Berlin City Tour: The heart of Mitteleuropa

Light and dark

From the beginning of Berlin’s history, the area that today is Alexanderplatz was close to a place of execution which featured a set of gallows. Because of that, it was known as Teufels Lustgarten, the 'devil’s pleasure garden', a frightening nickname which, however, did not stop the area from developing into a busy commercial square. Its name changed when it was dedicated to Russian Tsar Alexander I, who visited Berlin at the beginning of the 19th century. The newly-named Alexanderplatz went on to become the hub of Berlinese nightlife in the Roaring Twenties, brimming with lights and music, until, that is, the start of the Second World War. During the last stages of the Battle of Berlin, Alexanderplatz was bombed by the Red Army, and the public transport tunnels running under the square were also detonated (this time by the Wehrmacht, attempting to slow the Red Army’s advance). The process of reconstruction lasted almost twenty years from the end of the war, since debris and ruins had to be cleared out before new construction works could begin.