From Museum Island to Alexanderplatz
Map: Communist East Berlin Walk
Optional Extension for Communist Architecture Fans
From 1949 to 1990, East Germans had it tough. On this nearly mile-long walk, we’ll focus on sights associated with communist East Germany—also known as the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik).
We’ll see statues of Marx and Engels, the founders of communism, who had roots here in Berlin. We’ll see the Marien Church, which carried the Christian torch through the atheistic communist era. We’ll learn how the people of the DDR coped with their unfortunate lot—so at odds with the lives of West Berliners, a literal stone’s throw away, just over the Wall. And we’ll pass by the skyscraping TV Tower, built by the communists as an exclamation point for their way of life. This walk ends at Alexanderplatz—once the symbol of communist modernity, now a thriving people zone—and offers a peek at the very Soviet-style boulevard called Karl-Marx-Allee (formerly Stalinallee).
Let’s embark on a stroll through what was the showcase “downtown” of communist East Berlin.
(See “Communist East Berlin Walk” map, here.)
Length of This Walk: Allow about 45 minutes.
When to Go: This walk picks up right where the Unter den Linden Walk drops off (see the 
Unter den Linden Walk chapter). Because this walk has no sights that are important to enter, it can be done anytime—perhaps if you have energy left after your Museum Island sightseeing.
Getting There: This walk begins at Museum Island—easy to reach on bus #100 or #200 (Lustgarten stop). These buses—and, for some stops, also bus #TXL—basically follow the course of this walk, making it easy to skip ahead or backtrack. You can also take the S-Bahn to Hackescher Markt and walk 10 minutes to the start of the walk.
DDR Museum: €9.50, daily 10:00-20:00, Sat until 22:00, Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse 1, tel. 030/847-123-731, www.ddr-museum.de.
Marien Church: Free, daily 10:00-16:00, Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse 8, www.marienkirche-berlin.de.
TV Tower: €13, more expensive skip-the-line “fast track” tickets available online, daily 9:00-24:00, Nov-Feb from 10:00, Panoramastrasse 1A, www.tv-turm.de.
Services: The visitors center at Humboldt Forum—on Museum Island, at the start of this walk—has free WCs.
Eateries: You’ll pass plenty of tourist-oriented fast-food joints along this walk. A couple of recommended breweries—Brauhaus Georgbräu (in the Nikolai Quarter) and Brauhaus Lemke (across the street from the TV Tower)—are a short detour. And the walk ends at Alexanderplatz, with plenty of bratwurst vendors and other casual eateries.
Starring: Landmarks, legacies, and the severe communist aesthetic of East Berlin.
(See “Communist East Berlin Walk” map, here.)
• We’ll begin at Museum Island, and head (fittingly) east. From the massive Berlin Cathedral, take Unter den Linden across the bridge toward the TV Tower. As you cross the bridge, the road changes names and suddenly you’re walking along...
From here eastward this street is named for a founder of Germany’s communist party: Karl Liebknecht, a martyr to the Marxist cause, and reminder of the communist regime.
At the end of the bridge, look down on your left to see the 1 DDR Museum. A visit to this museum—where everyday artifacts paint a vivid picture of life in Cold War-era East Germany—can whet your appetite for the outdoor landmarks we’re about to see. (For details, see here.)
Continue down Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse toward the TV Tower. A half-block down on the left, step into the lobby of the 2 Radisson Hotel. The lobby’s centerpiece is a stunning aquarium—a huge glass cylinder with an elevator zipping up through its middle. It seems that right here in the center of the old communist city, capitalism has settled in with a spirited vengeance.
Just past the Radisson, also on the left, is the 3 Ampelmann store—part of a local chain that features all manner of products emblazoned with jaunty green-and-red pedestrian stoplight figures that date from the old East Berlin days. All over the city, keep an eye out for these—called, affectionately, Ampelmännchen (“little traffic-light man”). Even after the fall of the Wall, the figures proved so popular that residents waged a 10-year court battle to keep them from being replaced. And now, they’re even beginning to show up in the former West Berlin—perhaps the only East German symbol to gain popularity. The mania for Ampelmännchen is a good example of what’s known as “Ost-algia”—a play-on-words describing nostalgia towards the “Ost,” or East.
• Unfortunately, there’s no Herr Ampelmännchen here to tell us when it’s safe to cross—but our next stop is the big park directly across Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse. If you dare, wait for a lull in traffic and carefully cross the busy street to the park. (If you’d rather stay strictly legal, backtrack to the bridge by the DDR Museum, cross underneath the street, and ascend at the corner of the park.)
