It later became Potsdamer Straße ; its point of entry into Berlin, where it passed through the customs wall, became the Potsdamer Tor ( Potsdam Gate ); once inside the gate Leipziger Straße was its eastwards continuation, and Wilhelmstraße was the first north-south thoroughfare that intersected with it.

* Königgrätzer Straße ( southern portion ), earlier names Potsdamer Communication and then Hirschelstraße, also running along part of the customs wall's old route, actually leading mainly south east.

Today this section is called Alte Potsdamer Straße, a pedestrianised cul-de-sac severed by post-World War II developments and subsequently by-passed by a new section-the Neue Potsdamer Straße, leading due west and then curving southwards to rejoin its old course at the Potsdam Bridge, over the Landwehrkanal.

The Weinhaus Huth, with its distinctive corner cupola, was a wedge-shaped structure located in the angle between Potsdamer Straße and Link Straße ( literally " Left Street "), and with entrances in both streets.

Wine merchant Friedrich Karl Christian Huth, whose great-grandfather had been kellermeister ( cellar-master ) to King Friedrich II back in 1769, had founded the firm in 1871 and taken over the former building in Potsdamer Straße on 23 March 1877.

Café Josty was one of two rival cafés ( the other being the Astoria, later Café Eins A ), occupying the broad corner between Potsdamer Straße and Bellevuestraße.

The Alt-Bayern in Potsdamer Straße was erected by architect Wilhelm Walther ( 1857 – 1917 ) and opened in 1904.

Meanwhile, in Bellevuestraße, sandwiched between Café Josty and the Hotel Esplanade but extending right through the block with a separate entrance in Potsdamer Straße, was the Weinhaus Rheingold, built by Bruno Schmitz ( 1858 – 1916 ) and opened on 6 February 1907.

Finally, on the corner between Potsdamer Straße and the Potsdamer Bahnhof, stood Bierhaus Siechen, built by Johann Emil Schaudt ( 1874 – 1957 ), opened in 1910 and later relaunched under the new name Pschorr-Haus.

At 8. 00 p. m. on 8 October 1923, Germany's first radio broadcast was made, using the world's first medium-wave transmitter, from a building ( Vox-Haus ) close by in Potsdamer Straße.

Standing alongside the Weinhaus Rheingold's Potsdamer Straße entrance, this five-storey steel-framed edifice had been erected as an office building in 1907-8 by architect and one-time Berlin inspector of buildings Otto Stahn ( 1859 – 1930 ), who was also responsible for the city's Oberbaumbrücke over the River Spree.

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.

A short way down Potsdamer Straße on the left side the corner cupola of the Weinhaus Huth can be seen, while on the right are the ruins of Café Josty and the Weinhaus Rheingold.

Meanwhile, a row of new single-storey shops was erected along Potsdamer Straße.

For the benefit of the former, the row of post-war single-storey shops in Potsdamer Straße now sold a wide variety of souvenir goods, many of which were purchased by coach-loads of curious visitors brought specially to this sad location.

The brewery also produces a locally successful Schwarzbier, Pilsner, Bock, cherry beer, energy beer, a beer specifically developed for bathing, and a berry-flavored soda used in making a Potsdamer.

As a physical entity, Potsdamer Platz began as a few country roads and rough tracks fanning out from the Potsdam Gate.

However, despite a Woolworths store on its ground floor, a major travel company housed on the floor above, and a restaurant offering fine views over the city on the top floor, the economic situation of the time meant that it would not be followed by more buildings in that vein: no further redevelopment in the immediate vicinity of Potsdamer Platz occurred prior to World War II, and so Columbushaus would always seem out of place in that location.

After that, only two buildings in the immediate vicinity of Potsdamer Platz still stood-one complete, the other in a half-ruined fragmented form: the Weinhaus Huth's steel skeleton had enabled the building to withstand the pounding of World War II virtually undamaged, and it now stood out starkly amid a great levelled wasteland, although now occupied only by groups of squatters.

Potsdamer Platz began as a trading post where several country roads converged just outside Berlin's old customs wall.

Some scenes of the 1987 Wim Wenders movie Der Himmel über Berlin ( English title: Wings of Desire ) were filmed on the old, almost entirely void Potsdamer Platz before the Berlin Wall fell.

