Berlin’s Anhalter Bahnhof is nothing more than a pitiful ruin. Its history is as dark as it is glorious. It began in 1839 during the Industrial Revolution.

At this time, construction work began on the first Anhalter Bahnhof in Berlin, which opened to the first trains two years later. But as Berlin grew, so did the train traffic.

In the newly unified German Empire, Anhalter Bahnhof needed to be expanded and the old station was demolished in 1875.

Architect Franz Heinrich Schwechten designed the new station, which opened in 1880. A glorious new train station that at the time was not only the largest station building in Germany, but the largest in Europe.

Anhalter Bahnhof in Berlin in the 20th Century

When Hitler came to power in the 1930s, a train left Anhalter Bahnhof for many of Germany’s major cities every three to five minutes. Only the nearby Potsdamer Bahnhof was more busy. But it wasn’t meant to continue.

Hitler and his architect Albert Spear had grandiose plans for Berlin. The city was to be transformed into the capital of the world called Germania.

Most of Berlin was to be demolished, infrastructure was to be rebuilt and monuments were to be constructed to show the dominance of the Germanic master race.

This would mean, among other things, that Anhalter Bahnshof would have to be closed and transformed into a gigantic swimming pool. But then World War II broke out.

Anhalter Bahnhof and the Holocaust

During World War II, the German Nazi regime began deporting Jews to extermination camps in German-occupied Poland, the so-called Holocaust. The Jews of Berlin were no exception.

They were boarded on trains and transported directly to their certain death. Anhalter Bahnhof was one of three stations used for the deportations of the Jews. Another train station was Grunewald with the infamous Gleis 17.

Around 55,000 Jews were taken to the Theresienstadt ghetto, from where they were sent to the extermination camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau.

And on November 23, 1943, Anhalter Bahnhof was hit by the first of three air raids. Anhalter Bahnhof was hit twice more in February 1945.

Anhalter Bahnhof continued to operate after World War II, but with significantly fewer departures. Germany was now a divided country, occupied by the Western powers on one side and the Soviet Union on the other.

The now former grand train station was located in the American sector of West Berlin. And when the Soviet occupation closed the border between East and West Germany in 1952, they diverted train services to Ostbahnhof, located in East Berlin.

In August 1960, the bombed-out remains of the station were demolished. Only the magnificent 1880 entrance remains as a reminder of both a glorious and a dark time in Berlin’s history.

In addition to the air raids, Anhalter Bahnhof was also further damaged by Soviet artillery during the Battle of Berlin.

And if you look closely, you can also find signs of fighting between German and Soviet soldiers from the final battles of the war.