U2 (Berlin U-Bahn)
U2 is a line of the Berlin U-Bahn. The U2 line starts at Pankow S-Bahn station, runs through the eastern city centre to Potsdamer Platz, the western city centre and to the Ruhleben terminal station; the U2 has a length of 20.7 kilometers. Together with the U1, U3, U4 lines, it was part of the early Berlin metro network built before 1914; the route between Potsdamer Platz and Zoologischer Garten was the western section of the Stammstrecke, Berlin's first metro inaugurated in 1902. The line starts in what was West Berlin at Ruhleben and runs on a causeway between Rominter Allee and the railway line to Spandau. On the bend approaching Olympischen Straße, the line descends into tunnel to run beneath that road. Subsequently, the U2 pivots towards the national highway to Theodor-Heuss-Platz, where it runs in a curve to Kaiserdamm. Under Kaiserdamm, which becomes Bismarckstraße at Sophie Charlotte-Platz, the tunnel leads straight to Ernst-Reuter-Platz. Here again, it swings to the southeast, following the course of Hardenberger Straße towards Zoologischer Garten station.
In the tunnel, it passes the foundations of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in a tight arc follows Tauentzienstraße where the track emerges via a ramp to the elevated railway section after Wittenbergplatz - east of the intersection Kleist-Courbierestraße. The elevated railway reaches its full height at Nollendorfplatz station where all four lines of the small-profile network meet. In the underground part of the station, there are four more lines; the U2 continues above ground to the east of the Bülowstraße. After that U2 makes a curves over a long viaduct on the southernmost point of the route, passes through Gleisdreieck station and runs straight across the Landwehrkanal and returns into tunnel between Mendelssohn Bartholdy-Park and Potsdamer Platz stations. While the railway company intended it to continue along Leipziger Straße, this route was not built and it continues instead along Mohrenstraße, Markgrafenstraße and Niederwallstraße to the River Spree in Berlin Mitte. After passing the Märkisches Museum station, it goes under the River Spree in a tunnel, runs through Klosterstraße to Alexanderplatz station.
After leaving Alexanderplatz, the track turns under Rosa-Luxemburg-Straße and through the station of the same name. The line runs north underneath Schönhauser Allee and through Senefelderplatz station. Before reaching Eberswalder Straße station, the line emerges from tunnel and on to an elevated viaduct through to the Schönhauser Allee station, an S-Bahn interchange. From there the line runs beyond the former city limits and the elevated railway descends again into a tunnel to Vinetastraße and before reaching the terminus at Pankow. Since the introduction of the schematic line network plans at the Berlin subway, at least parts of today's line U2 always had the color red; when letters were introduced as a line name after the First World War, the small profile network received the letters "A" and "B". The inner city route, more important than the older route through Kreuzberg, became Line A, as did the two western branches to Charlottenburg and Dahlem; the routes from Kurfürstendamm and Schöneberg through Kreuzberg to the Warsaw Bridge were given the letter "B" and the color code green.
To distinguish the branches in the western part of the route, the letters were supplemented by Roman numbers, the Charlottenburg route was thus the line AI. From 1966, the designation of the lines operated by the Berlin public transport companies in West Berlin was converted to Arabic numbers; each line should be operated independently and without branching. The line 1 drove now from Ruhleben through Charlottenburg to Kreuzberg, the previous AII became the line 2; the severed eastern line section, used since 1949 by the BVG East / BVB, retained unchanged the "A" as a line designation, as well as the red color code. On January 9, 1984, the BVG took over the managed by the Deutsche Reichsbahn S-Bahn lines in West Berlin; the marking of the subway lines traveled by the BVG changed again because of the now parallel operated U- and S-Bahn. To better distinguish the two trades, the respective Arabic number, which has remained valid since 1966, was prefixed with the letter "U" as a line number. According to the model of public transport networks, such things were followed from various cities they were called U1 to U9 and equivalent to the acquired S-Bahn routes preceded by "S" and the route number.
With the merging of Berlin in the context of German reunification and the reconstruction of the disused section Wittenbergplatz - Mohrenstraße, the BVG decided to swap the western branches of the meeting at the Wittenbergplatz lines U1 and U2. The reunited former AI line has since been under the new name "U2", but as earlier by the two separate parts of the city with traditional red line color; the increasing traffic problems in Berlin at the end of the 19th century led to a search for new efficient means of transport. Inspired by Werner von Siemens, numerous suggestions were made for overhead conveyors, such as a suspension railway, as was built in Wuppertal, or a tube railway as was built in London. Siemens and some prominent Berliners submitted a plan for an elevated railway on the model of New York; these people opposed Siemens' suggestion of building an overhead railway in the major street of Friedrichstraße, but the city of Berlin opposed underground railways, since it feared damage to one of its new sewers.
