View of Szczecin with railway station

The “Bibliographisches Institut founded in 1826 in Gotha by Joseph Meyer was one of the leading publishing houses in Germany. The company initially published series of German and international classics and popular science books in large number of copies, following up with encyclopaedias. A series of illustrated books entitled Meyer’s Universum, oder Abbidung und Beschreibung des Sehenwerthesten und Merkwürdigsten der natur und Kunst auf der gan zen Erde was one of the most important publishing ventures released by the Institut. Published between 1833 and 1864, in a total of twenty-one volumes, it contained over a thousand figures depicting famous architectural monuments, including the view of Szczecin from the south to the Berliner Bahnhof, opened on 15 August 1843 in the presence of Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm IV, which was built in the place of gardens established in the 18th century by a Szczecin merchant Georg Ch. Velthusen. Initially, only one railway track led to the Szczecin station, which meant that one could go in one direction only. This issue was solved in 1859, by transforming the former train station into a bypass station, by building tracks leading through the northern part of Kępa Parnicka and the present Szczecin Port Centralny railway station, which exist to this day. The construction of the railway and the station was one of the first breakthroughs in the military fortifications of Fort Preuβen, and served as a prelude to its liquidation at the end of the 19th century.

Anna Lew-Machniak