Named after Strausberger Straße, itself named after the town of Strausberg.
The square takes its name from Strausberger Straße, which originally ran into it. Nearby lay Berlin’s medieval place of execution, where Hans Kohlhase, model for Kleist’s ‘Michael Kohlhaas’, was executed in 1540. Destroyed in the Second World War, the square was rebuilt in 1952–1955 by a team around Hermann Henselmann; its building site was one of the starting points of the strikes that led to the uprising of 17 June 1953.