Page "Potsdamer Platz" Paragraph 61

Meanwhile, the North-South Axis would have cut a giant swathe passing just to the west of Potsdamer Platz, some 5 km long and up to 100 m wide, and lined with Nazi government edifices on a gargantuan scale.

The eastern half of the former Millionaires ' Quarter, including Stüler's Matthiaskirche, would have been totally eradicated.

New U-Bahn and S-Bahn lines were planned to run directly beneath almost the whole length of the axis, and the city's entire underground network reoriented to gravitate towards this new hub ( at least one tunnel section, around 220 metres in length, was actually constructed and still exists today, buried some 20 metres beneath the Tiergarten, despite having never seen a train ).

This was in addition to the S-Bahn North-South Link beneath Potsdamer Platz itself, which went forward to completion, opening in stages in 1939.

In the event, a substantial amount of demolition did take place in Potsdamer Straße, between the platz itself and the Landwehrkanal, and this became the location of the one Germania building that actually went forward to a state of virtual completion: architect Theodor Dierksmeier's Haus des Fremdenverkehrs ( House of Tourism ), basically a giant state-run travel agency.

More significantly, its curving eastern facade marked the beginnings of the Runden Platz ( Round Platz ), a huge circular public space at the point where the North-South Axis and Potsdamer Straße intersected.

Additionally, the southern edge of the Tiergarten was to be redefined, with a new road planned to slice through the built-up area immediately to the north of Columbushaus ( although Columbushaus itself would remain unscathed ); this road would line up with Voßstraße, one block to the north of Leipziger Platz.

Here Albert Speer erected Hitler's enormous new Reich Chancellery building, and yet even this was little more than a dry run for an even larger structure some distance further away.