Liesenbrücken – Berlin city trip, Germany

On our second search for the Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer (Berlin Wall Memorial), at the intersection of Liesenstrasse and Gartenstrasse, we discovered an impressive set of iron bridges that seemed to be totally overgrown and abandoned. A total suprise find!

A search online reveiled it’s names to be the Liesenbrücken, constructed in 1896. They have been abandoned since 1957. So, the bridges have been abandoned for more than 60 years, and they’re still there? How? I learned that they’re protected by a Berlin constitution called the Denkmalschutz. This constitution prevents these kind of historic items to be destroyed. So that’s how they still exist today.

Strange to realise, that in the year 1896, steam trains undoubtedly traversed these very tracks!

I then wondered why these bridges were abandoned in the first place, but upon checking the dates it’s obvious that it had something to do with the Great Berlin wall. The bridges were a connection between East- and West Berlin. When the Berlin Wall was placed, it crossed the railroad tracks, so when you couldn’t go to the other side anymore, then, of course it meant that the traffic by train had to stop as well, hence the abandoning.

Taken with my Canon PowerShot G3, edited with SnapSeed.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *