Even today, with an abundance of information, we struggle with the ‘who and what and why’ questions about the darkest time in Berlin’s history. Why was the Berlin Wall built? What political events lead to that point? How did peoples’ lives differ in the East and West? And ultimately, what series of events led to the fall of the Berlin Wall?
Seeing the Berlin Wall up close is one part of this exploration in understanding, but you’ll likely want to combine it with one of the many Berlin Wall museums and exhibitions in the city. You may even have time to take a tour that spans Berlin’s neighbourhoods of the former East and the underground spaces that played a part during the Cold War era.
READ MORE: Best Place to See the Berlin Wall
Whether you have one day or many, this checklist should help you narrow down your decision based on your time, location and specific historical interests.
Berlin Wall Exhibitions
Berlin Wall Documentation Centre
This modern exhibition opened on 9th November 2014 – the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Wall. It explores the historical questions about Berlin’s division, including: why did the Berlin Wall stay up so long?
The most iconic thing about the Documentation Centre is the Viewing Platform that looks out over the preserved Border Strip area, which is part of the Bernauer Straße Memorial. It’s one of the most sobering visions of this dark period of history and marks it out from the city’s other permanent Berlin Wall museums.
Opening Hours: Tuesday to Sunday: 10 am – 6 pm
Cost: Free Entry
Border Stations and Ghost Stations in Divided Berlin
Also a part of the Berlin Wall Memorial site, this exhibition is inside the historic Nordbahnhof S-Bahn station at the end of Bernauer Straße.
When Berlin was divided, so too was its transport system. Three U-Bahn and S-Bahn lines had special status because they crossed East Berlin when a train journeyed from one end of West Berlin to another. Those stations on the East part of the line patrolled by armed guards, open only to trains passing through from the West, which slowed down as they passed through the dimly lit passages, but did not stop. Other stations were closed off entirely and deserted.
This exhibition of photos and storytelling explores the re-working of the transport system and the fortifications built in and around them, the escape attempts and the working conditions of the Soviet soldiers guarding the ghost stations.
Opening Hours: Nordbahnhof S-Bahn station opening hours (4:30am – 1:30am / 24 hours on weekends)
Cost: Free Entry
Berlin Wall Panorama
You’ll notice this huge barrel-shaped building in the Checkpoint Charlie area, and while it’s hard to tell what going on inside. It’s a superb panorama artwork depicting in life-size how the streets of Berlin’s Kreuzberg neighbourhood looked in the 1980s. The artist, Asisi, himself grew up in the GDR.
You become a part of the artwork, complete with an elevated platform. You get a sense of how it felt to peer into the East from the West, where viewing platforms became a normalised thing, as well as how the Wall became a regular part of everyday life.
Opening Hours: Monday to Sunday: 10 am – 6 pm
Cost: €4-€10
Blackbox Cold War
The Blackbox Cold War exhibition space is next to Checkpoint Charlie and is another dedicated to Cold War history with hundreds of items on display. It specifically focuses on East-West confrontation since this area is where American and Soviet tanks had a face-off in 1961.
The grounds around the Blackbox feature stand-alone sections of the Berlin Wall, alongside information boards detailing a historical timeline as you walk towards the former checkpoint area.
Opening Hours: Monday to Sunday: 10 am – 6 pm
Cost: €5
Extensive Berlin Wall Museums
The DDR Museum
This museum is one of my favourite ones in Berlin for Cold War history, being emotionally hard-hitting as it brings a lot of facts and details to life.
The DDR Museum is designed to heighten the sensory experience, with interactive exhibits including a real Trabi car built to smuggle people and the accurately replicated interior of a typical East Berlin apartment.
Opening Hours: Monday to Sunday: 9 am – 9 pm
Cost: €8.50
The Wall Museum – Checkpoint Charlie
While the East-West border crossing of Checkpoint Charlie is now quite a Disneyland tourist spot, the Wall Museum here is one of the oldest museums (starting life in 1963) and one of the most extensive. It’s set within an apartment building “Haus am Checkpoint Charlie.”
You could easily spend a day here with its overwhelming floor to ceiling documentation, imagery, reports and interviews. It exists to support the continuing fight for freedom and human rights.
Opening Hours: Monday to Sunday: 9 am – 10 pm
Cost: €14.50
The Wall Museum – East Side Gallery
Next to the famed mural display, the Wall Museum East Side Gallery was opened in 2016 and is said to present never before seen evidence and film footage from the time the Berlin wall went up to the dramatic downfall.
Opening Hours: Monday to Sunday: 10 am – 6 pm
Cost: €10
The Stasi Museum
The Stasi (Ministry for State Security) Museum is located a little way out of central Berlin in the Eastern fringes of the city in the Lichtenberg locality. It is a place to learn more about what life was like in the Soviet state of East Germany in House 1 of the former Stasi headquarters.
The building was taken over by demonstrators in 1990 and later decided by a committee to be a “memorial and research centre on GDR Stalinism”.
Opening Hours: Friday, Saturday Sunday: 11 am – 6 pm
Cost: €8
Berlin Wall Related Tours
Berlin Underground Tours
The Berlin Underworlds Association (Berliner Unterwelten) offer unique tours of Berlin’s metro stations and their former use during the Second World War and Cold-War times. It’s an alternative way to understand the city’s complex history and see hidden and abandoned spaces.
READ MORE: Berlin Underground Tours – Secret City War Bunkers and Escape Tunnels
Opening Hours: Dependent on the calendar of tours at the time
Cost: From €12
© Source: Berliner Unterwelten e.V./Holger Happel
Trabi Safari
Take a one-hour city tour in a Trabant – East Germany’s famous “cardboard cars” affectionately known as the Trabi.
With your driver and guide, you’ll uncover the makeup of the city on your pocket rocket Trabi tour as you pass through areas of former East Berlin, including the long avenue of Karl-Marx-Allee, the East Side Gallery and the gritty Kreuzberg.
Opening Hours: Tours arranged upon a request for booking.
Cost: Prices start from €49
I’ve worked my way through these Berlin Wall museums over the past seven years visiting Berlin. Where will you start on your Berlin history journey?
The post Berlin Wall Museums and Exhibitions to Understand the Cold War Era appeared first on Borders Of Adventure.
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