History lesson: the DDR Museum
Cold war hotspot: Checkpoint Charlie
past and tap into the energy of this youthful and vibrant city. Take Mauerpark on the edge of
trendy Prenzlauer Berg. This was once the Death Strip, a heavily guarded no-man’s-land separating east and west; these days, it’s buzzing with Sunday karaoke sessions, a quirky flea market and a 300m stretch of that same wall transformed into a canvas for local graffiti artists.
As someone old enough to
remember the fall of the wall but too young at the time to understand what it really meant, I set off to satisfy
my curiosity – and Berlin did not disappoint.
l LIVING HISTORY Some kind of wall-themed tour is a must. Berlin on Bike offers an excellent introduction with its two English-speaking tours, Berlin’s Best and the Berlin Wall Tour (both 10 miles, 3.5 hours, €19), which run on alternate days. Fred Holidays head of sales Lawrence Peachey also recommends the pre-bookable Cold War Berlin Tour, a four-hour guided visit to border fortifications, guard towers and tank traps along the course of the wall (from £21).
Once visitors have a grasp on the basics, the next logical stop is Checkpoint Charlie, the best- known crossing point and site of the infamous face-off between American and Soviet tanks in 1961. Museum Haus am Checkpoint Charlie is a long-established exhibition and, although somewhat dated and text-heavy, its collection of artefacts – including the reinforced car one family used to break through the wall, and the car with a petrol tank adapted to conceal an escapee – remains worthwhile (€12.50). More interesting, though, is the BlackBox just across the road. This modern museum puts Berlin in a wider Cold War context, looking at conflicts in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Ethiopia, and using a mix of magazines, posters and video footage to tell the story (€5).
l ACROSS THE DIVIDE The real tragedy of the wall lay in families split apart – 13 married couples found themselves
Old and new: Berlin Cathedral, Lustgarten Park and Humboldt Box
Wending Spree: river tours pass Museum Island
on opposite sides when the wall was erected overnight on August 13, 1961, along with countless grandparents, brothers and sisters, and even parents and children. Illustrating the lengths to which some went to be reunited with their loved ones, Berliner Unterwelten’s Under the Berlin Wall tour takes visitors below ground to learn about escape attempts through train tunnels, sewers and secret tunnels. The tour is peppered with anecdotes and photos, helping to put human faces to the history of the wall, and proceeds go towards the research organisation working to preserve these spaces (two hours, €13). Real-life stories also take centre
stage at the evocatively-named Palace of Tears, the border crossing at Friedrichstrasse station where West Berliners could cross into East Germany to visit friends or relatives, but had to bid them a tearful goodbye as they returned to the west. The
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travelweekly.co.uk — 11 September 2014
PICTURES: DEUTSCHE ZENTRALE FUR TOURISMUS/JOACHIM MESSERSCHMIDT, KLAUS UND DIRK LEHNARTZ; VISITBERLIN/WOLFGANG SCHOLVIEN
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