ONE

BERLIN AND THE OSTBAHN

Railroads as Vehicles of Change

Right outside the Oranienburg Gate in Berlin . . . is the large Borsig iron foundry and mechanical engineering company. Early in 1837, it began its operation as a small iron foundry with fifty workers, and it now covers a surface of 368,000 square feet, with a widely ramified system of buildings rising above, crowned by six or seven towers. . . . More than two thousand locomotives . . . left the factory this way. Most of them remained in northern Germany, but Borsig’s locomotives can as well be found on southern German railroads, for example in Austria, furthermore in Denmark, in Poland, in Russia, in Holland, and in East India.¹

Article in Die Gartenlaube on the company’s thirtieth anniversary in 1867

The early Berlin train stations have all turned out to be far too small and inadequate. This is no wonder; some of them were built at a time when it was impossible to calculate how traffic would increase, and [the companies] were as stingy as possible with the land, which was expensive at the time. . . . The latest is the Küstrin train station. It is built a good bit further out than the Frankfurt station, located in the same area, and which the coachmen have always talked about as a station outside the city. However, the whole area has developed into a new district at a magical pace.²

Article in Illustrirte Zeitung Leipzig in 1868

THESE QUOTATIONS SET THE STAGE for a development that revolutionized the economy and mobilities in Berlin between the 1830s and the 1860s. Hand in hand with railroad building went the development of the railroad industry and the closely connected growth of the Prussian capital in terms of population and economic and political power on a European scale. Simultaneously, Berlin developed into a railroad hub, connecting Prussia with other German lands and linking eastern and western Europe. During this time, discussions of railroad construction were essential to economic and political discourse and a catalyst for change.

This chapter describes Berlin’s political and economic development at the onset of the railroad age in the late 1830s and 1840s. During this “tension-ridden period of change” (spannungsreiche Umbruchperiode), accelerating industrialization and railroad construction were accompanied by population growth and pauperization of vast parts of the population.³ The next part will follow political discussions in the public sphere concerning the economic and military benefits of the railroad. As we will see in the third part, these debates were exacerbated in the discussions on the Ostbahn —a line that was deemed crucial for the economic and military progress of the monarchy. Disputes over state involvement in railroad construction between the Prussian capital and its eastern provinces often took center stage in broader political debates. They were an integral part of Prussia’s development into a constitutional monarchy—even if it was not fully democratic by modern standards. The last part of the chapter sheds light on the impact of railroad infrastructure on the urban landscape or “urban frontier,” with a particular focus on the Ostbahn’s railroad stations.⁴ It shows how the railroad contributed to the fall of Berlin’s “penultimate wall,” the Customs and Excise Wall (Akzisemauer), which enclosed the city between 1736 and 1865, mainly to levy excise duties on goods entering the city.⁵

BERLIN ENTERS THE RAILROAD AGE: INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT AND EUROPEAN CONNECTIONS IN THE VORMÄRZ, 1830–1847

As we have seen, Berlin entered the railroad age in 1838, when the link between the Prussian capital and Potsdam was inaugurated. Between 1841 and 1846, the city developed into a railroad hub with connections to Leipzig and Dresden to the south, Magdeburg to the west, the Baltic Sea port Stettin (Szczecin) to the north, Hamburg to the northwest, and Breslau (Wrocław) to the southeast. Most of the railroad lines terminated just outside the city gates in the still-existing Customs Wall.⁶ This brick wall was 3.14 meters (10 Prussian feet) high and 8 kilometers long—just 46 centimeters lower than the infamous Berlin Wall (1961–1989). Even after Prussia introduced the freedom of trade (1810) and after it abolished internal customs in 1818, cities still had the right to impose local milling and slaughter taxes (Mahl- und Schlachtsteuer) levied at the city gates. As late as the 1850s, these duties still accounted for Berlin’s second most important tax revenue.⁷ While the wall also helped keep any deserting soldiers in the town and unwanted people out, it increasingly hindered the city’s tumultuous development. The urban landscape started to change from the outside—with factories and railroad stations emerging vis-à-vis the old gates as new “city gates of modernity.”⁸

In the 1830s and 1840s, Berlin also developed into a European center for machinery manufacturing, notably of railroad equipment. Starting with Franz Anton Egells, numerous companies in the steam engine and railroad machinery sector developed northeast of the Berlin Oranienburger Gate, an area just outside the Customs Wall in Berlin’s Northeast, where lots were more affordable than inside the city.⁹ This industrializing area of the Oranienburger Vorstadt would soon be known as Feuerland (Land of Fire) because large factories like those of Louis Schwartzkopff, Friedrich Wöhlert, and August Borsig prospered here. While the first steam engines and the tracks had been imported from Great Britain and the United States, German manufacturers like those mentioned above would soon build their own industrial potential.

Johann Carl Friedrich August Borsig (1804–1854) was the most successful of these manufacturers. Borsig learned the carpenter trade in Breslau before enrolling at the Berlin vocational school (Gewerbe-Institut, led by Christian Wilhelm Beuth), the precursor of the Technical University. In 1837, he started his own company.¹⁰ One of his first major contracts was the delivery of screws for the construction of the Berlin–Potsdam Railroad. Subsequently, the A. Borsig Iron Foundry and Machinery Company (Eisengießerei und Maschinenbauanstalt A. Borsig) took over maintenance services for the railroad line’s American-built steam engines, thus acquiring the necessary know-how to construct their locomotives. The company manufactured its first engine in 1841 and would soon become the biggest locomotive manufacturer in the German lands, employing twelve hundred workers and producing sixty-seven locomotives in 1847 alone.¹¹

Borsig was not the only company contributing to Berlin’s industrialization, with factories employing a workforce that migrated into the city in increasing numbers.¹² In the year August Borsig first opened his factory, the city’s population officially was at 283,140, mounting to 412,445 in 1849—a surge of 45 percent. In 1860, the population had reached 500,000 and would double over the next seventeen years.¹³

This growth in population and industrial potential boosted trade across the German lands. Since 1834, the German Customs Union (Zollverein) arranged for tariff-free exchange in much of what would become the German Empire. Gradually, railroads helped overcome the economic borders of an otherwise politically still very fragmented area. This economic integration did not stop at the Zollverein’s borders. As we have seen, the Prussian Rhineland connected to the emerging Belgian railroad network in 1843 and the French network in 1846. However, it still had no connection with the monarchy’s eastern territories and Berlin. One of the reasons was the disruption of the continuous Prussian territory by smaller German states and, most notably, the Kingdom of Hanover. Until 1854, Hanover did not even participate in the Zollverein. As a result, transit tariffs made private investments in railroads crossing its territory less than attractive and required complex negotiations between the involved states.¹⁴ Finally, in 1847, the first railroad connection between Berlin and Cologne was accomplished.

In terms of railroad development, 1847 was not only a remarkable year for Prussia; it was a milestone for European infrastructural integration more broadly. With the completion of several sections in Prussia and in the Russian and Habsburg Empires, railroads for the first time formed a European network with connections between Berlin, Cologne, Brussels, Paris, Warsaw, Cracow, and (from 1848) Vienna (refer to fig. 0.1 in the introduction).

Companies had to agree on common standards to facilitate cross-border traffic, such as the track gauge. The 1,435 mm gauge was first introduced by George Stephenson in Great Britain, taken over by Belgium in 1834, and then copied by Prussia in 1837 for the Berlin–Potsdam Railroad. Many other countries followed for the sake of the emerging network, even if their railroad companies had started building in broader gauges, as they had in the Netherlands and the southern German state of Baden.¹⁵ In 1846–1847, several privately owned Prussian railroad companies joined forces to standardize their operations and established the Prussian Association of Railroad Administrations. One of its first acts was the imposition of Berlin time on all its member lines, thus facilitating the harmonization of railroad schedules.¹⁶ In 1848, the association transformed into the Association of German Railway Administrations (Verein Deutscher Eisenbahn-Verwaltungen). In the following years, many non-Prussian and non-German railroads followed and turned the association into a European player in “transnational railway governance.”¹⁷

However, 1847 was also a year of economic crisis at a time known as the Hungry Forties. Economically, the Borsig workers and their families were privileged compared to other working-class Berliners, where a majority were in a dire economic position at or below the subsistence level.¹⁸ More broadly, Prussia’s population in the 1830s and 1840s experienced a period of pauperization caused by several factors, such as population growth and scarcity of land. The best-known example of this development is the Silesian Weavers’ Uprising of 1844, which was brutally suppressed by the Prussian military.¹⁹ As Bettina von Arnim has shown in her contemporary This Book Belongs to the King, in certain Berlin city quarters, pauperization of vast parts of the population was rather the norm than the exception—even before the exacerbation of the economic crisis in the mid-1840s.²⁰ Between 1845 and 1847, several poor harvests across Europe and the potato blight worsened the situation. This contributed to a downturn in the continent’s economy, ultimately leading to the impoverishment of even larger parts of its population. While the potato blight hit Ireland and Scotland hardest during this time, Prussia also experienced a food crisis and political unrest, exasperated further by continued grain exports. In April 1847, angry Berlin homemakers plundered the market stands in what would be called the Potato Revolution—a prelude to the March Revolution of 1848.²¹

In this decade of economic and political change, discussions of a railroad link between Berlin and East Prussia gained momentum. These debates were driven by intertwined arguments—strategic, economic, and political.

PRUSSIAN RAILROADS BETWEEN ECONOMIC INTERESTS AND STRATEGIC PLANNING

In the mid-1830s, southern German national economist, liberal politician, and railroad entrepreneur Friedrich List (1789–1846) argued that “never before had the governments in Germany so many means at its disposal to put the entire territory into a state of active defense, in such a manner that is compatible with public mobility and improves the latter as a consequence.”²² This statement comprises railroad promoters’ two most important arguments of the time—namely, economic and strategic ones. Surprisingly, List’s argument about the economic and military benefits of railroads led him to a pacifist conclusion: he envisioned a railroad system that would enable both quick mobilization and quick demobilization; as a result, with concentric railroad networks in existence in all European countries, offensive warfare would become obsolete because of the increased ability of all nations to defend themselves. For List, the railroad system would first be a “machine of war mitigation” (Kriegsmilderungsmaschine),” then become a machine that would both shorten and reduce the possibility of wars (Kriegsabkürzungs- und -verminderungsmaschine), and finally destroy war itself.²³ Concerning international trade, List saw Germany’s role as an intermediary of European commerce as a “source of immeasurable benefits” (unermessliche Wohltaten).²⁴

List was not alone in his enthusiasm for the railroad. Like other means of transportation, railroads, from the beginning, were subjected to both economic and military interests. Such was the case with the road-building initiatives by French, Prussian, imperial Russian, and other governments in the early nineteenth century. These programs were meant to knit the territories together economically and unify them militarily.²⁵ While the state usually invested in new roads, private initiatives pushed for early railroad investments. When entrepreneurs attempted to raise funds, they usually stressed the economic significance of the lines in question. However, while advocating for state support, they emphasized the strategic relevance of particular lines.

