Berlin · self-guided walk

Wall walk: Bernauer Strasse to Brandenburg Gate

A 90-minute walk through the Cold War heart of Berlin, from the preserved death strip at Bernauer Strasse south past the Friedrichstrasse and Checkpoint Charlie crossings, the Topography of Terror, and on to the Holocaust Memorial and Brandenburg Gate.

8 stops · 5.7 km · about 100 min

Distance is measured in straight lines between the stops, so the streets add a little. Time assumes an easy 4.5 km/h plus about 3 minutes at each stop.

The stops

The short version of each stop. In aiGuide, open Berlin, choose “Wall walk: Bernauer Strasse to Brandenburg Gate” and tap Begin walking tour; then lock your phone, and each story starts as you reach the stop.

1. 1Gedenkstatte Berliner Mauer

   Cold War, 1961-1989; memorial opened 1998

   

   You stand on Bernauer Strasse, where the Wall sliced through apartment buildings in 1961 and residents jumped from upper windows to reach the West. The memorial preserves a sixty-metre section of the full border strip - inner wall, death strip and watchtower - the only place in Berlin you can see what the Wall really was.

   • Memorial opened 1998, expanded along 1.4 km of Bernauer Strasse
   • Preserves the only complete section of the Wall border strip

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2. 2Tranenpalast

   Cold War, 1962-1990; museum since 2011

   

   You are at the Palace of Tears. From 1962 to 1989 this glass pavilion was the departure hall where Western visitors crossed back into West Berlin after a day in the East. East Germans could come this far to say goodbye but no further. The tearful farewells gave the building its name.

   • Built 1962 as departure hall at Friedrichstrasse crossing
   • Name comes from tearful farewells at the entrance

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3. 3Checkpoint Charlie

   Cold War, 1961-1990

   

   You stand at the most famous border crossing of the Cold War. From 1961 to 1990, this was the only gate where foreign diplomats and Allied soldiers could pass between East and West Berlin. The current guardhouse is a replica; the original now lives in the Allied Museum.

   • Opened 22 September 1961, closed 22 June 1990
   • Named Charlie from the NATO phonetic alphabet

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4. 4Topographie des Terrors

   Third Reich, 1933-1945; Berlin Wall, 1961-1989

   

   You stand on the ground where the apparatus of Nazi terror was administered. From 1933 to 1945 the Gestapo, SS leadership and Reich Security Main Office occupied buildings here on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. The buildings were bombed in 1945 and demolished after the war. A two-hundred-metre stretch of the Berlin Wall still runs along the property line.

   • Site of Gestapo, SS and Reich Security Main Office, 1933-1945
   • Buildings demolished by 1956; site empty for thirty years

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5. 5Anhalter Bahnhof

   Wilhelmine, ruined in WWII

   

   You face a scrap of brick portico, three arches between two pillars. From this place Franz Schwechten's 1880 terminus sent trains to Vienna, Rome, and Athens until 1943 air raids gutted it. Between 1941 and 1945 it dispatched 116 trains carrying around 9,600 Berlin Jews to Theresienstadt.

   • Rebuilt 1876-1880 by architect Franz Schwechten
   • Inaugurated 15 June 1880 by Wilhelm I and Bismarck

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6. 6Denkmal fur die ermordeten Juden Europas

   Contemporary memorial culture (21st century)

   

   You walk into a grid of 2,711 concrete blocks rising and falling like a stone sea. The stelae are uniform in plan but vary in height, and the ground undulates beneath your feet. Peter Eisenman refused to assign a fixed meaning; the experience is the point.

   • 2,711 concrete stelae across 19,000 square metres
   • Designed by architect Peter Eisenman with Buro Happold

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7. 7Denkmal fur die im Nationalsozialismus verfolgten Homosexuellen

   Contemporary memorial culture (2000s)

   

   You're at a single tilted concrete block on the Tiergarten edge, facing the Holocaust Memorial across Ebertstrasse. Lean to the small window and you'll see a short film of a same-sex couple kissing on loop. The piece honours the roughly 50,000 men convicted under Paragraph 175 between 1933 and 1945.

   • Dedicated 27 May 2008, authorised by Bundestag in 2003
   • Designed by Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset

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8. 8Brandenburger Tor

   Late 18th century (Prussian Neoclassicism)

   

   You're standing in front of Berlin's emblem. The six Doric columns are modelled on the Athenian Propylaea, and the bronze Quadriga above was paraded to Paris by Napoleon in 1806 before returning home eight years later.

   • Completed 1791, architect Carl Gotthard Langhans
   • 26 metres tall, 65.5 metres wide, twelve Doric columns

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