TOURS
British historian Eric Hobsbawm maintained that the past century did not begin in the year 1900, but rather in 1914, with the beginning of World War One, and that it ended prematurely in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall.
This peculiarly short twentieth century is also the century of Berlin. No other city was marked in the same way by the events of those decades. The catastrophic end of World War One and the Prussian Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, the Holocaust, and the Cold War: all these events left wounds and scars still visible on the city map, its buildings, and public spaces. The ongoing attempt to cope with this complicated legacy has turned the city into an open-air lab that challenges how we think about Europe, society, and the future. These are the faces of Berlin:
The tours we offer
Our tours start at a minimum cost of 180 euros for a duration of 3-4 hours.
If you have any special requirements (specific interests, presence of people with disabilities, tours for children, etc.) please contact us and we will be happy to create tailor-made tours for you.
In order to understand Berlin, one has to understand the fate of the Prussian state, which heavily shaped European history in the 18th and 19th centuries. Prussian culture is the true spiritual core of Berlin. In our walk along the boulevard Unter den Linden, from Alexander Platz to the Brandenburg Gate, we walk through the most important buildings of this historical phase, dealing with the themes of the German Enlightenment (Aufklärung), the age of Frederick the Great and Otto von Bismarck’s imperial dream, which faded with the onset of the First World War. This walk is dominated by the work of Karl Friedrich Schinkel, a German architect and city planner whose vision characterizes Museum Island with its mixture of classic and neo-gothic elements defining the core of German Romanticism. A visit to the Humboldt Forum, which was inaugurated in December 2020 on the site of the old Berlin Castle, will prompt a reflection on Germany in the post-colonial age.
DURATION
3-4 h
PRICING
starting from €180
MEETING POINT
Alexanderplatz
Prussian Berlin
An exhaustive introduction to historical Berlin
Propaganda footage of the 1930s shows Nazi Germany as a rich and prosperous country characterized by a lively social and political life. Now we can see through those lies and understand not only the destructive power of that dictatorship but also its tragic legacy. This tour will take you through the landmarks of this dark period, from National Socialism’s early days to Hitler’s rise to power and his fall. We will start with the German Parliament and continue with the geography of Nazi power in town, including a stop by the deliberately unremarkable plate on the site where Hitler’s bunker was. We will finish with a guided tour of the Topography of Terror, an illuminating documentation center built on the grounds of the destroyed Gestapo headquarters.