But one thing people like us cannot do without: the big city, where the lights are bright at night.
With the passing of time, the myth of Potsdamer Platz has grown so big it has ended up casting a huge shadow over neighboring Askanischer Platz. However, it should be remembered that, during the first half of the last century, it had become one of the neuralgic centers of Berlin. Then everything revolved around the big train stations. At Askanischer Platz was the Anhalter Bahnhof, the largest and busiest train station in the city. From 1841, the year of its inauguration, large hotels were established in its surroundings. First the Harsburger Hof and later the Excelsior, once the largest hotel on the european continent.
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| Ideenwettbewerb zur Verbauung der Prinz-Albrecht-Gärten in Berlin, 1924 |
In 1924, with a desire to take advantage of this dynamic, the promoters of the famous skyscraper at Friedrichstrasse station promoted a new competition. Its aim was to define the western part of the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais, where the royal stables were, with a large building that gave facade to the square and preserved its garden at maximum. The main building, an 18th-century palace, later modified by K.F. Schinkel, occupied its eastern part. The winning proposal of the competition was presented by the architects Richard Bielenberg and Josef Moser, also authors of the Hotel Fürstenhof near Potsdamer Platz. It should be noted that their proposal had nothing to do with what was later eventually built. In fact, the authors went from proposing a neoclassical styled building to a complex of buildings designed according to the principles of the Neue Sachlichkeit, more similar to the proposal presented by Otto Firle.
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| Europahaus am Anhalter Bahnhof, 1936-37 |
This complex of buildings, in a certain sense, wanted to be a replica, on the Askanischer Platz, of Haus Vaterland, located just in front of the Potsdamer Bahnhof. Opened in 1911 as Haus Potsdam, the building was designed by Franz Schwechten. Curiously, the same architect who, a few years earlier, had designed the Anhalter Bahnhof. It housed Café Piccadilly, the world’s largest restaurant with 2,500 seats, a theater, with a capacity of 1,200 seats, and numerous offices. In 1928 it was renovated and re-opened, under the motto of the world in a house, with its theater transformed into a cinema and offices into multiple themed restaurants. In addition, Carl Stahl-Vrach, the architect of its renovationa and set designer for films such as Fritz Lang's "Doctor Mabuse", transformed the building into one of the first exponents of the Lichtarchitektur, or architecture of the night.
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| Saarlandstraße (heute Stresemannstraße), 1941-42 |
On the other hand, the Askanischer Platz complex had a façade about 280-meter-length and a total area of 35,000 square meters and was built in two phases. In the first phase, completed in 1926, Deutschlandhaus was built. A building which contained a mall, a theater, a ballroom, and a movie theater. Very similar to Tauentzienpalast. A complex of offices, shops and a ballroom of which Bielenberg and Moser were also the authors. The second, after many troubles and the death of Bielenberg, could not be completed until 1931. And it is in this last phase, designed by Moser and Otto Firle, that one of the first tall buildings in Berlin with steel structure was built: the Europahaus. A 12-storey tower that would eventually give its name to the whole complex. Firle surely contributed many of his own ideas, previously included in his competition proposal. One of them, no doubt, was the transformation of the Europahaus into another showcase in Berlin of the architecture of the night. But it was not until 1935 that a 15-meter-high structure was added to the central tower, crowned with the luminous logos of Allianz and Odol, adding up to a total of 50 meters, which broke definitely with the marked horizontality of the winning project.
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| Abraham Pisarek 'Auf Berliner Straßen', 1945-46 |
Nazism ended up stripping Europahaus of all its neons lights and turning it into the Reich's ministry of labor headquarters. During that period of darkness, the Anhalter Banhnhof became one of the three main Berlin stations where, between 1941 and 1945, almost a third of Berlin's Jews were deported. From this station, thanks to the infamous and disciplined task developed by Adolf Eichmann, they were sent, in groups of 50 to 100 people, to Theresienstadt Ghetto, in passenger convoys added to regular trains. But RAF's strategic bombing ended up devastating the station and its environs. However, Albert Speer's insane plan to transform Berlin into Welthaupstadt Germania had already envisaged closing the station and turning it into a public swimming pool. In fact, it was not until 1960 that the Anhalter Bahnhof was completely dismantled. And with its closure, and subsequent demolition, a part of Berlin’s history fell into the pit of oblivion. Except for Europahaus which still stands today, but in the darkness originally imposed by the Nazis.