Once in the park, head through the trees and look for two big statues.
The 4 statues of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels within this park recall the economists who studied at Berlin’s Humboldt University in the early 1800s (though they didn’t meet until later). They went on to co-author the landmark Communist Manifesto, which ends with the famous closing line, “Workers of the world, unite!”
The statues don’t look particularly fierce. Locals have nicknamed these two grandfatherly guys “The Old Pensioners.” Young people enjoy ironically posing with this duo (notice Marx’s shiny lap, and Engels’ well-worn finger). Surrounding them are stainless-steel monoliths with evocative photos illustrating the struggles of workers all around the world.
The Communist Manifesto came out in 1848. Preoccupied with the “class struggle” through history—between the haves (bourgeoisie) and the have-nots (proletariat)—Marx and Engels believed that everyday working people should take control of the means of production. Over the next decades, Marx and Engels’ ideas proved enormously influential. They caught on—among other places—with a Russian named Vladimir Lenin. In 1917, Lenin led the Bolshevik Revolution that toppled the Russian czar and established the Soviet Union. Their motto? “Workers of the world, unite!”
Three decades later, Lenin’s successor Josef Stalin sent the Red Army into Germany to defeat Hitler and the Nazis. After the war, they stayed. They occupied the eastern half of Germany, and established a communist state: the DDR.
As you face Marx and Engels, a handy 5 boat dock for Spree River cruises is immediately behind you (see here). And to your right—behind a row of modern buildings, but not quite visible from here—is the small district called 6 Nikolai Quarter (Nikolaiviertel). In 1987, both East and West Berlin celebrated the 750th anniversary of their city’s founding. For the occasion, East Berlin re-created a cobbled “old town” around the spire of its oldest church. While it feels very much like the on-the-cheap communist rebuild that it is, if you’re curious, it’s an easy detour from this walk: Simply follow the river in that direction, and look left after the next bridge for the twin church spires. (For more on the Nikolai Quarter, see here.)
Throughout the Cold War, East Germans had basic security but no freedom. When the DDR was established in 1949, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) held all the power. East Germany had no president, chancellor, or prime minister—just the SED general secretary, who reigned supreme.
The DDR economy became increasingly centralized. The government produced all goods, forcing East Germans to lead cookie-cutter lives: wearing identical wardrobes while eating off identical dishes in identical apartments. The best goods were made in the West—and were smuggled in and sold on the black market. Things that couldn’t be smuggled in were usually cheap knock-offs.
Travel was severely restricted. If you were lucky, your family had a Datsche—a humble, shack-like holiday house in the countryside. Trips to Hungary’s Lake Balaton or Baltic Sea beaches were as exotic as you could hope for.
Movies and TV shows were more propaganda than entertainment, though most East Germans could (illegally) receive Western broadcasts. They’d watch with the volume turned down, and hope nobody was listening.
But someone was always listening. The DDR had spies everywhere, including tens of thousands of everyday people induced to inform on their neighbors. The Stasi security force read people’s mail and observed the most intimate details of their lives using hidden cameras. Public life was filled with suspicion, fear, and paranoia. (For more on the Stasi, see here.)
All of this amounted to a life of constant contradiction: A system claiming to be “for the common person” actually did everything it could to make people’s lives more difficult.
And yet, when communism ended, the transition wasn’t easy. For years, many former East Germans remained “Ost-algic”—nostalgic for the Ost, or East. What they missed was the relaxed pace of life: With no real advancement opportunities, people had ample time to spend with family and friends. Some also pined for the security of knowing they’d always be provided for...albeit humbly.
Today’s thirtysomethings and fortysomethings—who were too young to really suffer under communism—embrace symbols of the era, like the Ampelmann traffic lights, more out of nostalgia than a desire to return to life behind the Iron Curtain. For most Berliners, the East-West stuff is a distant memory. It may be big business among tourists, but locals tend to think about communism or the Berlin Wall only when visitors bring it up.
Continue your walk heading east through the park, in the direction of the TV Tower. Where Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse intersects with Spandauer Strasse, look right to see the red-brick 7 city hall, where Berlin’s mayor has an office. It was built after the revolutions of 1848 and was arguably the first democratic building in the city. Later it became the city hall of communist East Berlin—giving its nickname, Rotes Rathaus (Red City Hall), a dual meaning.
As you continue toward the TV Tower, glance around at the 8 high-rise concrete Plattenbau (“panel buildings”), mostly on the left side of Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse. For more on these practical (but eyesore) buildings—where so many East Berliners lived—see the sidebar.
