In 1961 the East German government closed 15 stations on train lines closest to the Berlin Wall. Trains from West still passed them slowly without stopping. These became known as ‘ghost stations’.
The building of the Wall cut off public transport lines that spanned throughout Berlin. As a result of this geographical quirk, the S-Bahn line 2 along with the U-Bahn lines U6 and U8 suddenly ran through GDR territory on their passage through West Berlin. These dimly lit underground stations like Potsdamer Platz, Stadtmitte, Alexanderplatz, Jannowitzbrücke and several more was dubbed ‘Ghost stations’ by the West Berliners who drove by them. They were heavily guarded by East German Transport Police, called ‘Trapos’, preventing the trains from being used for escape to the West. Obviously the situation was far from ideal but nevertheless all ‘ghost stations’ remained in operation from 1961 until 1989.
A Scary Underground
It was like travelling back in time. Station walls were bedecked with ads and posters from 1961, old newspapers blew around the dusty platforms and Unter Den Linden (now Brandenburger Tor) and Potsdamer Platz had signage on the walls unchanged since the Nazi regime. “It was frozen in time,” according to Axel Klausmeier, who remembered taking trains as a teenager in West Berlin during the late 1970s and early 1980s with a visitor pass. “The light was dimmed down. You could see the guards with machine guns patrolling, and the trains were traveling slow, just to make sure the guards had a chance to control it. You were sort of rumbling through East Berlin slowly, and then as soon as you were back in the West, the train sped up.” Former entrances was sealed by heavy iron gates, stairways were walled up and barbed wire made sure no one could access the track bed. If a train on a West Berlin line broke down in East Berlin, then passengers had to wait for Eastern border police to appear and escort them out. The GDR didn’t maintain tunnels nor tracks and ghost stations literally appeared as they did the day the wall was built.
Gunter Kube made a career of working underground as a signal man on various ghost stations. “The first weeks the stations still looked OK but later it got worse and worse.” Small police stations was built into the windowed platform service booths, which before 1961 served coffee and sold newspapers. Incoming trains and guards who always worked in pair at the platform area, could be monitored from there. “The tiles fell of the walls and pillars and the dust got thicker and thicker. Soon it wasn’t fun working there anymore.”, Kube recalled. At Friedrichsstraße Station West and East Berliners were closer to each other that they probably knew. Located in East Berlin the station served trains from both sides of the Wall and passengers could change trains without going through customs. East Berliners used one platform and West Berliners used another. Walls of metal along the platforms made sure they didn’t mingle. Bornholmer Straße was the only ghost station not situated in a tunnel.
Map of ghost stations located in East Berlin.
All Ghosts Exorcised
You may wonder why this bizarre situation lasted 28 years. Ultimately because it benefitted both sides more than it worried them. West Berlins public transport could function as before 1961 without new investments, while the East German had something to bargain with. They never did but from time to time the GDR regime put pressure on West Berlin by threatening to seal tunnels and stations completely off. After the wall fell and the reunification the German government invested heavily in modernization of stations and tunnel systems. Between November 1989 and March 1992 stations started to reopen one by one with Potsdamer Platz as the last one. All former ghost station are in use today.
East German 'Trapos' patrolling at Potsdamer Platz
Noticed sources: Atlas Obscura, Berliner Zeitung, Deutsche Welle, Youtube.com, Star-Telegram, Der Speigel.
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