As far as Prussia’s peculiar geographic situation was concerned, railroads seemed to be the ideal tool to overcome its main military challenges: its exposure to France and the Habsburg and Russian Empires, as well as the necessity of transporting recruits in case of war with one of the states mentioned above.²⁶ Not surprisingly, the Prussian military realized the military potential from early on. While in 1836 the general staff calculated that the transport of a war-strength Prussian corps would take more time on rail than on foot, an additional report from the same year stressed the strategic importance of railroads. Also, the report claimed that it was necessary to build strategic railroads that would first and foremost serve military purposes.²⁷ Subsequently, the military played an increasing role in railroad committees. As we will see, the Ostbahn was the first significant line where the military successfully implemented its visions.

Still, the state remained reluctant to engage in railroad construction financially. First and foremost, private capital was invested in the emerging Prussian railroad network of the 1830s and 1840s. As a result, it was advocates of industrial development and not the government that influenced the routes of new lines. Prussia cemented this attitude in the Railroad Law of 1838. While the Ministry of Trade had to approve new lines and the government reserved itself the right to buy out the railroad companies, it did not envision any immediate financial involvement of the state. A short-lived “railroad fever” had captured the country at this time. Private investors believed in high returns, facilitated the emergence of numerous lines in the western parts of Prussia, and stimulated the development of Berlin into a railroad hub.

However, not all the lines delivered the anticipated economic gain. Hence, in the early 1840s, despite rising numbers of transported goods and passengers, this enthusiasm ended.²⁸ Consequently, the Prussian government recognized that to develop a full-fledged railroad net connecting all parts of the monarchy for the sake of economic and military purposes, the private investment might need government guarantees to limit the investors’ financial risks.²⁹

Three factors helped translate this understanding into a financially more active role for the government. First, in 1840 the new Prussian king Frederick William IV (1795–1861) acceded to the throne.³⁰ Unlike his father, Frederick William III, he strongly advocated railroads. Second, this was a time of growing German-French antagonism. During the Rhine Crisis of 1840, an already tense relationship was aggravated further when France threatened to annex all territories left of the river Rhine, which would have stripped Prussia of its westernmost province.³¹ At the same time, the Prussian General Staff was concerned about the French military’s influence in railroad planning. Since 1832, the French General Staff had advocated for the connection of Paris with principal forts and the western border regions. Consequently, on June 11, 1842, a French railroad law envisioned the construction of various lines departing from the capital and terminating at the borders and the shorelines. In a preliminary report, the French minister for public works, Armand Dufaure, underlined the importance of the railroad for internal and external economic exchange and its relevance for a concentration of troops in case of war—and hence the necessity of government involvement.³² However, the third and probably most crucial argument in favor of the Prussian government’s involvement in railroad affairs was a significant revenue surplus in the late 1830s and early 1840s. Not surprisingly, Prussia was looking for ways to invest this money; one of the options was the creation of a railroad fund that would support private railroad construction.

THE RAILROAD AS AN INTERMEDIARY FOR DEMOCRATIC DEMANDS: THE OSTBAHN IN PRUSSIA’S PROTO-PARLIAMENTS³³

The United Committee of 1842

In this atmosphere, the Prussian king convened the United Committee (Ständischer Ausschuss), a body of twelve representatives from each of the eight existing Prussian Provincial Diets (Provinziallandtage). The committee discussed questions of missing railroad links and possible state support in financing construction. The Provincial Diets were the only concession granted by Frederick William III in 1823 to proponents of a Prussian constitution and a parliament. They convened only every three years, and above all, they had a purely advisory function.³⁴ However, their representatives aspired to a more significant role. As a result, in the early 1840s, ever-broader parts of the new bourgeoisie and the nobility supported the Diet, which made increasingly bolder demands. Now, its representatives called for freedom of the press and requested a constitution and an all-Prussian representative body—promises made by the king’s father that had never been fulfilled.³⁵ The convention of a United Committee was the farthest Frederick William IV was willing to go.

Despite its minimal competencies, this body played an essential role in the political conflicts of the German Vormärz period. It was part of a “dramatic sharpening and refinement of critical politics.”³⁶ The mostly handpicked aristocrats and wealthy urban dwellers that filled the seats took on their role seriously, and their debates shed light on political fold lines of the time.³⁷ The committee convened October 18–27, 1842. Among other issues, the representatives discussed questions related to railroad construction. The government proposed several lines regarded as crucial for the state, following earlier considerations by Friedrich List. In the discussions, the government’s speaker stressed the military, political, and economic arguments in favor of Prussia’s involvement in railroad construction. Other representatives suggested that the rail would strengthen feelings of belonging to a “unified nationality” (geschlossene Nationalität)—an allusion to tendencies of broader autonomy among its Polish minority in the eastern provinces.³⁸ Some representatives opposed this approach, arguing that the railroads’ benefits could not be evaluated yet. For those who were critical, possible military advantages were doubtful.³⁹ In contrast, Johann Hermann Hüffer, the mayor of Münster, described the invention of the railroad as a turning point comparable to the invention of gunpowder in the Middle Ages:

It would not have been possible for a state to defy this resource [gunpowder] back then and, for example, to arm its soldiers with crossbows when the enemy wielded rifles; similarly, at present, it would not be feasible for a state to evade the splendid application of steam power and refrain from building railroads while the surrounding states constructed these.⁴⁰

This was an allusion to the railroad development in France. Remarkably, a substantial minority argued for state railroads—an idea that would materialize gradually only between the 1870s and the 1890s. In the end, a great majority of ninety representatives supported the government’s propositions, while a mere eight rejected them.⁴¹

As a result of the committee’s recommendations, on November 22, 1842, the Prussian king approved the establishment of a railroad fund that would financially support railroad construction and guarantee interest rates on private investments. This would foster the “connection of the capital with the provinces, and the provinces with each other through comprehensive railroad facilities”; also, these railroad lines had to “touch foreign countries.”⁴² The future Ostbahn line between Berlin and Königsberg, with subsequent branch lines to the borders with the Russian Empire, was among a list of five lines considered crucial for a Prussian railroad net.⁴³

Questions of Strategy, Economy, and Democracy: The Ostbahn Takes Shape

In January 1843, the Allgemeine Preußische Staatszeitung, with close ties to the Prussian government, stated that the Ostbahn’s “political, military and economic importance” was no longer in question. What was needed next would be a broad discussion to find the ideal route.⁴⁴ A fierce debate about this topic emerged in the media and in various ministries soon after the king’s approval, hovering around economic and strategic aspects. In economic terms, the Ostbahn was supposed to connect the limited number of important urban centers and agricultural regions in an otherwise sparsely populated part of the monarchy (cities from west to east: Landsberg on the Warthe [Gorzów Wielkopolski], Posen [Poznań], Bromberg [Bydgoszcz], and Danzig [Gdańsk]). In military terms, the general staff advocated for a connection of the principal eastern forts of Küstrin (Kostrzyn), Thorn (Toruń), Graudenz (Grudziądz), and Danzig. Also, major rivers such as the Warthe (Warta), the Netze (Noteć), and particularly the vast Vistula (Weichsel, Wisła) had to be included in the planning; they functioned as natural defensive lines in case of a military attack from the Russian Empire.

Strategic aspects also prevailed in the petitions of various towns along the possible Ostbahn route. In a high-quality printed brochure from November 1843, the magistrate of the Baltic Sea port of Elbing (Elbląg) stated that its connection to the rail was a “vital issue” (Lebensfrage) and promised to arrange for free land to build the rail. To make the argument more persuasive, the city invoked military reasons, arguing for a Vistula crossing farther away from the border and thus closer to Elbing.⁴⁵ The estates of the Meseritz (Międzyrzecz) County, an ethnically mixed Polish-German region within the Grand Duchy of Poznań, argued that the line should run through their territory to merge it with the rest of the country and to enable quick mobilization in case of war. Here, geostrategic arguments, drawing from the internal threat of Polish separatism and the external threat of an imperial Russian attack, prevailed over economic ones.⁴⁶

A November 1844 expertise on the Ostbahn’s best routes discussed numerous directions of the future line, citing advantages and disadvantages from both an economic and a strategic perspective.⁴⁷ This fueled further debates within the government and the public that would go on for another five years. However, the expertise made a clear statement as to the future Vistula crossing’s location. A crossing in Thorn would be most advantageous in terms of topography and building cost. As an additional benefit, this would also have boosted the town’s trade and travel since the existing wooden bridge was prone to ice drift and was often damaged in winter. However, Thorn was a crucial military stronghold, located a mere seventeen kilometers north of the border with the Russian Empire. Thus, the crossing and the line would be an easy target for a possible attack. As a result, for strategic reasons, the expertise rejected this location and recommended a crossing at the city of Dirschau, some 140 kilometers farther north. Because of the complex topographic situation, requiring a massive bridge across a broad flood plain, construction costs would be much higher there. Furthermore, an additional bridge would be needed at Marienburg (Malbork) farther east, across the Vistula’s distributary Nogat.

In the end, strategic arguments prevailed. The anticipated bridge promised to boost Dirschau’s trade and travel since there had been no permanent crossing there previously. As a result, while the Prussian government was still reluctant to decide on the Ostbahn’s course and anticipated private investors’ willingness to devote themselves to sections of the line, it still decided on the future crossings at Dirschau and Marienburg. On February 22, 1845, the king ordered the launch of the bridges’ construction and released the financial means from the railroad fund. In summer 1845, two commissions started working on the bridges and the related land development projects.⁴⁸ These projects were to precede railroad construction since they were incredibly time-consuming. Chapter 3 will discuss the role of the Dirschau Bridge in greater detail.

