Berlin is a huge city with several district articles that contain information about specific sights, restaurants, and accommodation.
Berlin is Germany's capital and largest city. Within the city limits, Berlin in 2022 had a population of 3.7 million.
Berlin panorama from the Siegessäule in 2013: Reichstag building with cupola (far left), TV Tower and Cathedral (centre left), Brandenburg Gate (centre)
Berlin is coming into its own again as a cosmopolitan capital of one of Europe's wealthiest nations. "Arm aber sexy" (poor but sexy) as a former mayor would he it, Berlin attracts young people, students and a creative bohème like few other cities in the world. With architectural heritage from Prussian monarchism, Nazism, East German communism and Potsdamer Platz, filled with 1990s and 2000s-style glass palaces after hing been a "blank canvas" due to the wall, Berlin's architecture is as varied as its neighbourhoods and its people. And due to its long history as a cosmopolitan capital, it has attracted immigrants from all over the world for more than 300 years now, who continue to lee their own marks on the city.
Berlin is home to world-renowned universities, orchestras, museums, and entertainment venues, and is host to many sporting events. Its Zoological Garden is the most visited zoo in Europe and one of the most popular worldwide. The city is well known for its festivals, nightlife, contemporary arts and a very high quality of living.
Districts[edit]Berlin can be seen as a cluster of centres. Berlin has many boroughs (Bezirke), and each borough is composed of several localities (Kiez or Viertel) — each of these boroughs and localities has a unique style. Some boroughs of Berlin are more worthy of a visitor's attention than others. Berlin used to be divided into 23 boroughs, and these boroughs are used in Wikivoyage as they remain foremost in popular conceptions of the city and are useful for visitors to know. In 2001, the number of boroughs was reduced from 23 to 12 for administrative purposes—mostly by merging old boroughs—sometimes across what was the inner-Berlin border. The boroughs can roughly be grouped into eight districts:
'"`UNIQ--maplink-00000001-QINU`"'Districts of Berlin
Mitte (Mitte, Tiergarten)The "heart" of Berlin has many historically important sights, abundant cafés, restaurants, museums, galleries, and clubs. City West (Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Schöneberg, Friedenau, Moabit, Hansiertel)This used to be the urban heart of West Berlin with Kurfürstendamm (Ku'damm) and Tauentzienstraße still major shopping areas. While the party has since moved east, there are great restaurants and hotels as well as the Olympic stadium and Schloss Charlottenburg. East Central (Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg, Wedding)Made up of historically diverse neighbourhoods, Kreuzberg was in the West but almost encircled by the wall. It drew leftists, cheapskates and malcontents, including a large squatter scene that frequently clashed with police, Friedrichshain likewise had squatters after reunification while "Prenzlberg" was a much more laid-back residential neighbourhood. Today all those areas are gentrifying, or already gentrified, but there are still numerous cafes, clubs, and bars. Reinickendorf and Spandau (Spandau, Reinickendorf)Spandau and Reinickendorf are beautiful old towns, which feel much more spacious than the inner city. At times they can feel a world apart from Berlin. If you ask the erage Berliner, and even many Spandauers, they'll tell you Spandau isn't "actually Berlin". East (Lichtenberg, Hohenschönhausen, Marzahn, Hellersdorf, Weißensee, Pankow)The museum at the site of the 1945 surrender to the Soviet army and the former Stasi prison are an essential visit for anyone interested in East German history. Marzahn-Hellersdorf's reputation for being a vast collection of dull high-rise apartment blocks is undeserved because it is the home of the "Gardens of the World", a large park where you can explore various ethnic styles of garden design. Steglitz-Zehlendorf (Steglitz, Zehlendorf)The southwest corner of Berlin, a rather bourgeois and relatively sparsely populated area with easy access to Potsdam. Tempelhof and Neukölln (Tempelhof, Neukölln)The rapidly-gentrifying northern parts of Neukölln now seamlessly pass over into East Central, and Tempelhof is still known as the site of "the mother of all airports" (now a park). Treptow-Köpenick (Treptow, Köpenick)The southeastern corner, famous for the Hauptmann von Köpenick. Understand[edit]
The city of Berlin is co-extensive with the Land of Berlin, one of the 16 federal states that make up the Federal Republic of Germany. It has a population of 3.8 million (2019) (and a million more in suburbs like Potsdam across the state line in Brandenburg).
Berlin is and has been far less dominant as the capital of Germany than London, Paris or Madrid are in their respective countries, because of the federal nature of Germany and because the hoc war and partition wreaked on the city.
Merely a backwater town in the early 18th century, Berlin grew to be one of the most important and biggest cities in the world by the 1920s. The heart of old Prussia and a focal point of the Cold War, it lost much of its importance and historic architecture as a result of World War II and German partition.
Berlin is a world city of culture, politics, media and science. Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the service sector, a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, and media corporations. Significant sectors also include IT, biotechnology, construction and electronics.
With the world's oldest large-scale movie studio complex in nearby Babelsberg, Berlin is an increasingly popular location for international film productions.
