gdr

The first ever Ampelmann Shop is located in the fifth courtyard of the Hackesche Höfe, opened in 2001 by Markus Heckhausen, who initially assembled the lamps himself. Over 600 products revolve around the figure that Karl Peglau designed for East Berlin traffic lights in 1961. Eastalgia in Berlin thus has an address where it has become a brand.

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 DDR Speisegaststätte Pionierlager on Prenzlauer Allee is a restaurant and private GDR collection in one. Fifty seats are arranged between display cases full of everyday objects from forty years of East Germany. The menu features Jägerschnitzel made from Jagdwurst, Soljanka, and Grilletta. Here, Ostalgia in Berlin means eating the GDR instead of just looking at it.

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.

Bäckerei & Konditorei M. Biesewski in Pasteurstraße in Bötzowkiez bakes in its own in-house bakery, without preservatives and with nine employees. It is famous for its Old Berlin Schrippen, which are as small and compact as in GDR times. If you want to taste rather than visit Ostalgie in Berlin, you queue up here in the morning.

The Palace of Tears in Berlin-Mitte is the former departure hall from the GDR to the West.

Gaststätte W. Prassnik on Torstraße in Mitte claims to be a replica of an HO Gaststätte, a state-run GDR establishment. They serve home-brewed Prassnik beer in a light and a dark variety. Reservations are not possible. For Ostalgie in Berlin, this is the most unassuming address in the city.

Café Sibylle at Karl-Marx-Allee 72 opened in October 1953 as a milk bar and was later named after the GDR women's magazine Sibylle. Besides coffee and cake, it hosts a free permanent exhibition on post-war modernism in East and West. The most famous exhibit is an ear from the Stalin Monument, which stood on the avenue until 1961.

On the evening of November 9, 1989, the Bösebrücke on Bornholmer Straße was the first border crossing to open, hours before other barriers went up elsewhere. The steel bridge, opened in 1916, still stands today, and at the eastern bridgehead, the Square of November 9, 1989, with metal reliefs and a section of the forefield wall, commemorates that night.

The Gethsemane Church on Stargarder Straße was consecrated in 1893 in the presence of the imperial couple and was the center of the East Berlin opposition movement in autumn 1989. Candles burned outside its gates, and thousands kept vigil inside under the motto 'Watch and pray.' This is where the Peaceful Revolution in Berlin began.