History of Berlin

As Prussia grew, so too did Berlin, and the Kings made it the centerpiece of culture and the arts, as well as the Army. Under King Friedrich Wilhelm I (reigned 1713–40), Berlin's growth was encouraged by his determination to build a great military power. More men were needed, so he promoted immigration of Protestants from across Germany as well as France and Switzerland. He introduced universal primary education so that his soldiers could read and write. In 1720 he built the city's first major hospital and medical school, the Charité, now the largest teaching hospital in Europe. The city was now mainly a garrison and an armoury, for the crown heavily subsidised arms manufacturers in the capital, laying the foundations for the mechanics, engineers, technicians, and entrepreneurs who were to turn Berlin into an industrial powerhouse. The old defensive walls and moats were now useless, so they were turned down. A new customs wall (the Zoll- und Akzisemauer) was built further out, punctuated by 14 ornate gates. Inside the gates were parade grounds for Friedrich Wilhelm's soldiers: the Karree at the Brandenburg gate (now Pariserplatz), the Oktagon at the Potsdam gate (now Leipzigerplatz), the Wilhelmplatz on Wilhelmstrasse (abolished in the 1980s) and several others.

In 1740, Frederick the Great (Frederick II) began his 46-year reign. He was an enlightened monarch, who patronized Enlightenment thinkers like Moses Mendelssohn. By 1755 the population reached 100,000, including 26,000 soldiers. Stagnation followed under the rule of Frederick William II, 1786-97 He had no use for the Enlightenment, but did develop innovative techniques of censorship and repression of political enemies.

Napoleon captures Berlin in 1806

• 1806: French troops marched into Berlin. Berlin was granted self-government and a far reaching military reform was started.
• 1809: The first elections for the Berlin parliament took place, in which only the well-to-do could vote.
• 1810: The Berlin University (now the Humboldt University) was founded. Its first rector was the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte.
• 1812: Jews were allowed to practice all occupations.
• 1814: The French were defeated in the Sixth Coalition. Economically the city was in good shape. The population grew from 200,000 to 400,000 in the first half of the 19th century, making Berlin the fourth-largest city in Europe.
• 1815: Battle of Waterloo with Prussian troops from Potsdam and Berlin participating. Berlin becomes part of the Province of Brandenburg.
• 1827: Berlin is the capital of the Province of Brandenburg from 1827 to 1843.
• 1848: As in other European cities, 1848 was a revolutionary year in Berlin. Frederick William IV (1840–1861) managed to suppress the revolution. One of his reactions was to raise the income condition to partake in the elections, with the result that only 5% of the citizens could vote. This system would stay in place until 1918.
• 1861: Wilhelm I (1861–1888) became the new king. In the beginning of his reign there was hope for liberalization. He appointed liberal ministers and built the city hall, Das Rote Rathaus. The appointment of Otto von Bismarck ended these hopes.

Train factory of August Borsig in 1847.

Prussian mercantilist policies supported manufacturing enterprises and Berlin had numerous small workshops. Lacking waterpower, Berlin entrepreneurs were early pioneers in the use of steam engines after 1815. Textiles, clothing, farm equipment, railway gear, chemicals and machinery were especially important; electrical machinery became important after 1880.

Berlin's central position after 1850 in the fast-growing German railway network facilitated the supply of raw materials and distribution of manufactures. As the administrative role of the Prussian state grew, so did the highly efficient, well-trained civil service. The bureaucracy and military expanded even faster when Berlin became the capital of unified Germany in 1871. the population grew rapidly, from 172,000 in 1800, to 826,000 in 1870. In 1861, outlying industrial suburbs such as Wedding, Moabit, and several others were incorporated into the city.