History[edit] The beginnings[edit]The area was most likely first settled by Sls before German-speaking immigrants arrived in the 11th and 12th centuries. The earliest evidence of settlements in the area of what is now Berlin are a wooden rod dating from approximately 1192 and remains of wooden houses dated to 1174 which were found in a 2012 excation in Berlin Mitte. The first written records of towns in the area of present-day Berlin date from the late 12th century. Spandau is first mentioned in 1197 and Köpenick in 1209, although these areas did not become part of Berlin until 1920 (see below).
Reconstructed Nikolaiviertel
The nucleus of Berlin was two towns: Berlin (now known as the Nikolaiviertel close to Alexanderplatz), which began as a Slic town, and Cölln, which was Germanic in origin, which included what has today become the Museum Island. While the etymology of "Berlin" is not fully clear (the bear in the coat of arms is due to an understandable wrong assumption medieval German speakers made) it is likely linked to a Slic word for swamp. So yes, Germany's capital was literally built in a swamp. The year 1237 (first mention of Cölln in official records) is what was used as the basis for the 750-year celebrations in 1987, and it'll likely be used as the reference point for future anniversaries.
The area became known as Berlin-Cölln and was a residence for the electors of Brandenburg, but it remained a relatively small trading post. Roughly half of Berlin's inhabitants perished as a result of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). The war led to a signature Hohenzollern policy of allowing and even encouraging religious refugees to immigrate to the area. The policy was promulgated by "great elector" Frederic William (Friedrich Wilhelm, reigned 1640-1688), who also consolidated the trend of ruling Prussians to be called Friedrich, Wilhelm or both, which lasted all the way to the last German Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Brandenburg Gate (Brandenburger Tor), built in 1793
Berlin became the capital of Prussia in 1701, but Potsdam remained a symbol for Hohenzollern rule into Weimar times. In 1710 several independent towns were merged into Berlin, helping to give it the polycentric layout it still has. The Prussian leaders of the 18th century were known for their "enlightened despotism" and an amount of religious toleration far beyond that found in other parts of Europe at the time. Those policies benefited all of Brandenburg/Prussia but they had their strongest impact on Berlin.
Kaiserreich and Weimar Republic[edit]
Berlin Palace (Berliner Schloss) - Humboldt Forum
The German Empire (Deutsches Reich) was formed in 1871 under Prussian dominance and Berlin became the capital of this newly-united Germany. It grew quickly as the political capital and as a centre of industry. Between 1877 and 1900, its population grew from 1 million inhabitants to 1.9 million. In 1884-1885, Berlin was the location of the Berlin Conference, in which the great powers, namely Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, met to divide Africa among themselves.
In 1918, it was in Berlin that many of the most decisive events of the German November Revolution to overthrow the Kaiser took place. Philipp Scheidemann, a Social Democrat, declared a republic from a window of the Reichstag on 9 November 1918. Just hours later, communist Karl Liebknecht declared a "free socialist republic" leading to a schism between the Social Democrats and Communists, who were already at odds in 1914 over the question of whether to support World War I. Berlin became one of the centres of fighting and chaos. The split continued throughout the Weimar Republic period.
Perhaps the best known Weimar-era residential new construction, the Hufeisensiedlung in Berlin-Britz
In 1920, the last of the annexations of towns surrounding Berlin created the administrative borders it has today, then known as "Groß-Berlin", or Greater Berlin. The Weimar era was probably the high point in both the importance of Berlin and its reputation in the world. The city's population grew to 4 million people. It was one of the most populous and influential cities in the world, only exceeded in population by New York City and London. In area, Groß-Berlin was the second biggest city in the world behind only Los Angeles. Almost all politicians, intellectuals, artists, scientists and other public figures known during the Weimar Republic lived and worked in Berlin. It was here that the theatres, cabarets and cinemas brought German culture to a frenetic flourishing that was suddenly and violently ended with the Nazi takeover.
Potsdamer Platz (site of one of the first traffic lights in the world) was considered one of the places in Europe with the densest traffic. The rapidly developing S-Bahn (electrified in that era) and U-Bahn mass transit systems were seen as models for the world with few equals. Tempelhof Airport (then without its iconic terminal building which was built by the Nazis) was seen as one of the best airports in Europe, and its connection to the U-Bahn showed the way for all major airports to come.
Berlin was also a bustling multicultural place with people from all over the world contributing to its cultural and economic output. Rampant inequality, however, meant that not everybody participated in the boom. The economic crisis of 1929 and the subsequent austerity measures hit the poorest disproportionately hard. Housing was scarce in the city, and apartment blocks intended to remedy this were built. Six groups of these buildings he been declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites under the name "Berlin Modernism Housing Estates".
Nazi era and World War II[edit]The takeover of Germany by the Nazis in 1933 meant a break for the culture of Berlin. Many of the intellectuals and artists who had been drawn to the liberal and progressive metropolis had to flee, were imprisoned by the Nazis or otherwise silenced. The vibrant gay scene which had existed more or less openly despite laws banning male homosexuality was brutally suppressed by the Nazis. Until 1933 Berlin felt a world apart from the rising Nazi threat emerging from more rural areas. It seemed almost as a foreign invasion when the Nazis took power and asserted their brutal regime in Berlin and the rest of Germany. The Nazis wanted to redesign Berlin into "World Capital Germania", but the war put an end to those plans. The Nazi buildings that remain were built before the war and are not always associated with them, such as the Olympic Stadium (built for the 1936 games), and the terminal building for Tempelhof Airport.
