The Berlin Wall: A Walking Tour Along the Former Death Strip

(140 reviews)

Berlin audio tour: The Berlin Wall: A Walking Tour Along the Former Death Strip

This is a 1.5mi walking tour

It takes an average of 75 mins to complete.

Berlin

Germany

$11.99

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About the Tour

There is no stronger symbol for the Cold War than the Berlin Wall. On this walking tour, I’ll transport you back to a time when the Wall divided the city into East and West. It was also a symbol of freedom for those who schemed to overcome it. You’ll trace a small segment of the 155km wall’s foundations and hear how it changed the city for almost 30 years.

Starting in Potsdamer Platz (Potsdam Square), where a few pieces of the Wall remain, you’ll find out how this area was completely rebuilt after German unification. It’s hard to imagine that it was once a no-man’s land, and possibly the largest wasteland that ever existed in the middle of a metropolitan city. From there, I’ll show you the Sony Center, the Hardenberg-Denkmal (the Prussian Parliament building), the Martin-Gropius-Bau Museum, and Topography of Terror, as you wind your way to Checkpoint Charlie. Along the way, you’ll see remains of different historical eras right next to each other and catch glimpses of Prussian glory, Nazi terror, Communist oppression and post-unification revival – all in the small area we’ll cover today. And you’ll hear stories of successful attempts to flee over the Wall into the West, as well as some tragic failures.

On this tour, you’ll have a chance to:

See the only surviving watch tower of the early ‘60s, the DDR Watch Tower
Photograph structures with war damage that still haven’t been repaired to this day
Find out how Berlin’s Historic Traffic Light, the first in Continental Europe, was operated
Learn why the small East German “trabi” car was so popular
Walk past the building where Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich and Hermann Göring had their offices
Discover why the summer of 1989 was the beginning of the end of East Germany
Hear about the night the Wall finally fell

So have your camera ready, and come on a tour that will take you through the best and the worst of the 20th century.

Music

Anamalie

Inexorable

Amazing Plan - Distressed

by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.

Tour Producer

Jo Eckardt

59 tours

My name is Jo Eckardt. I studied literature, history, and social work - in Cologne and then in New York where I lived from 1984 to 2001. In 2001 I returned to Germany, settling in Berlin, my favorite city!

A few years later I started my own touring company called A Friend in Berlin (www.afriendinberlin.de). There is so much to see and experience in Berlin: some obvious highlights and landmarks, reminders of Berlin's complicated past, but also lots of surprises such as the many parks and canals, beer gardens, and amazing restaurants at reasonable prices.

When I don't tour the city, I travel in Germany and discover new places. Some of them I have shared with you on different VoiceMap-tours, check out all my tours! I also write books, mostly in German, but some are in English too (under the name Jo Thun).

Preview Location

Location 17

Former Aviation Ministry

Stop here please.

If you look from the Topography of Terror across over the remains of the Berlin Wall on your left, you'll see a huge building on the other side of the street. In fact, with more than 2,000 offices, it was the largest office building in the world when it w... Stop here please.

If you look from the Topography of Terror across over the remains of the Berlin Wall on your left, you'll see a huge building on the other side of the street. In fact, with more than 2,000 offices, it was the largest office building in the world when it was built in the 1930s. It's one of three major Nazi buildings remaining in Berlin today. The other two, by the way, are the Olympic Stadium and Tempelhof Airport. This one used to be the Aviation Ministry, which was run by Hermann Goering. So where you're standing Himmler and Heydrich had their offices, and Goering was over there on the other side.

Today, this monumental building is the German Finance Ministry. The main entrance is on Wilhelmstraße. You may recognize it from Tom Cruise's movie Walkyrie, shot in 2008, about the attempt by Graf Stauffenberg to assassinate Hitler in 1944. When they shot the movie, on a Saturday, so not on a work day, they decorated it all over with Nazi flags and Swastikas. That must have been a strange sight for those who passed by and didn’t know a movie was being done.

Another strange sight was to be seen here shortly after the Wall was built. Imagine this scene around 10 pm, on a summer night in 1965. What’s today the Finance Ministry of Germany was then the House of Ministries of East Germany. A man, Heinz Holzapfel, had planned his escape for two years. On this night, he took his wife and his 9-year-old son into the building during the day and hid in a bathroom until everybody was gone. Then he got out and accessed the roof. He had brought a hammer tied to a rope. He threw the hammer over the Wall which, as you can see, is not really that far. Relatives of his who were already in the West were waiting, caught the hammer, and attached a stronger steel rope onto the thin rope he had thrown. Heinz Holzhammer pulled this back and attached the steel rope to a flag post. His relatives used a truck to pull the rope tight, so that the family could, one after another, let themselves slide down the rope. They landed pretty much where you're standing now. The boy went first, then his mother. The father took more than one hour to make it because the rope was hanging too low and he had to reposition it. The funny thing was that the whole time Soviet guards were watching them, but did not interfere. Not because they wanted to help but because this happening on the roof of the House of Ministries, they thought these people had to have an official reason for their actions. The family made their escape and settled in Munich afterwards.

You can now leave the Topography of Terror through the gate and cross over Wilhelmstraße in front of you. Niederkirchnerstraße, the street you were on, changed its name and is now called Zimmerstraße. Read More

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Major Landmarks

Teil der Berliner Mauer
Potsdamer Platz
The Ritz-Carlton
Lindenbräu am Potsdamer Platz
Das Center am Potsdamer Platz
Boulevard der Stars
Kollhoff Tower
Historic Traffic Light
DDR Watch Tower
Hardenberg-Denkmal
Abgeordnetenhaus Berlin
Martin-Gropius-Bau
Topography of Terror
Geschichtsmeile Wilhelmstraße
Checkpoint Charlie
Peter Fechter - Monument
The Axel Springer Skyscraper
Berlin Wall Remains

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Getting There

Route Overview

VoiceMap tours follow a route from a set starting point. It’s how we give turn-by-turn directions and tell a story greater than the sum of its parts.

Start location
Potsdamer Platz, 10785 Berlin, Germany
Total distance

2km
Final location
Axel-Springer-Straße, 10 Berlin, Germany
Distance back to start location

1km

Directions to Starting Point

The tour begins at Potsdam Square. You can get there by subway, S-Bahn or bus. Once on Potsdam Square, look for the Ritz Carlton Hotel, or the tall glass building where the DB, the German Rail, has their headquarters. In between the two is a giant glass cube which is the entrance to the train station underneath. Right next to it you'll find a few pieces of the Berlin Wall. That's where we'll start. Look at the picture to make sure you're in the right spot.

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Tips

Places to stop along the way

If you're looking for a snack, the food courts of the Berlin Mall and the Potsdam Square Arkaden are nearby, as well as lots of cafés and restaurants around Checkpoint Charlie. You can visit several interesting places along the way, thus extending the tour by a couple of hours. Some possibilities: the Panorama Point on top of the Kollhoff building (fee), the Documentation Center of the Topography of Terror and/or its open air exhibition (both are free), the Panorama at Checkpoint Charlie or the Mauer Museum (both charge a fee).

Best time of day

Anytime. Between November and New Year there is a very busy Christmas Market but you'll still be able to find your way in between the various booths and candy stands.

Precautions

As always in Berlin, please be aware of the bicycle-paths! Don't walk there or you'll get yelled at, at best.

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