Berlin Anhalter Bahnhof

The Anhalter Bahnhof is a former railway terminus in Berlin, Germany, approximately 600 metres (0.5 mi) southeast of Potsdamer Platz. Once one of Berlin's most important railway stations, it was severely damaged in World War II, and finally closed for traffic in 1952, when the GDR-owned Deutsche Reichsbahn rerouted all railway traffic between Berlin and places in the GDR avoiding the West Berlin area. The station's name lives on in the Berlin S-Bahn station of the same name, opened in October 1939 as part of the North-South S-Bahn link.Early daysThe Anhalter Bahnhof was the Berlin terminus of a line begun on 15 April 1839, opened on 1 July 1841 as far as Jüterbog (the inaugural train being hauled by the very first Borsig locomotive), and extended to Dessau, Köthen and beyond at later dates. Passing through the historical state of Anhalt, it became known as the "Anhalt line" and this in turn gave the Berlin terminus its name. It quickly developed into a network that carried train services to and from Leipzig, Frankfurt am Main and Munich. Like the nearby Potsdamer Bahnhof, the Anhalter Bahnhof started out as a fairly modest affair (behind an imposing administration block, the platform area was a mere 15 m wide), but both would go on to much bigger and better things in later years to cope with growing traffic, the Anhalter Bahnhof destined to be Berlin's biggest and finest station.