Berlin was hit hard and repeatedly by a series of aerial bombardments during World War II that levelled a lot of the city. In the last months of the war, Berlin was at the heart of one of the bloodiest battles of the war as several Soviet generals raced one another to get to Berlin first because Stalin believed the Americans and British intended to conquer Berlin as well. A "whispered joke" making the rounds at the time among Germans said the war would be over when the Volkssturm (old men and teenagers - Hitler's last "soldiers" of any kind) would take the S-Bahn to the front. The iconic photo of a Soviet soldier raising the red flag on the Reichstag dates to that era, and graffiti made by Soviet soldiers in 1945 can still be found in the Reichstag Building.
Some foreign tourists like to ask where the Führerbunker is, but like other potential "shrines to Nazism" it was levelled by the Allies and is now the site of a parking lot. The Topographie des Terrors ("Topography of Terror") in central Berlin is an open-air exhibit that gives backgrounds on the sites of various Nazi offices in Berlin and which atrocities were directed from where.
Cold War and partition[edit]Berlin was divided into four sectors in accordance with the agreements of Yalta and Potsdam. While the powers had planned to jointly administer Berlin and Germany, it broke down with the Soviet blockade of the Western sectors, and then with the Berlin airlift. West Berlin had to be supplied by the western allies through the air.
The monument dedicated to the airlift at Tempelhof airport
The airlift, including the dropping of small packets of candy on makeshift parachutes, endeared people in West Berlin to the Western allies, and eventually forced the Soviets to end the blockade. Despite the name "raisin bomber", the single most common good by net tonnage was coal. Because the sectors were cut off from Soviet-occupied electricity lines, the planes also flew in an entire power plant and subsequently the fuel for it, but most coal was used to heat private homes. West Berlin later became a part of West Germany in fact if not in name: it sent non-voting delegates to the Bundestag who were nominated by the Berlin parliament rather than elected by the people; similarly all federal laws had to be approved by the Berlin legislature, which usually happened without any real vote or discussion. Berlin remained the last open crossing in the increasingly militarised and airtight "inner-German" border. On 13 August 1961, the East German (GDR) leadership closed the border just weeks after East German leader Walter Ulbricht said in a press conference "Niemand hat die Absicht eine Mauer zu errichten" (nobody has the intention of building a wall). The border was fortified more and more in the ensuing years with several walls. The concrete Berlin Wall was soon covered in graffiti on its western side. The side was in East Berlin, but neither the East German nor the West German authorities were willing or able to police it.
While there was an effort in the west to preserve historic buildings which had survived Allied bombardment, the GDR tore down buildings that might he been salvageable. The Stadtschloss was seen as a remnant of feudalism and was replaced with the Palast der Republik which housed the GDR Parliament. It was torn down after 1990 due to its political associations and asbestos content. A new Stadtschloss at the same site, housing the Humboldt Forum, opened in 2020. The rebuilding of a feudal monument on the site of east Germany's most notable representative building was seen as a dubious political statement, and was controversial because of the questionable way in which many of the exhibits were acquired during the colonial era.
The partition also led to a unique development, especially in the Western half. West Berlin never legally belonged to the Federal Republic of Germany, even though it "voluntarily" applied most West German laws. A prohibition on joining the military made it a place for many students and radicals or people who wanted to oid the draft to go. The student revolts of 1967–1968 mostly took place here. It was here that young Benno Ohnesorg was shot during a protest against the Shah of Iran in 1967. This galvanised a movement against continued presence of Nazi elites, the Vietnam War and several – perceived or real – birth defects of the young German Federal Republic. This movement, retroactively called die 68er ("the 68ers"), was most prominent in Berlin. Its leader, Rudi Dutschke, was an East German emigrant from Brandenburg. In this era, Kreuzberg, a part of which was surrounded by the wall on three sides, became a hotbed of leftist activism. There were frequent clashes with police, which he been occasionally repeated since reunification. During partition, artists like Did Bowie came to Berlin for inspiration. A stop at landmarks symbolic of the division became a mainstay of foreign state visits to the city. Ronald Reagan famously stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate, made inaccessible by the Wall, when he said "Mister Gorbachev open this gate; Mister Gorbachev tear down this wall."
People fed up with the situation in East Germany – and encouraged by Gorbachev's policy of glasnost and perestroika – took to the streets in increasing numbers in 1989. There was a large demonstration at Alexanderplatz in October 1989. On 9 November 1989, GDR press secretary Günter Schabowski read aloud a new decree regarding an opening of the border during the first-ever live GDR press conference. On the subsequent question of when it would enter in force, he replied "sofort, unverzüglich" (i.e. immediately). While the people who had drafted the new decree had not intended for immediate entry into force, Schabowski had been kept out of the loop regarding that crucial detail. This slip-up led to people flocking to the border post in the belief the Wall had fallen. The overwhelmed guards had no choice but to open the border, and this day became known as the "fall of the Berlin Wall". The Wall was torn down in the ensuing days and weeks. Events began moving fast, and after elections resulted in a clear pro-unification majority, East Germany joined West Germany on 3 October 1990, just days ahead of what would he been the 41st anniversary of the GDR. Berlin became the capital of reunified Germany and most government institutions moved there in 1998.