“In Money Matters, Geniality Has Its Limits”: The Ostbahn in the United Diet⁴⁹

In 1847, when most of the newly planned railroad lines in Prussia were either well underway or already completed, the government still faced difficulties finding private investors for the Berlin–Königsberg line—even with the government-guaranteed interest rates. As we have seen, this was the time of a deepening economic crisis in Europe, limiting investments in railroads. Accordingly, the overall pace of construction declined, and the workforce decreased. In the German lands, the number of temporary workers employed in railroad construction dropped from 178,800 in 1846 to 137,500 in 1847.⁵⁰ Additionally, with a minimal number of significant cities situated directly on the envisioned Ostbahn route, private capital was even less interested in an investment that was not promising an adequate return. This was especially alarming for some because, in 1846, the Prussian minister of war pointed out that without an east–west railroad connection, a French offensive would be virtually undefeatable in the face of the newly completed French railroad lines.⁵¹ This added to earlier expertise paid for by the Ministry of War in 1845. Here, General-Major von Peucker regarded the Ostbahn as crucial for Prussia’s future defense against a Russian attack.⁵²

Against these developments, the Prussian government decided to build the Ostbahn as the first state-owned railroad. To raise the necessary funds, the government planned to issue a state bond with guaranteed interest rates paid for by the railroad fund.⁵³ Following the 1820 State Indebtedness Law (Staatsschuldenverordnung), the king first had to obtain the permission of the United Diet (Vereinigter Landtag). This body was an appointed protoparliament composed of 617 representatives, primarily members of the eight existing Prussian Provincial Diets.⁵⁴ Unlike the United Committee of 1842, this body had the legal power to accept or reject the king’s propositions concerning state bonds.⁵⁵

The idea of establishing a United Diet originated in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. While Prussian reformers like Karl August von Hardenberg had not convinced the king to transform Prussia into a constitutional monarchy, they still managed to implement the State Indebtedness Law to force the king toward constitutional reform.⁵⁶ So far, the king had been successful in avoiding this confrontation. However, in the case of the Ostbahn, there was no other option since the government considered the speedy construction of the line as crucial to the military and economic security of the state. Accurately, Christopher Clark called the provisions of the Indebtedness Law “Hardenberg’s time-bomb,” which was “primed to explode” over the issue of the Ostbahn’s financing.⁵⁷

In April 1847, the United Diet convened in the royal castle. In his opening speech, Frederick William clarified that the Diet was not a legislative body; its sole purpose was to approve the railroad loan. He clearly warned those who hoped for constitutional reform. Previous research usually focused on the role of the Diet in the struggle for a Prussian constitution. However, the debates show much more than that. It was an exercise in parliamentary democracy with factions of liberals and conservatives developing alongside a novel culture of discussion and compromise.⁵⁸ Soon, discussions arose over the role of railroads for economic and military development and between those advocating for private railroad construction and those supporting the state’s leading role in the new infrastructure.⁵⁹ Most politicians agreed on the importance of the Ostbahn line; however, they attached their approval to far-reaching political demands, especially the right to control state expenditures.

The Pomeranian representative Woldemar von Heyden stated: “No one is more convinced than me that this railroad line, which will link west and east, contains the seeds . . . that will bring the whole country into bloom. . . . Furthermore, I am firmly convinced that it will stimulate the material well-being of . . . the entire monarchy and increase the external strength of the fatherland and double its prestige. Indeed, I will go even further. I would like to extend this iron arm to the Prussians to draw them closer to the heart of the whole fatherland.”⁶⁰ The representative used the biological body as a metaphor for the state, likening railroads to vital body parts. Metaphors like these, comparing the railroad lines to veins, arms, or blood vessels of the state body with the capital as its heart, were quite frequent during this time.⁶¹ However, von Heyden concluded with a statement against the bond, saying that the right to approve the expenditure had to be linked to the right to its control.⁶²

Representatives from the monarchy’s western and eastern parts unanimously supported economic arguments. The surplus of agricultural goods produced in the east would satisfy growing demand in the west, whereas western industrial goods would be transported to the east. This is evidence of the lack of a clear political divide between delegates from the economically more developed western provinces and the predominantly rural areas of Prussia’s eastern region. In this context, some representatives perceived the railroad as a tool to trigger economic development that could help to decrease the number of emigrants whom poverty forced to leave the country.⁶³ Seemingly, no one anticipated the power of the railroad network as an actor in its own right. As we will see in chapter 6, this actor would foster massive migration despite its creators’ opposite intentions.

Several representatives, such as Heinrich Carl Wilhelm Küpfer from the province of Posen, stressed the military importance of the railroad. He argued that in regard to all kinds of military operations, “the railroad makes time and space disappear.” Since Prussia’s possible western war theater (France) was already well connected by rail, the eastern theater had to be interconnected by rail as well.⁶⁴ However, unlike France, the Russian Empire at this point had no serious plans to build strategic railways. As a result, in 1847, some Prussian representatives disputed the necessity of the railroad to defend the country effectively since the Russian Empire’s infrastructure was far behind Prussia’s. They believed that the existing fortresses would suffice to withstand an attack from the empire.

Representative von Saucken-Tarputschen from East Prussia angrily rejected this argument and claimed that Russia’s infrastructure was better developed than Prussia’s.⁶⁵ He most likely alluded to the Russian Empire’s growing network of macadamized roads, part of an ambitious road-building program launched in 1817. Following this line of thinking, von Saucken claimed that only the railroad could rescue East Prussia, by sending its “far away brothers” from other parts of the country: “When the surge of [Russia’s] power should descend upon us, Cossacks, Kalmucks, Kyrgyzstanis will flood and destroy the entire country, even if every man stands up in resistance with their chests put forward like a wall.”⁶⁶ This anti-Russian stance is a recurring motif in the discussion, comparing the Russian Empire to prison with no political freedoms, an undeveloped economy, and no will to change.

The discussions frequently came back to the same basic arguments. First, it was the political, military, and economic benefits that advocates stressed and a small number of adversaries denied; second, in exchange for a favorable vote, numerous representatives, such as railroad enthusiast David Hansemann, demanded more fiscal powers (such as expenditure control) as well as regular meetings of the United Diet. During the debates, Hansemann coined the phrase “In money matters, geniality has its limits” (Beim Geld hört die Gemütlichkeit auf). These demands were angrily rejected as blackmail by government representatives and, most notably, Count Otto von Bismarck, the future Prussian prime minister and German chancellor.⁶⁷

With the minority of opponents of state-built railroads and the advocates for more constitutional rights united, the representatives rejected the king’s proposal to issue state bonds for the Ostbahn’s construction, with 360 voting against the measure and only 179 voting in favor.⁶⁸ In its concluding report, the Diet requested that the monarch not stop the line’s construction altogether until the next Diet could discuss a revised proposal. However, rejecting the idea of a constitutional monarchy, the king perceived the Diet’s negative vote as an affront and angrily ordered the immediate stop to ongoing construction. As a result, the Prussian government almost discontinued planning and construction of the line, intending to transfer the remaining financial means to other railroad projects.⁶⁹

1848: The Power of the Railroad

From the mid-1840s, a worsening economic situation prepared the ground for upheaval throughout Europe. Politically, widespread calls demanded constitutions, elected parliaments, and greater government accountability. Additionally, demands for unification gained momentum across the German (and Italian) lands. In Prussia, the case of the Ostbahn in the United Diet showed that political change was inevitable.

It is no coincidence that most of these developments unfolded in parts of Europe that had recently been added to a cross-border railroad network. It is thus plausible to assume that the emerging European network of the mid-1840s added an essential accelerant for the unrest since it created a new space of opportunities. This space allowed for much more and much quicker travel and for the exchange of ideas across European borders.

The journeys of German poet and political refugee Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) are just one example of these new opportunities. In Vormärz Germany, he was in a constant fight with censorship; therefore, he left for Paris in 1831. In 1843 and 1844, Heine visited his native Germany. On leaving Cologne to return to Paris in December 1843, Heine wrote to his mother in Hamburg, “The day after tomorrow I’ll take the train to Brussels, a comfortable one-day journey, and from there it’s a stone’s throw to Paris; so the trip is all but arranged.”⁷⁰ In terms of the mobility options between Cologne and Paris at the time, two-thirds of the distance was already covered by rail, which made cross-border travel increasingly quick. As we have seen, important gaps in the European network were closed in 1847 and 1848—just weeks or months before the outbreak of the revolutions in France and the German lands. Along the new cross-border corridors traveled people and, with them, ideas. While Prussian customs officers searched travelers’ luggage for banned books and managed to confiscate at least part of this intellectual contraband, they could not stop ideas from traveling across borders. In his famous “Germany. A Winter’s Tale,” Heine recalled the search by Prussian customs in November 1843, when he was on his way to Hamburg:

They rooted in shirts and sniffled in drawers

For whatever they thought was hidden.

They were looking for laces and gems and jewels

and for books that were forbidden

You fools, to be looking in trunks and bags!

I’m afraid you misunderstand!

