25 of the most interesting Berlin Wall-related sites in the city…
Bornholmer Strasse Border Crossing (officially: Platz des 9. November 1989)
This is where the wall fell first, on the night of November 9th, 1989. The border crossing succumbed to the pressure of ordinary East Germans from the heavily populated workers’ quarter of Prenzlauer Berg. The memorial and display show a minute-by-minute reconstruction of events that fateful evening.
Ernst-Thälmann-Park
Among the last prestigious urban building projects of the GDR, this ‘utopian park’ was inaugurated in 1986 on the occasion of former Communist Party leader Ernst Thälmann’s 100th birthday, a monumental bronze bust of whom looms on its western edge (on Griefswalder Strasse).
Spanning 25 gloriously ungentrified hectares in one of Berlin’s most gentrified neighbourhoods (Prenzlauer Berg), it’s a prime memento of the district before the Wende, providing housing, leisure and cultural facilities and a cutting-edge planetarium. Be sure to take a closer look at the manhole covers, which still carry their ‘Made in the GDR’ stamp.