Berlin's history is written on its streets, and kids get it fastest when they can stand on it. The Wall split the city for 28 years, and you can still trace where it ran, see what people built to escape it, and go underground into wartime bunkers. Here's what we checked, from the death strip on Bernauer Straße to the tunnels under Gesundbrunnen.
The memorial runs 1.4 km along Bernauer Straße, where the border split the street in two. Rusty steel rods trace the line of the Wall, and markers show escape tunnels and spots where people died trying to cross.
From the viewing tower at the Documentation Center, kids look down into the last preserved stretch of the death strip, watchtower included. Best with school-age kids who know some of the history.
The East Side Gallery is the longest surviving stretch of the Berlin Wall, running 1.3 km along Mühlenstraße between Ostbahnhof and the Oberbaumbrücke. After the Wall fell, 118 artists from 21 countries painted it with murals.
Kids can hunt for famous ones, like the Brezhnev and Honecker kiss and a Trabant car bursting through the Wall, then cut across to the green strip along the Spree.
The DDR Museum shows daily life in East Germany through original objects visitors are allowed to handle. Kids sit behind the wheel of a Trabi driving simulator and walk through a furnished prefab apartment whose children's room is stocked with East German toys to play with.
Other rooms cover the Wall, the Stasi and a kindergarten corner. The Stasi section suits older kids more than toddlers.
A private museum about the Berlin Wall, open since 1963 beside the old border crossing. Its rooms hold the real things people used to get out of East Berlin: repurposed cars including an Isetta, a homemade hot-air balloon, a mini submarine and motorized hang-gliders.
The displays are mostly photos and text, so it suits school-age kids who already know some of the story.
The city's only surviving historic gate, built 1788 to 1791 and modeled on the entrance to the Acropolis in Athens. Twelve Doric columns hold up the Quadriga, a chariot statue Napoleon took to Paris in 1806 and Berlin got back in 1814.
Kids can walk through the columns, spot the four horses on top, and hear how the gate stood in a closed zone of the Berlin Wall until 1989.
The glass dome on the roof of the Reichstag Building, home of the German parliament, has a spiral ramp that winds up around a mirrored cone to an open top. Kids can look down through the glass into the plenary chamber, then walk the roof terrace for views over the government district and city landmarks.
Audioguides on the terrace come in twelve languages, with a children's version in German.
Berliner Unterwelten leads guided walks through bunkers and tunnels beneath the city. The Dark Worlds tour starts behind a green door in Gesundbrunnen station and winds through a WWII air-raid shelter left as it was, full of wartime artifacts buried for decades.
Other tours visit a Cold War nuclear bunker and escape tunnels under the Berlin Wall. Talks are pitched at adults, which suits curious teens best.
Berlin's history is written on its streets, and kids get it fastest when they can stand on it. The Wall split the city for 28 years, and you can still trace where it ran, see what people built to escape it, and go underground into wartime bunkers. Here's what we checked, from the death strip on Bernauer Straße to the tunnels under Gesundbrunnen.
The memorial runs 1.4 km along Bernauer Straße, where the border split the street in two. Rusty steel rods trace the line of the Wall, and markers show escape tunnels and spots where people died trying to cross.
From the viewing tower at the Documentation Center, kids look down into the last preserved stretch of the death strip, watchtower included. Best with school-age kids who know some of the history.
The East Side Gallery is the longest surviving stretch of the Berlin Wall, running 1.3 km along Mühlenstraße between Ostbahnhof and the Oberbaumbrücke. After the Wall fell, 118 artists from 21 countries painted it with murals.
Kids can hunt for famous ones, like the Brezhnev and Honecker kiss and a Trabant car bursting through the Wall, then cut across to the green strip along the Spree.
The DDR Museum shows daily life in East Germany through original objects visitors are allowed to handle. Kids sit behind the wheel of a Trabi driving simulator and walk through a furnished prefab apartment whose children's room is stocked with East German toys to play with.
Other rooms cover the Wall, the Stasi and a kindergarten corner. The Stasi section suits older kids more than toddlers.
A private museum about the Berlin Wall, open since 1963 beside the old border crossing. Its rooms hold the real things people used to get out of East Berlin: repurposed cars including an Isetta, a homemade hot-air balloon, a mini submarine and motorized hang-gliders.
The displays are mostly photos and text, so it suits school-age kids who already know some of the story.
The city's only surviving historic gate, built 1788 to 1791 and modeled on the entrance to the Acropolis in Athens. Twelve Doric columns hold up the Quadriga, a chariot statue Napoleon took to Paris in 1806 and Berlin got back in 1814.
Kids can walk through the columns, spot the four horses on top, and hear how the gate stood in a closed zone of the Berlin Wall until 1989.
The glass dome on the roof of the Reichstag Building, home of the German parliament, has a spiral ramp that winds up around a mirrored cone to an open top. Kids can look down through the glass into the plenary chamber, then walk the roof terrace for views over the government district and city landmarks.
Audioguides on the terrace come in twelve languages, with a children's version in German.
Berliner Unterwelten leads guided walks through bunkers and tunnels beneath the city. The Dark Worlds tour starts behind a green door in Gesundbrunnen station and winds through a WWII air-raid shelter left as it was, full of wartime artifacts buried for decades.
Other tours visit a Cold War nuclear bunker and escape tunnels under the Berlin Wall. Talks are pitched at adults, which suits curious teens best.