It’s not in my baggage, it’s in my head,

I carry my contraband.⁷¹

The railroad network thus significantly accelerated the transmission speed of books and ideas—despite Vormärz censorship, which was especially severe at the borders. As we will see in chapter 3, this is also true for cross-border technology exchange. One example is entrepreneur Borsig, whose first detailed knowledge of steam-engine construction depended on an engine produced in the Norris Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that ran on the Berlin–Potsdam Railroad. Borsig constantly reviewed new developments in machinery across the globe; just weeks before the French February Revolution of 1848, he was on a trip to Great Britain, studying novel mechanical-engineering and bridge-construction techniques.⁷² On his way back, he passed through Cologne’s Rhenish Railroad Station, which in February 1848 turned into a message center of sorts, where the crowds and newspaper correspondents eagerly awaited news of the revolution and spread them across the German lands.⁷³

During the March Revolution in Berlin, factory workers played an important role. In the bloody clashes between the military and the protesters on the evening of March 18, 1848, nine hundred Borsig factory workers were at the front lines of the manifestations and the barricades. Ultimately, four of them lost their lives; August Borsig funded their headstones in the Berlin Friedrichshain cemetery, fulfilling his social responsibility.⁷⁴

As a result of the revolutions, between May 1848 and May 1849, the first all-German parliament convened in Frankfurt am Main to debate the political and geographic shape of a future united Germany. As Ralf Roth has demonstrated in the example of contemporary German railroad connections, Frankfurt’s role as a railroad hub facilitated the meetings of the elected members. The latter could reach the city easily by rail from all directions. Once again, the railroad operated as an intermediary of progressive ideas.⁷⁵

While a future national German railroad network was debated in the Frankfurt parliament, railroad issues also returned to the political agenda in Prussia. Railroad entrepreneurs were a dominant force in the short-lived Prussian reform government of 1848. Ludolf Camphausen, a banker and mastermind of early Rhenish railroads, served as prime minister from March to July. Hansemann, one of the initiators of the Rhenish railroads, was finance minister from March to September. Although in 1847 he had rejected the Ostbahn state bonds on the grounds of a deficit of legal rights, he now joined forces with Camphausen and lobbied for a strong involvement of the state in railroad affairs. In Berlin, the state sought to eliminate one of the sources of the upheaval: economic hardship and unemployment among the industrial workforce. Consequently, on June 14, 1848, the king ordered that unemployed workers be hired to restart construction work on the Ostbahn, which had just been discontinued a couple of months earlier. In the following months, unemployed workers and “active revolutionaries” were sent to construction sites, thus transported away from troubled hot spots.⁷⁶

From the beginning, the democratic aspirations of the revolutionaries clashed with the reactionary policies of most states in the German Confederation, most notably Prussia and the Habsburg Empire. Taken by surprise at first and forced to appease the situation by making political concessions, the monarchs soon embarked on a reactionary counteroffensive. As a result, the Prussian king forced Camphausen and Hansemann to resign. During this time, while the primary function of the Berlin Customs Wall remained fiscal control, the wall also served as a barrier (Sperrmauer). The officers at the gates now hindered undesired people or their printed matter from entering the city.⁷⁷

Once again, the space of opportunities created by the railroad network came into play; this time, the military took advantage. During the second phase of the revolutions in 1849, when the governments violently repressed them in many parts of Germany, the Prussian army dispatched troops by rail to put down political unrest in Berlin, Baden, and Saxony. For their part, the imperial Russian army supported the Habsburgs in putting down the Hungarian Revolution. Jürgen Bremm accurately called this a “Victory of Reaction through revolutionary technology.”⁷⁸ Consequently, these interventions affirmed the railroad’s military value once and for all.

In the meantime, the construction of the Ostbahn returned to the political agenda. As a result of the March Revolution, the king had to allow elections for a constituent assembly that would draft a constitution. In this atmosphere of change, the representative of the National Assembly, Michael von Pokrzywnicki from West Prussia, petitioned to create a committee that would identify the line’s best route.⁷⁹ Just like the discussions in the United Diet, the committee’s subsequent report focused on the economic and strategic values of the rail and supported a route that would connect important fortresses with Berlin. Once again, the committee explicitly mentioned the threat posed by the strategic French railroad network.⁸⁰

While the March Revolution did not achieve its primary goal, a united, democratic Germany, the Prussian king still had to make significant concessions. On the one hand, he forcefully disbanded the elected Prussian National Assembly in November 1848; on the other, he still granted a constitution. The latter allowed for a semidemocratic Prussian parliament (Landtag); the First Chamber consisted mainly of the higher nobility, lord mayors, and members appointed by the king, while the Second Chamber was elected—by a tax-based voting system that heavily discriminated against the less affluent.

Discussions on the Ostbahn in both the Second and the First Chambers soon resumed. The economic and strategic arguments from previous meetings took center stage in the special committees’ reports and the plenary debate. Opponents of railroad construction fell silent, and the Second Chamber even advocated for state railroads. Finally, in November 1849, both chambers approved state bonds of up to 21 million thalers for financing the Ostbahn as Prussia’s first state-owned railroad.⁸¹ As a result, the decade-long discussion of the Ostbahn produced more than just a rail line. Ultimately, the upheaval of Berlin’s workers, the public discussions, and the political negotiations played their part in turning Prussia into a constitutional monarchy.

Henceforth, the remaining construction work was carried out quickly. As for the line’s direction, it followed mainly strategic considerations. The Ostbahn crossed the Oder River at Küstrin some ninety kilometers to the east of Berlin and stayed to the north of the rivers Warthe and Netze and to the west of the Vistula—all three rivers serving as natural defense lines in case of an attack from the Russian Empire in the southeast. On July 26, 1851, the king himself inaugurated the first section of the rail between Kreuz (Krzyż) and Bromberg and was welcomed by jubilating subjects along the line.⁸² Already in 1853, travelers could reach Königsberg from Berlin by train, even though they had to make a detour via Stettin; also, they had to take ferries and coaches to get from Dirschau on the west bank of the Vistula to Marienburg (Malbork) on the east bank of the river Nogat since the sophisticated bridges located there were still under construction. Finally, on October 12, 1857, the whole line from Berlin via Frankfurt (Oder) and Küstrin to Königsberg was inaugurated.⁸³ At the time, trains terminated at Berlin’s Frankfurt Station, originally constructed to accommodate traffic to Frankfurt (Oder) and Silesia. In the following decades, several extensions and double-tracked sections were added, further improving the performance of the Ostbahn (refer to fig. 0.2 in the introduction).

The line proved to be a huge economic success, with almost 900,000 travelers in 1857, 2.2 million in 1867, and 9.6 million in 1884.⁸⁴ To facilitate uninterrupted travel for first-class passengers, provisions were made to embark entire carriages and horse teams. However, the passenger traffic revenue was mainly due to third- and fourth-class travelers. The extraordinary year-round numbers of passengers in the lowest travel class forced the Ostbahn administration to introduce roofed wagons in fourth class, braving the severe winter climate in the eastern parts of the monarchy.

Planners had not anticipated this rise in the number of less-affluent passengers. Still, soon a growing number of farmers bringing their goods to the market, industrial workers commuting or moving to Berlin permanently, seasonal laborers traveling to the western parts of the monarchy to make a living, and weekend excursionists, among others, all traveled across the rail. As chapter 6 will show, a rising number of emigrants from Prussia’s eastern provinces and the Russian Empire would soon take the railroad to ports in western Europe. Revenues from freight traffic developed as dynamically as those from passenger services and soon surpassed all expectations; they rose from 2.3 million marks in 1857 to 10.3 million marks in 1867 and 27 million in 1884.⁸⁵

OVERCOMING WALLS, ALTERING THE URBAN FABRIC: RAILROAD LINES AND THEIR STATION BUILDINGS IN BERLIN’S SOUTHEAST

In the 1840s and 1850s, Berlin turned into a European railroad hub. The growing industrial potential attracted new inhabitants, hailing from Prussia’s eastern provinces almost exclusively. As a result, the city grew at an impressive pace. Tracks and railroad stations altered the urban landscape in an unprecedented way. Huge facilities were needed to accommodate the rolling stock, passengers, and freight traffic.

Consequently, passenger railroad stations, as modern “monasteries and cathedrals” or “living temples to the worship of King Steam,” dominated urban planning in the second half of the nineteenth century.⁸⁶ At the same time, separate freight terminals provided the facilities needed for loading and unloading an increasing freight volume. The facilities accommodating the Ostbahn are an excellent example of the impact of the railroad on the cityscape.

The Frankfurt and the Ostbahn Stations as Novel City Gates

In the early decades of the railroad, most lines had one terminus at either end, usually named after the directions or cities they initially connected to. In Berlin, between the late 1830s and the late 1860s, seven railroad termini emerged, serving the seven main lines radiating out of Berlin in a starlike fashion: the Potsdam Station (1838), the Anhalt Station (1841), the Stettin Station (1842), the Frankfurt Station (1843; renamed Silesian Station in 1881), the Hamburg Station (1847), the Eastern Railroad Station (Küstriner Bahnhof or Ostbahnhof, 1867), and the Görlitz Station (1868). The Lehrte Station followed in 1871. In the last quarter of the century, most of the previously mentioned stations experienced substantial conversion or total reconstruction since passenger and freight traffic increased tremendously. Two stations served the Ostbahn, namely the Frankfurt Station/Silesian Station (1857–1867 and after 1882) and the Ostbahnhof (1867–1882).

Those familiar with today’s topography of Berlin might be confused by the designations. The current Ostbahnhof is the historical Frankfurt Station/Silesian Station, while the building of the historical Ostbahnhof, just three hundred meters to the north, was destroyed during the Second World War. Today, the very same spot is occupied by the building of the daily Neues Deutschland.

Figure 1.1. Berlin railroad stations in 1846. Clockwise from the east: Frankfurt (Silesian) Station, Anhalt Station, Potsdam Station, Hamburg Station, and Stettin Station. Julius Springer Verlag, Berlin, Karten-Übersicht der Berliner Eisenbahnen. I. Berlin 1846, 1851, 1867, 1871, chromolithograhy, 28 cm × 38.20 cm. Courtesy of Stadtmuseum Berlin, Inv.-Nr. IV 02/10 R.

Figure 1.2. Berlin rail road stations in 1871. Additional terminals in the east are Ostbahnhof and Görlitz Stations; in the northwest is Lehrte Station. A circular railroad connects the terminals. Julius Springer Verlag, Berlin, Karten-Übersicht der Berliner Eisenbahnen. I. Berlin 1846, 1851, 1867, 1871, chromolithograhy, 28 cm × 38.20 cm. Courtesy of Stadtmuseum Berlin, Inv.-Nr. IV 02/10 R.

Most early railroad stations erected in Berlin were outside the Customs Wall but still close to existing gates and previous urban development. This was for several reasons. First, as we have already seen in the case of industrial development, lots outside the city limits were more affordable. Second, in the early years of the railroad, because of the noise and dirt and a perceived or real fire danger, city councils and municipal authorities were reluctant to allow for the construction of railroad facilities within the traditional city limits. Third, in Berlin and other cities of the time, city or customs walls were still an obstacle difficult to overcome—if not for strategic then for fiscal reasons. In sum, as Wolfgang Schivelbusch has pointed out, railroad stations were perceived as “alien appendages”—hence their construction outside the center.⁸⁷

In contrast, both the Frankfurt Station and later the Ostbahnhof emerged within Berlin’s city limits—if in the remote southeasternmost Stralau suburb (Stralauer Vorstadt, currently part of Berlin-Friedrichshain). At the time, flower, fruit, and vegetable farming dominated this area, located about two kilometers to the east of the urban development around Alexanderplatz.

