Berlin Jannowitzbrücke is a railway station in the 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...

 district 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 served by the S-Bahn

Berlin S-Bahn

The Berlin S-Bahn is a rapid transit system in and around Berlin, the capital city of Germany. It consists of 15 lines and is integrated with the mostly underground U-Bahn to form the backbone of Berlin's rapid transport system...

 lines , , , and and the 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...

 line .

Overview

The station named after the adjacent bridge crossing the Spree

Spree

The Spree is a river that flows through the Saxony, Brandenburg and Berlin states of Germany, and in the Ústí nad Labem region of the Czech Republic...

 river opened on February 7, 1882 on the viaduct of the Stadtbahn railway. The hall in its present condition was erected in 1932.

The U-Bahn station opened on April 18, 1930. After the Battle of Berlin

Battle of Berlin

The Battle of Berlin, designated the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, was the final major offensive of the European Theatre of World War II....

 service paused until June 1945.

The Berlin Wall and its fall

As both termini of the U8 (then "D") line were located in West Berlin

West Berlin

West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...

 the station on 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...

 territory was closed on August 13, 1961 when the construction 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...

 began. For more than 28 years the U-Bahnhof Jannowitzbrücke remained one of Berlin's ghost station

Ghost station

Ghost stations is the usual English translation for the German word Geisterbahnhöfe. This term was used to describe certain stations on Berlin's U-Bahn and S-Bahn metro networks that were closed during the period of Berlin's division during the Cold War...

s.

Operations were resumed on November 11, 1989, making it the first of those stations to be revived. The station became a border crossing

Berlin border crossings

The Berlin border crossings were created as a result of the postwar division of Germany. Prior to the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, travel between the Eastern and Western sectors of Berlin was totally uncontrolled, although restrictions were increasingly introduced by the Soviet and East...

and checkpoints were set up at exits leading to East Berlin. The checkpoints were removed when all checks were abolished on 1 July 1990.