Just a few days after construction began on the Berlin Wall in August 1961, the 24-year-old tailor Günter Litfin became the first victim of the East German border guards' shoot-to-kill order as he tried to swim to freedom across a 40m-wide canal. This small exhibit in an old border watchtower keeps his legacy alive. Tours (in German, registration by phone required) take place at 3pm on Saturday.
Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¼´Ê±¿ª½±'s must-see attractions
1.5 MILES
Walk through ancient Babylon, meet an Egyptian queen, clamber up a Greek altar or be mesmerized by Monet's ethereal landscapes. Welcome to Museumsinsel …
1.54 MILES
For over 60 years, not a soul was able to visit Berlin’s Neues Museum – in fact, it sat in ruins. But today it’s one of the city’s most celebrated…
1.45 MILES
The Pergamonmuseum is one of Berlin’s most visited historical gems and perhaps also its most controversial. This museum offers an archaeological time-warp…
1.97 MILES
This compelling exhibit tells stories of terror and persecution in Nazi Germany.
16.89 MILES
This glorious park and palace ensemble is what happens when a king has good taste, plenty of cash and access to the finest architects and artists of the…
16.6 MILES
Frederick the Great's famous summer palace, this rococo gem was designed by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff in 1747 and sits daintily above vine-draped…
Nearby Berlin attractions
1. Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart
0.39 MILES
Berlin's contemporary art showcase opened in 1996 in an old railway station, whose grandeur is a great backdrop for this Aladdin's cave of paintings,…
0.5 MILES
Fossils and minerals don’t quicken your pulse? Well, how about Tristan, the T-Rex? His skeleton is among the best-preserved in the world and, along with…
3. Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum
0.56 MILES
This Charité Hospital–run museum chronicles 300 years of medical history in an anatomical theatre, a pathologist's dissection room, a laboratory and a…
4. Brecht-Weigel Gedenkstätte
0.67 MILES
Playwright Bertolt Brecht lived in this apartment from 1953 until his death in 1956. Tours (in German) take you inside his office, a large library, and…
5. Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof I
0.71 MILES
This compact 18th-century cemetery is the place of perpetual slumber for a veritable roll-call of famous Germans, including the philosophers Hegel and…
6. Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer
0.77 MILES
For an insightful primer on the Berlin Wall, visit this outdoor memorial, which extends for 1.4km along Bernauer Strasse and integrates an original…
7. Wall Memorial ‘Parlament der Bäume’
0.94 MILES
What looks like a post-apocalyptic garden is actually a memorial site created in 1990 by environmental artist Ben Wagin atop a section of the Berlin Wall…
0.94 MILES
The Federal Chancellery, Germany’s ‘White House’, is a sparkling, modern compound designed by Axel Schultes and Charlotte Frank and consisting of two…