Three reasons informed this decision, which contributed to the wall’s demise just a few years later. First, constructing the two stations outside the wall would have removed them even farther from the city center—hence the decision to acquire much more expensive lots within the city. While residents protested the potential fire hazard, authorities still approved construction. Second, a direct connection to the navigable river Spree was accomplished at this location, enabling transshipment between the waterways and the rail. Third, of crucial importance in constructing the railroad line to Frankfurt and its stations was civil engineer Carl-Friedrich Zimpel (Charles Frederick Zimpel, 1801–1879). He pressured the company to change earlier plans that envisioned a station building outside the wall, adjacent to the Frankfurt Gate.

As in the case of List and Borsig, Zimpel’s expertise stemmed from the study of railroad technology abroad. A Prussian by birth, Zimpel spent the 1830s in New Orleans, where he was involved in constructing several municipal buildings and the New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad.⁸⁸ On his way back to Prussia, he studied railroads in England. In 1840, he published a treatise on “Railroads in North America, England, and Other Countries,” elaborating in great detail on technical aspects.⁸⁹ Back in Europe, he served as a transnational transmitter of technological and urban-planning expertise, securing an influential position with the railroad company working on the Berlin–Frankfurt on the Oder line. To cater to the “comfort of passengers,” he envisioned the need to position railroad stations as close to the “busiest parts of towns” as possible, thus easing transportation to and from the station.⁹⁰ Even on a European scale, this was quite a revolutionary idea to implement.⁹¹ Based on his experience as a surveyor of the New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad, Zimpel also successfully speculated on behalf of the railroad company, thus overcoming financial obstacles related to land acquisition. The company acquired valuable lots for track and facility construction within the Berlin city limits through seemingly unrelated intermediaries, thus curtailing possible real estate speculation.⁹²

The representative head building of the Frankfurt Station contained the railroad company’s administrative offices. It was separated into a three-story central block with two-story annexes on either side. This late neoclassical structure also combined neo-Renaissance elements. The adjacent station building included two one-story halls for arrivals and departures. Like other station buildings of the time, in both form and architectural style, the Frankfurt Station followed the zeitgeist rather than the function of the building. Consequently, it resembled more a city palace (Stadtpalais) than a building facilitating large flows of passengers.⁹³ While a contemporary travel writer in 1843 described the station complex as containing the “greatest and most elegant structures and most convenient facilities, not only among those in Berlin but also among the rest of the German stations,” this is arguably only a snapshot, immediately after the opening of the station.⁹⁴

Few contemporaries anticipated the enormous growth of passenger and goods transportation. Initially destined to accommodate travelers and goods between Berlin and the provincial town of Frankfurt on the Oder (80 kilometers to the east), the extension of the line to the important economic center of Breslau (Wrocław) in Lower Silesia in 1846 significantly increased the economic significance of the line. Henceforth, the Lower Silesian Railroad Company (Niederschlesisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft) administered the 360 kilometers of track to Silesia. Traffic volume increased again when the Ostbahn was accomplished, in 1857. In the first ten years of its existence, it utilized the Frankfurt Station, adding to the strain on the station’s facilities. As a result, in the 1850s, several extensions were carried out, adding platforms for the Ostbahn, expanding the length of the platforms, and creating new facilities for the growing number of goods transported.⁹⁵ In sum, its numerous buildings and facilities covered three blocks, forming a rectangle 1,200 meters long and 75 meters wide, thus dominating the urban-rural landscape of still sparsely populated southeastern Berlin.⁹⁶ Kristin Poling tellingly characterizes these “urban edge[s]” of Germany’s rapidly developing cities as frontier landscapes, reflecting “its place in a changing national and global landscape.”⁹⁷

In 1867, the Stralau suburb underwent another significant urban change when the Ostbahn terminus was accomplished. It was located just 300 meters north of today’s Berlin Ostbahnhof and served as the new endpoint when a shortcut of the line was accomplished, linking Berlin to Küstrin on the Oder. As a result, the station was also known as Küstrin Station (Küstriner Bahnhof) and located on Küstriner Platz. This shortcut not only significantly reduced travel times to Königsberg but also diminished the strain on the Frankfurt Station since the increasing traffic between East Prussia, the Russian Empire, and Berlin now departed from and arrived at Ostbahnhof.

Figure 1.3. Berlin Ostbahnhof terminal, ca. 1870. Zeitschrift für Bauwesen 20 (1870), Bl. 1. Courtesy of Berlin University of the Arts, University Library, Sign. 2 B 172–20.1870.

This structure was also the first Berlin station building following a new global trend in railroad station architecture, which persists today.⁹⁸ This trend was inspired by Joseph Paxton’s enormous Crystal Palace at the London Great Exhibition of 1851, which perplexed contemporaries. This “arching rib-cage of iron to support a skin-covering of glass, admitting light but excluding the elements,” set the stage for introducing novel, industrial building materials, thus multiplying the capacity of roofed structures.⁹⁹ Wolfgang Schivelbusch claims that “the very nature of glass architecture . . . put an end to traditional architecture.”¹⁰⁰

A comparison of the 1842 Frankfurt Station and the nearby 1867 Ostbahnhof clearly shows this development. Both structures enclosed the tracks from all sides and hid the railroad station’s industrial core behind traditional facades—a typical feature of nineteenth-century railroad stations. However, the enormous glass roofing that formed the train hall within the horseshoe of the station building added a clearly visible, industrial face to the traditional stone buildings. In 1842, constructing an overarching platform roofing that would allow for sufficient natural light was technically prohibitive and almost impossible. Engineers resolved this problem with the “ferro-vitreous architectural functionalism” of the 1850s.¹⁰¹

Contemporaries were stunned by the Ostbahnhof’s “overwhelming dimensions” and its “architectural beauty,” which apparently stood out even in comparison to the 1865 Paris North Station (Gare du Nord) and the 1859 Cologne Central Station (Centralbahnhof).¹⁰² The platform’s glass roofing was 188 meters long and 38 meters wide (600 Prussian feet by 120 Prussian feet) and was comparable to Cologne Central, while the Paris North Station’s roof was equally long but twice as wide.¹⁰³ However, in the still relatively undeveloped Stralau suburb, the building was much more dominant than Cologne Central or Paris North, which were both situated in an existing urban setting.¹⁰⁴

As for the decoration of the Ostbahnhof’s head building, the architect drew upon the Paris North’s facade. To this day, the latter presents twenty-three female sculptures, allegories of cities served by the French Northern Railway Company. While the sculptures in the center show cities in northern France, the top is crowned by Paris and eight major European destinations that could be reached, including Cologne, Berlin, and Warsaw.¹⁰⁵ While the depiction of city allegories on railroad stations was nothing extraordinary at the time, the strong focus on international destinations was indeed remarkable. It was evidence of contemporaries’ awareness of the European dimension of railroads in travel and trade. The French railroad planners imagined their imperial capital to be at the center of this network and thus deserving of a railroad station “worthy of receiving princes and personalities from all countries.”¹⁰⁶ Similarly, in Berlin, eight female statues crowned the representative railroad building on Küstriner Platz. Allegories of the eastern Prussian provinces of Brandenburg, Prussia, Pomerania, and Posen decorated the top of the central block, symbolizing the role of the railroad line in linking up to the eastern part of the monarchy. The north and south wings showed allegories of steam power, electricity, agriculture, and industry. In contemporary understanding, steam power and electricity (at the time embodied in telegraphy) were supposed to facilitate the exchange of industrial products from the west for agricultural products from the east of the monarchy.¹⁰⁷ As we have seen, this was a critical argument for the line’s construction from the beginning.

While the statues on top of the station building symbolized the unity of Prussia and its diverse population, the vast interior instead mirrored the harsh social class divisions of nineteenth-century Prussia. Although some railroad visionaries, such as French economist Constantin Pecqueur (1801–1887), believed in the emancipatory force of the railroad to achieve social equality, reality in Europe was quite different.¹⁰⁸ The Prussian railroads with their four classes (plus the special treatment of the high nobility traveling on their royal coaches) are an extreme example of class divisions cemented during the early railroad age. An analysis of the makeup of the Ostbahnhof illustrates how railroad companies of the time designed stations “to avoid . . . encounters across class.”¹⁰⁹ The royal family members and the highest nobility had access to two luxurious rooms of 47 square meters each, decorated with oil paintings, stucco work, fabric wallpaper, Carrara marble, and wood carvings.¹¹⁰ The first-class waiting room featured 86 square meters of space with adjacent restrooms for both sexes, a lady’s room, and a “parlor for distinguished people” (Salon für distinguirte Personen). Second-, third-, and fourth-class waiting rooms had a size of 213 square meters each and were equipped with separate station buffets.¹¹¹

Comparing the size of the respective waiting areas with the number of sold tickets in each class reveals the social discrimination embodied in what is otherwise an architectural masterpiece, built in a “romanticizing neo-Renaissance” style.¹¹² Detailed data is available for travelers arriving and departing from Frankfurt Station in 1859 (Ostbahn and Lower Silesian Railroad travelers combined). At the time, a half million people used the station. Of these passengers, 37 percent traveled fourth class, 36 percent traveled third class, 24 percent traveled second class, and just 1.9 percent traveled first class.¹¹³ Even if we take into account the difference in ticket prices (on 1850s Ostbahn trains, travelers in first class paid approximately four times the fee of those in fourth class), the three-quarters of passengers traveling third and fourth class in crammed cars and waiting in overcrowded waiting rooms subsidized the luxury of the limited number of travelers in second, first, and royal classes.¹¹⁴

However, the railroad station was also a place of encounter despite these divisions—even if this happened mainly within the separate travel classes. Discussing the Lemberg Main Station example and following Juri Lotman’s theory of semiospheres, Nadja Weck called this space of exchange a “border space,” where different semiospheres (travelers of various social, geographic, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds) interact.¹¹⁵

It was not for long that the Ostbahnhof was the largest and most impressive of Berlin’s railroad stations: the adjacent Frankfurt Station was modernized and enlarged two years after its completion. The new extended station featured glass roofing equal in width to that of the Ostbahnhof but some twenty meters longer.¹¹⁶

While the two railroad stations facilitated the movements of an increasing number of travelers, they also triggered challenges for mobility to and from the stations. We can fully grasp the dimension of traffic when we look at the number of horse-drawn cabs (Droschken) arriving or departing from the Ostbahnhof and Frankfurt Station. In 1868, the former was the busiest Berlin station (receiving cabs on 110,567 trips, or one-quarter of all travel from and to Berlin railroad stations). It featured designated roofed cab stops along the northern wing, a novelty adopted from London railroad stations.¹¹⁷ Frankfurt Station was served by cabs on 12,662 trips.¹¹⁸ In addition, horse-drawn carriage lines (Omnibusse), an early form of public transportation, connected the stations to the city’s western parts. The majority of passengers who could not afford to pay for local transportation were not included in this number and made their way to and from the stations on foot.

