residence of the German President , Schloss Bellevue and

90-473: A great deal of resentment toward the East Germans. Despite the large sums of economic aid poured into East Berlin, there still remain obvious differences between the former East and West Berlins. East Berlin has a distinct visual style; this is partly due to the greater survival of prewar façades and streetscapes, with some still showing signs of wartime damage. The unique look of Socialist Classicism that

120-486: A long process of review (so, for instance, Leninallee reverted to Landsberger Allee in 1991, and Dimitroffstraße reverted to Danziger Straße in 1995). Another symbolic icon of the former East Berlin (and of East Germany as a whole) is the Ampelmännchen (tr. "little traffic light men"), a stylized version of a fedora-wearing man crossing the street, which is found on traffic lights at many pedestrian crosswalks throughout

150-594: A way that was deemed cost-effective. Because of this, a massive amount of West German economic aid was poured into East Germany to revitalize it. This stimulus was part-funded through a 7.5% tax on income for individuals and companies (in addition to normal income tax or company tax) known as the Solidaritätszuschlaggesetz (SolZG) or "solidarity surcharge", which though only in effect for 1991–1992 (later reintroduced in 1995 at 7.5 and then dropped down to 5.5% in 1998 and continues to be levied to this day) led to

180-757: 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 Defense ; the headquarters of the Christian Democratic Party , the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and Friedrich Ebert Foundation academies as well as the Bauhaus Archive and the high schools Französisches Gymnasium and Canisius-Kolleg are located nearby. The adjacent western area at

210-740: The Berlin Philharmonic orchestra to the Neue Nationalgalerie built by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1968. In between are the neoclassical Saint Matthew Church, built in 1845 by Friedrich August Stüler , the 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

240-593: The Carillon are also located in the Tiergarten park. It contains several notable sculptures including the four-tiered Victory Column ( Siegessäule ), the Bismarck Memorial 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 Nazis . In addition, the tree-lined pedestrian avenues emanating from

270-476: The Reichstag fire on 27 February 1933 and was demolished by air raids in 1943. On 15 January 1919 the socialist Karl Liebknecht was shot by Freikorps soldiers within the park near the lake Neuer See . The corpse of Rosa Luxemburg , murdered on the same day, was found in the nearby Landwehrkanal on 1 June 1919. The first Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sex Research) of Magnus Hirschfeld

300-685: The 19th century, a network of streets was laid out in the Hobrecht-Plan in an area that came to be known architecturally as the Wilhelmine Ring . In 1894 the Reichstag building by architect Paul Wallot opened as the seat of the German parliament. The lawn between the contemporary Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of World Cultures) and the Reichstag building was the site of the Krolloper opera house, built in 1844, which served as parliament house after

330-509: The GDR's authority to govern East Berlin. For most of its administrative existence, East Berlin was officially known as Berlin, capital of the GDR ( German : Berlin, Hauptstadt der DDR ) by the GDR government. On 3 October 1990, the day Germany was officially reunified , East and West Berlin formally reunited as the city of Berlin. With the London Protocol of 1944 signed on 12 September 1944,

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360-646: The United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union decided to divide Germany into three occupation zones and to establish a special area of Berlin, which was occupied by the three Allied Forces together. In May 1945, the Soviet Union installed a city government for the whole city that was called "Magistrate of Greater Berlin", which existed until 1947. After the war, the Allied Forces initially administered

390-629: 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. Covering 210 hectares (520 acres), the " Großer Tiergarten " is the largest urban park of Berlin. East Berlin East Berlin ( German : Ost-Berlin ; pronounced [ˈɔstbɛʁˌliːn] )

420-589: The Victory Column contain several ceremonial sculptures of Prussian aristocrats enacting an 18th-century hunt. The Brandenburg Gate and the Potsdamer Platz are situated on the eastern rim of the locality, which itself was the former frontier between East and West Berlin. Nearby is the Kulturforum stretching from the Berliner Philharmonie , a 1963 concert hall by architect Hans Scharoun and home of

450-545: The authority of the East German government to govern East Berlin. Official Allied protocol recognized only the authority of the Soviet Union in East Berlin in accordance with the occupation status of Berlin as a whole. The United States Command Berlin, for example, published detailed instructions for U.S. military and civilian personnel wishing to visit East Berlin. In fact, the three Western commandants regularly protested against

480-637: The border to Charlottenburg houses the Berlin Zoo . The 1985 album Le Parc by Tangerine Dream contains a track titled Tiergarten . Rufus Wainwright also released a track titled Tiergarten as part of his 2007 album, Release the Stars . Since 1987, the annual Berlin Marathon starts at Tiergarten near the Brandenburg Gate. Between 1996 and 2003 and then in 2006, the Love Parade music festival took place at

