Mohrenstraße is an underground railway station in the German capital city of Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

. It is part of the Berlin U-Bahn

Berlin U-Bahn

The Berlin is a rapid transit railway in Berlin, the capital city of Germany, and is a major part of the public transport system of that city. Opened in 1902, the serves 173 stations spread across ten lines, with a total track length of , about 80% of which is underground...

 and is located on the line in the district of Mitte

Mitte

Mitte is the first and most central borough of Berlin. It was created in Berlin's 2001 administrative reform by the merger of the former districts of Mitte proper, Tiergarten and Wedding; the resulting borough retained the name Mitte. It is one of the two boroughs which comprises former West and...

.

Overview

The original station designed by Alfred Grenander

Alfred Grenander

Alfred Frederik Elias Grenander, , was one of the most prominent architects during the first building period of the Berlin U-Bahn in the first half of the twentieth century....

 opened on 1 October 1908 on the new branch from Potsdamer Platz

Berlin Potsdamer Platz railway station

Berlin Potsdamer Platz is a railway station in Berlin. It is completely underground and situated underneath the Potsdamer Platz in central Berlin. Regional and S-Bahn services call at the station.- History :...

 to Spittelmarkt. It was then called Kaiserhof after a nearby grand hotel on the Wilhelmplatz

Wilhelmplatz

Wilhelmplatz is a former square in the Mitte district of Berlin, Germany at the corner of Wilhelmstrasse and Voßstraße. The square also gave its name to a Berlin U-Bahn station which has since been renamed Mohrenstraße...

 square. It was rebuilt in the course of the 1936 Summer Olympics

1936 Summer Olympics

The 1936 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event which was held in 1936 in Berlin, Germany. Berlin won the bid to host the Games over Barcelona, Spain on April 26, 1931, at the 29th IOC Session in Barcelona...

 and severely damaged in World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

When East Berlin

East Berlin

East Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin that was established in 1945. The American, British and French sectors became West Berlin, a part strongly associated with West Germany but a free city...

 fell under communist administration after the Second World War, the Wilhelmplatz square as well as the station were renamed on 18 August 1950 to Thälmannplatz, after the communist leader Ernst Thälmann

Ernst Thälmann

Ernst Thälmann was the leader of the Communist Party of Germany during much of the Weimar Republic. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1933 and held in solitary confinement for eleven years, before being shot in Buchenwald on Adolf Hitler's orders in 1944...

. With the erection of the Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...

 from 13 August 1961, the line ceased to run between East and West Berlin and the station became the terminus of the line in East Berlin. As in the 1980s the square was overbuilt by a housing estate and the Czechoslovak embassy, the station on 15 April 1986 was renamed Otto-Grotewohl-Straße, the name of the Wilhelmstraße

Wilhelmstraße

The Wilhelmstrasse is a street in the center of Berlin, the capital of Germany. Between the mid 19th century and 1945, it was the administrative centre, first of the Kingdom of Prussia and then of the unified German state, housing in particular the Reich Chancellery and the Foreign Office...

 at that time, after the politician Otto Grotewohl

Otto Grotewohl

Otto Grotewohl was a German politician and prime minister of the German Democratic Republic from 1949 until his death. According to Roth , "He was a figurehead who led various economic commissions, lobbied the Soviets for increased aid, and conducted foreign policy tours in the attempt to break...

. On 3 October 1991, following German reunification

German reunification

German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...

, the station was renamed Mohrenstraße. The line was reconnected on 13 November 1993 and simultaneously reconfigured, forming a new U2 line between Vinetastraße in the east and Ruhleben in the west.
There was a longstanding belief that the red limestone used in the 1950 redesign of the station consisted of re-used claddings from the interior of Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

's Reich Chancellery

Reich Chancellery

The Reich Chancellery was the traditional name of the office of the Chancellor of Germany in the period of the German Reich from 1871 to 1945...

, which had been standing close to the station. According to the East Berlin newspapers Neues Deutschland

Neues Deutschland

Neues Deutschland is a national German daily newspaper. It was the official party newspaper of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany , which governed the German Democratic Republic , and as such served as one of the party's most important organs...

 and Berliner Zeitung

Berliner Zeitung

The Berliner Zeitung, founded in 1945, is a German center-left daily newspaper based in Berlin, published by Berliner Verlag. It is the only East German paper to achieve national prominence since unification. In 2003, the Berliner was Berlin's largest subscription newspaper—the weekend...

 from August 19th, 1950, however, the marble for the newly renovated station was delivered directly from quarrys in Thuringia

Thuringia

The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....

. In more recent times, petrographic

Petrography

Petrography is a branch of petrology that focuses on detailed descriptions of rocks. Someone who studies petrography is called a petrographer. The mineral content and the textural relationships within the rock are described in detail. Petrographic descriptions start with the field notes at the...

research confirmed this origin of the material.