From Hyacinth Gardens to Crammed Tenement Blocks: A New City Quarter Emerges

Comparable to what occurred in Paris’s city quarters adjacent to the North and East Stations, a whole new city quarter developed next to the Berlin station buildings in the Stralau suburb. Within one generation, these structures significantly changed the southeasternmost part of Berlin, being “the decisive development impetus for economic and urban development.”¹¹⁹ In the late 1830s, agriculture still dominated the area, just a half kilometer southeast of Alexanderplatz, stretching one kilometer wide and two and a half kilometers long to the southeast alongside the river Spree. The eastern border of this quarter was the Customs Wall, with its historic Stralau and Frankfurt Gates, respectively (next to today’s Warschauer Straße and Weberwiese subway stations). Historically, this area had been dominated by swamps, cultivated by Huguenot refugees only in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In the western part of this quarter, just east of what currently is the Alexa Mall, the famous hyacinth gardens of the Huguenot Bouché family dominated the landscape; they were a favorite destination for Berliners’ excursions on Sundays.¹²⁰ Many other flower and vegetable plantations, orchards, and fields provided food and flowers for the Prussian capital. Lumberyards and mills operated along the river Spree.

The industrialization of the quarter started in 1838 when a branch of the London-based Imperial Continental Gas Association erected new gasworks on the river Spree, some three hundred meters southwest of the future Frankfurt Station. The company had been operating in Berlin since 1825, providing street lighting while at the same time serving a growing number of private customers. In 1847, Berlin erected its own gasworks at Stralauer Platz, also on the river Spree, just one hundred meters south of the Frankfurt Station, next to the station’s port warehouse.¹²¹

The proximity of gasworks, the river, and railroad stations was no coincidence. Both gasworks and railroads needed coal, distributed by waterways or by rail. Also, architects and urban planners equipped both the developing new city quarters and the stations with gas lighting—hence, gasworks and railroad formed a symbiotic relationship. In the 1840s and 1850s in this developing area, several other factories emerged, such as textile manufacturing, machinery, and a paper mill. Berlin address directories, as “snapshots of societies in their aggregate state at a given moment,” reveal that many suppliers to the emerging industries, such as carpenters and plumbers, settled in the area.¹²² Over time, they replaced the previously dominating gardeners, thus profoundly changing the “human landscape.”¹²³ Increasingly, railroad-related professionals such as conductors, signalmen, and wagoners moved here—the first generation of rural immigrants who filled the ranks of newly established professions.

The most prominent example of someone who profited from the new opportunities created by the interplay of railroads and gasworks in this area is Julius Pintsch, a plumber. In 1843, he founded his private workshop on Stralauer Platz 4, located close to the Frankfurt Station.¹²⁴ He worked for the nearby gasworks and invented a novel gas meter. In 1848, he established his factory at Stralauer Platz 6–7, mass-producing gas meters required in the rapidly developing market. The company soon expanded, and in 1863, Pintsch erected a new factory nearby on Andreasstraße 73, two hundred meters west of the Frankfurt Station. When Pintsch invented gas lamps for widespread application in railcars, the company expanded its operations worldwide, producing in several German cities and the Netherlands. Today, the company’s former head office on Andreasstraße is one of the few remaining historical buildings in the vicinity of the former Frankfurt Station.¹²⁵

As a result of this development, the building density increased. While Stralauer Platz transformed rapidly within ten years, change was slower on Koppenstraße, between Stralauer Platz to the south and Große Frankfurter Straße to the north. While this road passed directly in front of the Frankfurt Station, gardeners remained dominant until the early 1870s. The old rural world clashed with the new industrialized one. During this time, employees of the railroad and weavers moved here, and new buildings gradually altered the quarter’s rural character.

At the same time, following an 1862 land-use plan by James Hobrecht (1825–1902), entire new streets were drawn, and five- or six-story tenement houses (Mietskasernen) rose, populated by up to twenty families per building.¹²⁶ One such example is the Rüdersdorfer Straße, leading up to Küstriner Platz and the Ostbahnhof. In the late 1860s and 1870s, professionals directly related to the railroad dominated—such as train drivers, heaters, conductors, and baggage porters; other professionals, such as masons and carpenters, were needed to construct and maintain the railroad buildings. Additional professionals frequently present next to the two railroad buildings were restaurateurs, barkeeps, and distillers—catering to the culinary needs of travelers.

However, the directories also show a growing number of poorly paid professions such as weaving, tailoring, and shoemaking—attesting to a development that started in the late 1860s and accelerated after the foundation of the German Reich in the 1870s. That decade saw not only rapid economic development but also fast population growth and the pauperization of vast numbers of the residents in this area. Berlin’s population doubled between 1860 and 1877, surpassing one million people.¹²⁷ Thousands of poor immigrants from Prussia’s eastern provinces traveled fourth class to Berlin’s two eastern railroad stations, looking for job opportunities and a better life. While some achieved their goal, many more ended up homeless or vegetating in the quarter around the stations, an area that slowly turned into an overpopulated neighborhood.

Figure 1.4. Berlin Stralau suburb, ca. 1849. Ferdinand Böhm, Grundriss von Berlin mit nächster Umgegend (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1849). Courtesy of Digital Library of Wrocław University, sygn. 3652-I.B.

Map legend:

1 Frankfurt Station

2 Railroad gate in the city wall

3 Frankfurt Station port warehouse

4 Berlin gasworks

5 Imperial Continental Gas Association (English gasworks)

6 Bouché gardens

7 Frankfurt Gate

8 Stralau Gate

Figure 1.5. Berlin Stralau suburb, ca. 1871. Dietrich Reimer, Sineck, Grundriss von Berlin. Ueberdruck des mittleren Theils aus Sineck’s Situations-Plan von Berlin mit dem Weichbilde und Charlottenburg in vier Blättern (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1871).

Courtesy of Map Collection of Charles University, record no. 000009955.

Map legend:

1 Ostbahn Station

2 Frankfurt (Silesian) Station

3 Imperial Continental Gas Association (English gasworks)

4 Berlin gasworks and Frankfurt Station port warehouse

5 Julius Pintsch factory

6 New housing development at Rüdersdorfer Straße

This development is typical for many European cities, where the noise and the pollution caused by increased railroad traffic turned the once-prestigious vicinity of railroad stations into less desirable areas, the notorious German Bahnhofsviertel.¹²⁸ At the turn of the century, the situation in the area had deteriorated further, turning it into a “mingle-mangle of people and opportunities . . . a paradise for people engaged in pilferage and grand larceny . . . a center for prostitution,” where many tenants lived in extreme poverty; not without reason, the region was dubbed “Berlin’s Chicago” during the interwar period.¹²⁹

As a result, while the increased mobility and industrial development embodied in railroad infrastructure made up one side of the coin, the other side comprised shantytowns mushrooming at the edges of Berlin. Kristin Poling perceived this development from the perspective of the urban frontier, where the new space of opportunities created by crumbling city walls, mobility opportunities, and industrial development manifested itself also in new forms of settlement. Thus, the inhabitants of Berlin’s working-class neighborhoods “were not simply victims of the urban environment but, rather, active shapers of it” and can be perceived as “urban pioneers” in the transformation of Berlin into a modern metropolis.¹³⁰

In the 1850s and 1860s, the Customs Wall severely hindered traffic and urban development: forty-four streets came to dead ends at the wall.¹³¹ Finally, in 1865, after fierce discussions between the Ministries of Finance and War on the one side and the Ministries of Trade and the Interior on the other, the king approved the demolition of the once-notorious wall—which was accomplished within three years. With the Stralau and Frankfurt Gates demolished, Berlin’s city limits moved farther east to Rummelsburg.

Between 1871 and 1914, the Stralau suburb continued to develop into Berlin’s most important traffic hub.¹³² As a result of the Customs Wall’s demolition, the railroad lines were free to add new facilities and tracks serving both the Ostbahn and the Lower Silesian Railroad. Between 1872 and 1877, a separate, circular railroad (Ringbahn) was constructed to connect the railroad termini; except for a forty-year disruption between 1961 and 2002, it has been in operation ever since.¹³³

The late 1870s and early 1880s saw another remodeling of the Frankfurt Station, which in 1881 was renamed Silesian Station (Schlesischer Bahnhof). The modernized station added a second train hall and elevated the platforms, thus avoiding disturbances to the local city traffic. While this station building resembles the dimensions of the current Ostbahnhof, it underwent significant transformation after wartime destruction and during later modernization.

Figure 1.6. Berlin railroad network in 1882. A thoroughfare (Stadtbahn) crosses the city. Julius Springer Verlag, Berlin, Karten-Übersicht der Berliner Eisenbahnen. II. Berlin 1877–1896, chromolithograhy, 27.70 cm × 38.50 cm. Courtesy of Stadtmuseum Berlin, Inv.-Nr. IV 02/11 R.

In 1882, the Silesian Station took over traffic from the Ostbahn. Henceforth, the latter’s railroad station was used as a warehouse and, after 1929, adopted to host the Berlin Plaza—one of the best-known variety shows in interwar Berlin.¹³⁴ Also in 1882, the so-called Stadtbahn, a twelve-kilometer railroad running on elevated tracks between the new Silesian Station and the western parts of Berlin, was inaugurated.¹³⁵ At the start of the twentieth century, the German Imperial Mail (Deutsche Reichspost) built Germany’s busiest mail distribution center next to the station.¹³⁶ Finally, in 1913, Berlin inaugurated a modern port on the river Spree, just one kilometer to the southeast of the original Frankfurt Station’s port. After further additions, the railroad facilities stretched three kilometers from the Silesian Station across Warschauer Straße and Ostkreuz to Rummelsburg, far outside what once had been the Berlin city limits.

