Ten Top WW2 & Cold War Historical Sites of Berlin 

Surprised you didn’t mention the Friedrichstrasse station’s Hall of Tears. A great museum talking about the separation of families and the grip of the Stasi on ordinary people in the DDR. Much better (less touristy) than Checkpoint Charlie. I would also recommend the DDR museum near the Cathedral for even more info on life in East Germany.

Another great museum is the Stasi Museum located in the former Stasi headquarters building. I visited Berlin in 1987 by train from the Netherlands and visited again in 2017 and 2019, this time by car. I saw both divided and unified Berlin. I must say my first visit by train was surreal, dealing with East German border police in the train crossing thru East Germany, which in my view looked like it was just after WWII, dark, dirty, all cobble stone roads and lots of still operating steam locomotives. Absolutely no money spend on infra structure for over 40 years. Thanks for all your videos!

As I said before, and as an American soldier stationed in Germany in the late 80s, I truly appreciate your videos. This is exactly what I have been looking for: the history of Berlin as seen thru the eyes of an Allied soldier. Your videos are very high-quality and well done. They should be shown for educational purposes in schools. I would love to have a bier with you some day.

This is almost exactly what I spent my time doing in Berlin. I'd also suggest the Stasi museum on Normannenstraße and Teufelsberg. Checkpoint Charlie is a tourist trap, but walking along Friedrichsstrasse over the area of the tank standoff and past a border marker is cool but to be honest - the Stasi museum is so much more rewarding.

Great video! I lived in Germany in the late 1980s as a child and hope to revisit in the next couple years. I got to experience the Fall of the Berlin Wall in person...an experience I'll never forget! My family lived near Giessen and we just happened to be visiting Berlin when the Wall fell on Nov. 9th 1989, a very lucky coincidence. My Father had a camcorder at the time and recorded our experience!

Nice job, and content. I too spent 7 years in Berlin as a young student, studying the German language. I went over to East Berlin with my British passport a number of times. I was in awe each time. Walking through the deserted huge boulevards, with mostly DDR soldiers marching on them. Shops were mostly closed or empty. I met an East German girl and use to travel to meet her every weekend. I had to stop as it was way to serious as we had even tried to find ways to get her to the West Berlin side! very nostalgic times full of memories. I have visited those areas after the wall fell. Never heard from that beautiful young girl again

This is a fantastic historical video. This year will be my 12th visit to my favourite city. I thought I knew most things about Berlin, but you've opened my eyes to more than I imagined. Danke schön.

A little trivia for you. I told you in another video I spent my high school years as a teenager in West Berlin where my father was stationed at Tempelhof. The WanSee Conference Center used to be during the Cold War the U.S. Forces Recreation Center WanSee. We actually had our class graduation party there before graduating in the Olympic Stadium in 1985. It’s nice to see it repurposed to preserve the cold history that was planned there. Thanks again for your videos!

I love Berlin, visited twice in recent years, and it's my favourite city in the world. I've been to NYC, Washington DC, Philadelphia, but they pale next to the history and heart of Berlin.

I looked up the place of the Führerbunker in spring of 2005 when in Berlin and one local was appalled when they learned what we were looking for. I told them that I look it for the end of that chapter. It's where ww2 ended for Europe. I think history needs to be remembered, so we don't have to go it through again to find the failings.

I am also obsessed with this era of the history. I love your recommendations and the great research behind all of them. In case one spends a lot of time in Berlin and still wants to see more of the nazi and communist era I’d like to add these to your great list: Nazi memorials: 1. Mythos Germania Musem. Before visiting the nazi sights, it is worth to see this underground museum, which contains the plans of Hitler on how Berlin would look like, had he won the war. 2. Flakturm Berlin, nazi tower, can be seen the interiour with an organised tour. It was built when Hitler completely lost the touch with reality, after the war it took several attempts and tons of TNT to be able to destroy the half of it. The other half can be visited with an organised tour. 3. Memorial SA prison Papestraße (not well known, I was literally alone in there for hours) 4. Heavy Load-Bearing Body. Part of an gigantic triumphal arch, planned by Hitler for himself. 5. beside this all the tours from Unterwelt Berlin company. they hold permit to enter several areas of the underground Berlin, all the tours are amazing. Communist memorials: 1. STASI headquaters (English tour can be booked) 2. Alltag in der DDR Museum (not to be confused with the the DDR Museum) 3. Hall of Tears (one of the most touching places in Berlin for someone like me, who lived in the cold war era, in a communist country) 4. Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial, a communist prison. It is is almost all the movies about the DDR I have seen. 5. Erinnerungsstätte Notaufnahmelager Marienfelde, Refugee-center for the former DDR citizens, who wanted to fled DDR before the wall came down.

