Oberbaum Bridge - History

History

The bridge is built on the former boundary of the municipal area with its rural environs, where an excise wall was built in 1732. A wooden drawbridge was built as part of the wall; it served as a gate to the city. The name Oberbaumbrücke stemmed from the heavy tree trunk, covered in metal spikes, that was used as a boom to block the river at night to prevent smuggling. (Baum means tree or wooden beam in German; thus the name means something like "Upper Tree Bridge"; there was another tree-trunk barrier at the western end of the contemporary city limits, close to today's Unterbaumstraße (lit. in English: Lower Tree Street.)

By 1879 the wooden bridge had been modified greatly. At 154 meters it was Berlin's longest, but was no longer adequate to the amount of traffic crossing it. Plans began to be drawn up for a new stone construction. The Siemens & Halske company, which was planning to build the Berlin U-Bahn (subway), insisted on a combined crossing for road vehicles, pedestrians, and the new rail line. The new bridge opened in 1896 after two years of construction, in time for the Berlin Trades Exhibition. The architect and government official Otto Stahn (1859-1930) designed it in North German Brick Gothic, in the style of a city gate with many decorative elements, such as pointed arches, cross vaults, and coats of arms. The two towers were inspired by the Middle Gate Tower (Mitteltorturm) in the northern Brandenburg city of Prenzlau. Although purely cosmetic, they served as a reminder that the site was once Berlin’s river gateway.

In 1902 the first segment of the U-Bahn opened. Its inaugural journey, carrying 19 passengers, ran from Stralauer Thor, at the eastern end of the bridge, to Potsdamer Platz. Stralauer Thor was dismantled after being damaged in a 1945 air raid, but its four sandstone-clad support posts can still be seen.

After Berlin absorbed several other municipalities in 1920, the Oberbaum Bridge became the crossing between the new boroughs of Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg. In April 1945 the Wehrmacht blew up the middle section of the bridge in an attempt to stop the Red Army from crossing it. After the war ended, Berlin was divided into four sectors. The Oberbaum Bridge crossed between the American and Soviet sectors. Until the mid-1950s, pedestrians, motor vehicles, and the city tramway were able to cross the bridge without difficulty.