Women of Berlin: A Scheunenviertel Walking Tour

Berlin's history is often told through the voices of kings, generals, and conquerors. On this walking tour, you'll hear a different version – one shaped by Jewish intellectuals, medical pioneers, political revolutionaries, social reformers, and the women who helped rebuild the city from rubble. You'll also discover how their stories are written into the streets, courtyards, and plaques of Mitte.

The tour starts at Kamps Bäckerei near Hackescher Markt, steps from Henriette-Herz-Platz, named after the Jewish intellectual who turned her living room into Berlin's first literary salon, where poets debated aristocrats and ideas mattered more than titles. From there, you'll walk through the Scheunenviertel – the old Barn Quarter – tracing the neighborhood's layered history as a center of Jewish life, and the devastating transformation it underwent under Nazi rule. You'll pass through a Hinterhof courtyard, typical of Berlin's densely packed working-class architecture, and hear how these hidden backyard spaces shaped everyday life for generations.

The tour moves through Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, where you'll learn about the revolutionary thinker who co-founded the Communist Party and was murdered by paramilitaries in 1919, and along Linienstraße, where feminist collectives and artists carved out space in abandoned buildings after the Wall fell. The tour ends at Curry 61, where you'll hear the story of Herta Heuwer, the woman who invented the Currywurst on a rainy night in 1949 and sparked one of Germany's most enduring culinary traditions.

On this 120-minute tour, you'll have a chance to:

• Step into Berlin's hidden history and discover the extraordinary women whose stories rarely appear in guidebooks.
• Explore Berlin's Jewish heritage through historic courtyards, memorials, the New Synagogue, old Jewish cemetery and the former Jewish Girls' School.
• Learn how women transformed Berlin through science, politics, religion, social reform, resistance, and art.
• Visit iconic landmarks including Hackescher Markt, Rosenstraße Memorial, Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Koppenplatz, Heckmann Höfe, the New Synagogue, and Sophienkirche.
• Stand where history happened, from the Rosenstraße Protest to the birthplace of Germany's first women's medical practice.
• Finish like a Berliner by hearing the story behind the city's iconic Currywurst

This tour won't let you look at Berlin the same way again.