Last updated on 10/15/2026
Ellen Mehrhoff-Roddewig
For this list I looked for the places where history comes alive for pupils and does not just sit in a textbook. What mattered to me was active participation, offers designed specifically for groups and a good mix of serious topics and fun. That way the school trip stays memorable, without anyone standing around bored for half the time.
The puzzle tour starts in Weinbergspark at Rosenthaler Platz and ends after eleven stations at the Berlin Wall Memorial. It tells the story of the escape attempt of the GDR art dealer Siegfried Kath, and was developed with a historian and a history teacher. As a school trip activity in Berlin, it takes two hours and one smartphone per team.
The Deutschlandmuseum on Leipziger Platz in Berlin-Mitte showcases 2,000 years of German history across twelve walk-through epoch rooms, from the Battle of Teutoburg Forest to reunification. Life-size sets, ambient sounds, and smells replace traditional text panels. For school trips in Berlin, this is a weather-independent destination with a tour lasting approximately 60 minutes.
Four hours, divided into a street art tour, preparing the wall, and two hours with the spray can: At mygraffitiworkshop, school classes first design their motif on paper and then spray their school name or class motto onto a real wall. Guidance is provided by Berlin writers. For a school trip to Berlin, this is the activity with the greatest creative component.
Beneath Gesundbrunnen station lies an air-raid shelter with almost fifty rooms on three floors, rediscovered by Berliner Unterwelten e.V. only in 1998. Today, the association manages fourteen such sites and guides groups through them in ninety minutes. For a class trip to Berlin, this means: contemporary history without display cases, but with sturdy footwear.
In the building on Karl-Liebknecht-Straße, rooms tilt, mirrors multiply half the class, and a photo mosaic from a distance reveals Albert Einstein. Between the illusions, the focus is on plastic waste, overfishing, and climate change. For a class trip to Berlin, Illuseum Berlin is the stop where photos are taken first, and then discussions follow.
Around 2,700 concrete stelae stand on 19,000 square meters; beneath them, on 800 square meters, lies the Place of Information with the Rooms of Dimensions, Families, Names, and Places. Admission and access to the field of stelae are free. For a class trip to Berlin, this is the place where a number transforms into individual biographies.
Between Hackescher Markt and Oranienburger Strasse, Art Nouveau courtyards from 1905, the New Synagogue from 1866, the Old Jewish Cemetery, and the Otto Weidt Workshop for the Blind Museum are located within a few hundred meters, with 'Stolpersteine' (stumbling blocks) everywhere. A school trip in Berlin can fill a morning here without a single ticket.
Foundation stone 1884, proclamation of the Republic 1918, fire 1933, rebuilt by Norman Foster until 1999: hardly any building tells German history as densely as the Reichstag Building. In the dome, 360 mirrors direct daylight into the plenary hall. For school classes in Berlin, lectures, dome visits and the simulation game are free but need registration.
From 1933 to 1945 the Gestapo, the SS leadership and the Reich Security Main Office sat on this site at Niederkirchnerstrasse. Today there are excavated cellars, a site tour with fifteen stations and around 200 metres of the Berlin Wall. Admission and guided tours are free for school classes. For a school trip to Berlin, this is the view from the perpetrators’ side.
368 metres high, opened on 3 October 1969, the observation deck at 203 metres reachable by lift in under forty seconds. One floor up, the restaurant turns once every half hour. For a school trip to Berlin, the Berlin TV Tower is the fastest way to show a class the whole city at once, from the Spree to the edge of town.
