Berlin 23: Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Straße

One of the key places we wanted to visit during our trip to Berlin in 2023 was the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Straße. The memorial is a 1.4 km preserved section of the former border strip, as it was at the end of the 1980s.

For some reason, I’d not managed to make it there on my previous trips to the city, which is a bit of an omission. But on the morning of the sixth day of our trip, we decided to put that right and head over to Bernauer Straße.

Getting there

The Berlin Wall Memorial wasn’t too far from our Airbnb apartment, a little over a mile away. Breaking with tradition, I decided to join the others on a tram, rather than ride.

This involved a short walk to Torstraße, to then get the M8 or M10 tram along there and up Brunnenstraße and Invalidenstraße. Pleasingly, this took us past where I stayed in 2022 and by the wonderful Mikkeller bar, where I spent a fair amount of time on that trip!

Cycle parking in front of Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz

We got off the tram at famous Nordbahnhof S-Bahn station. Originally, the station here was the terminus of the railway from Stettin, Poland and was named Stettiner Bahnhof. After a series of changes and extensions to station, including the addition of S-Bahn lines, it was heavily bombed during the Second World War.

Following the war, the station fell within the Soviet sector of East Berlin and renamed to Nordbahnhof. As the approach lines to the station passed through West Berlin, it was effectively condemned, with it being demolished in 1962.

The underground S-Bahn service continued to operate, though as this served West Berlin, the S-Bahn station became a ghost station until it reopened in the 1990s.

We did stop for a quick look in the station building and was pleased to see that in addition to lots of information about the station’s history, there was also plenty of indoor cycle parking!

Fahrradstraße (cycle street) sign on Linienstraße — Cycle parking in front of Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz

At the Berlin Wall Memorial

Leaving Nordbahnhof station, it’s just a short walk to get to Berlin Wall Memorial. Arriving there, we went off to explore the memorial. As I mentioned, what’s there is a 1.4 km section of the former border strip, as it was before the reunification.

Obviously, with the expanses of manicured grass and exhibitions around the site, it must feel very different to how it was back during the Cold War. The restoration has been sensitively done and the addition of the Victims of the Berlin Wall Window of Remembrance turns it from being a slightly abstract experience into something real.

Now, rather than regurgitate facts from various websites, here’s a link to the main Berlin Wall Memorial website, where you can read more about it and enjoy a photo tour of the memorial at the following gallery.

Location of the Berlin Wall on Bernauer Straße

Berlin Wall Memorial towards Gartenstraße — Location of the Berlin Wall on Bernauer Straße

Getting back

After an interesting and enjoyable wander around the memorial, it was time to head off as we were booked on an afternoon Fat Tire Tour of Berlin, more of that in the next post. That meant getting an U-Bahn train to Alexanderplatz from the nearby Bernauer Straße station, so we could grab some lunch beforehand.