After many years
Ruhleben (Berlin U-Bahn)
Ruhleben is a Berlin U-Bahn station, the western terminus of the U 2 line. Named after the adjacent Ruhleben neighbourhood, it is located in the Westend district close to the border with Spandau; the station, with an elevated platform and subjacent entrance hall was designed by Alfred Grenander. The tracks end behind the platform without any reversing facility. Plans to extend the U2 toward Spandau were cancelled during the Great Depression and never carried out, they became obsolete after the construction of the U 7 to Rathaus Spandau in 1984 and the re-opening of the Spandau Suburban Line of the Berlin S-Bahn in 1998. In 2010/2011 the station has been extensively restored
World War II
World War II known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries; the major participants threw their entire economic and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China, it included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, the only use of nuclear weapons in war. Japan, which aimed to dominate Asia and the Pacific, was at war with China by 1937, though neither side had declared war on the other. World War II is said to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom.
From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Finland and the Baltic states. Following the onset of campaigns in North Africa and East Africa, the fall of France in mid 1940, the war continued between the European Axis powers and the British Empire. War in the Balkans, the aerial Battle of Britain, the Blitz, the long Battle of the Atlantic followed. On 22 June 1941, the European Axis powers launched an invasion of the Soviet Union, opening the largest land theatre of war in history; this Eastern Front trapped most crucially the German Wehrmacht, into a war of attrition. In December 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the United States as well as European colonies in the Pacific. Following an immediate U. S. declaration of war against Japan, supported by one from Great Britain, the European Axis powers declared war on the U.
S. in solidarity with their Japanese ally. Rapid Japanese conquests over much of the Western Pacific ensued, perceived by many in Asia as liberation from Western dominance and resulting in the support of several armies from defeated territories; the Axis advance in the Pacific halted in 1942. Key setbacks in 1943, which included a series of German defeats on the Eastern Front, the Allied invasions of Sicily and Italy, Allied victories in the Pacific, cost the Axis its initiative and forced it into strategic retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained its territorial losses and turned toward Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in Central China, South China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy and captured key Western Pacific islands; the war in Europe concluded with an invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the capture of Berlin by Soviet troops, the suicide of Adolf Hitler and the German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945.
Following the Potsdam Declaration by the Allies on 26 July 1945 and the refusal of Japan to surrender under its terms, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August respectively. With an invasion of the Japanese archipelago imminent, the possibility of additional atomic bombings, the Soviet entry into the war against Japan and its invasion of Manchuria, Japan announced its intention to surrender on 15 August 1945, cementing total victory in Asia for the Allies. Tribunals were set up by fiat by the Allies and war crimes trials were conducted in the wake of the war both against the Germans and the Japanese. World War II changed the political social structure of the globe; the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The Soviet Union and United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the nearly half-century long Cold War. In the wake of European devastation, the influence of its great powers waned, triggering the decolonisation of Africa and Asia.
Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic expansion. Political integration in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities and create a common identity; the start of the war in Europe is held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred and the two wars merged in 1941; this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935; the British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the fo
Schlesisches Tor (Berlin U-Bahn)
Schlesisches Tor is a Berlin U-Bahn station on the U 1 and U 3 lines. It is located in eastern Kreuzberg, near Oberbaumbrücke, in the Bohemian quarter known as SO36; the station is named after one of the former city gates of Berlin built in the early 18th century. The exceptionally richly designed station opened on 18 February 1902, on the first Berlin U-Bahn line erected by the Siemens & Halske company. On 11/12 March 1945, this station was directly hit, the track area was damaged. During the division of Berlin after 13 August 1961, the station was the eastern terminus of the U1, as the final station, Warschauer Straße, was in East Berlin; the link was reopened in 1995. An intermediate station at the Spree river, Stralauer Tor, had been destroyed in 1945 and never reopened. Schlesisches Tor was an atmospheric location in the 1966 espionage film The Quiller Memorandum starring George Segal and Alec Guinness
Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe
The Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe is the main public transport company of Berlin, the capital city of Germany. It manages the city's U-Bahn underground railway, bus, replacement services and ferry networks, but not the S-Bahn urban rail system; the used abbreviation, BVG, has been retained from the company's original name, Berliner Verkehrs Aktiengesellschaft. Subsequently, the company was renamed Berliner Verkehrs-Betriebe. During the division of Berlin, the BVG was split between BVG and BVB. After reunification, the current formal name was adopted; the Berliner Verkehrs Aktiengesellschaft was formed in 1928, by the merger of the Allgemeine Berliner Omnibus AG, the Gesellschaft für Elektrische Hoch- und Untergrundbahnen and the Berliner Straßenbahn-Betriebs-GmbH. On 1 January 1938, the company was renamed Berliner Verkehrs-Betriebe, but the acronym BVG was retained. From 1 August 1949, the BVG networks in East Berlin were operated separately; the two operators were known as BVG and BVG, but from 1 January 1969 the eastern operator was renamed as the Kombinat Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe or BVB.
