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The Berlin Wall came down in 1989, yet Berlin still keeps its path visible. A double row of cobblestones traces the old course through the city centre. A long painted stretch survives as the East Side Gallery, and one of the most important memorials to the Wall stretches along Bernauer Strasse, where a preserved section of concrete still stands. A handful of original watchtowers remain too, scattered across the city. This guide walks you through the places where you can still see the Wall for yourself.
We at Travelmyth, the hotel search engine that ranks stays by your interests and needs across 60 stay categories, have put together this guide to the Berlin Wall sites you can still see today. We cover where the original concrete still stands, the memorial that puts the rest in context, the painted East Side Gallery, the surviving watchtowers, the cobblestone line through the centre, and the long trail that follows the entire former route. It is a working guide for travellers who want to walk between the surviving pieces.
Construction of the Berlin Wall was begun by the East German (GDR) government on 13 August 1961. From then until 1989 it encircled West Berlin, separating it from East Berlin. It was not a single barrier but a wide guarded zone: alongside the concrete ran an area later known as the "death strip", which contained anti-vehicle trenches, beds of nails and other defences. In total, the Wall ran for about 155 kilometres around West Berlin.
On 9 November 1989 the East German government announced that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin, and the Wall's role as a barrier ended. The Berlin Wall Foundation records that at least 140 people were killed or died at the Wall in connection with the GDR border regime between 1961 and 1989. Other published counts range from 136 to more than 200 deaths in and around Berlin, depending on the geographical scope and the categories of death included.
Plenty survives, and it is spread across the city rather than gathered in one spot. One of the most important memorials to the Berlin Wall stretches along Bernauer Strasse, where a preserved section of the Wall survives. The longest preserved section in the city centre is the East Side Gallery, a 1,316-metre-long painted remnant along Mühlenstrasse. Roughly 200 metres of the original outer Wall are preserved at the Topography of Terror, often described as the longest preserved outer-Wall segment.
Beyond the preserved concrete, the former course itself is marked. A double row of cobblestones marks parts of the Wall's former course through central Berlin, with metal plaques set into the ground at intervals. Three original Wall-era watchtowers have been preserved within Berlin, and you can still find them. And for those who want the whole route, the Berlin Wall Trail, the Mauerweg, runs around 160 kilometres along the old border. We cover each of these in turn below.
One of the most important memorials to the Berlin Wall stretches along Bernauer Strasse, and it is the site we would point you to first. It preserves a stretch of the former border strip, including 64 metres of the protected border installations enclosed by the memorial’s steel walls. A viewing platform at the Documentation Centre lets you look across the preserved border grounds.
On the memorial grounds stands the Chapel of Reconciliation, built in 2000 on the foundations of the former Church of Reconciliation. That church stood on the border strip until the GDR had it blown up in 1985 to secure the border. Nearby, the Window of Remembrance portrays people who were killed or died at the Berlin Wall, giving names and faces to the human cost of the border regime.
Admission to the Berlin Wall Memorial is free. The Visitor Centre and Documentation Centre are open Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., while the open-air exhibition is accessible every day from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. The Visitor Centre is at Bernauer Strasse 119, 13355 Berlin. As opening times can change, it is worth checking the official site before you set out.
The East Side Gallery is a 1,316-metre-long remnant of the Berlin Wall running along Mühlenstrasse, and it is the longest preserved section remaining in the city centre. In 1990, after the opening of the Wall, this section was painted by 118 artists from 21 countries, creating the world’s longest open-air gallery.
Two paintings draw the biggest crowds. One is Dmitri Vrubel's depiction of Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker kissing, titled "My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love" (Mein Gott hilf mir, diese tödliche Liebe zu überleben). The other is Birgit Kinder's "Test the Rest", the Trabant breaking through the Wall. Both have become emblems of the gallery in their own right.
The painted Wall has needed care over time. Remediation, the restoration of the murals, began in May 2009. If you can, come early, when the stretch along Mühlenstrasse is quietest and you can take in the paintings without the crowds.
The Topography of Terror stands on Niederkirchnerstrasse, formerly Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, on the former site of central Nazi terror institutions, including the Gestapo, the SS leadership and, from 1939, the Reich Security Main Office. It is one of the most compressed readings of twentieth-century German history you can take in on a single street, with the Nazi-era site behind you and the Cold War Wall in front.