By 1900 about 85% of the people were classified as Protestants, 10% as Roman Catholics and 5% as Jews. Berlin's middle and upper classes were generally devout Protestants. The working classes increasingly became secularized. When workers moved to Berlin the Protestants among them largely abandoned the religious practices of their old villages. The labor unions promoted anticlericalism, and denounced the Protestant churches as aloof from the needs of the working class. However, the Catholic workers remained somewhat closer to their traditional churches, which featured liturgies that were more appealing to workers than wordy intellectual sermons at the Protestant churches. Adult attendance at Sunday church services in the early 20th century was 6% in Berlin, compared to 22% in London and 37% in New York.[9]

The phase of German Romanticism after Jena Romanticism is often called Berlin Romanticism (see also Heidelberg Romanticism). Notable representatives of the movement include Friedrich Schleiermacher, Wilhelm von Humboldt and Alexander von Humboldt.[10]

After the quick victory of an alliance of German states over France in the 1870 war, the German Empire was established in 1871. Bismarck had fought and succeeded in leaving out Austria, Prussia's long standing competitor, and Prussia became the largest and by far most influential state in the new German Empire, and in turn Germany became the most powerful nation in Europe. Wilhelm I became emperor ("Kaiser"). Bismarck became Chancellor and made Berlin the center of European power politics. The imperial government and the military establishment expanded dramatically, bringing together the landed junker nobility, the rich bankers and industrialists, and the most talented scientists and scholars. In 1884 came the parliament building, the Reichstag.[11] Municipal government was handled in two parts. The ministry of police reported to the Prussian government and took control of crime, markets, and fire fighting. The civil government had a mayor appointed by the city council. It comprised 144 members elected in 48 wards by universal manhood suffrage. It handled the water supply and sanitation, streets, hospitals and charitable operations and schools.[12]

Berlin in 1905 click 3x to enlarge

In 1870, the sanitary conditions in Berlin were among the worst in Europe. August Bebel recalled conditions before a modern sewer system was built in the late 1870s:

"Waste-water from the houses collected in the gutters running alongside the curbs and emitted a truly fearsome smell. There were no public toilets in the streets or squares. Visitors, especially women, often became desperate when nature called. In the public buildings the sanitary facilities were unbelievably primitive....As a metropolis, Berlin did not emerge from a state of barbarism into civilization until after 1870."[13]

Berlin in 1912.

The primitive conditions were intolerable for a world national capital, and the Imperial government brought in its scientists, engineers and urban planners to not only solve the deficiencies but to forge the world's model city. A British expert in 1906 concluded that Berlin represented "the most complete application of science, order and method of public life," adding "it is a marvel of civic administration, the most modern and most perfectly organized city that there is."[14]

In the meantime, Berlin had become an industrial city with 800,000 inhabitants. Improvements to the infrastructure were needed; in 1896 the construction of the subway (U-Bahn) began and was completed in 1902. The neighborhoods around the city center (including Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain and Wedding) were filled with tenement blocks. The surroundings saw extensive development of industrial areas East of Berlin and wealthy residential areas in the South-West.

In terms of high culture, museums were being built and enlarged, and Berlin was on the verge of becoming a major musical city. Berlin dominated the German theater scene, with the government-supported Opernhaus and Schauspielhaus, as well as numerous private playhouses included the Lessing and the Deutsches theatres. They featured the modern plays of Ernst von Wildenbruch, Hermann Sudermann, and Gerhart Hauptmann. who managed to work around the puritanical censorship imposed by the Berlin police.[15]

Berlin, with its large numbers of industrial workers by 1871 became the headquarters for most of the national labor organizations, and the favorite meeting place for labor intellectuals. Inside the city, the unions had a turbulent history. The conservative aftermath of the Revolution of 1848 drained their strength, and internal bickering was characteristic of the 1850s and 1860s. Many locals were under the control of reformist, bourgeois leaders who competed with each other and had a negative view of Marxism and socialist internationalist. They concentrated on wages, hours and control the workplace, and gave little support to nationalist organizations such as the Allgemeine Deutsche Arbeiterverein (ADAV) founded in 1863. By the 1870s, however, the Lassallean ADAV finally gained strength; it joined together with the Social Democratic Worker's Party (SDAP) in 1874. Henceforth the city's labor movement supported radical socialism and gained preeminence within the German labor movement. Germany had universal manhood suffrage after 1871, but the government was controlled by hostile forces, and Chancellor Otto von Bismarck tried to undermine or destroy the union movement.[16]