• Cross Spandauer Strasse and angle left through the plaza, toward the spire of the...
The Marien Church, with its prominent steeple, dates from 1270. Under communist rule, religion was frowned upon, as the state was officially atheist. (Many Berlin churches, miraculously spared destruction by Allied bombs, were unceremoniously torn down by the new regime.) East Berliners could still worship at the Marien Church, but being openly Christian was never a good career move.
Inside the church, an artist’s rendering helps you follow the interesting but very faded old “Dance of Death” mural that wraps around the entry narthex (c. 1470). Farther in, the church’s whitewashed interior is austere, with heavy oak pews. To learn more, buy the little pamphlet for an interesting self-guided tour.
• Immediately across the street from the church, detour a half-block down little Rosenstrasse to find a beautiful memorial set in a park. We’ll take a break from communist East Berlin to ponder this poignant monument from Nazi times.
This is a reminder of a courageous—and unusually successful—protest against Nazi policies. In 1943, when “privileged Jews” (men married to Gentile women) were arrested, their wives demonstrated en masse on this street—the famous “Rosenstrasse Protest.” The location was fitting, as this was also the site of Berlin’s oldest synagogue (you can see the faint footprint of that old building in the field just beyond the monument). Remarkably, these brave women actually won their husbands’ freedom. Note the Berliner on the bench nearby. As most Berliners did, he looks the other way, even when these bold women demonstrated that you could speak up and be heard under the Nazis.
• Back on Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse, gaze up at the 1,200-foot-tall...
The communist regime is long gone, but it left an enduring legacy: the TV Tower. This tower was built in 1969 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of communist East Germany. The tower was meant to show the power of the atheistic state at the very time when DDR leaders were removing the crosses from the country’s church domes and spires. But when the sun hit the tower, the reflected light happened to create a huge cross on the mirrored ball. Cynics called it “God’s Revenge.” East Berliners dubbed their tower the “Tele-Asparagus.” They also joked that if it fell over, they’d have an elevator to freedom in the West.
For a hefty fee, you can go up the tower for a fine view, and lunch at the retro-style revolving restaurant. From the top, you can look out at the flat, red-roofed sprawl of Berlin and peek inside the city’s many courtyards (Höfe).
While the DDR government maintained a few token historic landmarks (like the Nikolai Quarter and the Rotes Rathaus), their real architectural forte was prefabricated, high-capacity, low-aesthetics housing—called Plattenbau (“panel buildings”).
These apartment blocks may seem undesirable, but they were fairly popular places to live. Although cheaply constructed, they came with modern amenities like central heating and real plumbing (for example, each unit had its own bathroom), and many even had elevators that actually worked...sometimes. For many, this was far preferable to the much older, more primitive flats in historic districts like Prenzlauer Berg (today renovated and so trendy).
While the buildings’ exteriors and public spaces are frightfully gloomy, residents prided themselves on creating cozy and welcoming little nests inside. Being invited to dinner at one of these apartments in DDR times showed you the stark contrast between cold, paranoid public life and colorful, gregarious private life. In their own homes, people could pursue hobbies and spend time with family.
• Continue walking east down Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse, passing the TV Tower’s base on your right. You’ll cross under a big railway overpass, then walk alongside a mall called Galeria Kaufhof. Just past the mall, turn right onto a broad pedestrian street. It leads through a low tunnel and into a big square, surrounded by modern buildings. The blue U-Bahn station signs announce you’ve arrived at...
Alexanderplatz was built in 1805, during the Prussian Golden Age. Because this was a gateway for trade to Eastern Europe, it was named for a Russian czar, Alexander. In the Industrial Age, it became a transportation hub. In the roaring 1920s, it was a center of cabaret nightlife to rival Friedrichestrasse. And under the DDR, it was transformed into a commercial center. This was the pride and joy of East Berlin shoppers. The Kaufhof department store (now Galeria Kaufhof) was the ultimate shopping mecca...which wasn’t saying much.
And then, on November 4, 1989, more than a half-million East Berliners gathered on Alexanderplatz to demand their freedom. Protesters chanted, “Wir wollen raus! We want out!” The winds of change were in the air; less than a week later, the Berlin Wall was history (see sidebar).
Today’s square is a mix of old and new. Stand roughly between the two U-Bahn entrances, in the middle of the square, and take a 360-degree, clockwise spin-tour—starting with the TV Tower. It rises above the C&A store—a typical blocky-grey building from the communist era. To the right is the Galeria Kaufhof store—a slightly sleeker form of concrete bunker (c. 1967). In front is an abstract-sculpture fountain ringed with a colorful base that attracts sitters. Further right is a glassy skyscraper, the Park Inn. Next is a popular snack bar and a summertime biergarten, with tropical plants. Keep spinning to the Alexa building, with its colorful Kandinsky-esque facade.
