Brandenburg Gate

Until modern times it was just a city gate - expanded in the familiar way shortly after the French. Revolution. Here the Elector rode west from the castle to his private hunting area, the zoo. The original gate of peace, however, took on a completely different meaning after the Napoleonic occupation around 1805: Napoleon had the Quadriga, the four-horse carriage, transported to Paris with the goddess of peace. After the victory of the Allies over France, she came back in a great triumphal procession - as a return carriage. Since then crowned with an eagle with a cross in its claws as a sign of victory. - During the division of the city, the war-torn environment was cleared away and remains (Hotel Adlon) were blown up - and suddenly the gate stood alone, inaccessible from the west through the wall, separated from the east by fences and barriers. It was not until the turning point, the fall of the wall, that the gate became a symbol again - for the German. reunion

5 minutes

Reichstag Building (Pass By)

Wilhelmine splendid building, although it was rebuked as a booth or monkey house. Therefore built outside and away from the city. Historically valuable, after all, the Red Army soldiers placed their flag on the building as a sign of victory. Even if the famous photo of it is only reproduced. Then for decades rather unnoticed in the so-called free West Berlin - only 5 m from the wall, it was not allowed to be used for official Bundestag meetings. If it did, for example to elect the Federal President, there was an immediate reprimand from East Berlin. Completely gutted in the nineties and completely redesigned for the reunited Bundestag with now over 700 deputies. Not to forget the iconographic wrapping action by the artist Christo. The Reichstag dome, put on a new glass after the architect had only planned a kind of gas station roof instead, now represents the new Berlin

Bundeskanzleramt der Bundesregierung (Pass By)

Eco-colossal building, not exactly small, with a height of 36 m and ten floors and a total of 500 office rooms for over 300 employees. The white house would fit eight times. Larger are actually only palaces for state presidents ... The chancellor has her office in the top left corner. In the rotunda above is an official apartment for her, which she does not use, however. Is also rather impractical with bathroom and bedroom across the street with about 200 m² of usable space

Paul-Lobe-Haus (Pass By)

This building is the so-called motor of the parliament, i.e. All of Parliament's work takes place here. Only the final speeches are held in Parliament, the actual discussion and vote takes place in the committees. There is plenty of opportunity for this in every bulge in the over 200 m long building on three floors. And as a glass parliament you can even see it from the outside. Only the EU and the secret committee sit in the largest rotunda facing the Spree above the two restaurants - and cannot be seen from the outside

Berlin Friedrichstrasse Station (Pass By)

This station was the only one during the Berlin Wall from which there was a further journey from East to West Berlin, such as for the Paris Moscow Express that existed at the time. Or also for pulling out of East Berliners, but then without a return ticket. Which is why this station was also used to try adventurous escape, which, however, was not always happy. Otherwise, the entire train station was crossed by barriers and customs checkpoints, in the middle of it were Stasi observation walks - if that and more interested, you will find this in the original next to the so-called Palace of Tears. This was so because the East Berliners had to say goodbye to their relatives there, and often for apparently always

Unter Den Linden (Pass By)

This grand boulevard was the first of its kind in Berlin. Actually designed as a tranquil bridle path, it led from Berlin Palace westwards, through the Brandenburg Gate to the hunting grounds, today's Tiergarten. These were also reserved for the elector personally and exclusively. When the city expanded to the west - the nucleus was the island in The Spree and the eastern side, where the Nikolaiviertel is today - the hunting trail was expanded to a remarkable boulevard. When asked how to plant it there, there was no agreement between walnut and linden trees. As you can see today, the linden trees prevail, otherwise Seether the street today under the nuts… Originally lined with nobility, today there are important and prominent buildings from the State Library to the Humboldt University to the State Opera. The remaining cafés are also cozy

Pariser Platz

Explanation of the surrounding buildings, embassies, academy of the arts If the city of Berlin were an apartment, this place would be the so-called good room. So the room where guests like to go to show the most beautiful sides of the city. But why a lot, the surrounding buildings were destroyed by war and demolition in the later decades, the only thing left was the Brandenburg Gate. It was about as isolated as the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Except that wasn't what was planned here. You can't get to the gate from any side, there was a very thick wall from the west, the east Berliners were bordered by a fence from the east. The remaining piece of the Hotel Adlon was finally blown up. After the fall of the wall, it was decided to rebuild everything here but modernized in the steal, only in the cubature as before. Now the Liebermann Haus, the Akademie der Künste, the French and American embassy are gathered here again

