Altstadt
Before World War II the area now occupied by Marx-Engels-Forum was a densely populated Old Town quarter between the river and Alexanderplatz, named after a street called Heiligegeiststraße (Holy Ghost Street) which ran across it between Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße (now Karl-Liebknecht-Straße) and Rathausstraße. The area including the main post office was heavily bombed during Allied air attacks in 1944/45 and most of its buildings reduced to ruins.