CONCLUSION

Within one generation, contemporaries witnessed what journalist Isidor Kastan has called the “transition from the petty-bourgeois Prussian state capital, informed by the military and by public officials, to a cosmopolitan metropolis.”¹³⁷ Berlin developed into a European railroad hub; its population rose significantly while railroad facilities such as tracks and station buildings transformed the urban landscape. Railroad industries such as Borsig’s and Pintsch’s factories transformed the economy and contributed to a transnational development occurring in much of northwestern Europe and the United States. As the life stories of List, Zimpel, and Borsig show, many visionaries of the time gained their experience in the United States or Great Britain before implementing it in Prussia, thus adding to an increasingly connected, transnational world.

Numerous railroad entrepreneurs, such as List and Hansemann, heavily influenced the political discussions on the funding of the Ostbahn, thus contributing to the transformation of Prussia into a constitutional monarchy. The railroad proved to be both an intermediary for the drive for constitutional changes during the Vormärz period and the 1848 revolutions and a tool for the militaristic crushing of those very rebellions. This ambivalence is proof of the integrative force of the new railroad network, for better or worse. The railroads bound Prussia and the German states closer, enhancing collaboration toward a unified German state.

While economic and military arguments dominated the discussions on new railroad lines, few contemporaries anticipated the power that the lines themselves would exert as a literal vehicle of change, fostering “multiple mobilities.” The Ostbahn turned into an actor in its own right when tens of thousands of migrants from Prussia’s eastern provinces took fourth-class trains and contributed to the rapid population increase of Berlin. These new working-class Berliners had their part in shaping Berlin’s southeastern “urban frontier.”

Questions of internal security and economic interests clashed over the impact of the railroad on city development. In what can be seen as a local “entangled borderspace,” new economic forces such as the railroad and related industries served as “battering rams” (Mauerbrecher) in both a literal and a figurative sense to bring down the Berlin Customs Wall in the 1860s.¹³⁸ As we will see in subsequent chapters, the railroad brought down traditional city walls and rendered traditional state borders obsolete—fostering increased international mobility and the buildup of new border control systems.

NOTES

1.N. N., “Deutschlands große Industriewerkstätten.”

2.R. G., “Der Küstriner Bahnhof in Berlin.”

3.Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte. Zweiter Band, quotation on p. 547.

4.On the concept of urban frontiers, refer to Poling, Germany’s Urban Frontiers.

5.Zschocke, Die Berliner Akzisemauer, 25. On the role of customs walls in nineteenth-century Prussia more generally, refer to Poling, Germany’s Urban Frontiers, 78–109.

6.For a comparative perspective, refer to the role of the Paris Customs Wall for railroad construction in Nilsen, Railways and the Western European Capitals, 117–119.

7.Zschocke, Die Berliner Akzisemauer, 39–44.

8.Schenk, “Bahnhöfe: Stadttore der Moderne.”

9.Zschocke, Die Berliner Akzisemauer, 99.

10.On craftsmen as important players of early German industrialization, refer to Kocka, Unternehmer in der deutschen Industrialisierung, 50–53. On the role of the Gewerbe-Institut for technical education, refer to Gispen, New Profession, Old Order, 25–34.

11.While research on nineteenth-century Germany usually includes August Borsig, a modern history of the Borsig Company remains to be written; for basic information on the development of the company and on the state of research, refer to Guericke, “Ausgerechnet Wolkenkratzer?” For detailed information on the company and the Borsig family, refer to Vorsteher, Borsig: Eisengießerei und Maschinenbauanstalt. One of the successor companies published a festschrift; refer to Stoya-Ballantyne, Borsig 1837–2012.

12.For greater detail on early Berlin entrepreneurs, refer to Kaelble, Berliner Unternehmer während der frühen Industrialisierung. Another relevant entrepreneur was Werner Siemens: Johnston, “Time and Place to Network.”

13.Silbergleit, Statistisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Berlin, 3–4.

14.On the railroad connections between Berlin and the Rhineland and the difficult negotiations with Hanover, refer to Fleck, “Die ersten Eisenbahnen von Berlin nach dem Westen der Monarchie.”

15.Schot, Buiter, and Anastasiadou, “Dynamics of Transnational Railway Governance in Europe,” 271–272.

16.Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte. Zweiter Band, 621.

17.Schot, Buiter, and Anastasiadou, “Dynamics of Transnational Railway Governance in Europe.”

18.On the deteriorating economic situation of many Berliners, refer to Ribbe, “Berlin als brandenburgisch-preußische Residenz,” 1031–1033, 1037–1038. On the economic situation and social security of Borsig workers, refer to Vorsteher, Borsig: Eisengießerei und Maschinenbauanstalt, 64–69.

19.On the pauperization in the German lands in general, refer to Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte. Zweiter Band, 281–296. On the specific development in Prussia, refer to Clark, Iron Kingdom, 452–458.

20.von Arnim, Dies Buch gehört dem König.

21.Blackbourn, Long Nineteenth Century, 140.

22.List, “Deutschlands Eisenbahn in militärischer Beziehung, 263. Translation: Jesse Lillefjeld and Jutta Wimmler.

23.List, 267. Concerning Friedrich List’s visionary ideas, refer to Musekamp, “Friedrich List.”

24.List, “Deutschlands Eisenbahn in militärischer Beziehung,” 267–268.

25.For the Prussian example, please refer to Uwe Müller, “Der Beitrag des Chausseebaus.”

26.Showalter, “Railroads, the Prussian Army, and the German Way of War,” 22.

27.Bremm, “Die Eisenbahnen in der Revolution von 1848/49,” 57–61.

28.Roth, Das Jahrhundert der Eisenbahn, 61–66.

29.On the discussions of state involvement in railroad construction, refer to Brophy, Capitalism, Politics, and Railroads, 22–52.

30.On Frederick William IV and his time, refer to Barclay, Frederick William IV.

31.Clark, Iron Kingdom, 396. For greater detail, refer to Mieck, “Große Themen der preußischen Geschichte,” 717–719.

32.Caron, Histoire des chemins de fer en France, 125–126.

33.For a detailed analysis of the discussions on the Ostbahn, refer to Musekamp, “Die Ostbahn im Spannungsfeld.”

34.Clark, Iron Kingdom, 404–405.

35.Clark, 443.

36.Clark.

37.Clark, 458–459.

38.N. N., “Die Verhandlungen der Vereinigten ständischen Ausschüsse,” 8.

39.N. N., 9–10.

40.N. N., 8.

41.N. N., 10. Among those who rejected the plan was merchant Brust from Boppard.

42.“Allerhöchste Kabinettsorder vom 22. November 1842.” For greater detail on the railroad fund, refer to Brophy, Capitalism, Politics, and Railroads, 107–134.

43.GStA PK, I. HA, Rep. 77, Tit. 258a, Nr. 46, Bd. 1, 32–34. The other lines mentioned here were Minden-Cologne, Halle-Rhineland, Frankfurt (Oder)-Breslau, and the connection to Posen.

44.N. N., “Die zweckmäßigste Richtung der Eisenbahn-Verbindung.”

45.GStA PK, I. HA, Rep. 77, Tit. 258a, Nr. 46, Bd. 1, 32–34.

46.GStA PK, Tit. 258a, Nr. 46, Bd. 1, 6–7.

47.Born, Die Entwicklung der Königlich Preußischen Ostbahn, 19–25.

48.GStA PK, I. HA Rep. 89, Nr. 29453, Bl. 1–10.

49.David Hansemann in the United Diet: “Beim Geld hört die Gemütlichkeit auf”; English version in Clark, Iron Kingdom, 462. For a detailed analysis of the 1847 Diet’s role in the development of Prussia’s political system, refer to Gerhardt, Der Erste Vereinigte Landtag in Preußen von 1847.

50.Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte. Zweiter Band, 615, 651.

51.Mitchell, Great Train Race, 61.

52.Bremm, Von der Chaussee zur Schiene, 110–111.

53.GStA PK, I. HA, Rep. 77, Tit. 258a, Nr. 46, Bd. 1, 205–208.

54.Gerhardt, Der Erste Vereinigte Landtag in Preußen von 1847, 78.

55.“Verordnung über die Bildung des Vereinigten Landtages.”

56.Obenaus, Anfänge des Parlamentarismus, 122–128.

57.Clark, Iron Kingdom, 458–459.

58.Clark, 460–461. For greater detail on political factions and the debates in the Diet, refer to Gerhardt, Der Erste Vereinigte Landtag in Preußen von 1847, 72–151.

59.Ribhegge, Preußen im Westen, 107–112.

60.Bleich, Der Erste Vereinigte Landtag in Berlin 1847, 1448–1449. Translation: Jesse Lillefjeld and Jutta Wimmler.

61.Jeschke, “Dracula on Rails,” 7–9.

62.Bleich, Der Erste Vereinigte Landtag in Berlin 1847, 1449.

63.Bleich, 1483.

64.Bleich, 1454.

65.The source does not reveal if the speaker was Ernst-Friedrich Fabian von Saucken-Tarputschen (1791–1854) or his younger brother August von Saucken-Julienfelde. Both were representatives of the Diet, and both were liberals and strong opponents of Otto von Bismarck.

66.Bleich, Der Erste Vereinigte Landtag in Berlin 1847, 1467. Translation: Jesse Lillefjeld.

67.Bleich, 1468, 1484–1485, 1506–1507.

68.Gerhardt, Der Erste Vereinigte Landtag in Preußen von 1847, 66.

69.GStA PK, I. HA, Rep. 77, Tit. 258a, Nr. 46, Bd. 1, 216–217; Born, Die Entwicklung der Königlich Preußischen Ostbahn, 35–37.

70.Eisner, Heinrich Heine Säkularausgabe. Bd. 22, 88, letter no. 980.

71.Heine, Germany, 8–9. German version in Heine, Deutschland, 284–285.

72.Vorsteher, Borsig: Eisengießerei und Maschinenbauanstalt, 70.

73.N. N., “Köln, den 28sten Februar.”

74.Vorsteher, Borsig: Eisengießerei und Maschinenbauanstalt, 69–70.

