The origins of the street lie in the quarter that arose about 1270 around 

St. Mary's Church, located

north of Alt-Berlin's initial settlement. The "New Market" (Neuer Markt) square beneath the church
was first mentioned in a 1292 deed; there were three alleys that went southwest from it down to
the Spree river. They had had different names over the centuries and were ultimately known as
Papenstraße (“Bishops' Street”, named for the Berlin residence of the Havelberg bishops),
Brauhausstraße (“Brewery Street”) and Kleine Burgstraße (“Castle Street”, named for the City
Palace on the other side of the river).
Since the 17th century, a wooden pedestrian bridge, known as Castle Bridge, later called Cavalier
Bridge or Sechserbrücke (“Sixpence Bridge”), would lead from Kleine Burgstraße across the water to
the Berlin City Palace on Spree Island and the eastern terminus of Unter den Linden. However,
traffic from the west crossing Schlossbrücke still had to turn right in front of the Palace and continue
its way to Alt-Berlin via the parallel Rathaus Bridge.
In the 1880s, plans for a new traffic routing were developed when it was decided to build a
northeastern extension of the Unter den Linden boulevard through the Palace's Lustgarten. In 1884
the German Emperor William I gave his consent to replace the pedestrian bridge with a much larger,
richly ornamented stone construction. Beyond the river, after lengthy negotiations with numerous
property owners, the three historic alleys were combined to a broad street, built according to plans
designed by August Orth, to complete the interconnection from Unter den Linden to the New Market
square.

Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße, view to St. Mary's Church, 1899

Opened in 1887, this new street was named Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße in honour of the emperor. The
road then led from Spree Island across the new Kaiser-Wilhelm-Brücke through Alt-Berlin, turning
slightly north at St. Mary's Church, pass under the Stadtbahn tracks and ending at Münzstraße in the
adjacent Scheunenviertel (“Barns' Quarter”) neighbourhood. In 1892 the street was extended to
Hirtenstraße near modern Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz.[1]
During the Nazi era, demolition of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Brücke began in March 1939 to make room for
the Welthauptstadt Germania plans developed by Albert Speer; nevertheless, works ceased shortly
after the outbreak of World War II in September. Most of the buildings on Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße
were largely damaged and several lost completely in the British and American air raids on the city
between 1943 and 1945. During the final Battle of Berlin in April 1945, German Wehrmacht troops
blew up the remnants of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Brücke in an attempt to hold back the Red
Army advance.
After the war, the street became part of the Soviet-occupied sector of Berlin. The Soviet Military
Administration had it renamed Liebknechtstraße in 1947 for Karl Liebknecht, co-founder of the
German Communist Party. Liebknecht had his lawyer's office nearby and during the German
Revolution of 1918–19 had proclaimed a "Free Socialist Republic" at the City Palace on 9 November
1918, shortly before he was murdered by Freikorps paramilitaries. The bridge to Spree Island was
rebuilt in a simple form in 1949/50 and equally named Liebknecht Bridge.[2]
Karl-Liebknecht-Straße and Palace of the Republic, 1989

However, the lost buildings were only replaced in the 1960s when the East German Socialist Unity
Party and the Council of Ministers decided to rebuild the area to fit the government's visions of a
modern socialist city. The new broad Karl-Liebknecht-Straße started on Spree Island at the Marx-
Engels-Platz, between Berlin Cathedral and the Palace of the Republic inaugurated in 1976. On the
other side of the Liebknecht Bridge, large Plattenbau apartment blocks were built along the street,
while the right side became a large open green, stretching from the Marx-Engels-Forum to the foot
of the Fernsehturm (TV tower). Instead of turning north at St. Mary's Church, the new Karl-
Liebknecht-Straße, finished in 1969, now goes straight ahead, bypassing Alexanderplatz to meet
the arterial road Prenzlauer Allee at the site of the former city gate (Prenzlauer Tor). The former
northeastern section of the street, beyond the church, is today known as Rosa-Luxemburg-Straße -
named after Rosa Luxemburg, another co-founder of the Communist Party who was likewise killed in
1919.
Unlike its surroundings, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße has not changed its look too much since
the German reunification in 1990. However, the former Palasthotel near the Liebknecht Bridge has
been demolished in 2001 and replaced by the large DomAquarée hotel and office building complex,
comprising the DDR Museum, the AquaDom aquarium and a Sea Life Centre. The adjacent
apartment blocks and the row of shops below have been steadily refurbished. Plans for the
reconstruction of the neighbourhood north of Alexanderplatz have been made