Fischerinsel

Until the mid-twentieth century it was a well preserved pre-industrial neighbourhood, and most of the buildings survived World War II, but in the 1960s and 1970s under the German Democratic Republic it was levelled and replaced with a development of residential tower blocks.

As a result, in the early 19th century, the Fischerinsel district stopped developing and became a neighbourhood which preserved the look of old Berlin, including the last gabled houses in the city.

The painter Otto Nagel, in the last years of his life, documented it in a series of pastels entitled Abschied vom Fischerkiez (Farewell to the Fishing Village),[6] after calling in vain for its preservation in 1955.

Breite Straße was extended and beginning in 1967, five residential tower blocks were built; they were announced as the "first group of high-rise buildings in the capital",[5] but later conflicted with plans for a grand central urban axis.

[11][14] The building was wrecked by artillery fire and burnt during the battle for Berlin in 1945 because a Waffen-SS unit was holed up inside,[11][15] and was demolished in 1964 as part of the clearance of the Fischerinsel.

[16] The inn Zum Nußbaum at Fischerstraße 21, built in 1705 according to an inscription over the cellar entrance[17][18] and named for the nut tree which formerly stood outside it, was one of the oldest remaining drinking establishments in the city.

[19][20][21][22][n 3] The Großgaststätte Ahornblatt, designed by Gerhard Lehmann, Ulrich Müther, Rüdiger Plaethe and Helmut Stingel, was built in 1971–73.