Hermannstraße was on the route of the first segment of the Berlin Ringbahn which opened on 15 November 1877 (with passenger service beginning on 1 January 1878).

After the creation of Greater Berlin in 1920, electrification to create the S-Bahn system began in 1924; the Ringbahn was fully incorporated on 6 November 1928.

Finding the cost prohibitive, they partnered with Vering & Waechter, a company which was at the time developing rail lines throughout Germany.

Vering & Waechter, given the responsibility for planning and construction, mapped out a 27 km (17 mi) route from North Mittenwalde to Hermannstraße with 7 intermediate stations: Brusendorf, Groß Kienitz, Selchow, Schönefeld, Rudow, Buckow and Britz.

In September 1946, the Soviet occupying administration took possession of the portion of the line outside Berlin under eminent domain and transferred its operation to the Brandenburg State Railways, and in the Berlin Blockade of 1948/49, the line was severed at the boundary with the American sector.

11.5 km (7.1 mi) of line with some sidings within Berlin remained unaffected, and the company had constructed a 5 km (3.1 mi) extension to Tempelhof Airfield which could then be used to transport coal flown there in the Berlin Airlift, avoiding the East Berlin-controlled Deutsche Reichsbahn.

Service on the western portion of the Ringbahn was ceremonially relaunched on 17 December 1993, over a stretch of line including the Hermannstraße station.

Also since German reunification, the Mittenwalde line became the route by which the city's household waste is conveyed in containers from the Berliner Stadtreinigung (Berlin Sanitation) depot on the Teltow Canal to the Hermannstraße terminus of the line, now known as Güterbahnhof Neukölln, Neukölln Goods Station, where it is transferred to Deutsche Bahn goods trains.

In December 2005, however, the district of Neukölln decided to convert unused track area in the goods station to industrial use; the Neukölln-Mittenwalder Eisenbahn is to wind up its operations there at some point in the future.

In 1927, seven years after Neukölln like many other surrounding towns became part of Greater Berlin, the city opened the first segment of what was then called Line D of the U-Bahn, today's U8.

[7] In 1940, the unfinished station was used as an air raid shelter; because it is located under the S-Bahn cutting, it is unusually deep underground.

[7] The situation changed with German reunification and it was decided to complete the extension and open the Hermannstraße U-Bahn station.

The scheduled reopening of the Ringbahn on 17 December 1993 created time pressure, because work on the U-Bahn station had to begin before then.