The old and new of Berlin: Marienkirche and the TV Tower
History since reunification[edit]
Despite its almost total lack of industry (what survived the war either left West Berlin or was nationalised in East Berlin and mostly went bankrupt during 1989/90), Berlin is a major draw for immigrants, particularly the young and well-educated. Unlike virtually all major capitals, Berlin is slightly less well-off than the national erage, and thus has had comparatively affordable rents and costs of living during the postwar era, albeit with a steep upward trend catching up to its peers by the 2020s. This has combined to make Berlin one of the centres of the startup phenomenon. The "rent question" has come to dominate Berlin politics in the 2020s with a Berlin-based rent control law struck down by the Constitutional Court on the grounds that a state government didn't he that authority (only the federal government does) and a plebiscite in the works that would expropriate big private real estate companies which had bought up a lot of Berlin housing stock cheaply in the neoliberal 2000s.
While the Wall is now fallen longer than it ever stood, and some scars of partition took only weeks or months to mend, there are still visible signs of where the border once was. Some are seemingly innocuous like the lack of trams in the old West or the colour of street lights, but some are kept in place on purpose to remind locals and visitors alike of that phase of history. After reunification, there was an iconoclasm of all things GDR. While many things (particularly the monuments to the Soviet soldiers) were kept, the most notable victim of a drive to tear down all relics of Communist government was the Palast der Republik. It was torn down in part because of asbestos contamination, but also to restore the former Prussian Stadtschloss, which had been torn down to make way for the GDR reorganisation of the city.
Climate[edit] Berlin Climate chart (explanation) JFMAMJJASOND 42 3 −2 33 5 −2 41 9 1 37 15 4 54 20 9 69 22 12 56 25 14 58 25 14 45 19 11 37 14 6 44 8 2 55 4 0 Average max. and min. temperatures in °C Precipitation+Snow totals in mmSource: Wikipedia. Visit AccuWeather for a 5-day forecast. Imperial conversion JFMAMJJASOND 1.7 38 29 1.3 41 29 1.6 48 34 1.5 59 40 2.1 67 48 2.7 72 54 2.2 77 58 2.3 76 57 1.8 67 51 1.5 57 44 1.7 46 36 2.2 39 31 Average max. and min. temperatures in °F Precipitation+Snow totals in inchesBerlin is at a transition point between temperate oceanic and continental climates, meaning warm summers and cold winters. Nighttime temperatures typically fall below freezing in the winter, and snowfall is a regular occurrence, though the snow rarely accumulates for more than a few days. Summers are typically pleasant, with daytime temperatures typically in the low 20s, and nighttime temperatures staying above 10 °C. Berlin is a rather windy city, though by no means as windy as coastal cities like Hamburg or Lübeck. A wind-stopping jacket comes highly recommended, especially during autumn and spring.
People[edit]As a city that grew from an assortment of minor towns in a backwater of Europe to the third biggest city in the world in barely more than two centuries, Berlin has always been a place where being "from elsewhere" was the rule rather than the exception. During GDR times, East Berlin attracted many people from the countryside and other cities as new housing was built at a faster rate there to alleviate the housing shortage. Furthermore, Berliners often enjoyed slightly fuller shelves and shorter lines in supermarkets than other East Germans. In the West, some people left Berlin due to its isolation, and others came in due to the exemption from the draft.
Since reunification, Berlin's cosmopolitan atmosphere has led to widespread immigration. Berlin's Jewish community has been growing because of immigration from the former Soviet Union, and because some young Israelis find Berlin as a place with high quality of life. In the 2010s, the city took in tens of thousands of refugees from Syria, and nowadays the Neukölln neighborhood is known for its predominance of Arab and Turkish immigrants. Today, Berlin draws people from Germany and from all over the world. You will find every ethnicity, religion and national origin in Berlin, which means that the city is able to constantly reinvent itself, but a born-and-raised Berliner is something of a rare sight outside some outlying neighbourhoods.
Nowadays, the conflicts between Easterners and Westerners are often replaced by jokes about Swabians, who he a reputation for thriftiness, uptightness and an audible dialect. Many Swabians he flocked to neighbourhoods like Prenzlauer Berg, and the welcome hasn't always been warm. Make no mistake, however, often those complaining the loudest about "Swabians" or gentrification are relatively recent arrivals themselves.
Berliners are notorious for a certain type of "humour" that can come across as just plain rudeness to those not accustomed to it. The stereotypical Berliner has a reputation for impolite directness even among Germans who in general see little use in pleasantries and small talk. Berliners will also frequently complain about supposed or real government incompetence which they find evidenced in everything from trash on the streets or a delayed bus to the woes during the construction of the new airport or the understaffed civil service. However, it is generally not seen fourably when out of towners start joining the complaints.
Berlin is also a remarkably irreligious city with only about a quarter of the population belonging to either the Protestant or Catholic Church as tracked for tax reasons. Media – especially those of a conservative bent or based in mostly Catholic southern Germany – he consequently taken to calling Berlin the "capital of atheists". Nevertheless, Berlin also has a large Muslim population, and you can meet people from every religion in Berlin.
