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Background: Visnews filmed Jan 29 as West Berlin demolitions expert Frau Herta Bahr carried out the final demolition of the Lehrter Bahnhof - terminus of one of Berlin's former railway arteries.

In the remains of the station Frau Bahr filled shot holes with explosives, connected individual detonators to the plunger, then preliminaries over, she pressed the plunger and down came what had once been Berlin's busiest rail route to Hamburg, Bremen and Cologne.

Though badly bombed Lehrter Bahnhof was used for some time after the last war. But when Soviet Zone authorities severed West Berlin's communications with West Germany in 1948 the line became unprofitable. For years the station was left to decay until april 1958 when demolition work first started on the shell of the old terminus. Most of the structure was brought down then, and the remainder left standing has now - with the help of Frau Bahr - joined the rubble on the ground.