Berlin - Tiergarten

Tiergarten

Tiergarten (Animal Garden) is the name of both a large park in Berlin and a neighborhood within the borough of Mitte. Before German reunification, the borough of Tiergarten was a part of West Berlin. Before Berlin’s 2001 administrative reform, Tiergarten was also the name of a borough, consisting of the current neighborhood of Tiergarten (formerly called Tiergarten-Süd) plus Hansaviertel and Moabit. A new system of road and rail tunnels running under the park is located in the neighborhood, and Berlin’s new central station, Berlin Hauptbahnhof, is located nearby in Moabit.

Among others, the Reichstag (parliament), the office of the German Chancellor and several embassies, as well as the residence of the German President, Schloss Bellevue, are located in Tiergarten. The Brandenburg Gate and the Potsdamer Platz are situated on its eastern border, which used to be the frontier between East and West Berlin. The Tiergarten also contains several notable sculptures and sites of interest, including the four-tiered Victory Column, the Bismarck Memorial, and several other memorials to prominent Prussian generals, all of which were located in the ceremonial park facing the Reichstag before they were moved to their present location by the Nazis. In addition, the tree-lined walkways emanating from the Victory column contain several ceremonial sculptures of Prussian aristocrats enacting an 18th century hunt. At the Victory Column, located at the heart of the Tiergarten, the German Live 8 concert took place on July 2, 2005.

The Tiergarten was largely deforested after 1944 because it served as a source of firewood for the devastated city. In 1945, the Soviet Union built a war memorial along the Straße des 17. Juni, the Tiergarten’s main east-west artery, near the Brandenburg Gate.