Country:
Region:
Value:
Visit duration:
Description:
Often missed by tourists but an absolute must for anyone interested in this part of the city’s history. It’s a memorial to those who died crossing, so you won’t, fortunately, get the tackiness of the Checkpoint Charlie area, instead you will be left with a haunting feeling of what life with the wall may have been really like. The documentation centre across the street on Bernauer StraAye is excellent although most of the documentation is in German. The viewing platform gives you a tiny hint of the true scale of the Wall and how terrifying the no man’s land between the two sections of walls must have been. When the documentation centre is closed, both walls can be visited. There is some space between the concrete plates which allow you to look at the area between the walls. There are also several small holes.The Memorial is on Bernauer StraAye which itself is a street with a great deal of Wall history: the first recorded Wall-related death – the notorious Peter Fechter case (he bled to death in the no-man’s-land with both sides unwilling or unable to help him) – was here, as was one of the famous tunnels and the famous photograph of the GDR border guard leaping over the barbed wire. Various monuments can be found along the entire length of the street, documenting nearby escape attempts and tunnels, captions are in German, English, French, and Russian. The Memorial itself is a complete section of 4th generation wall – both inside and outside sections, and you can peer through from the east side to see the remains of the electric fence and anti-tank devices in the death strip. It really helps you understand what an incredible feat it was to get from one side to the other — and why so many died doing it.
Categories:
Why visit:
Interesting:
Fitness level:
Best visit time:
Access:
Roads:
Rates:
Free
Details:
Memorial grounds daily 08:00–22:00. Visitor Center and Documentation Center: Tu–Su 10:00–18:00
Clothing:
For the season
Connection:
Ok