Tiergarten
Tiergarten (
Animal Garden) is the name of both a large park in
Berlin and a former
borough of the city, since 2001 a part of the expanded borough
Mitte. Before
German reunification, the borough of Tiergarten was a part of
West Berlin. It contains the neighbourhoods of
Hansaviertel,
Moabit, and Tiergarten-Süd. Berlin's new central station,
Berlin Hauptbahnhof, is located in the borough, as is a new system of road and rail tunnels that run under the park.
Among others, the
Reichstag (parliament), the office of the
German Chancellor and several embassies, as well as the residence of the
German President,
Schloss Bellevue, are located in Tiergarten. The
Brandenburg Gate and the
Potsdamer Platz are situated on its eastern border, which used to be the frontier between
East and West Berlin. The Tiergarten also contains several notable sculptures and sites of interest, including the four-tiered
Victory Column, the
Bismarck Memorial and several other memorials to prominent Prussian generals, all of which were located in the ceremonial park facing the Reichstag before they were moved to their present location by the
Nazis. In addition, the tree-lined walkways emanating from the Victory column contain several ceremonial sculptures of Prussian aristocrats enacting an 18th century hunt. At the
Victory Column, located at the heart of the Tiergarten, the German
Live 8 concert took place on July 2, 2005.
The Tiergarten was largely deforested after 1944 because it served as a source of firewood for the devastated city. In 1945, the
Soviet Union built a
war memorial along the
Straße des 17. Juni, the Tiergarten's main east-west artery, near the Brandenburg Gate.
The first
Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sex Research) was situated here
In den Zelten, near the contemporary
Kongreßhalle, from 1919 until it was closed by the Nazis in 1933.
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grosser Tiergarten, Berlin
