In the history of Berlin's long-distance railway stations of the 19th century, Lehrter Bahnhof is one of the most recent. Located in the immediate vicinity of the River Spree, it was inaugurated in 1871, the year in which the Prussian royal seat became the Capital of the newly founded German Empire. In Prussia in particular, it was private railway companies that provided the funds to build railway lines and stations. Although Berlin already had excellent west-bound services, Hanover was earmarked to receive a direct link to the Prussian railway network as well. However, as this required a State concession, the name had to be chosen very carefully: to ensure that no politically unpleasant associations would be awakened – in the political quarrels between Prussia and Austria, the then Kingdom of Hanover had gone over to the Austrian side -, the company applying for the contract to build this line called itself the “Berlin Lehrte Committee”. The name of the town of Lehrte was not politically suspicious, and Lehrte was the first railway intersection on Hanoverian territory.

After the war of 1866 and the annexation of Hanover by the Prussian Government, the Magdeburg-Halberstädter Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft was awarded the concession to build the line. The line and station went into operation in 1871 - the year of the foundation of the German Empire. At the specific request of Kaiser Wilhelm I, the station was erected, for "aesthetic considerations", parallel to the waterfront of the Humboldthafen. Architects used design elements taken from classical and renaissance styles for the prestigious exterior of the passenger building.

An important railway junction was thus erected on the River Spree. Invalidenstraße and Birkenallee - as today's Alt-Moabit road was known at that time - crossed the large railway station site. The shunting and express freight area north of Invalidenstraße, the freight station on Moabiter Werder and Hamburger Bahnhof, which was closed, however, in 1884 in favour of Lehrter Bahnhof, were all more or less within walking distance. This meant that Lehrter Bahnhof subsequently developed into Berlin's most important "overseas station", as it now became the departure point for services to Hamburg, Bremen and Bremerhaven. Travellers arriving at Lehrter Bahnhof and intending to continue their journey east or south by rail, had first to take a horse-drawn cab to the relevant departure station, however, because Berlin in the 19th century had no central station.