Was für ein Dokumentarfilm! As a present day Berliner, thanks so much for the informative vid complete with such rich detail.

It is an absolute pleasure to experience your loving view on Berlin and the German side of things.

Berlin is my favorite city too. I was fortunate having experienced Berlin before the Wall came down. I love coming back, as often as I can. Absolutely loved your video, you give very good background info on the sites you presented. You could probably make 10 more videos and still just scrape the surface.

Excellent Documentary regarding Germany's very dramatic post-war and modern history. Essential Viewing

Being stationed there in Berlin from 86-89.... I have seen many of those places in stood in those spots..... He failed to mention that the big giant TV tower was also known as "Popes Revenge" because when the sunshine going it it made a cross..... The restaurant he referred to was commonly known as "The Moscow House"... They have wonderful food and us Americans would slip the maitre d a 20 East Mark Bill and he would let us go to the front of the line... Checkpoint Charlie was also the last point on our wall patrols..... I am totally surprised that he did not mention the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial or Spandau prison... Or perhaps even the largest of the Berlin airlift Tempelhof Air Force Base

The best Museum I visited, was Gedenkstätte Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, a Prison. Used by the Nazi's, the Soviets and Stasi. It was a secret prison, not even the neighbors knew it was a prison. Give it a visit, I am sure you won't regret it. I don't think Andy knows it, because it was secret. I was there in 2010, still some Berliners in the area didn't know.

I found The Topography of Terror (German: Topographie des Terrors), an outdoor and indoor history museum in cental Berlin to be very interesting and informative. Definitely worth a visit.

I highly advise people to visit the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial which contains the most important political prison of the former German Democratic Republic. What sets this memorial apart is the fact that former inmates of this prison lead visitor groups around the compound and through the buildings which have been preserved with its interiors. Often it sends chills down your spine throughout the tour when the former inmate would tell the group about his experiences and for example about the psychological interrogations.

Excellent video! Keep up the great work!

Happen to see your video about Germany yesterday and today. Great collection of photos, how they stored all these years. Just traveled 78 years back and toured all the great memories of WW II monuments. Salute to you.

Another great vid Andy.

Great stuff, enjoyed every minute of it. I notice some in the comments have said that you missed this and that but it's just a top 10, there is so much to see in Berlin that this is can only cover the tip of the iceberg. I went there in summer 1995 with some friends from Austria where I was living at the time, and got to see the Reichstag when it was covered in sheeting as a work of modern art, uplit from the bottom at night, it was only like that for a month or so. It was quite an experience as I was off my face on recreational drugs at the time.

This was very informative video. Thank You!!!

Actually Funkturm is actually usually applied to the older one at the Olympia Stadium site in the west. Actually the Alexanderplatz tower is called the Fernsehturm. I too spent much of my youth in Berlin and really can relate to your videos. Great job. Thanks.

I loved the video. I spent a semester in college in Flensburg, Germany and visited Berlin for the very first time May Day weekend 1986. It happened to be a week after the Chernobyl explosion. I happened to take a picture of graffiti on the wall that read, "As the walls of Jericho fell, so will these, for no barricade can silence the trumpets of freedom." Little did I realize how prophetic those would be 3 years later. I also got a 24 hour visa to visit East Berlin and went through Checkpoint Charlie. I remember having to exchange 25 West German Marks for 25 East German Marks and were told we needed to spend them all in the East. Was not a lot worth buying in the East, spent all of it on food. I remember how once you got off the main streets everything in the East was still dilapidated. I was back in Berlin in January 1990 just a few weeks after the fall of the wall. It was an amazing sight see. My last time in Berlin was in 2006 during the World Cup when I took a group of students on a tour of European capitals. I could not believe how much had changed in a mere 20 years. I hope to visit Berlin one more time in the future, such a great city.

