Mohrenstrasse (Berlin U-Bahn)

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U-Bahn station Mohrenstrasse

Mohrenstrasse (German: Mohrenstraße) is an underground railway station in the German capital city of Berlin. It is part of the Berlin U-Bahn and is located on the U2 line in the district of Mitte.

U-Bahn entrance and Kaiserhof hotel, about 1908

The original station designed by Alfred Grenander opened on 1 October 1908 on the new branch-off from Potsdamer Platz to Spittelmarkt. It was then called Kaiserhof after a nearby grand hotel on the Wilhelmplatz square. It was rebuilt in the course of the 1936 Summer Olympics and severely damaged in World War II.

When East Berlin fell under communist administration after the Second World War, the Wilhelmplatz square as well as the station were renamed on 18 August 1950 to Thälmannplatz, after the communist leader Ernst Thälmann. With the erection of the Berlin Wall from 13 August 1961, the station became the western terminus of the interrupted U2 line. As in the 1980s the square was overbuilt by a housing estate and the Czechoslovak embassy, the station on 15 April 1986 was renamed Otto-Grotewohl-Strasse, the name of the Wilhelmstrasse at that time, after the politician Otto Grotewohl. On 3 October 1991, following German reunification, the station was renamed Mohrenstrasse. Both sections of the U2 were reconnected on 13 November 1993.

Urban Legend tell that the red marble used in the 1950 redesign of the station are re-used marble cladding from the interior of Adolf Hitler's Reich Chancellery. No proof of this can be presented. On 19 August 1950, Neues Deutschland and Berliner Zeitung reported that the marble was delivered from Thuringia. ^[1]

[edit] References

^ Hans-Ernst Mittig: Marmor der Reichskanzlei. In: Dieter Bingen / Hans-Martin Hinz (Hrsg.): Die Schleifung / Zerstörung und Wiederaufbau historischer Bauten in Deutschland und Polen. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-447-05096-9.