Berlin Wall Sites to Visit — Outer Berlin

The Bergfelde Watchtower is a former border command post hidden in a reforested area near Hubertussee in Hohen Neuendorf, north of Berlin. It now serves as a memorial to Joachim Mehr and other victims who died attempting to cross the border in this area.

The Allied checkpoint on the transit motorway between West Berlin and West Germany. All vehicles travelling the Autobahn corridor to Helmstedt passed through here, making it the counterpart to Checkpoint Alpha at the other end. The East German side at Drewitz was heavily fortified, processing thousands of vehicles daily.

The Eiskeller exclave was one of the strangest geographical anomalies of the Cold War. Three West Berlin farmsteads, connected to the main city by a corridor just four metres wide and 800 metres long, became an island of freedom surrounded by GDR territory.

Falkensee, a town just west of Spandau in Brandenburg, experienced the economic devastation of the Berlin Wall more acutely than almost any other community. When the border was sealed in 1961, 80% of the town’s male workforce lost their jobs overnight.

In March 1963, one of the most daring family escape tunnels was dug beneath a living room in Glienicke/Nordbahn, a small town on Berlin’s northern border. Eleven-year-old Detlef Aagard, his parents, and ten others crawled to freedom through the narrow passage.

A bridge spanning the Havel river, connecting Wannsee with the Brandenburg capital, Potsdam. Spies captured during the Cold War were often exchanged here, earning it the moniker “Bridge of Spies”. The East German authorities closed the bridge to West Berliners on 27 May 1952, and was closed to East Berliners after construction of the Berlin […]

One of the last surviving Berlin Wall watchtowers, the Grenzturm in Nieder Neuendorf stands on the banks of the Havel river, where the border between West Berlin and East Germany once ran.

The Griebnitzsee Wall Remains are a protected monument on the shore of Griebnitzsee lake, marking a section of the border where the Wall met the water. The scenic lakeside setting belies the deadly purpose of the installations that once stood here.

The Groß Glienicke Wall Memorial preserves the only surviving “first generation” Berlin Wall segment, built in 1961-62. Over 30 metres of original concrete slabs with hollow blocks and Y-shaped barbed wire deflectors stand on the shore of Groß Glienicker See.

Heilandskirche Sacrow, the Church of the Redeemer, is a striking Italianate church on the banks of the Havel near Potsdam. Walled off for 28 years during the division of Germany, it became one of the most powerful symbols of the Berlin Wall’s impact on daily life.

Klein Glienicke was a GDR enclave wedged between West Berlin and Potsdam, accessible only through a single surveilled bridge. Its residents lived in near-total isolation for 28 years, surrounded on three sides by territory they could see but never enter.

The Lichtenrade-Mahlow Grenzweg follows the former border along Berlin’s southern boundary, where a preserved Kolonnenweg patrol road with original GDR lamp posts traces the path of the Wall through what is now a peaceful residential area.

The Marienfelde Emergency Reception Centre processed over 1.35 million refugees from East Germany between 1953 and 1990. Today it houses a museum documenting the history of flight from the GDR.

Site of some of the earliest successful escape tunnels beneath the Berlin Wall. On 24 January 1962, 28 people escaped through a tunnel dug by brothers Günter and Bruno Becker from their basement – an event that inspired the film “Tunnel 28.” In May 1962, twelve senior citizens dug a 32-metre tunnel from a chicken […]

The Rudow Hinterland Wall preserves the southernmost Berlin Wall remains in the city. Third-generation concrete slabs stand between H-shaped reinforced concrete supports, overlooking a former death strip that has been reclaimed by nature.

Staaken, on the west-most outskirts of West Berlin, was home to several different rail and road crossings during the cold war years. Albrechtshof rail crossing was closed in 1961 after possibly one of the most dramatic GDR escapes: East German engineer Harry Deterling crashed a whole train through the barriers towards Gartenstadt Staaken in West […]

A small enclave of around 200 inhabitants, Steinstücken is the southern most territory of Berlin, in Wannsee. For a time its border was made up of only barbed wire, and was the point of many escape attempts. A permanent border wall was erected here after 20 East German border guards escaped to the West. Nearby: […]

The Stolpe border crossing, opened in 1982, holds the distinction of being the last checkpoint built before the Berlin Wall fell. Located at the northern edge of Berlin on Route 96, it served travellers heading to Scandinavia and the Baltic coast.

The Waltersdorfer Chaussee Crossing was a unique transit checkpoint created specifically for West Berliners travelling to Schonefeld Airport in East Berlin. Opening in 1963, it served a purely practical function in the otherwise rigid border system.