The Allied checkpoints were for Allied personal only. West-Berliners and other Germans that wanted to see family and friends in the East had to use other control stations. Most famous was the S-Bahn station "Friedrichstraße", called "palace of tears". Until the collapse of the East you had to take the S-Bahn from the train station "Bahnhof Zoologischer Garten" in the West. The track ran across the wall and the journey ended in the station "Friedrichstraße". Here you had to show your documents and pay a fee per day that you would stay in East-Berlin. The glass-box of that border control station is kept as a museum. The nickname comes from the emotional scenes when East-Germans waved their friends or relatives good-bye there when their stay was over.

great historical coverage there mate.....I love reading or watching this sort of content and I think you do a bloody good job of it.

Berlin Notes on Speer Mansion I was fortunate (and honored) to serve as a Senior NCO in the US Army, stationed in the occupied city of West Berlin from 1981 to 1984. The Cold War was at its peak then, mostly as a clear confrontation between NATO (commercial west) and the Warsaw Pact (communist east). I was attached to the Military Intelligence (MI) Detachment as an interrogator tasked with interviewing defectors (Border Guard / Military) and refugees (civilians) from all of the various Pact countries. They were fleeing similar oppression with many vivid stories of their own. We had an almost constant flow during my time there. There was a US interrogation facility in the Zehlendorf area, a couple blocks over from Ubahn line 2. I think not far from the stop at Onkel Toms Hutte or Oskar Helene Heim. My memory on the location is a bit foggy these days. The facility consisted of a couple official US government buildings, primarily an admin facility and a low level operations building with rooms similar to a motel. There was also a large old warehouse offset from the operations buildings used for storage of various materials and equipment. All of the buildings were in very poor shape from decades of refugee traffic and the US Army wanted to level everything and build a new facility. The West Berlin government worked with the US Army Engineers to develop a plan for the area. There was a huge shock when they dug out the old blueprints to show everyone their projected plan. The old warehouse turned out to have been the private home of one the Speer family; might have been Krupp, but I think Speer. West Berlin government declared it to be a ‘gdenkmal’ and untouchable for destruction. West Berlin then spent almost 1 million dmarks to totally rebuild it to the original condition. The West Berlin government had a bit of a problem though as the building was technically still on property of the US government, Germans could not use it. They needed an official representative of the US government, yours truly, to make the sacrifice of living in that mansion for my last year in the city. War can really be heck sometimes! Regards

I’m planning to visit Berlin this Spring so thanks for the tips.

Can’t believe they never reversed the bunker decision. A very important part of the history of Berlin and it’s wartime role.

I visited Berlin as this was being filmed! it was right before the 2022 Berlin Marathon. A wonderful film. Thank you.

There are a few other sites which could be in an extended list if someone is interested in the Third Reich and Cold war history. Topographie des Terrors - at the location of the former Gestapo HQ Berliner Unterwelten - offers several tours into bunkers of different ages including the partially destroyed flak tower in Humboldthain and they also have an exhibition of Albert Speer's architecture plans for Berlin (Mythos Germania) Sowjet war memorial in Treptower Park - this is massive. STASI museum - explains everything about how the STASI (Ministry of state security, secret police) in the GDR worked, people were observed and dissidents imprisoned and interrogated, how a totalitarian state functions. The museum is in the former STASI HQ and some rooms are preserved in their original state in 1990.

10:07 I used to live in one of the buildings on the NW side of Frankfurter Tor facing south... just an FYI to anyone who moves in there - make sure to get a good fan during the summer as those flats get super hot with all day sunshine !!!

The abandoned Tempelhof Airport terminal and airfield is now a park and a glaring omission to this list. With it's Nazi architecture, eagle's head, and the Cold War association with the airlift it ticks all the boxes. Perhaps THE best thing to see in Berlin if you are into this stuff.

Fascinating. I visited about half of these places in 1981. Arrived in East Berlin via Friedrichstrasse S-Bahn.

As a non-German civilian you could also enter East-Berlin at Bahnhof Friedrichstrasse by metro or S-Bahn. It was then a bit unkown so it had the benefits of much shorter ques for the bordercontrol.