5 minutes

Russische Botschaft (Pass By)

After the war, the Soviet Union had the largest foreign representation in Europe built here. Its size should already document who said that here in the center of Berlin, at that time the American, British and French embassies on Pariser Platz were all in debt and ashes. Contrary to the statutes of the linden trees, according to which all buildings should be aligned flush with the street, this type of palace allowed an inner courtyard. Stalin should please her in everything - unfortunately it is not known whether he ever set foot in it, let alone stayed there. At least nothing would have been missing, even for the connected school there is still a swimming pool and ballrooms and so on anyway. But Stalin was also a paranoid throughout his life. Still used for the successor states of the USSR called CIS

Gendarmenmarkt (Pass By)

German and French cathedral drama theater, concert hall This place is called by many as the most beautiful place in Berlin. Nicely framed today's concert hall, formerly built as a playhouse, by the two so-called cathedral. Namely the German and the French cathedral. However, there are no bishops' seats nor cathedrals, but simple parish houses, which Friedrich II had embellished with a cathedral-like essay, supposedly according to his own design. The left church, the German Cathedral, is no longer used as such, but instead contains a museum for the parliamentary history of Germany. The right, the French cathedral, is still used by a reformed congregation that holds services in French on Sundays. Behind it is a small Huguenot museum, because it was these refugees who were allowed to build their church here. they only had to live further outside in Moabit. And in GDR times it was empty and empty ...

Bebelplatz (Pass By)

The so-called chest of drawers, royal court library, St. Hedwig Cathedral, State Opera, Humboldt University together form the Forum Fridericianum. In today's Hotel Club the Rome, the SPD and KPD were forcibly united. Hence the name August Bibles, the founder of the SPD, may also fit. Otherwise, the square used to be simple and poignant, which would also fit better. In the middle of the square, you walk easily over it, unless there is a crowd of people there, a glass window in the floor that points to an empty library. On May 10, 1933, all books that were unsuitable from the Nazi perspective were burned here. The square forms a beautiful square with the Humboldt University, as the Berliner says. Because this building was also built as a palace, namely for the younger brother of Friedrich II, Heinrich. A few years after his death, it was used as the nucleus of the royal Friedrich Wilhelm University, now Humboldt University

Neue Wache (Pass By)

For many earlier the spectacle under the linden trees: the change of guard at the new guard, the East Berlin soldiers then went up and down in a jump-off. That is long gone, but in fact this guard housed the castle guard, at least a small part of it. Formerly a kind of eternal flame inside (actually made of glass but a case that looks like this through light), today a pieta, an enlarged form of the sculpture by Käthe Kollwitz, which mourned her son, who had died in World War I after only a few weeks. Today a place of mourning for all victims of war and terror, so often statesman-like wreaths here, especially after the Memorial Day in November

Kronprinzenpalais (Pass By)

This building and the neighboring Kronprinzessinnenpalais are often overlooked - when all the giant objects on Unter den Linden are named, they quickly go under. In fact, their most important purpose was the one that is already hidden in the name: not only were crown princes and princesses born here, but they also grew up here and often gave birth to them themselves. The two palaces are connected by a corridor. Since the KronPrinzessinnenpalais is so close to the State Opera, it was often used as an opera cafe, and is currently being used as an exhibition location. The Crown Prince's Palace is still used by the administration for the reconstruction of the City Palace / Humboldt Forum

Deutsches Historisches Museum (Pass By)

Stop or drive past depending on your interests The German Historical Museum is located in the former armory. According to tradition, this contains the “toy” for men in the event of war, ie war equipment. Also the enemy's captured. As a result, a war weapons museum developed here, and in the GDR times a military history museum. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the decision was made to set up a central museum of German history after the groundbreaking had already taken place where the Chancellor's Office is today. Then the story came in between ... The house itself was renovated after the turn of the wall, and especially the frescoes outside and also in the courtyard of the building make many shiver, because they are replica dead masks of dying warriors. Andreas Schlueter, who is the builder of the baroque Berlin palace, drew here as a sculptor

Stadtschloss Berlin

Rebuilt as the Humboldt Forum, opening 2021-22. Depending on your interests, stop or drive past For decades there was simply nothing here, a large parking lot, sometimes used for merrymaking and hype. For centuries, the Berlin Palace of the Berlin Electors, later kings, later emperors stood here. Burned out during the war and not extinguished, its silhouette was still unbroken and was partly used inside after the war, for example for exhibitions on how Berlin should continue after the war. Nevertheless, the East Berlin gentlemen let it blow up for months, despite all the criticism from home and abroad, because it represented an icon of North German Baroque. Photographically documented in detail before the blasting, it now allows an externally exact reconstruction. The inner courtyard of the Schlueter was also reconstructed true to detail. A highlight, usually at the end of my tours, is the fantastic view from the roof terrace.

