Private Walking Tour: Behind the Iron Curtain and Berlin Wall

Meet at Hauptbahnhof train station for your private morning or afternoon walking tour. Your expert historian guide will lead you on a leisurely 4-hour walk through Berlin’s city center and point out important landmarks, monuments and buildings relating to the city’s Soviet legacy.

For decades after World War II, there were two Berlins: one a bastion of the free West, the other a capital city vying for communism. Dividing these two sectors — and the rest of Europe — was the Iron Curtain, marking the Soviet Union’s efforts to demonstrate its superiority.

See the Berlin Wall Memorial at Bernauer Strasse, which commemorates the city's division and the deaths that occurred from East Berlin citizens trying to reach West Berlin. Listen to your guide talk about the measures that were put in place to prevent people crossing the wall, and hear stories of the risks many took to escape, thus thwarting the efforts of the notorious security service, the Stasi.

Visit Gethsemane Church in Prenzlauer Berg, where many courageous civil rights activists gathered in the late 1980s to protest the regime. See where these efforts first led to the breaching of the Berlin Wall at Bornholmer Strasse.

The story culminates with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Cold War and, finally, the reunification of Germany. End your tour in Alexanderplatz, feeling more informed and enlightened — thanks to a handful of courageous East Berliners who managed to prevent the shredding of files at the Stasi headquarters, allowing us important insights into the inner workings of the Soviet regime.