The "spirit of 1914" was the overwhelming, enthusiastic support of all elements of the population for war in 1914. In the Reichstag, the vote for credits was unanimous, with all the Socialists joining in. One professor testified to a "great single feeling of moral elevation of soaring of religious sentiment, in short, the ascent of a whole people to the heights."[17] At the same time, there was a level of anxiety; most commentators predicted the short victorious war – but that hope was dashed in a matter of weeks, as the invasion of Belgium bogged down and the French Army held in front of Paris. The Western Front became a killing machine, as neither army moved more than a ten thousand yards at a time. There had been no preparations before the war, and no stockpiles of essential goods. Industry was in chaos, unemployment soared while it took months to reconvert to munitions productions. In 1916, the Hindenburg Program called for the mobilization of all economic resources to produce artillery, shells, and machine guns. Church bells and copper roofs were ripped out and melted down.[18]

Conditions on the homefront worsened month by month, for the British blockade of Germany cut off supplies of essential raw materials and foodstuffs, while the conscription of so many farmers (and horses) reduced the food supply. Likewise, the drafting of miners reduced the main energy source, coal. The textile factories produced Army uniforms, and warm clothing for civilians ran short. The device of using ersatz materials, such as paper and cardboard for cloth and leather proved unsatisfactory. Soap was in short supply, as was hot water.

Morale of both civilians and soldiers continued to sink but using the slogan of "sharing scarcity" the Berlin bureaucracy ran an efficient rationing system nevertheless.[19] The food supply increasingly focused on potatoes and bread as it was harder and harder to buy meat. Rationing was installed, and soup kitchens were opened. The meat ration in late 1916 was only 31% of peacetime, and it fell to 12% in late 1918. The fish ration was 51% in 1916, and none at all by late 1917. The rations for cheese, butter, rice, cereals, eggs and lard were less than 20% of peacetime levels.[20] In 1917 the harvest was poor, and the potato supply ran short, and Germans substituted almost inedible turnips; the "turnip winter" of 1917-18 was remembered with bitter distaste for generations.[21]

German women were not employed in the Army, but large numbers took paid employment in industry and factories, and even larger numbers engaged in volunteer services. Housewives were taught how to cook without milk, eggs or fat; agencies helped widows find work. Banks, insurance companies and government offices for the first time hired women for clerical positions. Factories hired them for unskilled labor – by December 1917, half the workers in chemicals, metals, and machine tools were women. Laws protecting women in the workplace were relaxed, and factories set up canteens to provide food for their workers, lest their productivity fall off. The food situation in 1918 was better, because the harvest was better, but serious shortages continued, with high prices, and a complete lack of condiments and fresh fruit. Many migrants had flocked into Berlin to work in industry and the government ministries, which made for overcrowded housing. Reduced coal supplies left everyone in the cold. Daily life involved long working hours, poor health, and little or no recreation, as well as increasing anxiety for the safety of loved ones in the Army and in prisoner of war camps. The men who returned from the front were those who had been permanently crippled; wounded soldiers who recovered were sent back to the trenches.[22]

In the late 1930s Hitler and his architect Albert Speer made plans for the new Berlin—a world city or Welthauptstadt Germania.[24] All the projects were to be of gigantic size. Adjacent to the Reichstag, Speer planned to construct the Volkshalle (The People's Hall), 250 m high, with an enormous copper dome. It would be large enough to hold 170,000 people. From the People's Hall, a southbound avenue was planned, the Avenue of Victory, 23 m wide and 5.6 kilometers (3.5 mi) long. At the other end there would have been the new railway station, and next to it Tempelhof Airport. Halfway down the avenue there would have been a huge arch 117 m high, commemorating those fallen during the world wars. With the completion of these projects (planned for 1950), Berlin was to be renamed "Germania."[25]

The war postponed all construction, as the city instead built giant concrete towers as bases for anti-aircraft guns. Today only a few structures remain from the Nazi era, such as the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (National Ministry of Aviation), Tempelhof International Airport, and Olympiastadion. Hitler's Reich Chancellery was demolished by Soviet occupation authorities.

Initially Berlin was at the extreme range of British bombers and attacks had to be made in clear skies during summer, increasing the risk to the attackers. Better bombers came into service in 1942 but most of the British bombing effort that year was spent in support of the Battle of the Atlantic against German submarines.

