Nicknames and landmarks – Do you know all the names?

There are humorous names for many Berlin sights. Some are more likely to be circulating among tourists, others have long been part of the Berlin vernacular.

Sights are usually what tourist guides and their audiences talk about most often. For locals, the striking buildings and monuments are more of a meeting point and orientation. Some terms will be met with a lenient frown, while other terms have been circulating in Berlin for a long time. We explain what lies behind words like “Goldelse” or “Federal washing machine”.

Let’s start with one of Berlin’s most famous landmarks – the Victory Column. The monument was erected between 1864 and 1873 after Prussia’s victories in the Wars of Unification, which led to the founding of the Empire. A bronze sculpture of Victoria, the goddess of victory, was placed on a column decorated with captured cannons from France. Its face was modeled on a princess from the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, but the sculpture became known under a different name.

The nickname “Goldelse” actually came about in the first years of the monument and is not a term coined later. At that time, a serial novel called “Goldelse” was very popular among Berliners. This was published at the time in the widely circulated family magazine “Die Gartenlaube” and was about a young woman with flowing, blonde hair and her experiences. Inspired by the well-known Roman figure, the nickname “Goldelse” became established for the figure on the Victory Column – a rather less solemn name for the martial monument.

In 2001, the then Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) received the key to the newly oldest Federal Chancellery. The modern architecture of the huge building with a usable area of ​​more than 25,000 square meters soon led to the nickname “Washing Machine”. The reason for this is the box-shaped structure with the large, round window – like a washing machine.

The name “washing machine” is followed by other names: for example “Kohlosseum” in memory of Gerhard Schröder’s predecessor Helmut Kohl (CDU) or “elephant toilet” and “federal washing machine”. These days you rarely hear these terms on Berlin’s streets, except from tourist guides or in articles about the Federal Chancellery.

Over 400,000 people in Berlin use the “Dog Head” every day. We’re talking about the ring track, whose shape is actually roughly reminiscent of the abstract representation of a dog’s head. When a tourist asks where the Hundekopfbahn is, it is clear that he or she does not mean the racetrack, but the Ringbahn.

The railway line has been moving people around Berlin in circles – with interruptions – for around 150 years. Originally it transported wounded soldiers to hospitals in Kreuzberg during the Franco-Prussian War; It later became Berlin’s most important traffic artery before it was suddenly torn apart by the division of Germany. It was not until 2001, around ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, that the S-Bahn line became a circular route again. It is planned to take 60 minutes to complete a complete trip around the Hundekopf if the S-Bahn cooperates.

Even official bodies such as the city of Berlin call the Ringbahn “Hundekopf” or “Großer Hundekopf”. It limits the tariff zone “A” in Berlin’s local transport and also describes almost entirely the environmental zone in the city center of Berlin.