Roughly 200 metres of the original outer Wall are preserved here, often described as the longest preserved outer-Wall segment. Admission to the Topography of Terror is free, which makes it an easy stop to fold into a wider walk through the centre. The preserved concrete runs right along Niederkirchnerstrasse, so you can take it in even when the indoor exhibition is closed.
Even where the concrete is gone, the line of the Wall is not. A double row of cobblestones marks parts of the Wall's former course through central Berlin. At certain intervals you will find metal plaques set into the ground bearing the inscription "Berliner Mauer 1961-1989", a quiet reminder of what once stood on the spot.
The double row was chosen for a reason: the Wall was almost everywhere a double wall, with the Grenzmauer, or border wall, abutting West Berlin and the Hinterlandmauer, the wall facing East Berlin. The line can be hard to spot at first, but it is easy to find at the Brandenburg Gate and at Potsdamer Platz, both good places to pick up the trace and follow it.
The Berlin Wall Trail, the Berliner Mauerweg, is about 160 kilometres long. It is a loop that leads past the last remaining watchtowers, museums and memorials, such as the one on Bernauer Strasse, through the modern-day city centre and around the old border. It is as much a way to read the city's geography as its history.
You do not need to take it on all at once. The trail is divided into 14 individual sections to help you plan a bike tour or walk. Each section is between 7 and 21 kilometres long, and many section starts and endpoints can be reached by public transport.
Of the 302 watchtowers and observation towers that once stood along the border around West Berlin, three have been preserved within Berlin: the command posts at Kieler Eck and Schlesischer Busch, and the observation tower on Erna-Berger-Strasse near Potsdamer Platz.
The tower at Kieler Eck carries a personal history. Günter Litfin was shot and killed on 24 August 1961 while trying to escape by swimming across the Humboldthafen to West Berlin, and he was the first fugitive to be shot and killed at the Berlin Wall. His brother Jürgen Litfin later helped preserve the former Kieler Eck command post, opening a memorial exhibition in the watchtower in 2003 in memory of Günter and the other victims of the Wall.
The other surviving command tower stands in Schlesischer Park, between the boroughs of Kreuzberg and Treptow on Puschkinallee. The watchtower of the former Schlesischer Busch command post was around 10 metres high and was responsible for 18 watchtowers and the electronic security devices in its section of the border, a reminder of how tightly the death strip was watched.
The Tränenpalast, or "Palace of Tears", is a former border crossing point between East and West Berlin at Berlin Friedrichstrasse station, in operation between 1962 and 1989. Its name derives from the tearful partings that took place in front of the building between western visitors and East German residents who were not permitted to travel to West Berlin. It is now a museum with exhibitions about Berlin during the Cold War and the process of German reunification.
Further out, the Allied Museum sits on Clayallee in the Dahlem quarter of the south-western Steglitz-Zehlendorf borough. It documents the political and military roles of the Western Allies, the United States, France and the United Kingdom, in Germany, and particularly in Berlin, between 1945 and 1994. Among its exhibits is the last guard house from the famous Checkpoint Charlie border crossing, which makes the trip out worthwhile for anyone following the Cold War story.
If you have a single day, start at the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse. It is one of the most important memorials to the Wall, admission is free, and the visitor centre and documentation centre are open Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Walk the preserved stretch, look out from the viewing platform at the Documentation Centre, and visit the Chapel of Reconciliation, built in 2000 on the site of the church the GDR blew up in 1985.
From there, pick up the double row of cobblestones that marks the Wall's former course through the centre, following it past the Brandenburg Gate and Potsdamer Platz, where the line is easy to find. Carry on to the Topography of Terror on Niederkirchnerstrasse to see the roughly 200 metres of preserved outer Wall, which is free to visit. Finish at the East Side Gallery on Mühlenstrasse, the 1,316-metre painted stretch, ideally in the quieter early light.
The good news for planning is that most of the main sites cost nothing to enter. Admission to the Berlin Wall Memorial is free, and admission to the Topography of Terror is free as well. Several sections of the Mauerweg loop also pass these same sites, including Bernauer Strasse.
We would start your visit at the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse, one of the most important memorials to the Wall and the site that puts the rest in context. Its visitor centre and documentation centre are open Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and the open-air exhibition area is accessible every day from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Many Mauerweg sections have start and end points you can reach by public transport, so you can often travel between the sites without a car. Because opening times and details can change, check the official site before you go.
The Wall sites are spread across the city, from Bernauer Strasse and the Topography of Terror in the centre to the East Side Gallery along Mühlenstrasse and the Allied Museum out in Dahlem, so where you base yourself shapes how much walking you do between them.
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