Today, Berlin is an upbeat city where people live, work, shop and celebrate in freedom. However this has not always been the case. Only a quarter century ago, East-Germans were shot dead if they tried to flee to the free west, and only half a century ago the entire city was ablaze. Many of the scars have gradually disappeared, but there are still many places in the city that remind us of Berlin’s turbulent history.
Two dramatic events in world history changed Berlin forever: the Second World War and the Cold War. Hitler had great plans for his ‘Welthauptstadt Germania’, with a new Chancellery (which was torn down after the war), a new airport (Tempelhof, which has now closed) and wide boulevards for which entire neighbourhoods were torn down. And the horror did not end with the war, especially for the residents of East-Berlin. The following 3 moving museums are dedicated to the darkest pages of Berlin’s history.