Mariannenplatz: the Kreuzberg square that hosted street football's world festival
A 19th-century square by the former Berlin Wall, a squatters' anthem and an immigrant district: why Mariannenplatz suited the 2006 street football festival.
The 2006 World Cup final was played in Berlin’s Olympiastadion. The final of the streetfootballworld festival 06, the day before, was played on a park-like square in Kreuzberg. The choice of Mariannenplatz was not an accident. Few places in Berlin say as much about the city’s history of division, migration and protest.
A square by the Wall
Mariannenplatz lies in the Kreuzberg district of the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough, close to where the Berlin Wall once stood. It continues Mariannenstraße between Waldemarstraße and Wrangelstraße and is a large square with the character of a park and a wide lawn. At its northern end stands the St. Thomas Church.
The square was laid out between 1841 and 1846 on the Köpenicker Feld and named on 24 March 1849 after Princess Marianne of Prussia (Maria Anna Amalie of Hesse-Homburg, 1785–1846). In 1853 the city landscaped it to plans by the garden architect Peter Joseph Lenné. Over the years, and above all after the Second World War, it lost that character; it was only in 1979–1980 that it largely regained its original appearance.
Bethanien and the Rauch-Haus
Two buildings on the square tell the story of West Berlin’s counter-culture. The former Bethanien hospital is today the Künstlerhaus Bethanien, an arts centre, and also houses the district’s cultural office.
Next to it stands the Georg-von-Rauch-Haus, a former squat named after Georg von Rauch, a member of the “Haschrebellen” movement who was shot dead by a police officer. The rock musician Rio Reiser lived there for a time, and his band Ton Steine Scherben immortalised the square in the squatters’ anthem Rauch-Haus-Song on the 1972 album Keine Macht für Niemand (“No Power for Nobody”). In 2017 a proposal was tabled in the district assembly to rename part of the square “Rio-Reiser-Platz”.
The square also carries layers of memory: a firefighters’ fountain with sculptures by Kurt Mühlenhaupt, a First World War memorial that the district deliberately counter-inscribed to reject its pathos, and, since 29 June 1990, a memorial stele for the resistance fighter Wilhelm Lehmann, murdered by the Nazis in 1943.
A district of migration
Kreuzberg itself was, during the Cold War, one of the poorest areas of West Berlin. From the 1960s and 1970s, West Germany invited Gastarbeiter (guest workers) from Turkey, Italy, Greece and Yugoslavia, and many settled in Kreuzberg. In 2006, the year of the festival, 31.6% of Kreuzberg’s inhabitants did not have German citizenship. Before the Second World War the district had also been home to a large Jewish community, almost entirely deported and murdered in the Holocaust.
A tournament that set out to send a message “against violence, xenophobia and racism”, in the words of the German Foreign Office, could hardly have found a more fitting neighbourhood.
A stage for big events
Mariannenplatz has an open-air stage and regularly hosts street and family festivals. The Myfest has taken place there every 1 May since 2003. On 21 June 2002 the band Die Ärzte played their 20th-anniversary concert on the square in front of 35,000 people. And from 2 to 8 July 2006, in the words of the German Wikipedia entry, the “street football world championship” took place here, ending with the MYSA–KickAIDS final.
The German daily taz summed up the week in its headline: “Der Mariannenplatz war bunt”, “Mariannenplatz was colourful”.
FAQ
Where is Mariannenplatz?
In Berlin-Kreuzberg, close to the former Berlin Wall, between Waldemarstraße and Wrangelstraße, with St. Thomas Church at its northern end.
What happened on Mariannenplatz in July 2006?
The streetfootballworld festival 06, a street football world championship for 22 youth teams from social projects, from 2 to 8 July 2006.
What is the Rauch-Haus?
A former squat on Mariannenplatz, made famous by Ton Steine Scherben’s Rauch-Haus-Song (1972).
Conclusion
The festival’s organisers could have put their pitches anywhere in Berlin. They chose a square shaped by Prussian planning, the Wall, squatters and migration. Read how that week ended in the Festival 06 final, or see the 2006 World Cup’s wider legacy.