Karl-Marx-Allee Tour: Life and Architecture in East Berlin

20 min

Marvel at the symmetry of the Frankfurter Tor towers built by Herman Henselmann and find out how the plans for the first socialist street in Germany were made in early 1950s. Learn about the success of the national rebuilding program that mobilised thousands of volunteers.

15 min

See the modernist architecture from immediate post-WWII years by Hans Scharoun and find out more about his utopian urbanist ideas born in the ashes of destroyed Berlin but rejected soon after by the new East German regime.

20 min

See the building that served as a prototype for the rest of the socialist Karl-Marx-Allee and offered its first tenants unprecedented luxury. Find out how the building project became a propaganda tool and a magnet for Western architects.

20 min

Visit the place where disgruntled workers started a mass uprising in June 1953 that almost toppled the socialist government of East Germany. See the controversial monument dedicated to the uprising.

15 min

Discover how one of the most exclusive cafés on Karl-Marx-Allee in the days of East Berlin is connected with the statue of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator, whose statue was standing nearby until 1961.

15 min

Meet the author of "The Communist Manifesto" and find out how socialist ideology affected everyday life of East Berliners.

15 min

Admire another splendid example of Hermann Henselmann's style and hear stories about life in Karl-Marx-Allee after the Fall of the Berlin Wall and today.