Everything about Vo Stra E totally explained
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(
Voss Strasse or
Vossstrasse in English); ) is a street in central
Berlin, capital of
Germany. It runs east-west from
Ebertstraße to
Wilhelmstrasse in the borough of
Mitte, one street north of
Leipziger Straße. It is best known for being near the site of
Hitler's
New Chancellery complex, and the bunker where he spent his last days.
History
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the area was the site of several mansions owned by members of the
Prussian aristocracy, some of which were taken over by government departments. One of these was the home of
August Graf von Voß-Buch (1788–1871), a Prussian military officer who was at one time commander of the "Garde-Grenadier-Regiment Kaiser Alexander von Russland," which was stationed in Berlin. On his retirement in 1872 he built a mansion, the Vosssche Palais, between Wilhelmstrasse and Königgrätzer Straße (now Ebertstraße), and created the connecting street which bears his name. (Another street under the same name in Berlin's district
Tempelhof-Schöneberg was named after
Johann Heinrich Voss.
Among the notable buildings in the Voßstraße in the mid-1930s were: on the north side, numbered from east to west;
Voßstraße 1 - Borsig Palais, on the corner of the Wilhelmstrasse, built in 1875-1877 for the German businessman and manufacturer
Albert Borsig (1829–1878), the son of locomotive engineer
August Borsig, although he never actually moved into it and died a year after its completion; 2 - the head office of
Mitropa, a catering company which from 1916 until 2002 managed sleeping and dining cars throughout the German rail system;; 3 - Embassy of
Bavaria; 4-5 - from 1880 to 1935 the Justice Ministry of the
German Empire,
Weimar Republic and
Third Reich; 6 - head office of the German Reich Railway Co; 10 - Embassy of
Württemberg; 11 - the
Nazi Party's Berlin offices; 15 - Bank of Delbrück Schickler & Co; 19 - Embassy of
Saxony.
On the south side, numbered from west to east;
Voßstraße 20 - Reich Naval Office; 22 - Mosse Palais, home of the German Jewish publishing tycoon
Hans Lachmann-Mosse (1885–1944); 24-32 - the rear of the enormous
Wertheim Department Store; 33-35 - more offices of the German Reich Railway Co. The Jewish-owned
Hertie department store also had a back entrance on Voßstraße.
From 7 October 1949, Voßstraße was located in
East Berlin, which did little to develop the
Potsdamer Platz area as it was in the sensitive border zone, along which the
Berlin Wall would eventually divide the city. By 1956 there was only one surviving building in the entire length of Voßstraße - part of the
Deutsche Reichsbahn offices on the south side (
Voßstraße 33). When the Wall went up in August 1961, much of Voßstraße became stranded in no man's land. Today there's still little of note along the street, although it continues to attract curious visitors looking for the site of the Reich Chancellery and the Führerbunker.
In the aerial photograph on the right, taken in December 2003, the Voßstraße runs from top to bottom just to the right of centre. The Reich Chancellery ran the full length of the north (left) side, up to the Wilhelmstrasse, the street running from left to right at the top of the picture. Today there are several GDR-era apartment blocks, built between 1986 and 1990, and some fenced-off waste land behind the apartment blocks along the Wilhelmstrasse. On the south (right) side of the Voßstraße, the sole-surviving pre-war building, part of the German Reich Railway Co. offices (
Voßstraße 33), can be seen, mostly surrounded by the empty site of the Wertheim Department Store. Note also the concrete "lid" over the
U-Bahn line.
Legacy
Some of the stones from the New Chancellery on Voßstraße were later used for the Russian war monument in Berlin-Treptow, as well as for the red marble walls in the Subway Station U-Bahnhof Mohrenstraße (former
Otto-Grotewohl-Straße, former Thälmannplatz, former Kaiserhof).
Further Information
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