My uncle Sgt Maurice Kelly MM was in Berlin in 1945. He was given a tour of the Reich Chancellery and also the bunker. He saw Hitler's officer and his desk turned on its side and oddly bayonetted by Red Army soldiers. The floor was covered in documents and photographs. Nearby was a cupboard filled with military medals and rolls of medal ribbon. He saw the bunker and the room in which Hitler allegedly shot himself. He was also shown the pit where he had been burned and the empty petrol cans. The bunker was smaller than he thought it would be and the lights had failed in parts and temporary wiring was hanging about. Also there had been some sort of party at the end and empty alcohol bottles lay around.

Thank you for the brilliant overlay of the bunker then and now- i intend to visit Berlin, and especially this part of history. Thankx

Excellent production once more. However, the TV tower is not the Funkturm - that is in West Berlin and is a smaller, iron structure like a mini Eiffel Tower - it’s the “Fernsehturm”.

Fabulous stuff,Andy.When I get 💯 % fit again I’m going back to Berlin and will visit the places in your video that I’ve not already been too.

Very good, well produced doc. You should do something on the rebuilding of the Berlin Palace, formally the Royal Palace. Only lightly damaged in the war, the communists totally demolished it because they saw it as a symbol of the West, and replaced it with a typically Soviet building, the Palace of the Republic. I saw it it person, and truth be told, it looked nice, especially lit up at night. The modern design juxtaposed with the classical buildings remaining worked. After reunification, by some miracle, the Germans reconstructed the original palace, at least the exterior, out of thin air. There were no ruins to rebuild, as with the Parliament Building, rather this building was reconstructed from photographs, historical drawings and even memory. And the the result is truly amazing, inspiring. Definitely worth a video!

The Teufelsberg is also great to see but always nice Doku 👍

Another great historical bit. USAF here but did my service with the BAOR back in the 80's. Great historian his Andy is.

Another excellent video. Thanks!

I'll be visiting Berlin for the first time this autumn & hope to see some of the locations you list in this & the Soviet Sites of Berlin. Love your vids, cheers

Just back from Berlin and only there a short time. I was surprised then watching your series of films how little I actually knew. So fascinating and full of interesting facts and stories for how life was back not that long ago. Thank you and looking forward to watching some of your other content.

Great vlog. I've watched a few of your berlin one's lately. I'm visiting berlin in February and your vlogs have been invaluable information over the amazing history of this city . Really looking forward to visiting these places and thanks to your blog it'll ve all the more interesting. 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇳🇱

I have recently returned from Berlin, I went on an organised walking tour of some of the sites you mention, includeding the site of Hitler's bunker. (Wish I had seen your video before hand!). I last visited Berlin in December 1989, between Christmas and New Year. I saw the wall in place, took a day trip to the East and recall the flight (British Airways) descended to fly along the British Military corridor at 10,000 feet as we crossed East German territory. Also was told not to take any maps etc of West Berlin into the East, and if stopped by the East German Police to ask for the Russian Military Commander as the UK did not recognise the East German State. I also saw the DDR shop on the platform at (I think) Frederichstrasse station, an interchange station in the East but served by Westen U-Bahn and S-Bahn services. Still remember the sound and smell of the Trabant cars, an East German icon!

Very interesting, Andy. Thank you. I'm planning my 2nd trip to Berlin (by bicycle) this summer. I visited back in 2018 in my campervan and stayed on the street just outside the Tempelhofer Feld. A fascinating and friendly city. Joe SW UK

I was stationed in Berlin at McNair barracks 12/88 Jan/93 Aco 1/502nd. Your absolutely correct about Check Point Charlie it is nothing like how it use to be. I was there on the day it was closed and lifted away with 2 of my army buddies. A very interesting day that was

Great video quality and shooting.

Great video about a great city Andy.

A great video, like watching about the history of Europe in post war Europe. Thank you and look forward to more interesting videos on this subject matter.

The Wannsee villa was an American military recreation facility for many years. I personally spent many hours with my Highschool friends swimming, eating, sunbathing on that beautiful lawn and paddle boating on the lake. Nobody ever enlightened us (or our parents for that matter) of the villa‘s dark history.