Wildlife[edit]Though Berlin is traditionally associated with bears, you are not likely to see any of them roaming the streets. However, Berlin is also known for its foxes, which are visible not only in parks but also at times on quiet streets of relatively built-up, centrally located neighborhoods at night. There is also a great variety of bird life, especially in the huge Tiergarten, where you can hear Eurasian blackbirds, nightingales, European robins, goldfinches, blackcaps and quite a few other songbirds in the spring and summer.
Economy[edit]
Potsdamer Platz, headquarters of Deutsche Bahn and Daimler
From 1871 to 1940, Berlin was a centre for major German industrial companies and the administrative headquarters of many companies in all fields. However, soon after the Second World War ended, many of these companies moved south or west, went bankrupt, or were nationalised in the GDR.
Berlin consequently became a centre of research, rather than of production. West Berlin had a special subsidy for "Berlin-made" industrial products during partition, but those were usually products which had the bare minimum of production occur in Berlin to benefit from the subsidy and almost all of those schemes ceased the moment the subsidy was ended after reunification.
While some company headquarters he moved to Berlin since reunification in 1990, the dominance of the capital is much less pronounced in the German economy than in that of most other European countries. Despite the economic boost resulting from the country's capital moving back to the city, Berlin's unemployment rate soared over 10% from 2000 to 2010. Berlin today is known in Germany for being a centre of creative branches such as design and arts of all kinds; you will see a lot of people working with Notebooks in some coffee shops.
Since reunification some companies he established head offices in Berlin but in many cases those exist primarily to he a "representative" address on the letterhead and a lot of administration, let alone development or production is still done outside Berlin. In what many Berliners hope to be a sign of a trend change, Berlin founded industrial conglomerate Siemens is once again moving into its 1920s "Siemensstadt" in the 2020s to he a capital location for research, administration and production.
Orientation[edit]As Berlin grew from several different towns and villages, there is not one centre per se but rather several centres which can make orientation a bit difficult.
The apocryphal adage about Washington DC's street layout being designed to confuse invading armies could apply to Berlin as well, if it were designed by anybody to do anything at all. Berlin's streets are confusing and follow no logic to speak of, owing to the development of the city and to decades of partition. Cardinal directions are of little use: almost nothing is aligned straightforwardly east–west, nor north–south, not even the former border. Street signs therefore usually bear the names of boroughs and sometimes local landmarks.
There may be different streets of the same name scattered across the city. For example, there are at least three streets named "Potsdamer Straße": one in Lichtenrade, one in Zehlendorf and another one in Giesendorf. This is not an uncommon thing in Berlin in part due to it hing been a bunch of separate cities and villages. Some of the more common names he since been changed, but by far not all of them. It is a good idea to always keep in mind which district you are trelling to. German postal codes are pretty fine-grained and usually the same street-name should not appear twice in the same code, so try and use the full address with postal code and/or district. Taxi drivers somehow he to (and usually do) know most of those strange and repeating street names. As Istanbul-born comedian Serdar Somuncu quipped with regard to the many Turkish-descendant taxi drivers, "A German wouldn't go to Istanbul to become a taxi driver, yet countless Turkish taxi drivers get people to one of the three dozen Goethe Straßen in Berlin without fail every day".
Street name with the range of house numbers; notice also the East Berlin green man
House numbers do not necessarily run in the same direction (up or down) everywhere. On a lot of streets, the numbers ascend on one side and descend on the other. So to oid getting you lost, you should check the numbering scheme first: you can find the name of the street at nearly every street corner. The same sign will usually state the range of house numbers in that segment.
Berlin's U-Bahn and S-Bahn bear the scars of decades of partition and of post-reunification lack of funds. They originated as a hodgepodge of lines with different loading gauges constructed by private companies and then-independent cities. Routes are indicated by number and the name of their endpoint, so memorise them lest you want to go many kilometres in the wrong direction. A good public transport map comes in handy, and several institutions hand out city maps with urban rail stops indicated on them. The U-Bahn, S-Bahn and, in the former East, Straßenbahn (tramway) are still a good way to get around. The buses are also clean, reliable and relatively fast.
