On the eastern edge of the Askanischer Platz stands the jagged brick ruin of the Anhalter Bahnhof, all that remains of one of the largest and most imposing train stations in Europe. Only the entrance portico survived the 1950s demolition of the war-damaged structure, but remnants of the intricate and beautiful terracotta work can still be seen on its dingy facade. Flowers, wreaths and vines curl around the lonely figures of Day and Night, which sit high above the entrance. These statues once held the great clock which welcomed people from Frankfurt-am-Main, Basel, Leipzig, Munich and Dresden; now they prop up an incongruous brick circle framing nothing but a piece of Berlin sky. On the other side of the entrance lies a desolate expanse of Brandenburg sand where the hall – 30 metres high, 60 metres wide and 87 metres long – once stood. Despite its sorry state this ‘cathedral of industry’ remains a powerful symbol of the wealth and power of industrial Berlin. It was built to project success, and Berliners were proud of it.38
Interest in rail travel had already gripped the city in the pre-revolutionary period; even Goethe had complained in 1826 that ‘railways, express mail, steamboats and all possible means of communication are what the educated world seeks’. The first German rail line was opened between Nuremberg and Fürth in 1835, and the first Prussian line was opened in September 1838.39 At high noon a small engine puffed and ground its way out of Berlin and was greeted forty minutes later in Zehlendorf by an ecstatic crowd throwing flowers and tossing their hats in the air. The crown prince openly supported the new and daring form of travel and grandly announced that ‘these carriages which now travel throughout the world can be stopped by no man’. For his part the unpopular king snubbed Berliners with his remark that getting to Potsdam a couple of hours sooner really did not constitute ‘a major contribution to human happiness’. The king’s disapproval did nothing to quell popular enthusiasm; train travel had arrived with a vengeance.40
The first train between Berlin and Potsdam was a roaring success and the astounding financial returns led to a flurry of speculation and an increase in private investment in new lines. Hundreds of miles of shiny track were soon snaking their way across Prussia: over Dessau to Köthen in 1842, to Stettin in 1843, to Frankfurt-an-der-Oder in 1842, to Breslau and to Hamburg in 1846; the original Berlin – Potsdam line was extended to Magdeburg in 1846. By 1848 there were 5,000 kilometres of track in Germany; by 1870 this had risen to 18,810 kilometres. Berlin placed itself at the centre of eleven radiating main lines, making it the prime rail node in Europe. Major international crossings ran through it: if one wanted to travel to Moscow via Warsaw from Paris, or from Milan and Vienna to Scandinavia, one was forced to stop in Berlin. On contemporary rail maps the city looks like a contented fat black spider perched in the centre of a dense web extending the length and breadth of Europe.
Once in Berlin the traveller was faced with a confusing array of stations dotted around the city. Berlin never had a Hauptbahnhof or central station because of the old Customs Wall which still encircled the city, but the peripheral stations became district landmarks and were built in an ever more fanciful and elaborate manner as the century wore on. Many became the catalyst for new urban development of plazas, squares and hotel and restaurant complexes to serve the travellers. In the mid nineteenth century the Hamburger Bahnhof was replaced by the grand Lehrter Bahnhof for trains to Hanover and Hamburg, while the Stettin, Potsdam and famous Anhalt stations were remodelled in the ostentatious neo-Gothic or mock Renaissance styles.41 The influx of traffic soon began to change the face of the city. The horse omnibus which had run ten kilometres along the Customs Wall was replaced in the 1860s by an S-Bahn (city train), which cut through its heart and eased the problems of interconnection between stations. The old city walls and gates were pulled down and the track was extended so that Berlin became the first continental city with an S-Bahn network. Other forms of travel were improved simultaneously: the already extensive canal system was enlarged and made more efficient.42 The ‘great age of Prussian road building’ between 1845 and 1870 coincided with the building of the railroad: the total length of main roads more than doubled between 1840 and 1860 and the streets of Berlin were widened and paved. Some Berliners protested at the dramatic changes wrought by the new networks; August Orth complained in 1871 that the traffic had destroyed the intimacy of the city and that old streets had ‘completely lost their meaning’, but the young industrialists began to feel confident that they could rely on steady supplies of coal, iron and other essential items. This confidence in turn encouraged investment in industry.
Trains were also instrumental in making the city a political powerhouse. Prussian lines were initially financed privately but military planners were quick to see their enormous strategic potential.43 A complex military masterplan was devised and any new lines which did not fit into it were refused planning permission by the Prussian state.44 This fascination with the new form of transport was in stark contrast to the obdurate Austrian General Staff, who rejected the ‘ridiculous notion’ that railways might one day be of some strategic importance; indeed they made the inane decision to allow Italy’s northern railways to be sold to a French company at precisely the moment when they were preparing for war with France. By refusing to accept the new technology they set themselves up for their humiliating defeat at Königsgrätz in 1866, when the Prussians used their new trains to devastating effect.45
The rest of Europe has not forgotten the importance of these Prussian trains; in 1991 the Spectator, warning against the creation of a new Europe in Germany’s federal image, cited the German reference to themselves as the ‘locomotive’ of European unity. The author claimed that there was something ‘archetypally German about a train … trains occupy an important place in German national mythology … the German train is punctual and powerful, a symbol of the strength of industry and the power of the state’. The train did for Germany ‘what geography did for Britain’. In the 1890s the train was synonymous with German assertiveness and with the single-minded pursuit of a selfish national interest, but few in nineteenth-century Berlin would have disagreed. The German novelist Wilhelm Raabe once said, ‘the German Empire was founded when the first railway system was built’. Berliners watched as the railroad forged the weak and shapeless Prussia into a state so powerful that it could subjugate all Germany. But the train also put Berlin at the heart of Europe, and for that reason it remains one of the city’s most cherished symbols.46
The military men in Berlin were not only interested in the promotion of railroads; they began to support industrial expansion, with greedy eyes fixed on the prospect of more guns, artillery, ammunition, uniforms and pharmaceuticals. In their minds, industry meant power. But the new weapons, locomotives and machinery did not bear the names of the Junkers; instead they were stamped with the signatures of as yet unknowns like Egells, Pflug, Wöhlert and Schwartzkopff. The Zollverein, economic reforms and the railroads had brought iron, steel and coal within reach of Berlin; between 1848 and 1857 pig iron production in the Zollverein increased by 250 per cent, coal production by 138 per cent and iron ore and coal mining by over a third.47 Furthermore, freight traffic on the Prussian railways increased seven times over between 1850 and 1860. This had paved the way to success for a new breed: the Berlin entrepreneur.
One of the first great self-made men of Berlin was the committed liberal who had spoken over the graves of the revolutionaries in 1848, August Borsig. He had started as a carpenter, moved to a vocational school in 1823 and joined a small iron foundry in 1825, beginning his own business in the courtyard of a Berlin Hinterhof or tenement block a few years later. His first contract was the installation of pump machinery in the fountains of Frederick the Great’s palace Sanssouci. In 1836 he scraped together enough money to buy a small piece of land at the corner of Thorstrasse and Chausseestrasse in the Moabit district, and by July 1837 he was producing his first pieces of iron. He managed to get a contract to supply 117,000 spikes for the new Berlin – Potsdam line and with that money immediately installed a twelve-horsepower steam engine, paying soldiers from a nearby barracks to work the bellows. He then turned his attention to locomotives.
Borsig’s locomotives