BEBELPLATZ

Description

Essentials about the Bebelplatz in brief

Situated in the heart of Berlin’s museum center and directly on the magnificent boulevard Unter den Linden, Bebelplatz gives an idea of how a beautiful city was imagined almost 300 years ago. Bebelplatz is the only square in Berlin’s city center whose facades look as they did before 1943. However, behind the reconstructed fronts are mostly modern new buildings, as the square was heavily destroyed in the bombings of World War II.

The buildings on Bebelplatz

Frederick the Great gave the order to lay out the square in 1740. Over the years, some of Berlin’s most beautiful buildings were erected on Bebelplatz, such as the Staatsoper Unter den Linden (State Opera House Unter den Linden), St. Hedwig-Kathedrale (St. Hedwig’s Cathedral), the Hotel de Rome, the Alte Bibliothek (Old Library), the Alte Palais (Old Palace) and the Prinzessinnenpalais (Princesses’ Palace). Bebelplatz was originally called Platz am Opernhaus (Square at the Opera), but was named after SPD politician August Bebel in 1947.

The Memorial “Bibliothek” on Bebelplatz

Bebelplatz experienced its darkest hours in May 1933, when the National Socialists had more than 20,000 books of “un-German spirit” by almost 400 authors burned here, including Heinrich Heine, Erich Kästner, Karl Marx, Heinrich and Thomas Mann, Kurt Tucholsky and Stefan Zweig. Today, the eight-meter-deep “Library” memorial in the center of the square commemorates the book burning. The underground memorial of empty shelves is designed so that exactly 20,000 books would fit inside. The memorial is accompanied by an inscription with the prophetic words of Heinrich Heine: “That was only a prelude, where books are burned, people will be burned in the end.”