Berlin WW2 Sights with Limited Time

The Soviet Memorial Treptow is a good reminder to Americans that the Soviets were our allies in WWII, and that many thousands of them died fighting nazism. If I’m remembering correctly, 7,000 are interred beneath the cenotaph at Treptow.

There are the two flak towers in Humboldthain Park by the Gesundbrunnen Bahnhof.
Also, of course, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, near the Zoo Bahnhof.

What is "WW2" for you? Or what are you most interested in?

• only war and combat related places /museums / memorials
• Nazi Terror
• Holocaust

What is "WW2" for you? