It is served by the Berlin S-Bahn, the U8 line of the Berlin U-Bahn and named after the adjacent homonymous psychiatric hospital in Wittenau.

The namesake psychiatrist Karl Bonhoeffer (1868–1948) was the father of the resistance fighters Klaus and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Whereas the hospital and the underground station are located in the locality of Wittenau, the S-Bahn station happens to be in the adjacent Reinickendorf, both localities of the Reinickendorf borough.

It originally received the name Dalldorf (Kremmener Bahn), the former name of Wittenau until 1905 and was renamed Wittenau (Kremmener Bahn) on 1 January 1906, with the suffix distinguishing it from the Wittenau (Nordbahn) station on the Nordbahn (Northern Railway).

Meanwhile, the U-Bahn station Karl-Bonhoeffer-Nervenklinik opened in the course of the northern extension of the U8 line on 29 September 1994.