Fischerinsel is the southern part of the island in the River Spree which was formerly the location of the city of Cölln and is now part of central Berlin. The northern part of the island is known as Museum Island. Fischerinsel is normally said to extend south from Gertraudenstraße and is named for a fishermen's settlement which formerly occupied the southern end of the island. Until the mid-twentieth-century it was a well preserved pre-industrial neighbourhood, and most of the buildings survived World War II, but in the 1960s and 1970s under the German Democratic Republic it was levelled and replaced with a development of residential tower blocks.
Köllnischer Fischmarkt, 1886; Breite Straße now meets Gertraudenstraße at this point
Off Fischerstraße, 1952, Altes Stadthaus tower in background
Cölln Town Hall, about 1880; Petrikirche in the background
View south on Petristraße, around 1880
Cölln was the twin city of Old Berlin (Altberlin) from the 13th century to the 18th century. Cölln was located on the Fisher Island section of Spree Island, opposite Altberlin on the western bank of the River Spree, until the cities were merged by Frederick I of Prussia to form Berlin in 1710. Today, the former site of Cölln is the historic core of the modern Mitte locality of the Berlin-Mitte borough in central Berlin.
Cölln: Brüderstraße and St. Peter in the 19th century, by Eduard Gaertner
Nicolaihaus
Staatsrat building
Ribbeckhaus