Abandoned Berlin picks 10 favourite spots for urban exploration in Berlin…
It’s hard to pick just 10 favourite places because I* love them all, haha, but I’ll try. Reasons I might pick one place over an another might be the experience I had while visiting, the difficulty or dangers involved, the richness of the artifacts or traces of previous lives left behind—I’ve a particular fondness for soviet murals, for example—or it might simply be the beauty of a place.
Often, because I don’t do any research before I visit an abandoned site, it becomes important afterward because of the story I subsequently discover—the tale of the Garbáty family and their cigarette factory in Pankow, for example. Anyway, without further ado, here we go, in no particular order of places:
Spreepark
Spreepark, the abandoned fun park by the Spree, was the first love, the first place I sneaked into in June 2009, so it has to be included here though it’s been greatly diminished by the city in the meantime. The iconic Ferris wheel is gone and there’s no guarantee it will ever return. I know there were promises it will be back, but this is Berlin, it was supposed to be back already and there’s no sign of it. All the dinosaurs are gone, too. When I hopped the fence that summer day in 2009 it was a magical wonderland with dinosaurs and bits of dinosaurs strewn around, a pirate ship with a dragon-head under the colorful Ferris wheel, strange mustached cars with bowler hats, giant swans, a Wild West town, and a rollercoaster with a psychedelic cat or baboon face. It was so fantastic I hurried and discovered its story was just as crazy as the park. So I wrote it all up and Abandoned Berlin was born.
Niederlehme TSL 44
This place is possibly the craziest place I’ve been, a former East German army fuel storage facility. Obviously, the East German army isn’t around anymore. It left these huge underground fuel tanks in a forest in the middle of nowhere. The acoustics are incredible. But please don’t go here alone. I actually went back with a friend, because the first time I was there I was about to drop into a tank when it occurred to me I might not be able to get out again. The tanks are deep underground and there’s no mobile phone coverage to call for help. Be careful.
Vogelsang
