Berlin

Ready-made routes

Planned, walked and timed by us. Open one and start walking.

Routes for this city are being finished right now.

City quests

Story-driven walks with puzzles. Audio-guided, playable offline.

Quests for this city are being finished right now.

People who shaped the city

Not a list of names — the addresses where their story actually happened.

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  Visual art

  Adolf Hitler

  1889–1945 · Dictator of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler led Germany into the Second World War and was central to the Holocaust, in which about six million Jews were murdered, and the deaths of millions of other victims.

  Born in Braunau am Inn in 1889, Hitler moved to Germany in 1913 and served in the German Army during the First World War. He joined the German Workers’ Party in 1919 and became leader of the Nazi Party in 1921.

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  Literature

  Bertolt Brecht

  1898–1956 · A leading theorist of epic theatre, later called dialectical theatre, and the Verfremdungseffekt.

  When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Brecht fled Germany, initially for Scandinavia. During the Second World War, he moved to Southern California, where he worked as a screenwriter while under FBI surveillance.

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  Music

  Marlene Dietrich

  1901–1992 · Her role as Lola Lola in “The Blue Angel,” her classic Hollywood films, and her international career as a singer and live performer.

  Born in 1901, Dietrich worked as an actress and singer across a career spanning nearly seven decades. From the 1950s through the 1970s, she spent much of her time touring internationally as a live performer.

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  Visual art

  Wilhelm II

  1859–1941 · The last German Emperor, who reigned from 1888 until his abdication in 1918.

  Through his mother, Victoria, Princess Royal, Wilhelm was the eldest of Queen Victoria’s 42 grandchildren.

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  Science

  Albert Einstein

  1879–1955

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  Alexander I of Russia

  1777–1825

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  Literature

  Alexander von Humboldt

  1769–1859 · His scientific exploration, quantitative research, and influential view of nature as an interconnected whole.

  Humboldt's quantitative work on the geographical distribution of plants helped lay the foundations of biogeography. Together with Carl Ritter, he is regarded as a founder of modern geography as an independent scientific discipline.

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  Literature

  Claus von Stauffenberg

  1907–1944 · A key figure in the German military resistance to Nazism and the failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944.

  Born in 1907 into the House of Stauffenberg, he took part in the invasions of Poland and the Soviet Union and in the Tunisian campaign. He later became a key figure in the German resistance to Nazism within the Wehrmacht.

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What to see

Every stop we have researched, mapped and written up.

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  Museum

  Altes Museum

  A Prussian king gives the order; Karl Friedrich Schinkel answers with a grand Neoclassical museum. The royal world moves on, but the building keeps its original job.

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  Square

  Alexanderplatz

  A traveler stops over a map; commuters stream around them. Look up and the nearby TV Tower gives away exactly where you are: Alexanderplatz, Berlin’s square that behaves more like a launch pad.

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  Museum

  Pergamon Museum

  In October 2023, the last visitors filed out and the doors closed with an implied message: “See you in a decade or two.” The building in front of you is now both a museum and a very large promise.

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  Museum

  East Side Gallery

  Spring 1990: brushes meet concrete. After decades as part of a border system, this stretch of Wall is becoming a kilometre-long public argument about freedom.

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  Square

  Gendarmenmarkt

  Friedrich Schiller holds the centre while two churches and a concert hall face him across the square. The scene looks composed and complete; during the Second World War, most of it was badly damaged or destroyed.

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  Theatre & culture

  Friedrichstadt-Palast

  In 1985, the old Friedrichstadt-Palast comes down near Schiffbauerdamm. Yet the name is still glowing in front of you. Same institution, different building—a very Berlin plot twist.

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  Monument

  Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park

  Berlin, April 1945: the Battle of Berlin is underway. By its end in May, 80,000 Red Army soldiers will have fallen. Four years later, this park becomes East Germany’s central place of remembrance for the war.

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  Museum

  Alte Nationalgalerie

  At the foot of the staircase, a Prussian king still gets top billing: his memorial occupies the grand approach to the gallery he ordered. Berlin has turned the walk to a museum door into theatre.

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  Theatre & culture

  Berlin State Opera

  Frederick the Great wants an opera house, and subtlety is not part of the plan: it will stand alone in central Berlin like a monument. Two centuries later, bombing damages it—and East Berlin rebuilds the royal stage.

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