A charming Charlottenburg bookshop with a great selection of English titles, a friendly vibe and an interesting history…
Not many bookstores can say they’ve been in operation for over eight decades, especially in a city as historically turbulent as Berlin—but Marga Schoeller’s can.
Opened in 1929 by the eponymous Frau Schoeller, the shop originally specialised in European literature and theatre works. Schoeller managed to stay open during the National Socialist years despite refusing to sell Nazi literature and—even more impressively—sold books banned by the Nazis by hiding them deep in the basement.
Once the war was over Schoeller’s became the first bookshop awarded a license to sell English books, and quickly became a focal point for West Berlin’s burgeoning literary scene, attracting esteemed international writers like Beckett, Hesse, Mann, Eliot, Auden and the members of Hans Werner Richter’s famed Gruppe 47.
Originally located on the Ku’damm, the shop relocated in 1974 to the smaller, charming and perhaps more apposite Knesebeckstraße, whose nearby streets resonate with the names of philosophers, writers and poets: Schillerstraße, Goethestraße, Kantstraße, Leibnizstraße…
Though Schoeller passed away in 1978, her son and colleagues have continued her good work. The shop still sells mostly German-language books, but still maintains one of the best English book selections in West Berlin; you’ll find them in a special room on the left as you enter, as well as a few Spanish titles too.