Read and watch[edit]Berlin probably reached its cultural peak in the 1920s, although since then many artists took a lot of inspiration from the divided years. Here are just a few books and films to introduce you to Berlin:
Berlin Alexanderplatz (Alfred Döblin, 1929) captures the Berlin of its time. The most famous of its three film versions is the 15½-hour Fassbinder film. A remake loosely based on the novel was released in 2020. Emil and the Detectives (Erich Kästner, 1929) is the most famous book set in Berlin. Emil, a naïve country boy, is robbed by a criminal. The boy is helped by a gang of street-svy Berlin children who solve the case by themselves. There are several film versions of the story, made from 1931 to 2001. Cabaret perhaps the work that defined the view of the Weimar Republic in the Anglophone world. The movie is based on the 1939 book, Goodbye to Berlin, by Christopher Isherwood, a gay man about the nightlife of pre-war Berlin, a hedonistic world ignoring the coming catastrophe Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo, a 1978 autobiography written by "Christiane F." about a drug-addicted child prostitute in West Berlin. Did Bowie recorded the soundtrack for the 1981 film. Run Lola Run (German: Lola rennt), a 1998 movie about a small time criminal and his girlfriend, Lola. Its frenetic narrative tells three different versions of the same story depending on Lola's decisions. It was one of the biggest post-reunification successes of German cinema. Good Bye, Lenin!, a 2003 film set in East Berlin during the 1989/90 transition. The premise is the protagonist trying to ensure his mother, who fell into a coma shortly before the fall of the Wall and awoke shortly afterwards, doesn't realise the GDR is no more. The Kangaroo Chronicles (Marc-Uwe Kling, 2009–14). A "minor artist" narrates his life with a communist kangaroo roommate; the two engage in hijinks, often of a political bent, philosophising about the injustices of capitalism, and how modern society induces laziness. His observational comedy is spot-on. A movie based on the books was released in 2020. Victoria, a 2015 film about one night in Berlin, shot in a single 140-minute take without cuts. A Spanish student in Berlin runs into a gang who are much less sophisticated but exhibit a rough charm. They inadvertently get involved in criminal activity, giving the film elements of a thriller and road movie through different parts of the city. Babylon Berlin (2017–present), a hit TV series about crime, nightlife, demimonde, drugs and political conflict in 1920s Berlin, loosely based on the crime novel series. Music[edit]There are countless musical tributes to Berlin, many of which praise the imperfections that are characteristic of the city. This is just a small selection:
Paul Lincke's operetta song Berliner Luft (1904) Hildegard Knef's Berlin, dein Gesicht hat Sommersprossen (1966) the Rauch-Haus-Song (1972) by leftist rock band Ton Steine Scherben, which became the anthem of the squatter scene and was covered by several punk bands Did Bowie and Iggy Pop lived in West Berlin during the late-1970s. Bowie's albums Low, Heroes and Lodger are therefore known as the "Berlin Trilogy". Songs that are clearly about Berlin include Iggy's The Passenger (1977) and Bowie's nostalgic Where are we now? (2013) Wir stehn auf Berlin (1980) by Neue Deutsche Welle band Ideal Sido's rap Mein Block (2004) about life in the Märkisches Viertel, a deprived plattenbau estate Dickes B (2001) by reggae/dancehall combo Seeed and Schwarz zu blau (2009) by Seeed member Peter FoxBerlin is a centre of electronic music of all kinds, and its legendary clubbing scene attracts people from around the globe. The movie Berlin Calling, with music by Paul & Fritz Kalkbrenner (the former also playing the main role), is a celebration of this part of Berlin culture.
Tourist information[edit] Visit Berlin. (updated Feb 2024) Talk[edit]Signage and automatic announcements are often ailable in English, and sometimes in French and Spanish as well as German. There are, however, surprisingly many people who speak little or no English, in particular among the elderly and people who grew up in the East, where Russian was taught in schools. This does not necessarily keep them from attempting to speak English with you if they notice an accent or halting German.
A lot of place names can be a bit tricky even to fluent German speakers as they are of Slic origin. The widespread -ow ending is to be pronounced /o:/ like a long German "o". Saying "Pankoff" or "Rudoff" will mark you as an out-of-towner and might cause jokes at your expense.
People who work in public transit and the tourism sector are now expected to speak at least some English, but they may not necessarily he much patience explaining the same thing over and over to tourists every single day, even when it's their job to do so, and the aforementioned Berlin rudeness / "humour" might come through when dealing with tourists.
Immigration and the Erasmus programme mean there are several other languages widely spoken. In particular, there are some 200,000 people of Turkish origin living in Berlin, mainly in the western districts. But don't assume someone speaks Turkish well (or at all) just because they he a Turkish surname. Foreign students originate from all over Europe, but Spanish, Greek and Italian speakers are especially numerous. As many students in Berlin are either Erasmus students or he been abroad elsewhere, you can reasonably expect students to speak at least passable English and often another European language.
The Berlin dialect (Berlinerisch) is still spoken by many people, particularly in outlying districts and neighbouring Brandenburg. Dialect is usually more pronounced in the East and some words are almost entirely unknown even in West Berlin. Some words used in the Berlin dialect:
Schrippe: bread roll Stulle: sandwich Broiler: grilled chicken (people from western Germany and former West Berlin probably won't understand this; they say Grillhähnchen instead) Get in[edit] By plane[edit]
Berlin Brandenburg Airport
52.36224713.5006721 Berlin Brandenburg International Airport (BER IATA). started operations on 31 October 2020 on the extended grounds of now-closed Schönefeld Airport. Berlin Airport does not he a "home carrier" and is not the hub of any airline but it does he a pretty comprehensive network of European destinations served by Easyjet, Ryanair, Eurowings and a bunch of legacy carriers, a good number of Mediterranean "sun" destinations (many of them seasonal) but only a handful of transatlantic routes. 
(updated Jan 2025)
You may also want to consider flying in to the large German airports of Hamburg (HAM IATA), Frankfurt (FRA IATA) or Hanover (HAJ IATA). From there you can take a train or intercity bus to Berlin. The nearby airports of Leipzig (LEJ IATA), Dresden (DRS IATA) and Szczecin (SZZ IATA) he fewer scheduled flights but you may just find a low-cost Europe flight from there.
Getting from the airport to central Berlin[edit]
Your options in getting to and from the airport in pictogram form
By train[edit]
The train station is in the basement of Terminal 1; Terminal 2 is a short walk away. It is in fare zone C, so make sure you he an ABC (€4.70) ticket. An AB ticket is not valid, and you risk a €60 fine. Purchasing your ticket on board is not an option, but there are ample ticket machines throughout the airport. If there's a queue, look for another. There are 6 platforms, 2 for the S-Bahn and 4 for regional trains.
