Anhalter Steg

The Anhalter Steg (Anhalter Footbridge) was constructed in 2001 and connects both sides of the Landwehr Canal near the German Museum of Technology. Its predecessor was a railway bridge to the no longer existing Anhalter Station, which was constructed in the 19th century and was mostly destroyed in the Second World War. After the war, the railway bridge was demolished, and parts of the former Marschallbrücke (Marschall Bridge) were later used to build the Anhalter Steg.

A few meters west, near the Trebbiner Straße, lies the north-south S-Bahn (lightrail) tunnel, which exploded during the last days of the Battle of Berlin and led to the flooding of the tunnel from the Landwehr Canal. While some German accounts, which are very controversial, as well as the official Soviet narrative depict it as a German act of despair, some recent historical literature states that the Red Army demolished some tunnels in Berlin to prevent the German garrison from using them for covered attacks against Soviet supply lines. The Soviet 2nd Assault Engineering Brigade of the 8th Guards Army claimed to have blown up the railway tunnel leading to the Anhalter Station on 1 May 1945 to decrease the resistance of the Waffen-SS formations that were still fighting under the station.

Despite the explosion, the water filled the tunnels rather slowly and did not rise too high, allowing people to flee before it was too late. Furthermore, the tunnels were already filled with dead and lethally wounded soldiers and civilians. Consequently, it is still unclear how many people actually died from drowning or injuries from the explosion. Discussions regarding the flooding of the Berlin subway continue to this day.