TODAY IN BERLIN: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HERMANNPLATZ!

Here’s a big cheer to one of Berlin’s least attractive yet, for many, one of best-loved and best-known plazas - Hermannplatz!

On September 9, 1885 the old Platz am Rollkrug - where Rixdorf (since 1912 called Neukölln) bordered with Berlin - was named after Rixdorf’s legendary mayor, Hermann Boddin (also commemorated in the names of Hermannstraße and Boddinstraße).

The “Rollkrug” in the early 19th century on what was yet to become a Platz am Rollkrug and later Hermannplatz, and with the first German Turn Platz (Sport Exercise Grounds) in today’s Hasenheide Park.

The "Rollkrug" was a historic 1737 inn that stood on the corner of Hermannstraße and Berliner Straße (now Karl-Marx-Straße), later facing the local Steuerhaus (Customs and Excise House) erected on the other side of Hermannstraße, opposite the public house.

View from Hermannstraße towards Hermannplatz and the buildings on the left, which stood where in 1929 largest European department store, Karstadt am Hermannplatz, would open (the residential buildings belonged to Berlin and today’s Kreuzberg); on the right the historical inn "Rollkrug", 1900. Author unknown, image in public domain.

The old inn was eventually demolished in 1907 and replaced by a then very modern commercial building which occupies the site until today (as a listed heritage site). To commemorate the historic inn, an inscription was placed above its Hermannstraße portal: the name... "Rollkrug".

A photo of the inscription on the building Hermannstraße/Karl-Mar-Straße.