CLOCKING IN: NEW TIME FOR BERLIN
Today in Berlin: April 1,1893
On this day, April 1, in 1893 new unified time was introduced in Germany and Berlin forever lost its own time measuring system.
Until March 31, Berlin and Prussia as well as the Northern Germany and Saxony followed what was known as Berliner Zeit, based on the meridian bisecting Königliche Sternwarte, Berlin Royal Observatory. But with Prussia stretching over nearly 17 degrees of longitude: from East Prussia to Alsace-Lorraine (now France), timetables had to be adjusted by up to 67 minutes.
Worse! At different railway stations in Prussia Berliner Zeit would be converted to local time for their local passengers. Local time was based on the position of the sun at noon: its zenith in Danzig was not simultaneous with the zenith in Bielefeld.
To unify the system and make sure that all trains – particularly the military ones – always set off and arrived on time, on June 1, 1891 Prussia did away with Berliner Zeit in their long-distance railway timetables and introduced CET instead, Greenwich time plus one hour.
Public timetables for trains within Prussia, though (like Berlin- Frankfurt Oder), still had to be printed in local times. It wasn’t until April 1, 1893 that the German Empire made the time of the meridian 15° east of Greenwich the official time for the whole of Germany. Coordinated Universal Time – CUT – came and Berliner Zeit became the thing of the past.
You can learn more about the history of Berliner Zeit and its demise from the following Berlin Companion Podcast episode:
EP. 1 BERLIN O'CLOCK
When in April 1893 German Empire introduced new time measuring system based the Greenwich meridian, Berlin lost something big for good. It lost its own time. Here is the story behind it.