25 minutes

Berliner Dom (Pass By)

Depending on your interests, a tour of the church, the burial place of the Hohenzollern and ascent to the dome If I have a favorite object in Berlin, it is probably because Berlin Cathedral precisely because it does not represent the absolute beauty in its current form, precisely because it pretends to be much older than it is (namely only about 115 years and thus only 64 years younger than the television tower) and precisely because, despite its external bread, it hides so much different beauty inside - from the dome to the strength. This brings together a lot of things that seem symptomatic of Berlin: a not too long story, actually compressed to a few decades. Coupled with a lot of destruction, but also with a lot of will to rebuild, which stretched over decades like here. And yet today it shines almost in old splendor again - even if, as already mentioned, it is actually not that old

Museum Island (Pass By)

The Museum Island is actually just a peninsula of the multiple-named island in the Spree River, on this northern part there are five world-famous museums protected by UNESCO. It is a collection from the 1800s and 30s as a man for the paintings of the Berlin Palace to see a new one and also to be visited by the public as it was looking for a location and realized it in a temple-like building, the old museum. A little later an extension was needed, and so the new museum was created, which today mainly houses early historical art and that of ancient Egypt, including the world-famous Nefertiti. For the newly added paintings, a picture gallery was needed, again designed as a temple of the Acropolis: the old National Gallery. Finally, the sculptures also got their special place on the northern tip, the Bodemuseum. And last but not least, a museum for architecture alone: the Pergamon Museum

Hackescher Markt

Historic S-Bahn station and Hackesche Höfe. This is another favorite place on my downtown tours. If you have just got to know the pompous Berlin with its pomp and show buildings (those who have already passed out on foot on the R have already passed out), you are all the more amazed at the suddenly small-scale, almost small-town Berlin around the Hackesche Höfe. Here you can actually admire a piece of old Berlin, even if it is not that old. Based on the age of the city, almost 800 years, we can only look back to the 19th century. The older Berlin, around Nikolaiviertel and the red town hall were completely destroyed in the war or torn down afterwards. Yes, an ensemble has been preserved, used more poorly than warehouses in the GDR era, and restored after the reunification as residential and commercial buildings. And, as is historically customary, living and working go hand in hand here, here you will find studios and factories

10 minutes

Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin - Centrum Judaicum (Pass By)

Extended tour of the large Hamburger Straße (Straße der Toleranz) with Sophienkirche, Jewish cemetery, Catholic hospital possible In this small area, the former Spandau suburb (because it was on the way to Spandau) there was Jewish life - but not only. It was far from being a ghetto, as there are also the Protestant so many congregations with their old churchyard and the still shattered facades of the KüsterHaus, as well as the Catholic hospital. And one of the oldest Jewish burials was next to it, here you can find members of the Mendelssohn family. The old synagogue, just a stone's throw away, was to be replaced by a new building in the 1860s that connected to the new self-confidence of the Jewish community. Completed in a Moorish style, with a golden dome - only the 3000-member hall was a victim of the bombs

Alexanderplatz (Pass By)

With television tower, house of tourism, house of statistics, house of the teacher, house of electrical engineering, world clock Depending on your interests, drive past or stop Everyone talks about Alexanderplatz today - it would also be strange to speak of Ochsenplatz, even if this was the original name, probably because one was dealing with just that here. Already located outside the oldest city walls, it was an eastern extension with the Marienkirche. The origin of the square can actually be found where the forecourt in front of the Galleria Kaufhof is today. In the GDR era, people wanted a socialist redesign in the sense of a Russian prospect: with plenty of space for everyone, ideally including tanks and other animal species, surrounded by modern buildings that somehow stood for the modernity of socialism, from the house of tourism to through the house of electrical engineering to the house of the teacher

Rotes Rathaus (Pass By)