After the reunification of Berlin, the two operators were recombined into the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe on 1 January 1992. Prior to the division of Berlin, tram lines existed throughout the city, but BVG abandoned all the tram lines in its part of the city, replacing them all by buses by 1967; however BVG retained its tram lines, on the reunification of Berlin the BVG inherited a considerable network of routes in the eastern half of Berlin. On 9 January 1984, BVG took over the responsibility for operation of the S-Bahn services in West Berlin; this urban rail network had been operated in both halves of Berlin by the Deutsche Reichsbahn, the state rail operator of East Germany, but had been subject to a boycott in the west after the building of the Berlin Wall. With the reunification of Berlin, responsibility for the S-Bahn reverted to Deutsche Bahn AG, the state rail operator of Germany; the S-Bahn is managed by the S-Bahn Berlin GmbH, a subsidiary company of DBAG. BVG took part in the Berlin M-Bahn project, an urban maglev system, in the period between 1984 and 1992.
The project used a section of the U-Bahn right of way, out of service due to the building of the Berlin Wall, was dropped with the fall of that wall. The BVG launched the MetroNetz on 12 December 2004 which remodeled the tram and bus network to create 24 tram and bus lines covering parts of the city that weren't served by S-Bahn or U-Bahn. BVG operates an urban rapid transit rail system; the U-Bahn now comprises a total length of 147 kilometres. Trains run every two to five minutes during peak hours, every five minutes for the rest of the day and every ten minutes in the evening and on Sunday. U-Bahn service is provided by 1266 carriages, of which 500 are used on the earlier small-profile lines and 766 are used on the large-profile lines; these cars travel 132 million km, carrying 400 million passengers, over the year. BVG operates a tram network comprising 22 tram lines with 377 stops and measuring 293.78 km in length. Of these, nine are designated as part of the MetroNetz, which provide a high frequency service in areas poorly served by the U-Bahn and S-Bahn.
These MetroTram tram lines are recognisable by an M prefix to their route number, are the only tram routes to operate 24 hours a day. Tram service is provided by 391 carriages, of which 154 are modern low floor carriages and 237 are older carriages. All of the remaining network is within the confines of the former East Berlin, as all the routes in the former West Berlin were abandoned during the period of the city's partition. However, there have been some extensions of routes across the former border since reunification, most remarkably to the city’s new main railway station Berlin Hauptbahnhof. BVG operates a network of 149 daytime bus routes serving 2634 stops and a total route length of 1,675 kilometres, together with a night bus network of 63 bus routes serving 1508 stops and a total route length of 795 kilometres. Seventeen of BVG's bus routes are designated as part of the MetroNetz, which provides a high frequency service in areas poorly served by the U-Bahn and S-Bahn. Like the MetroTram tram routes, these MetroBus routes can be recognised by an M prefix to their route number.
A further 13 BVG-operated bus routes are express routes with an X prefix to their route number. BVG bus service is provided by a fleet of 1349 buses, of which no fewer than 407 are double-decker buses. Whilst such buses are common in Ireland and the United Kingdom, their use elsewhere in Europe is uncommon. Route 218 is operated by ex-BVG vintage vehicles now in preservation but used in revenue-earning service; the services depart from Theodor-Heuss Platz every two hours from 11:15 to 19:15 and return from Pfaueninsel from 10:00 to 20:00. Berlin has an extensive network of waterways within its city boundaries, including the Havel and Dahme rivers, many linked lakes and canals; these are crossed by six passenger ferry routes that are operated by the BVG. The BVG is a member of the Verkehrsverbund Berlin-Brandenburg, the transport association run by public transport providers in the German states of Berlin and Brandenburg; this body
Berlin Potsdamer Platz station
Berlin Potsdamer Platz is a railway station in Berlin. It is underground and situated under Potsdamer Platz in central Berlin. Regional and S-Bahn services call at the station; the first station at Potsdamer Platz was the Potsdamer Bahnhof terminus, closed on 27 September 1945 due to war damage. In 1939 the S-Bahn, or Stadtbahn, arrived; the idea for a North-South Link rapid transit rail line from Unter den Linden to Yorckstrasse, via Potsdamer Platz and Anhalter Bahnhof, had first been mooted in 1914, but it was not planned in detail until 1928, approval had to wait until 1933. Begun in 1934, it was plagued with disasters. Determination to have it finished in time for the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936 meant vital safety measures were ignored: on 20 August 1935, a tunnel collapse just south of the Brandenburg Gate buried 23 workmen of whom only four survived. Needless to say, the line was not ready for the Berlin Olympics. In spite of all the setbacks, it was opened from Unter den Linden to Potsdamer Platz on 15 April 1939, extended to Anhalter Bahnhof on 9 October, to Yorckstrasse, to complete the link, on 6 November.