510-640: The city together within the Allied Kommandatura , which served as the governing body of the city. However, in 1948 the Soviet representative left the Kommandatura and the common administration broke apart during the following months. In the Soviet sector, a separate city government was established, which continued to call itself the "Magistrate of Greater Berlin". When the German Democratic Republic

540-585: The existence of East Berlin. Citywide elections in December 1990 resulted in the first "all-Berlin" mayor being elected to take office in January 1991, with the separate offices of mayors in East and West Berlin expiring at the time, and Eberhard Diepgen (a former mayor of West Berlin) became the first elected mayor of a reunited Berlin. East Berlin reached its highest population in 1988 with 1.28 million. The lowest value

570-500: The former East. Following a civic debate about whether the Ampelmännchen should be abolished or disseminated more widely (due to concerns of consistency), several crosswalks in some parts of the former West Berlin began to employ the Ampelmännchen . Twenty-five years after the two cities were reunified, the people of East and West Berlin still had noticeable differences between them, and these differences became more apparent among

600-513: The older generations. The two groups also had sometimes-derogatory slang terms to refer to each other. A former East Berliner (or East German) was known as an " Ossi " (from the German word for east, Ost ), and a former West Berliner (or West German) was known as a " Wessi " (from the German word for west, West ). Both sides also engaged in stereotyping the other. A stereotypical Ossi had little ambition or poor work ethic and

630-553: The people with disabilities systematically murdered by the Nazis was dedicated in 2014 in Berlin at that site. Although the villa was destroyed, a Stolperstein 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 built

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660-524: The presence of the East German National People's Army in East Berlin, particularly on the occasion of military parades. Nevertheless, the three Western Allies eventually established embassies in East Berlin in the 1970s, although they never recognized it as the capital of East Germany. Treaties instead used terms such as "seat of government". On 3 October 1990, East and West Germany and East and West Berlin were reunited , thus formally ending

690-578: The standard established in West Berlin. After reunification, the East German economy suffered significantly. Under the adopted policy of privatization of state-owned firms under the auspices of the Treuhandanstalt , many East German factories were shut down—which also led to mass unemployment—due to gaps in productivity with and investment compared to West German companies, as well as an inability to comply with West German pollution and safety standards in

720-605: The strains on the East German economy from war reparations owed to the Soviet Union, massive destruction of industry, and lack of assistance from the Marshall Plan . In August 1961, the East German Government tried to stop the population exodus by separating West Berlin by the Berlin Wall . It was very dangerous for fleeing residents to cross because armed soldiers were trained to shoot illegal emigrants . East Germany

750-524: Was a socialist republic . Eventually, Christian churches were allowed to operate without restraint after years of harassment by authorities. In the 1970s, the wages of East Berliners rose and working hours fell. The Soviet Union and the Communist Bloc recognized East Berlin as the GDR's capital. However, Western Allies (the United States , United Kingdom , and France ) never formally acknowledged

780-556: Was established in 1949, it immediately claimed East Berlin as its capital—a claim that was recognized by all communist countries . Nevertheless, East Berlin's representatives to the Volkskammer were not directly elected and did not have full voting rights until 1981. In June 1948, all railways and roads leading to West Berlin were blocked , and East Berliners were not allowed to emigrate. Nevertheless, more than 1,000 East Germans were escaping to West Berlin each day by 1960, caused by

810-468: Was in 1961, the year the Berlin Wall was built, with under 1.06 million registered. The figures in the following table, unless otherwise indicated, are from the official central statistical office of East Germany. Since reunification, the German government has spent vast amounts of money on reintegrating the two halves of the city and bringing services and infrastructure in the former East Berlin up to

840-473: 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

870-452: Was the partially recognised capital of East Germany (GDR) from 1949 to 1990. From 1945, it was the Soviet occupation sector of Berlin . The American, British, and French sectors were known as West Berlin . From 13 August 1961 until 9 November 1989, East Berlin was separated from West Berlin by the Berlin Wall . The Western Allied powers did not recognize East Berlin as the GDR's capital, nor

900-535: Was used in East Berlin (along with the rest of the former GDR) also contrasts markedly with the urban development styles employed in the former West Berlin. Additionally, the former East Berlin (along with the rest of the former GDR) retains a small number of its GDR-era street and place names commemorating German socialist heroes, such as Karl-Marx-Allee , Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz , and Karl-Liebknecht-Straße . Many such names, however, were deemed inappropriate (for various reasons) and, through decommunization , changed after

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