Red island

Red island

The Red Island

Schöneberg is a district of marked contrasts. There is the noble Bavarian quarter, the cozy, stylish Akazienkiez. And the Rote Insel – the neighborhood of the former predominantly “red” working class, enclosed by railroad tracks.
Island location and development
The Schöneberg, Südkreuz and Yorckstrasse S-Bahn stations mark the corner points of the island. Two stations are named after the latter at a distance of about 300 meters.
The buildings in the district consist mainly of typical old Berlin buildings, with narrow streets running between them. Walking through it, one feels almost tiny because of the architecture that towers above everything else. There are hardly any green and open spaces. The few that do exist are on the edges next to the railroad tracks, such as Annedore-Leber-Park on Torgauer Straße or part of the north-south green corridor below Monumentenbrücke.
In the former “actual” neighborhood below Kolonnenstrasse, the impressive Gasometer towers between the Julius-Leber-Brücke and Schöneberg S-Bahn stations.
In the northern part of the neighborhood between Großgörschenstrasse and Monumentenstrasse lies the Old St. Matthew’s Churchyard. Here you can visit the final resting places of the brothers Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm as well as the graves of Rudolf Virchow and Rio Reiser. A memorial stone also commemorates those involved in the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt.
Island personalities
The SPD politician and resistance fighter Julius Leber was not directly involved in this assassination attempt. He had already been arrested by the Gestapo two weeks earlier. As an avowed opponent of the Nazi regime, from 1937 he was an active part of the Berlin

resistance. His work in a coal shop on Torgauer Strasse (today the Leber Memorial) served as a cover.
Leber was sentenced to death before the People’s Court and executed in Berlin-Plötzensee in January 1945.
The Julius Leber Bridge and Leberstrasse are named after him.
In that very street, number 65 (then Sedanstrasse 53), the later Hollywood beauty Marlene Dietrich was born in 1901. A memorial plaque commemorates the famous “island daughter”. Her portrait, visible from afar, also adorns a high-rise building a few meters away.
At Leberstrasse 33 (formerly Sedanstrasse 69), the actress and singer Hildegard Knef (1925-2002) spent much of her childhood with her grandparents. The southern forecourt of the nearby Südkreuz station is named after her.

And why “red”?

How the island got its epithet is one of Berlin’s urban myths: in 1878, a brewmaster on Sedanstraße (today’s Leberstraße) hung a red flag from his window – at a time when the SPD was banned. In the rest of the city, black-white-red flags were hoisted in anticipation of Emperor Wilhelm I returning from a long cure. The brewer was forced into exile and the area then known as the “Sedan Quarter” was from then on called the “Red Island”.
On the island – as a residential area for the “little people” – the SPD achieved enormously high voting shares after its ban was lifted (1890). During the Weimar Republic, too, the “red” parties were predominantly elected. In the meantime, Die Grünen dominate, and the SPD usually only receives around 20 percent of the votes.