The Potsdamer Platz S-Bahn station contained an underground shopping arcade, the largest in Europe. Four platforms were provided at the station and all were used although just two were planned to suffice: the other two were intended to be utilised by another new line, to branch off eastwards and run under the city to Görlitzer Bahnhof. A connection from Anhalter Bahnhof was to be made. Although construction of some tunnel sections went ahead, the line was never opened. During the war, many of the sections in the Berlin U-Bahn and S-Bahn were all closed due to enemy action, the sections through Potsdamer Platz were of no exception; the S-Bahn North-South Link, less than six years old, became the setting for one of the most contentious episodes of the final Battle for Berlin, in late April and early May 1945. On 2 May, the Tunnel was flooded as a consequence of the decision of the remaining Nazi leaders to blow up the section of the North-South Tunnel beneath the nearby Landwehrkanal as a desperate measure to slow the Soviet advance.
Because of this incident, the North-South Link was unable to be used until 1947. Shortly after war's end the Ringbahnhof got a reprieve of sorts, temporarily reopening on 6 August 1945 as terminus of the Wannseebahn trains, while the Nord-Süd-Tunnel received massive repairs; the Ringbahnhof closed for good on 27 July 1946 after some fragmentary train workings had resumed along the North-South Link on 2 June. Full services recommenced on 16 November 1947, although repairs were not complete until May 1948; the S-Bahn North-South Link saw a more bizarre - - state of affairs. This line, plus two U-Bahn lines elsewhere in the city, suffered from a quirk of geography in that they passed through East German territory en route from one part of West Berlin to another; this gave rise to the infamous "Geisterbahnhofe", Potsdamer Platz being the most notorious, those unfortunate ones on the eastern side that were sealed off from the outside world and which trains ran straight through without stopping, being there from 1961 to 1989.
They would slow down however, affording passengers the strange sight of dusty, dimly lit platforms patrolled by armed guards, there to prevent any East Berliners from trying to escape to the West by train. At the points where the lines passed directly beneath the actual border, concrete "collars" were constructed within the tunnels with just the minimum clearance for trains, to prevent people clinging to the sides or roof of the coaches; the station was the last to be reopened, with major refurbishment work included to the entire North South line and the station, with re-coating/repainting of the station and huge removal of wartime flood damage, on the 3 March 1992. Major refurbishment began to be carried out on January 1991; the U-Bahn, or Untergrundbahn, was a major revolution in Berlin's public transport, the forerunner of similar systems now seen in several German cities. The underground sections alternated with sections elevated above ground on viaducts – hence the alternative name Hochbahn.
The first line ran from Stralauer Tor to Potsdamer Platz. Begun on 10 September 1896 and opened on 18 February 1902, the actual Potsdamer Platz station was rather poorly sited. Though it was reached via an entrance right outside the main-line terminus, people had to walk about 200 metres along an underground passage beneath the appropriately named Bahnstraße, it was built by a Swedish architect Grenander in 1902, it was supposed to be named Potsdamer Bahnhof, or Potsdamer Ringbahnhof. But after 5 years the station was relocated just 180m to the southwest at Leipziger Platz; that year, the system was developed into a through line running from Warschauer Brücke to Knie, which placed Potsdamer Platz on a branch accessed via a triangle of lines between Möckernbrücke and Bülowstraße stations near the current Gleisdreieck station. The first Potsdamer Platz U-Bahn station saw use for just over five and a half years, until its inconvenient site, the desire to reach other parts of the city, enabled it to be superseded by a better sited new station on an extension of the line to Spittelmarkt.
The new station opened first, on 29 September 1907, the rest of
Nollendorfplatz (Berlin U-Bahn)
Nollendorfplatz is a Berlin U-Bahn station located on the U 1, the U 2, the U 3, the U 4. It opened in 1902 and today is the only station in Berlin, served by four metro lines; the station and the eponymous square named after Nakléřov in the Czech Republic lie in the north of Schöneberg at the junction of Motzstraße, Kleiststraße and Bülowstraße. The area is an important centre of gay culture and the nearby Winterfeldtplatz is home to a known market; the quarter, which used to be a unstable center of heroin addicts and squatters twenty years ago has seen a remarkable comeback into the mainstream culture with high rents and upscale restaurants and bookshops. In this it resembles for the western part of Kreuzberg; the subway station itself received an art nouveau glass dome which resembles the one it had before the war, designed by Cremer & Wolffenstein. Media related to Nollendorfplatz at Wikimedia Commons Hoch- und Untergrundbahnhof Nollendorfplatz entry in the list of Berlin cultural monuments
