About this place
Opened on the seventh of February 1882 as part of the new Berlin Stadtbahn, Friedrichstraße Station quickly became one of the most important junctions in the heart of Mitte, threading rail traffic through the city on its great brick viaduct. The station you see today, with its broad steel and glass train shed and dark tiled entrance halls, took shape in a rebuild completed in 1925. During the Nazi years this ordinary place of arrivals and departures held two starkly opposed roles. From late 1938, after the violence of Kristallnacht, thousands of Jewish children passed through Friedrichstraße on the Kindertransport trains that carried them to safety abroad. Within a few years the same platforms were drawn into the machinery of persecution, as Berlin's remaining Jews were rounded up and sent eastward toward the camps. The station survived the war largely intact above ground, and today, with around 220,000 passengers each day, it remains a living crossroads where this difficult history is quietly remembered.
Key facts
- 1882 year — Friedrichstraße Station opened as part of the new Berlin Stadtbahn
- 196 children — Travelled on the first Kindertransport to leave Berlin in late 1938
- 220000 passengers — Pass through the station on a typical day, making it a major Mitte hub
📍 Friedrichstraße 142, 10117, Berlin