The beginnings of rail transportation in Dresden

The name “Leipziger Bahnhof” (Leipzig train station) in Dresden dates back to the construction of the first railroad station in the mid-19th century. In the 1830s, the private Leipzig-Dresden Railway Company built the first long-distance rail line between the two fast-growing Saxon cities. It was inaugurated in 1839 with the first trip ending in Dresden. This marked the beginning of a new era in German transportation history. In the decades following its opening, the station became one of the most important transportation hubs in Saxony.

The rapidly developing rail network led to the opening of the neighboring “Schlesischer Bahnhof” (Silesian Station – today’s Dresden-Neustadt Station) as the terminus of the line to Görlitz and later to Breslau. Both lines were initially operated independently by private companies. In 1876, the Leipzig-Dresden line was finally nationalized by the state of Saxony.

By the end of the 19th century, Dresden was experiencing rapid population growth. Industrialization and urbanization had reached their peak. This was also reflected in the development of the railway network: Between 1892 and 1901, extensive reconstruction work was carried out on the basis of a structured, comprehensive plan. Finally, the railway lines to the west and east were connected at Dresden-Neustadt station, which was completed in 1897. From 1901, all passenger trains to Leipzig and Breslau departed from this station. From then on, the Leipzig station was no longer used for passenger traffic, but for freight traffic.

Site of National Socialist crimes

During World War II, the former Leipzig station, then known as the Dresden-Neustadt freight yard, became a transshipment point for armaments and played a key logistical role in the Nazi war economy. It is also believed to have been used to transport forced laborers. More research is needed in this area.

In 1942/43, the station was the starting point for two large deportation transports of people persecuted as Jews from Dresden and eastern Saxony. It was also a stopover for further deportation transports with Jews from all over the German Reich:

• On January 21, 1942, at least 224 people were deported from here to the Riga concentration camp in a collective transport that originally came from Leipzig. Nearly all of them were murdered.
• On March 3, 1943, 297 Jews were deported from Dresden to the Auschwitz death camp. Most of them had previously been forced laborers for the Zeiss/Ikon armaments company at the Göhlewerke, about 1.5 km away; since November 1942 they had been housed in the so-called “Hellerberg Jewish Camp,” a ghetto on the northern outskirts of Dresden. The transport contained also Jews from Chemnitz, who probablly were imprisioned in the Dresden ghetto for a couple of days, till they were deported.
• The former freight yard served as a stop for further deportation transports, such as the transport of Jews from Leipzig, Chemnitz, Dresden and the so-called “Sudetenland” to the Auschwitz extermination camp on July 13, 1942, or the transport that brought people to the Theresienstadt ghetto on September 10, 1943, which passed through Dresden on its way via Mönchengladbach, Duisburg, Essen, Dortmund, Hanover, Braunschweig and Magdeburg.

The Allied bombing of Dresden from February 13 to 15, 1945, prevented the deportation of the last Jews still living in the city, which had been planned for February 16. Among the survivors was Renate Aris, born in 1935. She was able to hide with her family for the next few months until the Red Army liberated the city.

Freight yard in the GDR and after the fall of the Berlin Wall

In the first years after the end of the war, the railway infrastructure was rebuilt and the freight yard reopened. In 1968, a container terminal was completed and opened not far from the historic rail yard on Gehestraße, serving freight traffic via Berlin to the Baltic Sea port of Rostock. A major expansion of the infrastructure was planned for the end of the 1980s. However, the project was not realized after the peaceful revolution and reunification in 1990. In 2005, the container terminal, which had become technically and logistically obsolete, was finally closed, and the buildings fell into disrepair.

Since the early 2010s, the company Globus, a supermarket chain, has been trying to build a shopping center on the site of the former freight depot. However, the plans were halted in 2014 in favor of the development of a mixed-use urban district. In the meantime, the 27-hectare site has undergone an extensive participation process. The design competition was won by a collaboration between KOPPERROTH Architektur & Stadtumbau PartGmbB, Fabulism GbR and Station C23 (in german).

You can read more about the discussions surrounding the partially preserved ensemble of buildings that make up the old Leipzig train station in our chronicle of previous discussions.