[1] During the Cold War, the border between East and West Berlin ran straight through the square.

The eastern and western parts of the square were separated by a semicircular arch of the Berlin Wall from 1961 until its fall in 1989.

speech was held at the square in front of the Brandenburg Gate, and a memorial plaque was placed there in his honour 25 years later.

[2] The square was formerly named Platz vor dem Brandenburger Tor from the eighteenth century.

In 1934 it was renamed Hindenburgplatz after Paul von Hindenburg, then the recently deceased President of Germany, but the change was reverted in 1958.