Next is another bunker-like building, with the once-futuristic 13 World Time Clock, a nostalgic favorite installed in 1969 that remains a popular meeting point. The clock—topped with a slowly spinning model of the solar system—can tell you the time anywhere in the world (though it might be an hour off thanks to daylight savings). You may see human hot-dog stands. These hot-dog hawkers wear ingenious harnesses that let them walk around while they cook and sell tasty, cheap German sausages.
Today, Alexanderplatz is a popular landmark—locals call it “Alex-platz.” Trams go one way, trains go another, dueling drummers and buskers vie for attention, and people crisscross the square on their way to wherever. Alexanderplatz is a people place.
• If you’ve had enough of the DDR, you can finish your walk now (see your transportation options at the end of the next section). But if you’d like to see one more communist-era artifact, carry on to the next stop.
From the World Time Clock, follow the tram tracks (away from the station), walking out the far end of Alexanderplatz past the Saturn electronics store. Then hook right, pausing at the busy intersection of Alexanderstrasse and...
This socialist-style boulevard was designed after the original buildings here were leveled by the Red Army in 1945. As an expression of their adoration to the “great Socialist Father” (Stalin), the DDR government decided to rebuild the street better than ever (the USSR provided generous subsidies). They intentionally made it one meter wider than the Champs-Élysées, named it Stalinallee, and lined it with “workers’ palaces” built in the bold “Stalin Gothic” style so common in Moscow in the 1950s. Now renamed after Karl Marx, the street and its restored buildings provide a rare look at Berlin’s communist days. The pillars in the distance mark Strausberger Platz, the centerpiece of this socialist paradise.
On the tall, glassy building overlooking the intersection, notice the colorful tile-mosaic mural decorating the communist-era Ministry of Education. The mural trumpets the accomplishments of the DDR’s education system. East Germany—like all communist states—believed strongly in a well-educated populace...at least, about topics it deemed appropriate.
On October 7, 1989, the DDR celebrated its 40th anniversary with a massive military parade along this route. At the podium, below bright-red 40 Jahre DDR banners, Mikhail Gorbachev stood alongside East German premier Erich Honecker and watched an endless stream of soldiers goose-step by. Surveying the pageantry, Honecker declared, “The Wall will be standing in 50 and even in 100 years.”
As we now know, he was only off by 99 years and 11 months. In the following weeks, Honecker was removed from power; the Wall opened, then crumbled; and the stage was set for the reunification of a fully democratic and capitalistic Germany—leaving communist artifacts like this boulevard as something of a white elephant.
• Our walk is over. Alexanderplatz is a convenient transportation hub to the rest of Berlin. The U-Bahn stops are in the middle of the square, and the S-Bahn station is just beyond it (in the direction of the TV Tower): Track 3 trains go east, and track 4 trains go west. Or you can take bus #100, #200, or #TXL back along Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse and on to Unter den Linden.
Alternately, if you’re really enjoying this walk down communist memory lane, consider this...
Distances are a bit long for convenient walking, but if you’re intrigued to see more of Karl-Marx-Allee, taxi or ride the U-Bahn to Strausberger Platz, which was built to resemble an Italian promenade (about a mile down the boulevard). From Strausberger Platz, you can take a mile-long long hike east to Frankfurter Tor, reading the good information posts along the way. Notice the Social Realist reliefs on the buildings and the lampposts, which incorporate the wings of a phoenix (rising from the ashes) in their design. Once a “workers’ paradise,” the street now hosts a two-mile-long capitalist beer festival the first weekend in August...and not much else the rest of the year.
The Café Sibylle, two long blocks beyond Strausberger Platz (at the intersection with Koppenstrasse), is a fun spot for a coffee, traditional DDR ice-cream treats, and a look at its free informal museum that tells the story of the most destroyed street in Berlin. While the exhibit is humble, it’s fun to see the ear (or buy a plaster replica) and half a moustache from what was the largest statue of Stalin in Germany (the street’s centerpiece until 1961). The museum also provides a few intimate insights into apartment life in a DDR flat. The café is known for its good coffee and Schwedeneisbecher mit Eierlikor—an ice-cream sundae with a shot of egg liqueur, about as fancy as things got under communism (Karl-Marx-Allee 72, tel. 030/2935-2203).