75.Roth, Das Jahrhundert der Eisenbahn, 93.

76.GStA PK, I. HA, Rep. 77, Tit. 258a, Nr. 46, Bd. 1, 225–226, 230–231, 234–235.

77.Zschocke, Die Berliner Akzisemauer, 66–67.

78.Bremm, “Die Eisenbahnen in der Revolution von 1848/49,” 13, 16; Gall and Roth, 1848/49.

79.“Stenographische Berichte . . . 11. August 1848,” 590–591.

80.“Stenographische Berichte . . . 11. Oktober 1848,” 798, 803.

81.Born, Die Entwicklung der Königlich Preußischen Ostbahn,” 43–49; “Stenographische Berichte . . . 5. Oktober 1849,” 176–177; “Stenographische Berichte . . . 20. Dezember 1849.”

82.Born, Die Entwicklung der Königlich Preußischen Ostbahn, 52–54.

83.From 1857 to 1867, between Berlin and Küstrin, the Ostbahn made a detour through Frankfurt (Oder), utilizing the tracks of the Berlin-Breslau line (Niederschlesische Bahn) with its terminus at Schlesischer Bahnhof (today Ostbahnhof). After the completion of the continuous rail line across Berlin in 1882 (the Stadtbahn), the Ostbahn traffic was integrated into the Schlesischer Bahnhof.

84.Born, Die Entwicklung der Königlich Preußischen Ostbahn, 135.

85.Born. Concerning the economic importance of the Ostbahn in the early years, refer to Piątkowski, Kolej Wschodnia w latach 1842–1880.

86.Richards and MacKenzie, Railway Station, 3, 20, 110.

87.Schivelbusch, Railway Journey, 171.

88.Zimpel’s work as a European and American civil engineer, medical scientist, and theologian (!) has not yet found the attention it deserves. He was a polymath with little formal education but with practical expertise in several fields and countries. Refer to Terrel, “Charles Zimpel: Architect, Surveyor, Businessman”; Demps, Der Schlesische Bahnhof in Berlin, 20–23. Concise, revised version in Demps, “Der Ostbahnhof,” 128.

89.Zimpel, Das Eisenbahnwesen von Nordamerika. In New Orleans, to this day, Zimpel Street honors his contribution to city development.

90.Zimpel, 240.

91.Using the example of L’viv (Lemberg, Lwów), Nadja Weck has demonstrated how, in the late 1850s and again in the early 1900s, the city’s administration unsuccessfully lobbied for a location of its central station closer to the city center. The railroad company rejected this idea mainly on financial grounds. Refer to Weck, Eisenbahn und Stadtentwicklung, 133–146.

92.Demps, Der Schlesische Bahnhof in Berlin, 22–23.

93.Demps, 40–43, lithograph of the building on p. 35. I would like to thank Katja Bernhardt for her support in classifying the station building.

94.Kux, Handbuch für Geschäfts-, Lust- und Badereisende; quotation in Demps, Der Schlesische Bahnhof in Berlin, 128–129.

95.Compare the station facilities in 1843 and 1860 as illustrated in Berger, Historische Bahnhofsbauten, 166–167.

96.Selter, “Grundriss von Berlin”; Demps, Der Schlesische Bahnhof in Berlin, 35–38.

97.Poling, Germany’s Urban Frontiers, 4.

98.On changes in station architecture between the 1840s and the 1860s, refer to Schivelbusch, Railway Journey, 173–174. For greater detail on the development of the architectural side of station buildings, refer to Meeks, Railroad Station.

99.Richards and MacKenzie, Railway Station, 21.

100.Schivelbusch, Railway Journey, 48.

101.Schivelbusch, 49.

102.R. G., “Der Küstriner Bahnhof in Berlin.”

103.On the 1859 Cologne station, refer to Krings and Schmidt, Geschichte—Gegenwart—Zukunft, 9–11. Architectural drawings show both the 1859 layout and the 1890s’ modification of Cologne Central Station in Zeitschrift für Bauwesen, Atlas 48 (1898), Bl. 35. On the development of the Paris North station and the railroad quarter around this station and nearby Paris East station, refer to Nilsen, Railways and the Western European Capitals, 81–108. The 1865 Paris North facade remains mostly unchanged today. While at the time, the roofing was indeed twice as wide as in the case of the Ostbahnhof, it was not freestanding but was supported by two additional rows of cast iron columns. Other station buildings similar to both the new Frankfurt and the Ostbahn Stations are the 1854 Paddington Station in London by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (still in use) and the 1858 Munich Ostbahnhof.

104.The Paris North quarter was developed already in the 1830s. Refer to Sauget, À la recherche des pas perdus, 31–32, 85–86. In contrast, contemporary depictions show the Ostbahnhof amid stretches of gardens and groves. Refer to Ernst and Korn, “Empfangsgebäude der Königlichen Ostbahn zu Berlin,” Bl. 1.

105.The other cities presented here are Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Brussels, London, and Vienna; the only major destination missing is St. Petersburg, served by ways of Berlin from 1862.

106.Sauget, À la recherche des pas perdus, 33.

107.N. N., “Das Empfangsgebäude der Königlichen Ostbahn zu Berlin.”

108.Schivelbusch, Railway Journey, 70–72. Using the example of the early Saxon railroads, Ralf Roth showcases the difference between fourth and first class. In the former, travelers had to arrange with wagons not equipped with any seating but the bare wooden floor, paying two pfennigs for one kilometer. A traveler in first class had to pay ten pfennigs for the same distance, enjoying ample space and well-cushioned seats. Refer to Roth, Das Jahrhundert der Eisenbahn, 132–133.

109.Richards and MacKenzie, Railway Station, 137.

110.N. N., “Das Empfangsgebäude der Königlichen Ostbahn zu Berlin,” 10.

111.N. N., 5.

112.On style and architect, refer to Berger, Historische Bahnhofsbauten, 187.

113.Demps, Der Schlesische Bahnhof in Berlin, 105.

114.For ticket prices on the Ostbahn, refer to Born, Die Entwicklung der Königlich Preußischen Ostbahn, 66, 72–73. For a comparison of the number of travelers in each class and the related ticket revenue, refer to the 1913 statistics for several European countries in Roth, Das Jahrhundert der Eisenbahn, 243.

115.Weck, Eisenbahn und Stadtentwicklung in Zentraleuropa, 226, 304–305.

116.For a detailed description of the 1869 station building, refer to Demps, Der Schlesische Bahnhof in Berlin, 122–141.

117.N. N., “Das Empfangsgebäude der Königlichen Ostbahn zu Berlin,” 5; Statistisches Bureau der Stadt Berlin, Berlin und seine Entwickelung, 294.

118.Statistisches Bureau der Stadt Berlin, 294. In total, there were three thousand cabs in operation in Berlin at the time (p. 209).

119.Wucherpfennig, Bahnhof—(stadt)gesellschaftlicher Mikrokosmos im Wandel, 88.

120.Moldt, “Das Viertel um den heutigen Ostbahnhof,” 138–139. For greater detail on the Bouché family and their influence on Berlin gardening, refer to Wimmer, “Die Berliner Gärtnerfamilie Bouché,” i.

121.On the history of Berlin’s gas industries, refer to the first chapters of Bärthel, Die Geschichte der Gasversorgung in Berlin.

122.On the role of Berlin address directories for historical research, refer to Schlögel, In Space We Read Time, 275–291, quotation on page 277. For the purpose of this and the subsequent paragraph, the author analyzed the lists of tenants and owners of selected streets and squares as contained in Berlin address directories from the years 1837, 1847, 1857, 1867, and 1877, thus following the development over forty years. Polizei-Inspektor Winckler, J. W. Boike’s Allgemeiner Wohnungsanzeiger; Polizei-Rath Winckler, Allgemeiner Wohnungsanzeiger für Berlin; Bünger, Allgemeiner Wohnungs-Anzeiger . . . 1857; Bünger, Allgemeiner Wohnungs-Anzeiger . . . 1867; Ludwig, Berliner Adreß-Buch für das Jahr 1877. A list of historical street maps consulted is available at https://historicmaps.toolforge.org/berlin/ (accessed January 28, 2023).

123.Schlögel, In Space We Read Time, 275.

124.On the history of Julius Pintsch and his company, refer to Kühnel, Der Pionier des Lichts.

125.Even today, the company founder’s name is visible in huge letters on the south side of the building, when one looks north from the trains between today’s stations Ostbahnhof and Jannowitzbrücke.

126.Ludwig, Berliner Adreß-Buch für das Jahr 1877, 288–289. On the implications of Berlin railroads on the construction of “tenement barracks” (Mietskasernen) from the 1860s to 1890s, refer to Roth, Das Jahrhundert der Eisenbahn, 177–179. There have been some critical voices on city planners’ neglect of the railroads’ needs in this part of Berlin. Refer to Demps, Der Schlesische Bahnhof in Berlin, 186–190.

127.Silbergleit, Statistisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Berlin, 3–4.

128.Nilsen, Railways and the Western European Capitals, 15–16.

129.Moldt, “Das Viertel um den heutigen Ostbahnhof,” 140–141. Refer to the novel by Berstl, Berlin Schlesischer Bahnhof.

130.Poling, Germany’s Urban Frontiers, 111, 121.

131.Zschocke, Die Berliner Akzisemauer, 83–89. For an eyewitness account of the wall’s impact on contemporaries’ lives and of Berliners’ mockery and literal penetration of the structure, refer to Kastan, Berlin wie es war, 10–11.

132.Feustel, “Das Tor nach Osten.”

133.On the influence of the military on the construction of the circular railroad, its predecessor, the 1851 Royal Station Connection Railroad, and the 1880s Stadtbahn, refer to Nilsen, Railways and the Western European Capitals, 136–141.

134.Demps, Der Schlesische Bahnhof in Berlin, 213–215.

135.For detailed plans on the constructing of the Stadtbahn and the related reconstruction of the Frankfurt Station, refer to Demps, 148–172. On the connection between housing development and the Stadt- and Ringbahn, refer to Roth, “Interactions between Railways and Cities in Nineteenth-Century Germany,” 15–17.

136.Krenz, “Postamt O 17.”

137.Kastan, Berlin wie es war, 10.

138.Zschocke, Die Berliner Akzisemauer, 79.