• 1940: A token British air-raid on Berlin; Hitler responds by ordering the Blitz on London.
• 1943: Polish resistance group Zagra-Lin successfully carries out a series of small bomb attacks.[26]
• 1943: The USAAF strategic bombing force began operations against Berlin. The RAF focused their strategic bombing efforts on Berlin in their "Battle of Berlin" from November. It was halted at the end of March 1944, after 16 mass bombing raids on the capital, due to unacceptable losses of aircraft and crew. By that point about half a million had been made homeless but morale and production was unaffected. About a quarter of the city's population was evacuated. Raids on major German cities grew in scope and raids of over 1,000 4-engined bombers were not uncommon by 1944. (On March 18, 1945 alone, for example, 1,250 American bombers attacked the city).
• 1944: USAAF bombing switched to forcing encounters with the German air force so that it could be defeated by the bombers' fighter escorts. Attacks on Berlin ensured a response from the Luftwaffe, drawing it into a battle where their losses could not be replaced at the same rate as the Allies. RAF focus switched to preparations for the invasion of France but Berlin was still subjected to regular nuisance and diversionary raids by the RAF.
• March 1945: The RAF begins 36 consecutive nights of bombing by its fast de Havilland Mosquito medium bombers (from around 40 to 80 each night). British bombers dropped 46,000 tons of bombs; the Americans dropped 23,000 tons. By May 1945, 1.7 million people (40%) had fled.[27]
• April 1945: Berlin was the main objective for Allied armies. The Race to Berlin refers to the competition of Allied generals during the final months of World War II to enter Berlin first. U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower halted Anglo-American troops on the Elbe River, primarily because the Soviets made their capture of the city a high national priority in terms of prestige and revenge. The Red Army converged on Berlin with several Fronts (Army Groups). Hitler remained in supreme command and imagined that rescue armies were on the way; he refused to consider surrender.

The Battle of Berlin itself has been well chronicled.[28]

• April 30, 1945: Hitler committed suicide in the Führerbunker underneath the Reich Chancellery. Resistance continued, though most of the city was in Soviet hands by that point.
• May 2, 1945: Berlin finally capitulated.
• Hundreds of thousands of women were subjected to rape by Soviet soldiers.[29]

Destruction of buildings and infrastructure was nearly total in parts of the inner city business and residential sectors. The outlying sections suffered relatively little damage. This averages to one fifth of all buildings, and 50% in the inner city.

Berliners watching a C-54 land at Tempelhof Airport (1948)

In response to Allied efforts to fuse the American, French, and British sectors of western Germany into a federal state, and to a currency reform undertaken by Western powers without Soviet approval, the Soviets blocked ground access to West Berlin on 26 June 1948, in what became known as the "Berlin Blockade". The Soviet goal was to gain control of the whole of Berlin. The American and British air forces engaged in a massive logistical effort to supply the western sectors of the city through the Berlin Airlift, known by West Berliners as "die Luftbrücke" (the Air Bridge). The blockade lasted almost a year, ending when the Soviets once again allowed ground access to West Berlin on 11 May 1949. The Blockade and Airlift were iconic events in the early history of the Cold War, and made a profound impression on Berliners as to who their friends and their enemies were.[33]

As part of this project, US Army engineers expanded Tempelhof Airport. Because sometimes the deliveries contained sweets and candy for children, the planes were also nicknamed "Candy Bombers".[34]

With Stalin dead, the KGB chief Lavrenti Beria jockeyed for power in the Kremlin, putting forth the goal of German reunification. His plan was to set up a workers' demonstration that would allow the Kremlin to remove hardliner Walter Ulbricht and begin a program of economic concessions to the workers. The plan failed when the demonstrations assumed a mass character. The strike against poor wages and working conditions overnight became a workers' revolution for democratic rights. On 17 June, the Soviets used their tanks to restore order. This failure delayed German unification and contributed to the fall of Beria. It started when 60 construction workers building the showpiece Stalin-Allee in East Berlin went on strike on 16 June 1953, to demand a reduction in recent work-quota increases. They called for a general strike the next day, 17 June. The general strike and protest marches turned into rioting and spread throughout East Germany. The East German police failed to quell the unrest. It was forcibly suppressed by Soviet troops, who encountered stiff resistance from angry crowds across East Germany, and responded with live ammunition. At least 153 people were killed in the suppression of the uprising.[35][36]

The continuation of the street "Unter den Linden" on the western side of the Brandenburg Gate was renamed Straße des 17. Juni in honor of the uprising, and 17 June was proclaimed a national holiday in West Germany. The 50th anniversary of 17 June 1953 in 2003 was marked by reflection on the role of memory in creating a national identity for a unified Germany.

