The Sonnenallee is a street in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, connecting the districts of Neukölln

Neukölln

Neukölln is the eighth borough of Berlin, located in the southeastern part of the city and was part of the former American sector under the Four-Power occupation of the city...

 and Treptow

Treptow

Treptow is a former borough in the southeast of Berlin. It merged with Köpenick to form Treptow-Köpenick in 2001.-Geography:The district was composed by the localities of Alt-Treptow, Plänterwald, Baumschulenweg, Niederschöneweide, Johannisthal, Adlershof, Altglienicke and Bohnsdorf....

-Köpenick

Köpenick

Köpenick is a historic town and locality that is situated at the confluence of the rivers Dahme and Spree in the south-east of the German capital city of Berlin. It was formerly known as Copanic and then Cöpenick, only officially adopting the current spelling in 1931...

. The street is 5 km long, crossing Baumschulenstraße at its south east end and terminating at Hermannplatz in the north west. Sonnenallee was constructed at the end of the 19th century. The area around the Sonnenallee was created to cater for the rural

Rural

Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...

 drift to the city of that period. Today the street is also called "Little Beirut" or "Gaza Strip", because of its high percentage of Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

 immigrants.

History

During its history, the Sonnenallee has been known under various other names. At the beginning the street was known simply as Straße 84 (Street 84). In 1893, five years after the death of Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm

Frederick III, German Emperor

Frederick III was German Emperor and King of Prussia for 99 days in 1888, the Year of the Three Emperors. Friedrich Wilhelm Nikolaus Karl known informally as Fritz, was the only son of Emperor William I and was raised in his family's tradition of military service...

 the street was renamed in his honour. In 1920s the street was extended to the south east and it was during this time finally named Sonnenallee.

In 1999, a film of the same name was created Sonnenallee

Sonnenallee

Sonnenallee is a 1999 comedy film about life in East Berlin in the late 1970s. The movie was directed by Leander Haußmann. The film was released shortly before the corresponding novel, Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee...

. The film portrayed a nostalgic view of the GDR in the 1970s. During the communist period the street was intersected by the Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...

 including a border crossing

Berlin border crossings

The Berlin border crossings were created as a result of the postwar division of Germany. Prior to the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, travel between the Eastern and Western sectors of Berlin was totally uncontrolled, although restrictions were increasingly introduced by the Soviet and East...

. Nostalgia for things relating to the communist period is known as Ostalgie

Ostalgie

Ostalgie is a German term referring to nostalgia for aspects of life in East Germany. It is derived from the German words Ost and Nostalgie ....

in German, blending the words "Ost" (meaning east) and "Nostalgie" (nostalgia).

External links

• The former border crossing at Sonnenallee on www.berlin.de