"Berlin -
The notice is small and easy to overlook. But he stands for the big thing: he shows what has become of this station. "The DB-Reisezentrum Lichtenberg will be closed as of 21 December", stands there. In other words: the once most important railway station in the east of Berlin has no longer a ticket counter for the long-distance ticket from tomorrow. One could also say: this station has finally lost its importance. A story has come to an end.
"This is very unfortunate: such a large station without a travel center," says Florian Müller from the passenger association IGEB. He works in the office, which is also on the ground floor. Association members meet there, there are old timetables and other railway literature to buy. Müller has observed that the dismantling of the furniture has already begun. Already for some time now the ticket vendors were sitting on a construction site.
Crowds: It was so busy in the 1980s on the long-distance trains.
Crowds: It was so busy in the 1980s on the long-distance trains.
Photo: Historical collection of the Deutsche Bahn / Wolfgang Hein
Deutsche Bahn is trying to appease. "The existing ticket vending machines remain on site," says a spokesman. The S-Bahn customer center, which has at least one ticket for this region, is still open. Otherwise there was the telephone, the Internet or the switches in the Ostbahnhof. "But there is not every ticket and not every discount on the Internet," says Florian Müller. "And the S-Bahn customer center has already shortened its opening hours in the evening."
The gate to the west
The Lichtenberger travel center is a small space, with hardly any daylight penetrating. "Sometimes the passengers stood up outside, sometimes nothing was going on," says Müller. When the ticket counters were still on the ground floor, where today a discounter jeans for 7.99 euros sold, the crowd was big. Old photographs show that.
Who in the capital of the GDR had to do business or private, in many cases arrived in Lichtenberg. Here holidaymakers pushed themselves on the journey to the Baltic Sea, army members, construction workers on the way to their home district. Also some international trains depart from here.
The beer restaurant "Zum Tender", the restaurant "Städteexpress" and a café tried to cope with the onslaught. In 1987 there were more than 150 travel journeys per day, and 175,000 travelers a day. The reception building, which was opened in 1982, was already an improvement for regular passengers, even if the plan to cover the railway and platform with a hall could not be realized. It lacked material and workers.
Sales culture: The Mitropa staff decorated themselves with caps in 1982.
Sales culture: The Mitropa staff decorated themselves with caps in 1982.
Photo: Historical collection of the Deutsche Bahn / Carl-Ernst Zimmer
The old station soon became much too small after the war. After the Nordbahnhof at the Invalidenstraße 1952 had been closed, Lichtenberg had to take over the long-distance traffic to the north - and later further connections. The small brick building with its battlements and scaffolding was demolished. With him fell the old Lichtenberger bridge.
The traffic hub also attracted people who did not fit into the official image. The "Lichtenberger Bahnhofsbeatles" met in the low floor between subway and suburban train. The Eulenspiegel wrote in 1965, "Jeans, mushroom headquartering," ponies with genickshafts, wallewallelocken ", were rejected by the federal gammers. But those who thought mushroom heads were endangering the state continued. "Bahnhofsbeatles" came to court.
The station was the gateway to the West for many people
After the fall of the Wall, Lichtenberg was once again a problem zone. In the trains from South-East Europe there were no longer tourists on the return journey from the Black Sea, but people who wanted to escape poverty in their homeland. They camped at the station, Reichsbahner poured out Salmiak to drive them out. The night train from Warsaw brought Poland, who wanted to sell and sell goods, to Berlin. He even wrote a research paper: "The Smuggling Train". The trains with cars from Novosibirsk, Riga and Odessa also arrived in Lichtenberg. The station was the gateway to the West for many people.
Forget, over. Today the Euronight Moscow-Paris and the private Locomore-Express to Stuttgart are the last trains in Lichtenberg. The train speaks of 50,000 entry and exit per day. "An elevator is planned on platform 15/16 at the exit to the subway," a spokeswoman said on Monday. After all, it is being built."
