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Any photos of Berlin's industrial history?
I've visited many of the old yards… I've been in Berlin for nearly a year now and have been lovely learning about and exploring Berlins industrial history especially regarding old rail infrastructure.
I've visited many of the old yards, round houses and industrial sidings that exist and I would love to see some old images of them in action. Thing is I find very little such as one image on a government page describing the renovations plans. In the UK there's tons of nerds documenting this kind of thing, is there something similar here in Germany? As I'm in the process of learning German and the German culture I'm not sure what search terms to use or where specifically to look online. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Many thanks!
You should get yourself to the Berliner S-Bahn Museum in Schoneweide. It's housed in the old depot building right next to the S-Bahn station and they have a huge collection of historical photos and blueprints from the 1920s through the 1970s. The volunteers there are proper enthusiasts who can point you to specific albums for the Borsigwalde freight yards or the old Ringbahn signal boxes. Entry is only about 5 euros and they have a decent little archive room where you can sit and browse binders of photos that never made it online.
The Landesarchiv Berlin on Kalckreuthstraße is worth a visit if you want the real deal. They have thousands of digitized industrial photographs from the 1880s onward, including the Borsig locomotive works in Tegel and the old freight yards around Moabit. You can search their online catalog with "Industriefotografie Berlin" or "historische Eisenbahnaufnahmen" to pull up specific albums before you go. If you're into the physical archives, they let you request original glass plate negatives to view in person, which is a completely different experience from scrolling online.
try searching for "historische Bahnanlagen Berlin" or "Eisenbahngeschichte Berlin" on sites like berliner-verkehrsseiten.de or the forum at drehscheibe-online.de. that's where the local rail nerds hang out, lots of old photos and documents shared there. also check the Technikmuseum in kreuzberg, they have a huge archive of industrial photos from berlin's rail yards and factories from the 1920s through the 90s. if you want specific stuff like the old Anhalter Bahnhof or the Lehrter Stadtbahnhof, the museum's library lets you browse their digitized collection for free
What is the correct spelling for a street name that appears differently on multiple signs in Charlottenburg?
Worth noting that Berlin street names have official umlaut and ß rules that trip people up, so a sign showing "Strasse" versus "Straße" is not actually a spelling error, just an older transcription. Same with "ue" versus "ü" (e.g. "Kantstrasse" vs "Kantstraße"), both are considered valid renderings and you'll see the ß version on the blue Schilder and the ss version on older plaques or in databases that predate Unicode. If the difference you're seeing is between those two forms, there's nothing to fix and both are technically correct.
if the signs u mean are the old enamel ones on the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated. the binding version is whatever is in the Berliner Strassenverzeichnis plus the entry in the Liegenschaftskataster, so if u tell me the street i can point u to the right Bezirksamt Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf page. tbh the merged district thing is real but the facade signs are a separate story, theyre basically museum pieces at this point
honestly thats super common in Charlottenburg, the district offices were merged from older Bezirke and nobody ever fixed all the Schilder. if its a real street you can check the official strassenverzeichnis on berlin.de, that list is what the Burgeramt actually goes by. which street is it? some of the Kaiserdamm / Kantstrasse signs are notorious for this.
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