History of the Berlin U-Bahn

The history of the Berlin U-Bahn took its origins in 1880 with an excitation of the entrepreneur Werner Siemens in Berlin to build a high and subway. In the nine years after the founding of the German Empire, the inhabitants of Berlin had risen by over a third, causing increasing traffic problems. Beginning in 1896 then began Siemens & Halske with the construction of the first stretch as overhead railway. On 1 April 1897, the Company has been established for electric elevated and underground railways in Berlin (overhead railway company), which took over the further construction and operation and 1929 went up in the Berlin transport company. The 1938 in BVG renamed company was operating the city of Berlin. The BVG is since 1994 a public institution.

As the first line of the overhead railway company on 18 February, opened in 1902, the route between Stralauer Thor and Potsdamer Platz (today largely U1). Already on 15 February was the "Minister ride" preceded by the wayside in passenger traffic of the Zoological Garden was reached but only from 11 March. Until 1913 four additional routes have been executed before the First World War and the following in the Weimar Republic hyperinflation initially prevented the further expansion. Only in 1923 again a new metro line was inaugurated that had wider car with the so-called Great Profile. In the "Golden Twenties" and the early 1930s, then new routes of this type have been handed over to the driving operation, even in small profile, there were new openings.

In the era of National Socialism, no further stations were built. The Second World War taught the power of the Berlin U-Bahn major damage to: the Allied air raids destroyed many stations and towards the end of the Battle of Berlin in early May 1945 with the demolition of the north-south tunnel the train next to this also wide sections of the subway flooded. The reconstruction of the existing network before the war was finished only in 1950.

Construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 brought new restrictions: the two metro lines C (1966: U6) and D (U8) drove from now on without stopping through the turned-ghost stations Stations of the East Berlin tunnels – the exception was of the border crossing developed Friedrichstraße station (see also: Tränenpalast). The stations Warschauer Straße and Potsdamer Platz were decommissioned. While the metro construction progressed on West Berlin territory by the S-Bahn-boycott continued, there was in East Berlin a quasi-freeze. Only the Tierpark station (line E) is newly opened in 1973. From 1985 to 1989 the line E (today: U5) overground extended from Tierpark to Hönow.

Only two days after the Wall was reopened as a border crossing point on 11 November 1989, the first former ghost station Jannowitzbrücke. On 22 December, the station Rosenthaler Platz followed, on 12 April the only accessible from West Berlin station Bernauer Strasse, all located on the U8. On 1 July 1990, all other former ghost stations of the subway were finally reopened. With the merging of the networks, U2 was reopened in 1993, since 1995 drives the U1 again from Kreuzberg via the Oberbaumbrücke to Friedrichshain on Warschauer Straße station. After that, only the located on the U2 Station Mendelssohn-Bartholdy-Park (October 1998) and were the short portion of Vinetastraße to Pankow (September 2000) reopened. Because of the tight budgetary situation of Berlin since stagnated further expansion.

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Wikipedia