Thank you ❤👍

Well done, great information👏👏 thank you for your video, and thank you for your military service to Britain

Really Interesting Andy. As you mentioned in another video we as young soldiers didn't really bother with all the history stuff. We went on bus trips to the east Berlin area and saw the unknown soldier etc. But really didn't bother with the rest .so much infact that me and couple of mates. Had to run round the city taking photos of the wall etc on the Saturday befor we left.. I regret not taking more interest at the time but at 19 /20 yes old we had other priorities ha ha.. love the history of cold war stuff now.

Slight correction on the Führer bunker: the Russians (or East Germans, depending on how you look at it) only demolished the above ground part and placed a concrete lid on top of it. The underground level remain to this day, albeit buried and filled in under the parking lot. It is built so solid it would be extremely laboursome to remove it, and since it's buried anyway, there isn't much point in trying

Great video but I noticed you referring to the TV tower as the funkturm which is the radio tower in West Berlin - the TV tower is called the Fernsehturm

Very cool and informative espeshaly interesting some of the cold war landmarks ide never heard off thanks 👍

Great job! I saw some of this back in December 1987. Very interesting to see how things have changed.

The view from the top of the tower is surprisingly underwhelming. It’s not really a panoramic city. However, Berlin is an amazing city to visit and has its own unique atmosphere.

Good stuff 👍

I loved Berlin. They do love their freedom and have cigar bars. So civilised. We get chucked out in the wind and snow elsewhere.

When I was a kid in the late '70s/early '80s, I somehow managed to get the idea that Checkpoint Charlie and the Brandenburg Gate were the same place. Well into young adulthood, the false memory of photos showing that "you are leaving the American Sector" sign right next to the Gate persisted (which I'm sure was my memory conflating that sign with the one saying "you are now leaving West Berlin" in German that really _is_ by the Brandenburg Gate in Cold War photographs).

"encouraged by their leader David Hasselhoff".......... I like the cut of your jib Sir and very much like your videos, thank you for your time and effort putting them together.

Loved this. Southampton was the 'springboard' for D-Day.

Thank you.

andrews barrack (the old general staff college/ hitlers bodyguard barracks) with its cemented in ss guard statues at the entrance, and the us berlin brigade hq with its hidden swatzica mozeic are all interesting ww2/cold war sites

fantastic video. if the buildings and ground could talk... since they don"t we are fortunate to have your storytelling.

With my parents, I first visited Berlin as a 16-year-old (on a Cook's holiday tour) in early September 1961. In those days the wall consisted of a single row of rough breeze blocks, barely six foot high, coils of barbed wire or, in many cases, the frontages of buildings with ground and first floor windows bricked up (often with the curtains still fluttering). They hadn't bothered with the upper floors as anyone jumping from that height would have been killed (In later years these buildings were demolished to create the 'death strip'). Other sites we were taken to see were the Congresshalle, Olympia Stadium and Treptow Park Russian Cemetery in the Soviet Zone with its giant statue. Dozens of German women, wearing headscarves to protect their hair were employed full time to sweep the coal-dust which continually blew across the cemetery from the coaling stage on the nearby Spree. Although I've visited Berlin several times since, regrettably I've never been back since the wall came down.

One of the most poignant things to me when I visited Berlin was the sheer amount of buildings, especially in East Berlin, that still still were covered in bullet holes and marks from shrapnel from the battle.

The Kino International has to be the most famous movie theater in the world outside L.A., with only Grauman's Chinese on Hollywood Blvd and the Cinerama Dome on Sunset in Hollywood ahead of it.

Berlin 02/13/1961 to 08/23/1963. US Army at McNair Barracks. Ich liebe Berlin..

i wanna visit berlin cause its my favorite city in Europe.

My dad and mum often travelled to Hof and i always remember a raiway would like to find some photos of that as well. Andy can you assit please

In 1990 there was a concert in Potsdamer Platz of The Wall by Roger Waters. He'd previously said the only way he'd perform the whole piece was if the Berlin Wall fell, so sore of its premanence was everyone. My brother went to the concert.

