The original station, served by Berlin Stadtbahn commuter trains, opened on 7 February 1882.

On the night of 23 and 24 November 1943, the track area was directly hit by bombs, and further damage accumulated during the Battle of Berlin.

On 28 August 1961, two weeks after the erection of the Berlin Wall, the new U-Bahn line U9 was opened below the U2, connecting the station with the transport network in the north-south direction.

[4] The fact that, with only two platforms and four tracks for long-distance trains, the station was still the most important in West Berlin, was another unnatural phenomenon of the divided city.

An exception was the famous Sibirjak, which departed from Bahnhof Zoo for the Novosibirsk Trans-Siberian railway station until 2013.