Kieran Drake explores the traces of the city’s former customs and excise wall…
Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate is featured in many iconic Cold War images as a symbol of the division of the city during those decades; the grandiose symbol of Prussian victory humbly transformed into a decorative marker, set right next to the physical Wall, between East and West.
But that was not the first time the famous structure had formed part of a wall: a century before the Berliner Mauer was built, the gate formed part of the Customs Wall, which encircled, rather than divided, the city. Constructed in 1737 by Frederick William I, the “Soldier King” of Prussia, the wall had no defensive function but was built instead to fund Frederick William’s military ambitions; by regulating entry into and out of the city, taxes could be collected on goods such as meat, flour, textiles, metals, leather and tobacco. It also helped prevent the desertion of Prussian conscripts from the Berlin garrison.
Frederick William’s determination to transform Prussia into a great military power had a profound impact on Berlin. His need for men to serve in his armies led him to promote immigration, which saw the city’s population swell from 60,000 at the start of his reign in 1713 to almost 90,000 by the time the Customs Wall was constructed.
Of that population an unbelievable one in eight–over 12,000 men in total–were soldiers stationed in the city. The needs of these armed forces led the Prussian crown to subsidise arms manufacturers and textile producers, laying the foundations for the mechanics, engineers, technicians, and entrepreneurs who were to turn Berlin into an industrial powerhouse.
At the same time, Frederick William introduced universal primary education so that his soldiers could read and write. In 1720 he founded the city’s first major hospital and medical school, the Charité, to care for them. As Mirabeau wryly noted, Prussia at this point was not a “state with an army but an army with a state.”
The Customs Wall itself was originally constructed as a wooden palisade. Franz Hessel, writing in 1929, describing the wall based on things he had read and etchings he had seen, described it as a “low city wall, more of a garden fence than a defence”, designed in a way that meant it could be moved as Berlin expanded so as to continue surrounding the city.
Between 1786 and 1802, to strengthen the Customs Wall, the wooden sections were replaced by stone and brick structures and raised to about four metres high. This made it a more effective barrier against smuggling but also meant the Wall could no longer be moved to encompass the new settlements that sprang up beyond it; by 1840 there was more of Berlin outside the wall than within it. It was abolished by decree in 1860.
It was as one of eighteen entry and exit points through the Customs Wall that the Brandenburg Gate was originally built. In the beginning, the gate was a simple, rather plain structu…