The most visible Soviet war-lie (at least half-truth) is the dates on their Tiergarten Memorial: 1941-1945. Fact is that Hitler and Stalin had that treaty on mutual non-aggression that dates from August 23rd, 1939, but Stalin did enter the war right from the start. Stalin invaded Poland and then attacked Finland. He annexed parts of Romania (todays Moldavia) and the three Baltic states. He could do all that as the non-aggression treaty had called these victims of Soviet imperialism the "Soviet area of interests" and that the Germans would not object to that. The nasty surprise came indeed in June 1941 when Hitler made sure that his "habitat for the German race in the East" was no empty phrase. Until the present day Russia denies its complicity with the Nazis.

The lady at the Brandenburg Gate is in fact Lydia Spivak.

Friederichstrasse is missing and also Treptower Park, but its a very good video. oh, La Charite too. You forgot unter den linden, there is the russian embassy and the american embassy just around the corner, so the cold war was there at its best

Gut gemacht! Kleine Korrektur bei #5: Fernsehturm am Alexanderplatz! Der Funkturm ist bei der Messe Berlin in Berlin Charlottenburg.

have to chime in with others to mention the Tränenpalast - Palace of Tears (free) museum : right up there with the mauerpark AND authentic too. It’s my personal nr.1 location in Berlin having returned to the west through this building and practically bricking myself at the border crossing check when it took SO long…!!

I was stationed in West Berlin 82-85/

the statue of the russian soldier with arm raised about 45 degrees from ground berliners said thats all the higher he could raise it due to all the stolen watched he had on his wrist came to love the dry berlineer sense of humor

How on earth could you leave out the Teufelsberg NSA listening station? That facility is almost as iconic to the skyline of Berlin as the Fernseturm.

Andy, I have watched several of your videos, taken train rides across country and up spy mountain with you and I really enjoyed and learned quite a bit from them. I live in San Diego California and have always wanted to visit Berlin. I will enjoy my visit to Berlin a great deal more because of your efforts to educate me. I want to thank you for that and all that you do. Fun fact::::: The border wall/fence between San Diego and Mexico was there decades before Donald Trump was president. He only added limited portions to fill in gaps where it was damaged or dilapidated. The media blew it up into much more than it was. Ronnie.

Great video. I am in Berlin next month; is there a simple way other than by car to get from Alexanderplatz to the Wannsee Villa?

It's funny I'm watching this and Red Sparrow was just on TV where I live (Australia)

15:18 it's not the "Funkturm" it's the "Berliner Fernsehturm" :) The Berliner Funkturm is another tower in Berlin

I love your Berlin videos. Very well researched and presented. However, it is baffling to me that you mistook the Fernsehturm for the Funkturm, especially since you say the TV tower the number two famous landmark in Berlin and a personal favorite. The Funkturm is a smaller tower/antenna, located in the western part of Berlin.

Berlin als Hauptstadt der Bundesrepublik was the research assignment I wrote there.

9:35 Actually I think Hitler understood the iconoclasm of his rivals very well and could very well have imagined it which is indeed why he had his remains destroyed rather than paraded around like Mussolini.

Kino International is not in a Soviet Brutalist style, whatever that may be, but clearly refers back to Bauhaus and modernism. Similarly, the Karl Marx Allee refers to Berlin architecture from imperial days.

Removing the t34s and artillery pieces at the tiergarten is probably justified. But I think the main memorial structure itself should remain.

What you call the Funkturm in your video is actually the Fernsehturm in East Berlin. The Funkturm is in West Berlin.

Yeah, I agree on your point of view concerning site #2. Plus, his death was significant in that it was another Allied victory. Our enemy was so defeated & demoralized [(he didn't have far to go for the latter as his morals were obviously not very high)😂] that he had to off himself in order avoid the retribution that he was about to face. Little did he realise that he had only hastened this retribution and in the afterlife he would soon experience the pain and suffering and torment that he caused to countless millions. That is what I believe. So go there, visit the location of V.H. Day(Victory over Hitler Day), which preceded V.E. Day and, later, V.J. Day!

the Brits had a shack there too i left my video camera there after i was refused entry inti the DDR the tommies told me a few little capers they were up to with the DDR doing a few side hustles

Not surprised that former Soviet monuments and buildings are allowed to stand while they go out of their way to obliterate anything between 1933-1945.

i heard when visited Berlin in 1992 after the wall came down the tank memorial was visited by the Russians who removed the remains of the crew who had been in there since the war but might be an urban myth