Berlin History School Trips & Tours - Impact of the Cold War

This walking tour covers the key city centre sites in depth:

• The Reichstag
• Brandenburg Gate
• Holocaust Memorial
• Hitler’s Bunker
• Potsdamer Platz
• Reich Air Ministry buildings
• Topography of Terror
• Checkpoint Charlie Museum
• Unter den Linden
• Neue Wache
• Bebelplatz (site of the book burning)

Throughout a full day or split across two half days, our guides can cover a number of key historical sites, providing your group with full commentary that will put them in the context of your curriculum. 

On foot and public transport, tour the former East Berlin including the Zionskirche, Gethsemanekirche and the Bornholmer Bridge.

Throughout a full day or split across two half days, our guides can cover a number of key historical sites, providing your group with full commentary that will put them in the context of your curriculum. 

Only available with a History Educationalist Guide

This tour includes sites in and around Alexanderplatz concentrating on the events of September - November 1989. 

Throughout a full day or split across two half days, our guides can cover a number of key historical sites, providing your group with full commentary that will put them in the context of your curriculum. 

Only available with our Educationalist Guide.

Built for the 1936 Olympics, this is an excellent example of Nazi architecture. This is where the black American athlete, Jesse Owens, won four gold medals, supposedly infuriating Hitler because of his race.

This fascinating exhibition is contained within the former cellars of Gestapo HQ, illustrating the terrors and crimes of the Nazi era. The new documentation centre and other exhibitions are presented in both English and German.

Opened in 1936, this is an excellent example of National Socialist style architecture and is now the home of the Ministry of Finance. The 8 metre socialist realist mural on one corner of the building is a reminder of its time as The House of the Ministries, one of the most important government buildings in East Germany.

Situated in the Bendlerblock, the former Wehrmacht building from which the July Bomb Plot was organised and where Stauffenberg and several of his co-conspirators were executed, the museum covers all aspects of opposition and resistance to National Socialism within Germany.

Here, your group will see how East and West Berlin were divided for 28 years. The Bernauerstrasse Memorial allows students to see remains of the Berlin Wall as well as an exhibition on Berlin during the Cold War. The East Side Gallery is the longest surviving stretch of the wall and is nearly 1.5km long – and includes the work of various artists and political cartoonists.

Situated in the city centre, this interactive museum offers fascinating insights into daily life in the DDR. Take a virtual drive round an East German housing estate in the Trabi simulator. This interactive museum immerses students into daily life during the Communist Era in East Berlin helping them understand the period in a unique and entertaining way.  The museum also provides school groups with free-of-charge quiz sheets to download from their website, which students can use to work their way through the exhibition in an independent but structured fashion. Answer sheets are available from the entrance desk!

https://www.ddr-museum.de/en/your-visit/teachers-groups

From idyllic countryside dacha to works canteen and Bautzen prison - the exhibition, spread over 600 square meters, presents original objects, documents, films and audio recordings that explore the gap between ideals and reality in the GDR. The individual experiences showcased illustrate the diverse attitudes towards the communist dictatorship, from loyal support to attempted neutrality or resistance.

Featuring exhibitions about the legendary border crossing point, this fascinating museum includes demonstrations of how individuals smuggled themselves across the border. Here, your group will have the opportunity to explore what drove some people to go along with the collectivist culture, and others to resist.  

At the site of the Stasi Headquarters, groups can gain a vivid insight into the huge power that this organisation wielded over citizens of the GDR. Visit the exhibition which includes the offices of key staff and learn more about the events that led to the opening of the border. 

The Berlin passport and customs office was known during the Cold War as the 'Palace of Tears'. This museum and memorial dedicated to documenting the separation of East and West Germany.

This former political prison for people detained by the Stasi is now a museum which covers not only the Stasi period but its origins as a Soviet Special Prison from 1946-51 and provides groups with a very authentic picture of prison conditions in the GDR. 

After Berlin, nowhere in Germany was more central to the events of 1989 than Leipzig, the GDR’s second city. The demonstration on 9th October 1989 and the regime's reaction to it was one of the major turning points of that momentous year. Visit the Nikolaikirche where the Monday evening meetings were held and from where the weekly protest marches set off. Visit the Runde Ecke, the former Stasi HQ and see the permanent exhibition ‘Power and Banality’. A full day coach excursion from Berlin.

Famous for its porcelain and china works, Dresden was controversially bombed by the Allies in 1945 destroying around 80% of the city and killing thousands of its inhabitants. This beautiful city has since undergone extensive restoration including to its magnificent cathedral.

Located at the very heart of the city on the Alexanderplatz, the Berlin TV tower is part of German history: in the sixties the East German government had the TV tower built to demonstrate the strength and efficiency of the socialist party system. Today the tower, Berlin’s highest structure, shapes the skyline of the German capital city and has fantastic views - and serves as a landmark of the reunited Germany. Your group can pinpoint the many landmarks and attend the free exhibition.

Take a cruise along the River Spree on this tour and see all the major attractions of the city while learning about the intriguing history of Berlin.

This indoor tropical beach, which lies outside of the city, is home to water slides, lagoons and miniature golf, as well as the world’s largest indoor rainforest. 

This large, action-packed swimming complex has a pool with diving boards. It also has an outdoor pool, slide and whirlpools.

Groups can visit the fabulous cinema at Potsdamer Platz. Bowling Am Schillerpark This bowling alley is the most popular of four available in Berlin.

Groups can spend an evening at the ice-rink in Wilmersdorf.

The large indoor market in the centre of the city is an ideal place to put language skills to the test and pick up a bargain or two.

An excellent visit to the Cecilienhof Palace where the conference took place in the summer 1945. As well as a fascinating exhibition, students can actually visit the room where the negotiations between the immediate post-war leaders took place.

Bring history to life with this fabulous opportunity for your students. During this one hour session they are able to listen and ask questions to people who actually experienced the reality of everyday life in the former East Germany.

Located in Potsdam, the Memorial (a former prison complex) remembers the victims of political persecution and imprisonment in Germany from 1933 to 1989 (used by the Nazis, KGB and the Stasi), as well as how the Communist dictatorship was finally overcome in 1989-90.

Embark on a journey into the shadowy realm of espionage and intelligence from the Cold War to the present. Exhibits on display will include such curiosities as preserved smells, infrared briefcases and cameras hidden in coats.

75 years ago in Potsdam, world history was written: After the end of World War II in Europe, the USA, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain reached an agreement for a new international order in the summer of 1945. The site of the legendary Potsdam Conference was Cecilienhof Palace, where the “Big Three”, Truman, Stalin, and Churchill, later succeeded by Attlee, met from mid-July to the beginning of August 1945 to discuss the future of Europe. For countries in the Middle East and Asia as well, the conference was to have far-reaching consequences.

Experience those fateful days of the summer of 1945 at this authentic location on a multi-media journey through time. The after-effects of the conference, palpable to this very day, are explained clearly with the aid of international loans, diary entries, historical film and photo material, and documents dating from the time. Open May - November 2020.