East German construction workers building the Berlin Wall, 1961-11-20. Those trying to cross the so-called death strip on the eastern side could be shot.

Loshitzky depicts the role of the Berlin Wall as a symbol of the Cold War, détente, and the collapse of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe. She divides the history of the Wall into six major stages: the erection of the Wall (1961); the period of the "geography of fear" from the Cold War; the period of détente; the short period of glasnost and perestroika; the fall of the Wall (1989); and after the Wall.[37]

On August 13, 1961 the Communist East German government started to build a wall, physically separating West Berlin from East Berlin and the rest of East Germany, as a response to massive numbers of East German citizens fleeing into West Berlin as a way to escape. The wall was built overnight with no warning. This separated families for as long as the wall was up. The East German government called the Wall the "anti-fascist protection wall". The tensions between East and West were exacerbated by a tank standoff at Checkpoint Charlie on 27 October 1961. West Berlin was now a de facto part of West Germany, but with a unique legal status, while East Berlin remained part of East Germany.

Soviet tanks face U.S. tanks at Checkpoint Charlie

The eastern and western sectors of Berlin were now completely separated. It was possible for Westerners to pass from one to the other only through strictly controlled checkpoints. For most Easterners, travel to West Berlin or West Germany was no longer possible. During the Wall's existence there were around 5,000 successful escapes into West Berlin; 136 people were officially killed trying to cross (see List of deaths at the Berlin Wall) and around 200 were seriously injured. The sandy soil under the Wall was both a blessing and a curse for those who attempted to tunnel their way to West Berlin and freedom. Although it was easy to dig through quickly, it was also more prone to collapse.

When the first stone blocks were laid down at Potsdamer Platz in the early hours of August 13, US troops stood ready with ammunition and watched the wall being built, stone by stone. The US military with West Berlin police kept Berliners 300 meters away from the border. President John F. Kennedy and the United States Congress decided not to interfere and risk armed conflict, but sent protest notes to Moscow. Massive demonstrations took place in West Berlin.

John F. Kennedy gave a speech about the Berlin Wall in which he said, "Ich bin ein Berliner" – "I am a Berliner" – which meant much to a city that was a Western island in Soviet satellite territory.

Much Cold War espionage and counter-espionage took place in Berlin, against a backdrop of potential superpower confrontation in which both sides had nuclear weapons set for a range that could hit Germany. In 1971, the Four-Power Agreement on Berlin was signed. While the Soviet Union applied the oversight of the four powers only to West Berlin, the Western Allies emphasized in a 1975 note to the United Nations their position that four-power oversight applied to Berlin as a whole. The agreement guaranteed access across East Germany to West Berlin and ended the potential for harassment or closure of the routes.

As many businesses did not want to operate in West Berlin due to its physical and economic isolation from the outside, the West German government subsidized any businesses that did operate in West Berlin.

May 1968 student protest at the Architecture Building at Berlin Institute of Technology, in protest against the adoption of the German Emergency Acts.

In the 1960s, West Berlin became one of the centers of the German student movement. West Berlin was especially popular with young German left-wing radicals, as young men living in West Berlin were exempted from the obligatory military service required in West Germany proper: the Kreuzberg district became especially well known for its high concentration of young radicals.

The Wall afforded unique opportunities for social gatherings. The physical wall was set some distance behind the actual sector border, up to several meters behind in some places. The West Berlin police were not legally allowed to enter the space between the border and the wall, as it was technically in East Berlin and outside their jurisdiction: many people took the opportunity to throw loud parties in this space, with the West Berlin authorities powerless to intervene. In 1968 and after, West Berlin became one of the centers of the student revolt; in particular, the Kreuzberg borough was the center of many riots.[38]

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  Logo commemorating Berlin's 750th anniversary.
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  Fireworks over Berlin on January 1, 1987, in recognition of the city's 750th anniversary.
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  U.S. President Ronald Reagan, speaking before Brandenburg Gate on June 12, 1987, demands the Kremlin free Berlin and "Tear down this wall!"
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  Communist leader Erich Honecker speaks on October 23, 1987, in commemoration of the city's 750th anniversary.

The Fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 marks the end of the Cold War. On 9 November 1989, border guards allowed crowds from East Berlin to cross the frontier at the Bösebrücke. The guards believed that the authorities had decided to open the wall, but in reality no firm decision was taken and events gathered steam on their own. People of East and West Berlin climbed up and danced on the wall at the Brandenburg Gate in scenes of wild celebration broadcast worldwide. This time no Soviet tanks rolled through Berlin. The wall never closed again, and was soon on its way to demolition, with countless Berliners and tourists wielding hammers and chisels to secure souvenir chunks.

On Christmas Day December 25, 1989, the American conductor Leonard Bernstein shared with East and West Berliners and the world his Berlin Celebration Concert in order to celebrate the Fall of the Berlin Wall. "Ode to Joy", which Bernstein had reworded "Ode to Freedom", was performed.

After the fall of Communism in Europe, on 3 October 1990 Germany and Berlin were both reunited. By then the Wall had been almost completely demolished, with only small sections remaining. Various impacts of partition on Berlin were removed in subsequent months - the ghost stations of Berlin U-Bahn were reopened and the Berlin S-Bahn which had been operated by the east German Deutsche Reichsbahn also in the west (until 1984) and consequently boycotted and neglected in the west was refurbished and traffic on the Berlin ring railway resumed along its full length in 2002. Still, many S-Bahn lines shut down during partition are not yet rebuilt as of 2020.

In June 1991 the German Parliament, the Bundestag, voted to move the (West) German capital back from Bonn to Berlin. The decision was reached after 10 hours of debate. In the voting Berlin won by a narrow margin: 338 for, 320 against. Berlin once more became the capital of a unified Germany.

In 1999 federal ministries and government offices moved back from Bonn to Berlin, but most employees in the ministries still work in Bonn. Also in 1999, about 20 government authorities moved from Bonn to Berlin, as planned in the compensation agreement of 1994, the Berlin/Bonn Act.

Berlin has been targeted by terrorists on several occasions; the most severe incident being a vehicle-ramming attack in 2016.

Today, Berlin has become a global city for international affairs, young business founders, creative industries, higher education services, corporate research, popular media and diverse cultural tourism.[39] Population-wise, Berlin became one of the most rapidly growing urban centers in Europe after 2010, much of which has been due to immigration.

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  Reconstructed Reichstag becomes seat of Bundestag in 1999
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  The 2006 FIFA World Cup Final was held in Berlin.
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  A. Merkel & J. Barroso in 2007
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  Humboldt University wins the German Excellence Initiative in 2012
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  Skyline in 2013

While the status of west Berlin was de facto that of a Bundesland of west Germany, the de jure situation remained unclear until reunification made it a moot point. In the 1990s there was an attempt to merge the Land with the adjacent State of Brandenburg which failed in a referendum due to opposition in Brandenburg. The Berlin banking scandal of 2001 led to strained state finances and austerity measures under then senator of finances Thilo Sarrazin. After the breakdown of Eberhard Diepgen's grand coalition over the banking scandal the snap 2001 Berlin state election produced the first German state government led by an openly homosexual man, Klaus Wowereit. Potsdamer Platz which had been a central traffic and commerce hub in the 1920s but heavily impacted by the wall during partition became one of Europe's biggest building sites and is now once again one of Berlin's most representative addresses. The museums on Museum Island were renovated and are once again museums of world renown. The Palast der Republik, the former seat of east Germany's parliament was torn down to make way for the Humboldtforum, a reconstruction of the former Stadtschloss on that site. The traffic infrastructure of Berlin became another post unification priority, leading to the shutdown of Tempelhof Airport in 2008, the opening of a new Berlin Hauptbahnhof in 2006, and finally the long delayed opening of Berlin Brandenburg airport in 2020 accompanied by the shutdown of Tegel Airport. The Central bus station ZOB Berlin which opened in the 1960s is undergoing renovations which began in 2016 and are ongoing as of 2020.