To quickly get to the city center, take any of the regional trains FEX, RE8, RE17, or RB23. (The lines RB22 and RB24 serve Ostkreuz but oid the center). At peak periods, trains depart about every 15 minutes, the journey will take about 45 minutes. The S9 is a slower option, but useful in case of disruption. There are also periodic IC trains on the Dresden - Berlin - Rostock route.
By bus[edit]Local buses don't directly serve the city center. Rather, the line X7 connects the airport with the station U7 Rudow. Unless your destination is in the far south of the city (or there's a DB strike), you're not likely to use this.
Flixbus offers long-distance bus service to Dresden and Szczecin.
By car[edit]Should you wish to drive from the airport, use A113 and follow signposting. Berlin's traffic is becoming a major issue, so think twice before using your car.
A taxi should cost €60-€70, there is a well-served taxi stand.
By train[edit]
The new central station (Hauptbahnhof)
Hauptbahnhof with Regional- and S-Bahn train
Wikivoyage has a guide to Rail trel in Germany
The central station 52.5254913.369132NOT EXISTING LISTING IMAGE Hauptbahnhof (Central Station) together with 52.4754913.364743 Südkreuz (Southern Cross, formerly Papestraße) and 52.5100113.434544 Ostbahnhof (Eastern Station) — plus minor 52.5493913.388785 Gesundbrunnen in the north and 52.5347313.198396 Spandau in the west — forms the backbone of all connections. All are connected to S- or U-Bahn. All trains stop at Hauptbahnhof and a second major hub (depending on your itinerary). Regional trains stop at several stations within Berlin, almost all of them also at Hauptbahnhof and all stop at least at one major long-distance hub. The Hauptbahnhof is situated between the S-Bahn stations Friedrichstraße and Bellevue. It is an impressive feat of architecture with many shops, most of them open on Sundays. Given its size, the distances between train platforms are surprisingly short. However, try to oid tight connections, as the multilevel layout can be confusing at first and Berlin Hauptbahnhof is a good place to kill half an hour at any rate. The new 'Hauptbahnhof' may appear as 'Lehrter Bahnhof' on older maps.
U5 connects the Hauptbahnhof to Alexanderplatz and destinations further east (older guides might state U55 instead which has been merged into the lengthened U5 in 2020). Four S-Bahn lines ( S3 , S5 , S7 , S9 ) serve the station as do three tram lines (M5, M8, M10). The tram lines serve the Main Station coming from the East and the M10 also runs west to Moabit (U Turmstraße). M10 is particularly known as a "party tram" due to its route serving several nightlife hotspots and has been the subject of many a newspaper article. In addition to these transport options mostly oriented East-West a new S-Bahn line, tentatively called "S21" is under construction serving as another north–south spine through Hauptbahnhof.
During partition Berlin had two main train stations: Zoologischer Garten (practically universally referred to in speech as Bahnhof Zoo or just Zoo) in the West, and Ostbahnhof in the East. The latter was named "Hauptbahnhof" from 1987 to 1998. Since the opening of the Hauptbahnhof, most ICE and international lines no longer stop at Zoologischer Garten, although regional DB services and S+U-Bahn services still stop there.
Berlin is served by all the train types Deutsche Bahn (DB) has on offer, including high speed ICE, somewhat slower IC, and EuroCity (EC) operated by DB and other European railway companies. Connections to the rest of Germany are excellent and most of Europe is reachable with one or two changes. While train routes to Berlin suffered during partition, they were a high federal priority following reunification and today Berlin has fast train connections to the west and south. Trains due north and east are still a bit slower. For example, the line to Dresden is slower today than it was in the 1930s when streamlined steam trains plied the route.
Domestic trains to Berlin include ICE services from Hamburg, Munich via Leipzig/Halle, Erfurt, Frankfurt, and Nuremberg with the fastest trains arriving in Berlin less than four hours after departure from Munich, IC/EC services from Dresden, and several "regional" trains, which he more intermediate stops and longer trel time than ICE. Berlin is also a stop for several "ICE Sprinter" services - ICE trains with fewer or no intermediate stops intended to lure business trellers from planes onto trains with faster trel times.
Non-stop international destinations are more limited owing to Berlin's easterly location within Germany. As of 2025, direct daytime trains serve Berlin from Amsterdam, Paris, Zürich, Interlaken, Innsbruck, Vienna, Prague, Bratisla, Budapest, Warsaw, and Kraków.
Berlin is also served by a private competitor of DB: Flixtrain, a subsidiary of Flixbus. They run trains from Stuttgart via Wolfsburg, Frankfurt and other stops, from Cologne via Bielefeld, Hanover, and Wolfsburg, from Basel, via Frankfurt, as well as shorter distances from Dresden, and Leipzig with a stop in Wittenberg. In addition to Hauptbahnhof, some Flixtrain trains stop in some of Berlin's other major train stations; Gesundbrunen, Ostbahnhof, Südkreuz, and Spandau. Flixtrain doesn't accept any DB tickets, and the same is true vice-versa.
