Insights from 1831 and 1842 Berlin hinterland maps
Saturday, March 26th, 2022 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lethargic_manThis will be meaningful only to past and present fellow Berlin-residents, but I'm posting it here rather than on Facebook so that I have a chance of being able to find it again in the future.
A few years ago, someone gave me a present wrapped up in a reproduction of a map of Berlin from shortly after the turn of the last century. Me being me, I ironed the map flat then put it up on the wall. It only just reaches as far out as where I live, though, and recently I've been wanting to see what the Berlin hinterland, where I go on my bike rides, used to look like before it all became built up; so I got Andrea to get me a few old maps, one from 1842 and two from 1831 for my birthday. I haven't had a chance to peruse them extensively, but I thought I'd record here some initial observations, including the results of following up questions I had on (mostly German) Wikipedia.
Though the landscape is of course mostly unchanged, there are exceptions: The Teltower See and Schönower See have vanished, presumably drained in the course of converting the Bäke into the Teltower Kanal (though the Machnower See remains). There's also a new lake which didn't exist then, the Flughafener See (and the chain of lakes which line Delbrückstraße and Königsallee appear then to have been fens rather than open bodies of water). There's also new hills, the Teufelsberg and Drachenberg, built from the rubble of the buildings destroyed in the War.
Confusingly, the Grunewald was called the Spandower Forst; today's Spandauer Forst was then called Spandower [Sta]dt Heide. (The label goes off the edge of the map, so I'm guessing the second word.) To my surprise, the motorway that divides the Grunewald today into two was already a main road then: it's the shortest route between Charlottenburg and Wannsee. Even more to my surprise, the diagonal grid of paths through the Grunewald which point to its use as for leisure rather than being trackless woodland despite being then some distance from Berlin, was already established by then (though it doesn't appear on this map from 1778).
I live in Schmargendorf, the centre of which has a pretty thirteenth-century church. The centre of other one-time villages in the area are less obvious. I had no clue until I got this map where in modern Wilmersdorf the old village was. The answer turns out to be along Wilhemsaue, which explains why this low-traffic street is so wide. There's apparently a monument marking the site of the old village there now, but no old buildings to betray its existence.
Other villages have been even less lucky, and their names have vanished entirely. The name of Ricksdorf (divided into a German and a Bohemian side, the latter populated by refugees from the Counter-Reformation in Bohemia) remains only in Rixdorfer Straße (in Mariendorf) and Richardstr./-platz at the center of the one-time village. Almost all of the buildings there were destroyed by fire in 1849 (though from a cyclist's perspective, the cobblestones on the streets there today are seriously mediaeval). The village name apparently came into disrepute and it was renamed Neukölln in 1912.
Speaking of Neukölln, there's no trace at all in 1831 of the street pattern around my old office on Sonnenallee, or of the Schifffahrtkanal (the route of which was indicated by a drainage ditch on the turn-of-the-twentieth-century map).
Other village names which have vanished without trace include Lietzow (swallowed up by Charlottenburg) and Giesensdorf (name retained only in Giesensdorfer Str., village swallowed up by Lichterfelde).
Railway lines and stations appear on the 1842 map; at least one railway line (labelled Potsdamer Eisenbahn), and possibly two already on the 1831 ones. This is surprising, because according to Wikipedia the railway only opened its first section in 1838. Possibly there was a horse-drawn line there beforehand?
A few years ago, someone gave me a present wrapped up in a reproduction of a map of Berlin from shortly after the turn of the last century. Me being me, I ironed the map flat then put it up on the wall. It only just reaches as far out as where I live, though, and recently I've been wanting to see what the Berlin hinterland, where I go on my bike rides, used to look like before it all became built up; so I got Andrea to get me a few old maps, one from 1842 and two from 1831 for my birthday. I haven't had a chance to peruse them extensively, but I thought I'd record here some initial observations, including the results of following up questions I had on (mostly German) Wikipedia.
Though the landscape is of course mostly unchanged, there are exceptions: The Teltower See and Schönower See have vanished, presumably drained in the course of converting the Bäke into the Teltower Kanal (though the Machnower See remains). There's also a new lake which didn't exist then, the Flughafener See (and the chain of lakes which line Delbrückstraße and Königsallee appear then to have been fens rather than open bodies of water). There's also new hills, the Teufelsberg and Drachenberg, built from the rubble of the buildings destroyed in the War.
Confusingly, the Grunewald was called the Spandower Forst; today's Spandauer Forst was then called Spandower [Sta]dt Heide. (The label goes off the edge of the map, so I'm guessing the second word.) To my surprise, the motorway that divides the Grunewald today into two was already a main road then: it's the shortest route between Charlottenburg and Wannsee. Even more to my surprise, the diagonal grid of paths through the Grunewald which point to its use as for leisure rather than being trackless woodland despite being then some distance from Berlin, was already established by then (though it doesn't appear on this map from 1778).
I live in Schmargendorf, the centre of which has a pretty thirteenth-century church. The centre of other one-time villages in the area are less obvious. I had no clue until I got this map where in modern Wilmersdorf the old village was. The answer turns out to be along Wilhemsaue, which explains why this low-traffic street is so wide. There's apparently a monument marking the site of the old village there now, but no old buildings to betray its existence.
Other villages have been even less lucky, and their names have vanished entirely. The name of Ricksdorf (divided into a German and a Bohemian side, the latter populated by refugees from the Counter-Reformation in Bohemia) remains only in Rixdorfer Straße (in Mariendorf) and Richardstr./-platz at the center of the one-time village. Almost all of the buildings there were destroyed by fire in 1849 (though from a cyclist's perspective, the cobblestones on the streets there today are seriously mediaeval). The village name apparently came into disrepute and it was renamed Neukölln in 1912.
Speaking of Neukölln, there's no trace at all in 1831 of the street pattern around my old office on Sonnenallee, or of the Schifffahrtkanal (the route of which was indicated by a drainage ditch on the turn-of-the-twentieth-century map).
Other village names which have vanished without trace include Lietzow (swallowed up by Charlottenburg) and Giesensdorf (name retained only in Giesensdorfer Str., village swallowed up by Lichterfelde).
Railway lines and stations appear on the 1842 map; at least one railway line (labelled Potsdamer Eisenbahn), and possibly two already on the 1831 ones. This is surprising, because according to Wikipedia the railway only opened its first section in 1838. Possibly there was a horse-drawn line there beforehand?
