Berolina is the female personification [note 1] of Berlin and the allegorical female figure symbolizing the city. One of the best-known portraits of Berolina is the statue that once stood in Alexanderplatz. [1]
Berolina is the female personification [note 1] of Berlin and the allegorical female figure symbolizing the city. One of the best-known portraits of Berolina is the statue that once stood in Alexanderplatz. [1]
In 1871, emperor William I ordered an 11 m (36 ft) Berolina statue in Belle-Alliance-Platz (today's Mehringplatz), to glorify the homecoming victorious troops of the Franco-Prussian War. [2]
Another statue was designed in 1889 by the sculptors Emil Hundrieser (1846–1911) and Michel Lock (1848–1898) as a decorative element for the state visit of King Umberto I of Italy. [2] The Berolina figure was produced in plaster and was placed on Potsdamer Platz. The statue of 7.55 m (24.8 ft) showed a woman with a crown of oak leaves. The inspiration allegedly was from a painting in the Rotes Rathaus city hall that featured cobbler's daughter Anna Sasse.
Later, in 1895, the gypsum figure by Hundrieser was copper-melted and unveiled in Alexanderplatz on December 17. Weighing five tonnes, it was placed in front of the site where Hermann Tietz erected his department store in 1904.
The statue was damaged in the barricade fights of the German Revolution of 1918–19. It had to be removed during the construction of the U5 underground line in 1927, but was set up again in 1933. The nearby Berolinahaus, built in 1929–32 according to plans by Peter Behrens, was named after the statue. Finally dismantled on 26 August 1942, it was probably melted down in 1944 for war purposes. [2] A model is preserved at the Märkisches Museum.
In 2000, an association named "Wiedererstellung und Pflege der Berolina e.V." (Recreation and Maintenance of Berolina eV) was created with the aim to rebuild the statue. [3]
Many Berliner companies are named "Berolina". A leading German film studio of the 1950s was called Berolina Film. In the past, there were several radio and television broadcasts in which references were made to the city's personification. Today, it is the popular name of central Berlin Police radio.
In 1980s, the "Berolina" music awards were organized, sponsored by the TV networks ARD, ZDF and ORF, and hosted on television by Thomas Gottschalk on 27 August 1987 with a total of 15 musicians and bands. [2]
Several songs, poems, and plays are named "Berolina"; as for example, works by Kurt Tucholsky, [4] Günter Neumann, Ulli Herzog, and Alexander von Bentheim.
The Main belt asteroid 422 Berolina, is also named after the city.
Alexanderplatz is a large public square and transport hub in the central Mitte district of Berlin. The square is named after the Russian Tsar Alexander I and is often referred to simply as Alex, which also denotes the larger neighbourhood stretching from Mollstraße in the north-east to Spandauer Straße and the Rotes Rathaus in the south-west.
Potsdamer Platz is a public square and traffic intersection in the center of Berlin, Germany, lying about 1 km (1,100 yd) south of the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag, and close to the southeast corner of the Tiergarten park. It is named after the city of Potsdam, some 25 km (16 mi) to the south west, and marks the point where the old road from Potsdam passed through the city wall of Berlin at the Potsdam Gate. After developing within the space of little over a century from an intersection of rural thoroughfares into the most bustling traffic intersection in Europe, it was totally destroyed during World War II and then left desolate during the Cold War era when the Berlin Wall bisected its former location. Since German reunification, Potsdamer Platz has been the site of major redevelopment projects.
U2 is a line of the Berlin U-Bahn. The U2 line starts at Pankow S-Bahn station, runs through the eastern city centre (Alexanderplatz) to Potsdamer Platz, the western city centre and finally to the Ruhleben terminal station.
Alfred Frederik Elias Grenander was a Swedish architect, who became one of the most prominent engineers during the first building period of the Berlin U-Bahn network in the early twentieth century.
Vinetastraße is a Berlin U-Bahn station in the Pankow district, located on the . It was opened in 1930, and for decades was the northern terminus of the U2, until the line was extended to the Pankow S-Bahn station in 2000.
Hammonia is the female personification of Hamburg.
Leipziger Straße is a major thoroughfare in the central Mitte district of Berlin, capital of Germany. It runs from Leipziger Platz, an octagonal square adjacent to Potsdamer Platz in the west, to Spittelmarkt in the east. Part of the Bundesstraße 1 highway, it is today one of the city's main east–west road links.
Berlin Potsdamer Platz is a railway station in Berlin. It is completely underground and situated under Potsdamer Platz in central Berlin. Regional and S-Bahn services call at the station, and it is also served by U-Bahn line U2.
The Statue of Giordano Bruno, created by Ettore Ferrari, was erected at Campo de' Fiori in Rome, Italy, in 1889.
Mitte is a central locality (Ortsteil) of Berlin in the eponymous district (Bezirk) of Mitte. Until 2001, it was itself an autonomous district.
The North–South S-Bahn Tunnel is the central section of the North–South transversal Berlin S-Bahn connection crossing the city centre. It is not to be confused with the Tunnel Nord–Süd Fernbahn, the central tunnel part of the North–South main line used by intercity and regional trains. The S-Bahn North–South line encompasses the route from Bornholmer Straße and Gesundbrunnen via Friedrichstraße and Anhalter Bahnhof to Papestraße and Schöneberg.
The unbuilt U10 line, of the Berlin U-Bahn, was part of East Berlin's "200-km-plan" of 1953 – 1955. It would have been a metro line from Falkenberg, in the northeastern part of the city, to Alexanderplatz, and up to Steglitz then terminating at Drakestraße in Lichterfelde. The designated letter name of the line was "F" until 1 July 1972, when it was changed to "Line 10". Because a number of tunnels and stations were constructed to accommodate the proposed line with elements visible at transfer stations and elsewhere, the line is popularly known as the "Phantomlinie".
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million people, Berlin is the most populous city proper, the sixth most populous urban area in the European Union, and the largest German city.
Berlin's history has left the city with an eclectic assortment of architecture. The city's appearance in the 21st century has been shaped by the key role the city played in Germany's 20th-century history. Each of the governments based in Berlin—the Kingdom of Prussia, the 1871 German Empire, the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, East Germany and the reunified Federal Republic of Germany—initiated ambitious construction programs, with each adding its distinct flavour to the city's architecture.
Melody of a Great City is a 1943 musical drama film directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner and starring Hilde Krahl, Werner Hinz and Karl John. A young woman moves to Berlin to work as a press photographer.
Peter Christian Breuer was a German sculptor.
The Berlin U-Bahn originated in 1880 with Werner Siemens' idea to build an urban railway in Berlin. During the nine years after the German Empire was founded, the city's population grew by over one-third and traffic problems increased. In 1896, Siemens & Halske began to construct the first stretch of overhead railway. On 1 April 1897, the company began construction of an electric underground railway. The Berliner Verkehrs Aktiengesellschaft (BVG) was formed in 1928, and took over further construction and operation of the network. In 1938, the company was renamed Berlin Transport Company; the original acronym, however, remained. Since 1994, the BVG has been a public company.
Rotes Rathaus is a subway station in Berlin's Mitte district. It is part of the extension of the U5 from Alexanderplatz to Brandenburger Tor, construction of which began with a turf-cutting ceremony in 2010. The station and the line opened simultaneously on 4 December 2020.
Michel Lock, originally Hubert Michael Lock was a German sculptor.
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