As of 2025, the sleeper train network is experiencing a renaissance, and Berlin is one center of the action. The Austrian railway company ÖBB (under the name Nightjet) runs between Berlin and Vienna, Graz, Zürich, Prague, Budapest, Brussels, and Paris. Swedish companies SJ and Snälltåget both run overnight trains to/from Stockholm. Upstart operator European Sleeper serves Berlin from Amsterdam, Brussels, and Prague.
By bus[edit]52.507613.27987 Zentraler Omnibusbahnhof (ZOB) (Central Bus Terminal) (in Charlottenburg, Masurenallee.). Long distance buses generally arrive here. There are numerous buses to all directions and the U-Bahn stops (Theodor-Heuss-Platz or Kaiserdamm; both U2) or the S-Bahn stop (Messe Nord/ICC S41/42 and S46) is a 5-minute-walk away. Follow signposting. Some bus lines he other stops around Berlin, often including Südkreuz and/or the airport. The Sudkreuz bus stop is immediately outside the train station. The central bus station is not really close to anything. Retail services are limited and the prices as high as one might expect at a gas station. From 2016 to 2024 the station was undergoing renovation and expansion to cope with rising and changing demand - the station remained operational throughout the expansion. As part of the purpose of the works is to reduce erage dwell times from half an hour to 15 minutes it will also benefit those just driving through or connecting. The bus station website lists all departures and arrivals including the company running the service so it is a good place to look for up-to-date trel options. 
The rail service west from Lodz in Poland is slow. Poland has an ambitious project to improve service and trel times but for now Flixbus is cheaper and faster.
Berlin's "capital beltway", the A10 Berliner Ring, extends up to 30 km (19 mi) outside the city limits and actually only touches Berlin itself in the Northeast. It was built in the GDR era as the longest circular motorway in the world to direct traffic around West-Berlin but has since been surpassed in length by Beijing's sixth ring road and also Beijing's seventh ring road when it opens. At 196 km (122 mi) it is 8 km (5.0 mi) longer than the M25 around London, Europe's second longest orbital motorway. These motorways (enumerated in a clockwise direction) connect with the ring:
A11 from Stettin at Dreieck Schwanebeck A12 from Frankfurt (Oder)/Warsaw at Dreieck Spreeau A13 from Dresden/Prague at Kreuz Schönefeld A9 from Leipzig/Munich at Dreieck Potsdam A2 from Hanover/Dortmund at Dreieck Werder A24 from Hamburg at Dreieck Helland.From the ring, these are the motorways heading towards the city:
A111 from the northwest at Kreuz Oranienburg A114 from the north at Dreieck Pankow A113 from the southeast at Schönefelder Kreuz A115 from the southwest at Dreieck Nuthetal.There are also dual carriageways:
B96 from the north and the south B2 from the northeast B5 from the east and west B101 from the south.Inside Berlin there is a heily congested inner ring motorway (A100), which encircles the north, west and south with the northeastern section missing. Berlin driving is not for the faint-hearted, but manageable as there are wide streets and reasonably good parking conditions - at least in most parts of the city. The very existence of A100 is controversial in Berlin and its extension even more so. There are occasional demonstrations on A100 (usually with some transportation policy related aim) that shut down A100 for motorized traffic.
Berlin has a low emission zone (Umweltzone), which contains all areas within the S-Bahn ring. All vehicles moving inside this zone (including foreign vehicles) are required to bear a green emissions sticker (Feinstaubplakette). There are exceptions, e.g., for historic cars, but not for foreign number plates. The sticker can be ordered on-line[dead link].
By ship[edit]Being some 200 km (120 mi) inland, Berlin does not he a seaport. The nearest seaport is Rostock-Warnemünde, which is 2½-3 hours away by train, though still sold by many cruise ship operators as "Berlin", so don't be surprised. There are similar distances to the seaports of Hamburg and Szczecin. The latter was "Berlin's port" until 1945, but Cold War neglect and the newly drawn German-Polish border he all but severed that connection. There he been only slow attempts in the 2010s and 2020s to re-establish the link.
Some river cruises start or end at Berlin, using the Hel, Spree and some canals for cruises to Prague or the Baltic Sea. While river cruises in this area are nowhere near as popular as those along the Rhine or the Danube, there is some charming nature (including the Spreewald) rather close to Berlin. Most cruises include a tour of Berlin as the river Spree runs close to many sights.
By bicycle[edit]The 700-km Berlin-Copenhagen Cycle Route and the 340-km Berlin-Usedom Cycle Route both end in Berlin.
Get around[edit]
A ship passes below the Sandkrugbrücke in Moabit
By public transport[edit]
As Berlin is a major metropolis with pretty decent public transit, you should take buses, trains and trams whenever possible as those cover most of the city and are often the fastest way to get to places. The Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG) list all their fares on their website. Consult their Berlin route planner (in English) to get excellent maps and schedules for the U-Bahn, buses, S-Bahn local trains (RB and RE) and trams, or to print your personal journey planner. The route planner can also calculate the fastest door-to-door route for your destination for any given day and hour. However, the route planner assumes a rather slow walking speed. It might suggest taking a bus or tram for a single stop where healthy adults would be faster walking. The planner will let you pick between three walking speeds, but even the fastest walking speed is not terribly fast if you he no luggage. While BVG doesn't run S-Bahn or local trains, they are covered by the website and can be used with the same tickets.