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Places associated with the Fall of the Berlin Wall or the GDR

Eisenhüttenstadt It is where people, events and locations link up with it that history comes to life. Many places in Brandenburg have links to the history of the GDR and the time when the Wall came down and this is something which helps to bring contemporary events to life.  One example is the Glienicke Bridge, which has gone down in the annals as “the Agents’ Bridge”, the so-called “Forest Enclave” in Wandlitz, where prominent people in the Politbureau lived or the first socialist grid town of  Eisenhüttenstadt. Some of the memorial sites are listed on the following pages.
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The Wind of Change

Potsdam - Am Kanal The 1989/90 ’Wende’ presented huge challenges to people in the eastern part of Germany – but it also opened up new opportunities. This made it possible to embark on the restoration of castles, country estates and other representative buildings that had been expropriated after the Second World War and sometimes abandoned and left to decay. Today, for example, the Marble Palace in Potsdam is resplendent with new glory, whilst Castle Meseberg, the German Federal Government ’guesthouse’, has also undergone an extensive refit.
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GDR History and the Fall of the Berlin Wall – Opportunities for Active Participation

The Berlin Wall Trail The Fall of the Berlin Wall is a theme that you, too,  can actively “experience“  - in the truest sense of the word! The Wall Trail leads around and through Berlin for a distance of 160 kilometres. As it follows the route of the former border, there are many stations that remind the visitor of the time when Germany was partitioned. Along the River Elbe you will also come across traces of the internal German border and experience the unique flora and fauna of the UNESCO biosphere reserve in the Elbe river landscape. The most famous East German product in the world – the Spreewald gherkin – is the focus of the Gherkin Cycleway (‘Gurkenradweg’) which offers a myriad of information and, of course, innumerable opportunities to sample the gherkin, over a circular route of more than 250 kilometres.
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