Underground (Metro)

By February 2002, Berlin's U-Bahn metro service will look back at a hundred years of history: Its yellow trains are an integral part of the city, just like the Brandenburg Gate, the Kurfürstendamm boulevard and the S-Bahn city railway. Already in 1880, the engineer Werner von Siemens considered building an elevated railway in Berlin. But hardly anyone believed in the success of such an undertaking. Too many vested interests seemed to stand in its way. It would take another 15 years until the authorities finally gave the green light for an elevated railway.

The first building work began in 1896 in the Giltschiner Strasse in the district of Kreuzberg. The line was opened in 1902 and initially stretched from the Stralauer Tor to the Potsdamer Platz. Extensions to the Warschauer Brücke and the Zoologischer Garten were completed in the same year. 29 million passengers already used these 11 kilometres of track in 1903. The section from Nollendorfplatz to the Zoo was already subterranean as Charlottenburg, at that time still an independent and wealthy city, had demanded. This early phase of tunnel building clearly demonstrated that underground railways were possible – many people had previoulsly voiced serious doubts about this. The year 1905 saw new U-Bahn construction work: A metro line to the Richard-Wagner-Platz in Charlottenburg was completed in 1906 and 2 years later one could also travel to the Spittelmarkt.

Berlin's other suburbs now increasingly focused their attention on this new method of transport: Charlottenburg planned further routes, including one under the Kurfürstendamm, Schöneberg wanted to construct a line of its own and Wilmersdorf planned a U-Bahn in collaboration with Dahlem. Several routes were completed until 1913 – the U-Bahn from Spittelmarkt through the city, under the Spree river to the Alexanderplatz and on to the Schönhauser Allee, the Wilmersdorf stretch to the Thielplatz and the Kurfürstendamm route to the Uhlandstrasse. Schöneberg opened its own independent U-Bahn by late 1910. 35 kilometres of track had been completed by October 1913. But there were also setbacks. In September 1908, there was a heavy accident at the Gleisdreieck and the city ordered that part of the railway be constructed anew. The new station was completed in 1912, just like the pompous entrance hall of the Wittenberg station. All routes which had been built until then were completed by the “Hochbahngesellschaft”, a private corporation.

But now the city of Berlin also wanted to build a communal Underground and started doing so in 1912. The Great War, however, halted these projects until 1919. The communal “North-South-Railway” (nowadays Line 6) was finished in 1923, a time of great deprivation. The stations' idiosyncratic features still bear testimony to the hardship of those days. This was also the first “large profile stretch” with wider tracks than normally used.

A few years later, the network then expanded rapidly. Until the end of 1930, many city districts were connected to the Underground system: The Line 6 reached Tempelhof, the 7 Neukölln. Line 8, in existence since 1927, already went to the Leinestrasse in 1929 and reached Gesundbrunnen by 1930, 18 metres under the surface (Berlin's deepest railway station!). In 1929, the U2 reached Ruhleben and the U1 Krumme Lanke. By 1930, the U2 to Vinetastrasse was completed and the new U5 was operational, going from Alexanderplatz to Friedrichsfelde. Ernst Reuter, mayor of Berlin, initiated the fusion of all public transport companies into the city-owned BVG.

The worldwide economic slump which followed put an end to all further construction work. The Nazis failed to contribute to the system and the war caused extensive damage to the whole network: German troops planted explosive charges which, in early May 1945, led to the flooding of a third of the tunnels – not to mention all the other damage caused by the war. Fighting actually took place in many tunnels during the last weeks of the conflict. The huge effort made by the transport workers ensured that by the end of 1945 most parts of the system were back in action again. The damage to the buildings was repaired 1952.

Again it was Ernst Reuter, Berlin's popular mayor, who ensured that by 1953 the U-Bahn network was heading for expansion again. A few days after his unexpected death, construction work was taken up in the Müllerstrasse and in 1958 the Line 6 to Tegel entered service. In August 1961, though, the system was brutally cut in two with the erection of the Berlin Wall.

The western part of the city still kept expanding its system. In September 1961, the first section of nowaday's line 9 was completed, from the Spichernstraße to the Leopoldplatz. It was the most technologically advanced metro line in Europe. The following years saw further new stretches: In 1963, Line 7 reached Britz-Süd while in 1966 the 6 took you to Mariendorf and the 7 to the Möckernbrücke.

By 1970, the 7 took you into the Gropiusstadt district – still under construction – and in 1971 the U9 to the Walther-Schreiber-Platz was finished while Line 7 was extended to the Fehrbelliner Platz. East Berlin also saw a new stretch in 1973 with the Tierpark in Friedrichsfelde being connected to the rest of the network.

West Berlin, meanwhile, witnessed a rapid expansionof the U-Bahn system in subsequent years: By 1972, Line 7 reached Rudow, Line 9 the Steglitzer Rathaus in 1974 and the Osloer Straße in 1976. Line 8 also went there since 1977. The following year saw the completion of the Line 7 under the Wilmersdorfer Strasse, extending to Siemensstadt in 1980 and reaching Spandau in 1984. With a length of 34 kilometres, Line 7 was and is Europe's longest subterranean metro! In 1987, the Line 8's extension to Paracelsus-Bad was completed.

When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, the routes it had severed could all be reconnected. Berlin was a whole city once again! In 1993, the U2 directly went from the Zoo to the Alexanderplatz again. In 1994, Line 8 reached Wittenau and 2 years later the yellow trains rode over the Oberbaumbrücke again – for the first time since 1961. Nowadays, Berlin´s Underground has 143 kilometres of track with 170 stations. Some lines even operate around the clock on weekends. About one million Berliners use the service every day. One can hope that this great network will be extended into such areas as Lankwitz, the Märkisches Viertel or Weissensee.