Karl-Marx-Allee Tour: Life and Architecture in East Berlin

Name: Karl-Marx-Allee Tour: Life and Architecture in East Berlin
Brand: Viator
Rating: 5 (22 reviews)

5.0(22)2 HoursGerman, EnglishBerlin

Free cancellation
Likely to sell out

Live pricing on Viator

This street at the heart of eastern Berlin has had three names. Stalinallee, once the prestige boulevard of socialist East Berlin, was built up from the ashes of WWII in the 1950s. On this tour, we will discover how socialist ideology shaped life from architecture and surveillance to simple everyday activities. Beyond the bombastic facade, this street has been the stage for violent street fighting, demonstrations and funeral marches. We will ask the question what it meant to live well for those who built this street and the generations after. This tour doesn’t end with the collapse of the Berlin Wall but follows it into the 21st century and the stories of those Berliners still living there.

Included

Expert local guide

Not included

Gratuities

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What you'll do

Frankfurter Tor
Intersection of Karl-Marx-Allee & Frankfurter Allee, Berlin, Germany
Marvel at the symmetry of the Frankfurter Tor towers built by Herman Henselmann and find out how the plans for the first socialist street in Germany were made in early 1950s. Learn about the success of the national rebuilding program that mobilised thousands of volunteers.
20 min
See the modernist architecture from immediate post-WWII years by Hans Scharoun a
nd find out more about his utopian urbanist ideas born in the ashes of destroyed Berlin but rejected soon after by the new East German regime.
15 min
See the building that served as a prototype for the rest of the socialist Karl-M
arx-Allee and offered its first tenants unprecedented luxury. Find out how the building project became a propaganda tool and a magnet for Western architects.
20 min
Visit the place where disgruntled workers started a mass uprising in June 1953 t
hat almost toppled the socialist government of East Germany. See the controversial monument dedicated to the uprising.
20 min
Discover how one of the most exclusive cafés on Karl-Marx-Allee in the days of E
ast Berlin is connected with the statue of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator, whose statue was standing nearby until 1961.
15 min
Karl-marx-bustendenkmal
Strausberger Pl. 12, Straußberger Platz, Ecke Karl-marx-allee, Berlin, Germany
Meet the author of "The Communist Manifesto" and find out how socialist ideology affected everyday life of East Berliners.
15 min
Strausberger Platz
Strausberger Platz, Berlin, Germany
Admire another splendid example of Hermann Henselmann's style and hear stories about life in Karl-Marx-Allee after the Fall of the Berlin Wall and today.
15 min

Meeting and pickup

3 locations

Pickup details

At the Nextbike stand outside the Frankfurter Tor underground station, on the corner of Warschauer Straße and Karl-Marx-Allee. Look for our guide with the orange umbrella!