In one scene an old man named Homer, played by actor Curt Bois ( 1901 – 91 ), searches in vain for Potsdamer Platz, but finds only rubble, weeds and the graffiti-covered Berlin Wall.

* Dedicated website of the old Potsdamer Platz

" Cassiel follows the old man as he looks for the then-demolished Potsdamer Platz in an open field, and finds only the graffiti-covered Berlin Wall.

The club was founded in March 1991 in the vaults of the former old Wertheim department store in Mitte, the central part of the former East Berlin, next to the famous Potsdamer Platz, however the history of the club goes back to 1988 when the electronic music label Interfisch opened the Ufo Club in Berlin.

The plan also called for the building of two new large railway stations as the planned North-South Axis would have severed the tracks leading to the old Anhalter and Potsdamer stations, forcing their closure.

More significantly though, the removal of the customs wall allowed its former route to be turned into yet another road running through Potsdamer Platz, thus increasing still further the amount of traffic passing through.

Potsdamer Platz (, literally Potsdam Square ) is an important public square and traffic intersection in the centre of Berlin, Germany, lying about one kilometre south of the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag ( German Parliament Building ), and close to the southeast corner of the Tiergarten park.

The history of Potsdamer Platz can probably be traced back to 29 October 1685, when the Tolerance Edict of Potsdam was signed, whereby Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia from 1640 to 1688, allowed large numbers of religious refugees, including Jews from Austria and Huguenots expelled from France, to settle on his territory.

Noticing that traffic queues often built up at the Potsdam Gate due to delays in making the customs checks, these people had begun to offer coffee, bread, cakes and confectionery from their homes or from roadside stalls to travellers passing through, thus beginning the tradition of providing food and drink around the future Potsdamer Platz.

The railway first came to Berlin in 1838, with the opening of the Potsdamer Bahnhof, terminus of a 26 km line linking the city with Potsdam, opened throughout by 29 October ( in 1848 the line would be extended to Magdeburg and beyond ).

The River Havel, here known as the Potsdamer Havel, takes a route south-west through Potsdam and the Templiner See to the Schwielowsee, then north-west to Paretz, whilst the Sacrow – Paretz Canal canal takes a shorter route due east to Paretz, saving some compared to the Potsdamer Havel.

The Potsdamer Havel is crossed by the Kiewitt Ferry in Potsdam itself, and by the Caputh Ferry at the entrance to the Schweilowsee.

Throughout the reign of the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia ( 1688 – 1740 ) the unit was known as the " Potsdamer Riesengarde " (" giant guard of Potsdam ") in German, but the Prussian population quickly nicknamed them the Lange Kerls (" long guys ").

* Potsdamer Kickers from Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany.

In later years Lenné would completely redesign the Tiergarten, a large wooded park formerly the Royal Hunting Grounds, also give his name to Lennéstraße, a thoroughfare forming part of the southern boundary of the park, very close to Potsdamer Platz, and transform a muddy ditch to the south into one of Berlin's busiest waterways, the Landwehrkanal.

Below ground, the U-Bahn section through Potsdamer Platz had closed entirely ; although the S-Bahn line itself remained open, it suffered from a quirk of geography in that it briefly passed through East German territory en route from one part of West Berlin to another.

Residential building by Richard Rogers, part of the Daimler complex at Potsdamer Platz, in 2008.

The second largest part went to Sony, who erected their new European headquarters on a triangular site immediately to the north of Daimler-Benz and separated from it by the re-routed Potsdamer Straße.

The fourth part is the Park Kolonnaden, a range of buildings running down the east side of the Potsdamer Bahnhof site, parallelling Daimler-Benz.

Beginning in 1990 the course was re-routed into part of East Berlin, and in 2001 a further adjustment meant that the course has since run through Potsdamer Platz.

The U-Bahn connection between Gleisdreieck and Potsdamer Platz stations was reinstated, becoming part of line U2.

Due to signalling works in the North-South Tunnel, the line operated as a substitute route for the south part of the S25 as far as Potsdamer Platz.

The lowest level, 15 metres underground, was to have platforms served by new tunnels to Potsdamer Platz under the Spree and the Tiergarten, forming a new north-south line running to the northern part of the S-Bahn ring around central Berlin.