Alexanderplatz

World Clock, TV Tower and a Car Tunnel

Alexanderplatz is located in the center of Mitte and is one of the best-connected places in the city: S-Bahn, U2, U5 and U8 lines, regional trains, and several tram lines converge here. Around it stand the World Clock, the TV Tower, the House of the Teacher, and the panel buildings of late GDR modernism, along with department stores and the notorious construction activity. For productions, this is a film set with two faces: above, the open square with the TV Tower in the background, below, the tunnels and platforms that can be cordoned off and illuminated. Filming takes place here regularly, also because the area is large enough to set up barriers without bringing all traffic to a standstill. If you want to orient yourself, it’s best to start at the World Clock, the classic meeting point. The square has borne its name since the visit of Russian Tsar Alexander in 1805, but only got its current form in the 1960s when the GDR redesigned it as a socialist center. This break between naming history and post-war architecture is still visible today.

From Good Bye Lenin to Babylon Berlin

The list of productions is correspondingly long. In Good Bye Lenin, Daniel Brühl had banknotes rain down from a panel building on Alexanderplatz, Jodie Foster filmed her thriller Flightplan at the subway station, and a chase scene for The Bourne Ultimatum was created in the car tunnel under the square. The World Clock already appears in The Bourne Conspiracy. The series Babylon Berlin also uses the square, but with the trick of largely fading out the present-day image and superimposing the 1920s. And above all stands Alfred Döblin’s novel, whose title made the place a literary film set long before a camera stood here. The material has also been filmed multiple times, most recently in a version that only needs the square as an idea. Those interested in the filming locations will find most of them within walking distance: TV Tower, World Clock, the tunnel under Grunerstraße, and the platforms are all within a few hundred meters, and a short hour is enough for a tour.