Depending on your interests, drive past or stop The Red City Hall is not named after the governing mayor's party book; in Berlin it is something like the prime minister in other countries. But of course after the red bricks. During East Berlin times, the East Berlin magistrate also sat here (by the way with a mayor, as was common in all of Berlin until 7:45 p.m.) and the governor of West Berlin sat in the Schöneberg town hall. Incidentally, built in the new Gothic style, you can also visit it for free, at least some interesting rooms, including a room with lots of plaster casts of well-known statues. Built in the 1870s, it soon became too small, so the so-called town house was built diagonally behind it, with a towering dome. The oldest town hall in Berlin was not far from here on the then so-called long bridge, today's town hall bridge in the middle as a connection between two cities

Nikolaiviertel (Pass By)

Tour recommended! With Nikolai church, garlic house and many more Here you can experience old Berlin! At least the backdrops are right, because that was exactly the intention of the declared reconstruction in the 1980s (i.e. still in GDR times), when in truth there were only three houses here and only the walls of the Nikolaikirche peaked without the roof and tower. In addition, 2,000 apartments were to be accommodated on this tiny arial, and that was The Architect. We approach from the outside in Berlin of typical height and zoom into an increasingly older, almost baroque Berlin. With the end point of Nikolai Church, the oldest in Berlin, today a city museum. In close proximity is the original garlic house, which is furnished in the most beautiful Biedermeier style, and the family life of a cloth maker family is free. In addition, typical Berlin restaurants with a view of the Spree, in the middle of St. Georg, as he kills the dragon

N/A (Pass By)

With a view of the lock The oldest crossing of Berlin was created here, in fact two Berlins on one leads through the Spree, where you could cross the river. That is why a settlement for fishermen called Cologne, with C whether they were emigrants from the Rhineland, was still unknown here. The traders then resided on the eastern side, which is why Saint Nicholas dedicated to the church. On the Cologne side according to Sankt Petri. This fart was not a bridge for a long time, but in fact the river was dammed here and the water diverted via channels, of which there were many. Conveniently there were mills on the bridge, driven by the river water, one could then achieve an added value for the grain. It wasn't until much later in the 19th century that a small lock was built here, which, however, was located in a bend in the river and was rather impractical. So in the 1930s the whole thing was torn down in favor of the modern double chamber lock

Hausvogteiplatz (Pass By)

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, former Reichsbank, rebuilt residential areas at HausVogteiPlatz, former Jewish clothing district A hidden and much too often overlooked place, tidied up again after the fall with surrounding restored or very well-felt houses. Named after all of a very old Vogtei facility (Vulgo prison), the place developed in the 19th century as a hoard of Jewish clothing tailoring because you were forbidden to do tailor-made work at punishment, you know about the previously unknown clothing goods and of course will soon make everyone tailor powerful competition. Even today, a few mirrors as art objects remind of this past. All around we see modern living in old Berlin, in small slice houses (Vulgo row houses), which are all designed differently by our own architects and therefore go through as mini city palaces, because you should already have a corresponding money cushion

The Holocaust Memorial - Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Pass By)

A walk through the 2711 steles is recommended The must for a Berlin City visit who is also interested in recent history. Here on the central mile between the Brandenburg Gate and Potsdamer Platz (roughly including the Wall and the death strip), through the ministerial gardens (the ministries were all on the front facing Wilhelm Strasse, which corresponds to Downing Street in London, so to speak) in close proximity to the Reichstag a large field of stelae. Designed by the American architect Peter Eisenmann, it initially confuses the viewer. Only a visit through the stelae illustrates what is meant: the great insecurity and confusion of the Jewish population in Nazi Germany. What's next? Do I have to emigrate? If so, what can I take with me (defacto: nothing)? I have a recruitment order here, where is the trip going? (To the extermination camp). There is more information in the basement

Potsdam Paradise Garden (Pass By)

Here was a desolate wasteland when the wall was still standing. It was hard to imagine that Europe's busiest traffic once raged here in the Roaring 20s. The war destroyed 80 percent of the buildings, the rest were later demolished to make room for an inhumanly wide 80 meter death strip. The development by Sony and Mercedes, then called Daimler Chrysler, created a quarter with entertainment such as the Berlinale Palace, the Film Museum, the Lego Museum and many cafés and bars, as well as for restaurants and, of course, shopping. Offices such as for railway management and apartments in the upper segment complete the picture.