East Berlin – a city’s new dawn
If, today, you take a stroll down the grand boulevard that is Unter den Linden in Berlin, you will not be reminded so much about the times of the Cold War, the separation of Germany and the Wall or of barbed wire and death. However, only two decades ago this “heart of historic Berlin Mitte” belonged to East Berlin, the former capital city of the GDR - with all the painful experiences and the consequences of the brutal Nazi regime from which 4 occupied zoned and the separation of Berlin into an East and a West sector resulted.

Magnificent buildings of importance
This magnificent street, which is also quite commonly known as the German Champs d'Élysées winds along over a kilometre and a half from the “Schlossbrücke” to the Brandenburg Gate. There are many sites and important buildings lined up along this street as well as the gorgeous “Linden” (lime trees) that gave the street its name. The bit between Friedrichstrasse and the Brandenburg Gate tells a story of  history and culture – embassies of many countries have settled along here. Alongside the Staatsoper, Komische Oper, the German Historic Museum and the Humboldt University you can also find the legendary equestrian memorial of Friedrich the Great before the boulevard comes to rest at the Brandenburg Gate. At the time of the GDR the hisoric and legendary gate stood in no-man’s land between West and East Berlin. Today it is the most meaningful memorial of the German reunification, the gate of freedom and a popular photo opportunity for tourists from around the world.

Government district – the old in a new light
A stone’s throw away you can find the government district in the Tiergarten which is now a symbiosis of historic and modern architecture after it underwent extensive construction and restoration. The Parliament Building, the Federal Chancellery, the Office of the Federal President , embassies and the Paul-Löbe house were conceptualised as the “Band des Bundes” (the tie of the Federation) to visually represent the tying together of East and West. At the Schlosspark, finally, where once the bulky “Palast der Republik” which was contaminated with asbestos stood as the centre of power of the GDR, a new art centre will open soon which will offer the extraordinary to art lovers until 2010 when the proposed Humboldt-forum with its historic fassades will be built.

The Wall, East Berlin’s landmark
Between 1961 and 1989 East Berlin was made up of the areas of Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain, Pankow, Weißensee, Hohenschönhausen, Lichtenberg, Marzahn, Hellersdorf,  Treptow and Köpenick. A 193 kilometre long wall seperated East Berlin from the rest of the city that you could only pass through with great difficulty like an „island in the Red Sea“. Only a few pieces of the Wall were saved as memorials. North of the Oberbaumbrücke in the area of Kreuzberg-Friedrichshain you can see most clearly what a terrible weight had been resting on the city. Along Mühlenstrasse the longest remaining section of the Wall stretches out over 1.3 kilometres and was filled with 106 large paintings by artists of 21 countries in the spring of 1990.

News

12.02.2009
Berlinale in East Berlin – a must for all film lovers
The Berlin International Film Festival, also known as the Berlinale and held in West and East Berlin, Germany, is one of the world's leading film festivals and most reputable media events.

Founded in 1951, the festival has been celebrated annually each February since 1978. With 230,000 tickets sold and over 430,000 admissions it is considered the largest publicly-attended film festival worldwide.
For the 59th time Berlin once more opened its gates at the beginning of February for film fans from all over the world. The glamorous
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29.01.2009
East Berlin - 20 years after the fall of the wall
In 2009 Berlin celebrates the memorial year “20 years after the fall of the wall”. The Governing Mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, invites tourists and citizens to participate in a range of cultural events including exhibitions, concerts and parties.

1989 was one of the most important years in the history of Germany. In the course of the “Peaceful Revolution” by thousands of people in East and West Berlin against the dictatorship of the GDR, the border between former East and West Germany was opened. People who had been
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19.12.2008
East-Berlin.co.uk is going online!
After mch painstaking research on East Berlin and a whole lot of writing, our new information portal East-Berlin.co.uk is now online. On the websites of East-Berlin.co.uk you'll find a lot of helpful information concerned with the history of former East Berlin and the GDR, plus sightseeing tips for touristic discoveries throughout East Berlin and of course many, many pictures!

There are - and were - many places, buildings and streets in East Berlin which had great importance in the past and which are popular points for visitors and
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