Last Updated on July 18, 2025 by George Pavlopoulos
Of all the streets in Berlin, the Bleibtreustrasse is probably my favorite one. Ever since I moved to Berlin, I have always lived close to Bleibtreustrasse, and I often take an afternoon stroll there.
Apart from being a place with some beautiful cafés and stores, the Bleibtreustrasse has a long history in the former West Berlin. There are also several Stolpersteine, the golden plaques in front of the buildings; they commemorate Jews deported to concentration camps under the Nazi regime.
However, the street owes a part of its history to the women who lived there.
The name of the Bleibtreustrasse
The Bleibtreustrasse (Bleibtreustraße) in Berlin is an 820-meter-long street that seems dedicated to women. However, it owes its name to a man who lived in a nearby street. Georg Bleibtreu (1828-1892) visited the battlefields very often. He was there not as a soldier, though, but as a painter.
Back in the 19th century, Bleibtreu accompanied the army to capture scenes of the great wars on his canvases. Most of his paintings were destroyed during World War II, and his oeuvre doesn’t receive much attention nowadays.
All those old battlefields no longer exist; industrialization has significantly altered their purpose. Even today, the meaning of his surname is one of the most potent metaphors of Berlin: in German, Bleibtreu stands for “being loyal,” for “staying true.”
The women of the Bleibtreustrasse
It’s not just a name about a painter or fidelity. The story of Bleibtreustrasse has been closely tied to both real and fictional female figures. They shaped the history of the street, and as you will read below, all of them impacted this tiny strip of land in downtown Berlin.
Tilla
In the Bleibtreustrasse, and more precisely at number 15, the famous actress Tilla Durieux (1880-1971) spent the last years of her life. There seems to be a “circularity” in the titles of her filmography. Tilla Durieux made her first appearance in the movie Der Flug in die Sonne (The flight towards the sun), while her last role was in the TV production Durch die Wolken (Through the Clouds).
One of her most iconic movies was Frau im Mond (Woman on the Moon), directed in 1929 by Fritz Lang. Many people refer to “Frau im Mond” as the first serious science fiction film ever. It was actually after this movie that Tilla Durieux left Germany because the Nazis chased her.
For the next 25 years, she didn’t work in the film industry at all. Despite all that, she never forgot her love for cinema and made a comeback in 1952. She participated in several movies, and her fame grew over time. In the year of her death, 1971, a new cinema opened its doors on Bleibtreustrasse, known as Filmkunst 66. The cinema is still operating, presenting a fine program of films.
It is located at Bleibtreustrasse 12 and is also a Berlinale venue nowadays.
Mascha
Not that far away from the cinema, more precisely at Bleibtreustrasse 10/11, the poet Mascha Kaléko (1907-1975) spent two years of her life. She also had to flee to the USA to save herself from the Nazis. However, her love for Berlin was too strong, and in 1956, she returned to Berlin, where she lived for a couple of years.
In 1960, Kaléko denied receiving the Fontane Prize because a former SS member hosted the award ceremony. The years she lived in exile had a significant impact on her, and she could never accept such a prize. In one of her poems, Mascha Kaléko claims that “all you need is an island / alone, in the open sea.”
4,000 young women at Bleibtreustraße
Men fighting over women is a story as old as the world. The Bleibtreustrasse once witnessed one of the goriest incidents of Berlin nightlife. Back in the ’70s, when the Wall still divided the City, West Berlin was home to more than 4,000 leichte Mädchen, a term referring to young prostitutes. As it’s always the case, those girls somehow “belonged” to certain guys, and those tough guys formed gangs.
Although today the Bleibtreustrasse has a laid-back atmosphere and lots of charming cafés, things were less easy-going on June 27, 1970. The members of the two gangs controlling the Red Light District of West Berlin got into a big fight at the Bukarest restaurant on Bleibtreustrasse. According to the witnesses, one of the gang members entered the restaurant and screamed: “It’s Balalaika time.”
Whatever followed was almost like a scene from a battlefield that Georg Bleibtreu painted. The incident resulted in one dead and three heavily injured gang members. Later that night, the police found a rifle, four revolvers, and several other weapons in a nearby schoolyard.
Although some gang members went to prison (among them Klaus Speer), no one really knows what happened to the 4,000 young women. The incident at Bleibtreustrasse, however, made it into the slang of West Berlin. For several years, the Berliners called the Bleibtreustrasse Blei-Streu-Strasse, which translates to something like Scattered-Bullet-Street.
Molly
In the list of the famous women of Bleibtreustrasse, one could also add Molly Bloom. Of course, she is not a real person but a fictional character in the novel Ulysses by James Joyce. There is, however, a reference in Joyce’s book where the main character, Leopold Bloom, reads in a newspaper an advert about a company planning to cultivate eucalyptus trees in Israel.
The company’s address is Bleibtreustrasse 34, W 15, in Berlin. Leopold is Molly’s husband, and in the book, Molly is almost 34 years old. The name of the Bleibtreustrasse (and its meaning about fidelity) is used ironically because Molly has an extramarital affair with Hugh Boylan. The number 15 refers to the couple’s 15-year-old daughter, Millicent (Milly) Bloom.
In Ulysses, the fruitful Orient is a potent symbol of the happy wedding. However, the Bleibtreustrasse itself doesn’t seem to make such promises. Tilla Durieux split up with her first husband, the painter Eugene Spiro, shortly after their marriage. They married in 1904, the year that Ulysses takes place.
Read my other articles about Berlin here.
More Berlin impressions: A Berlin travelogue, Emil Nolde at Hamburger Bahnhof & Polaroids by Linda McCartney
Bonus: The ultimate travel guide to Berlin: tips & itineraries
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Nice to hear that at least one street was dedicated for women.
There are probably more streets 🙂 It’s just that I walk there every single day and that’s how I actually thought of writing about it. I will try to write more about the women of Berlin. Thanks for reading and commenting, Kathy.