"Ostberlin 1959. Potsdamer Platz, im Hintergrund das frühere 'Haus Vaterland'."

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Picture 3: "Potsdamer Platz", a central square in Berlin where the Soviet, British and American sectors met. In the background you can see the ruin of "Haus Vaterland", one of a number of exclusive restaurants and department stores which had surrounded Potsdamer Platz since the beginning of the century. At that time, Potsdamer Platz had been considered the busiest square in Europe. After the Wall came up - two years after this photograph was taken - the square became a kind of wasteland. In the foreground you can see an "S" sign, which signifies the S-Bahn station for city trains which run underground here. At the time the picture was taken, this S-Bahn line connected all the Sectors in Berlin. When the wall came up, however, the trains travelled through the stations in the Soviet zone without stopping, turning them into „ghost stations“ - except for Friedrichstraße, which was a checkpoint. After the fall of the Wall, Potsdamer Platz became a huge building site from which major business centres, cinemas, shopping centres etc. emerged.
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