36 Locations
The Berlin Wall divided the city for nearly three decades, and its traces are among Berlin's most powerful sights. From the East Side Gallery to the Memorial on Bernauer Straße, the berlin wall tells the story of division, escape and reunification.
This overview gathers Berlin locations connected to the berlin wall, from preserved segments and watchtowers to museums and documentation centres. Some focus on the history of the border, others on the art and memory that surround it today.
Browse the places below to explore the best Berlin Wall sites in Berlin, compare exhibitions and opening hours, and plan your visit.
On Bernauer Strasse, the border ran straight through a row of houses, from whose windows people jumped into West Berlin. Today, the Berlin Wall Memorial stretches over 4.4 hectares and 1.4 kilometers, featuring the only section of border fortifications preserved in full depth. The Window of Remembrance names the 132 civilian victims.
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.
On Bernauer Strasse, the Berlin Wall Memorial stretches over 1.4 kilometers of former border strip. Between two steel walls, 70 meters of the original border installations with a hinterland wall, watchtower, and death strip are preserved. For German-German history in Berlin, this is the place where the division becomes physically comprehensible.
At Friedrichstraße station, the Tränenpalast (Palace of Tears) stands as the former departure hall of the border crossing point, built in 1962 directly after the construction of the Berlin Wall. Spanning 550 square meters, the permanent exhibition showcases over 550 objects, including an original passport control booth. For German-German history in Berlin, this is the ultimate place of farewells.
At the corner of Friedrichstrasse and Zimmerstrasse, there is now a reconstructed checkpoint booth, the sector sign, and the illuminated display with the two soldier portraits, along with an open-air exhibition. Around four million people visit each year, and from 2030 onwards, the square is to be redesigned with a pavilion and an observation deck.
Where the death strip once divided the city, today stands the power center of reunited Germany. The Berlin Government District in Mitte is not a museum district, but living history: the Reichstag, the 'Band des Bundes' (Federal Ribbon), and silent memorials tell stories of division, unity, and democracy in a confined space.
The Seaside - The Fish Restaurant is located in Berlin-Mitte on Gendarmenmarkt and convinces fish fans and gourmet lovers with its wide range of fish and seafood.
Where American and Soviet tanks faced each other in 1961, stands the Wall Museum at Checkpoint Charlie, founded in 1963 by Rainer Hildebrandt. On approximately 2,000 square meters, you'll find escape cars, hollowed-out surfboards, a hot air balloon, and a self-built mini-submarine. Hardly any Berlin Wall site displays so many original escape objects.
Between Ostbahnhof and Oberbaumbrücke, the East Side Gallery stands as the longest preserved section of the Berlin Wall: 1.3 kilometers painted by 118 artists from 21 countries in the spring of 1990. Berlin has included the gallery in its list of monuments since November 1991. Among the Berlin Wall sites, it is the most colorful.
The Berlin Wall Trail is Berlin's most famous cycling tour: 160 kilometers on the former border strip, divided into 14 stages, all starting and ending at train stations. Over 40 information stations along the way tell the story of the division. It is not a fully developed cycle path; the surface alternates between asphalt, cobblestones, and forest floor.
The Wall Museum East Side Gallery is located in the old mill granary at the Oberbaum Bridge, i.e., in the former death strip. In 13 rooms, over 100 screens, original wall segments, and interviews with contemporary witnesses recount the years from 1945 to 1990. Those looking for 'Ostalgie' in Berlin will find a counter-narrative here: the GDR from the perspective of those who wanted to leave.
Friedrichhain's East Side Gallery is with its 1.361 metres the longest open air gallery in the world and at the same time the longest piece of the Berlin Wall still standing!
At Checkpoint Charlie, the asisi Panorama The Wall shows everyday life in divided Berlin in the 1980s across 900 square meters. From a four-meter-high platform, visitors look over the death strip to East Berlin, in a 1:1 scale, amidst dilapidated houses, punks, and border guards. German-German history is not explained here, but shown.
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Stretching for 1.3 kilometers along Mühlenstraße in Friedrichshain, the East Side Gallery is the longest preserved section of the Berlin Wall and at the same time the world's longest open-air gallery. 118 artists from 21 countries painted it with over a hundred works in the summer of 1990. Admission is free.
The Berlin Wall Memorial is the central place of the German division and is in the historical site of Bernauer Strasse.
Behind a green door in Gesundbrunnen U-Bahn station, a world of air-raid shelters, tunnels, and old cellars begins. The Berliner Unterwelten association has been leading tours through these facilities since the late 1990s, recounting Berlin's history from World War II to the Cold War.
The large Panorama wall of the artist Yadegar Asisi visualizes the daily life next to the Berlin wall on a fictitious autumn day in the 1980s.
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.
The Wall Museum East Side Gallery is located directly in the Mühlenspeicher (mill warehouse) on the Spree and offers a deep insight into the history of German division. With over 100 screens and exciting interviews, this exhibition tells the events from 1961 until the fall of the Berlin Wall in a modern way.
At Friedrichstraße station, there is a glass and steel pavilion that served as the departure hall at the border between East and West Berlin during GDR times. Today, the Tränenpalast (Palace of Tears) houses a permanent exhibition about everyday life in divided Germany, with free admission.
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.
The fast-paced Berlin Musical "Hinterm Horizont" at the Stage Theater on Potsdamer Platz tells with 20 legendary songs by Udo Lindenberg a love story between East and West in the times of the Berlin Wall and barbed wire.
The city tour City Circle PURPLE Tour in a yellow doubledecker bus traces the former Berlin Wall and takes you to the trendy Berlin of today.
Directly opposite Berlin's longest preserved section of the Wall, in the heart of Friedrichshain: The MEININGER Hotel East Side Gallery sleeps at mural-level, everything from Berghain to Oberbaumbrücke is on your doorstep, and the interior cleverly plays with the heritage of a divided city.
The Berlin Wall Trail follows the former border strip around West Berlin for about 160 kilometers, along the patrol road of the GDR border troops and the old customs path. Fourteen sections, between 7 and 21 kilometers long, each begin and end at a train station. Ostalgia takes on a different color here, because on this route, the GDR is not a backdrop, but topography.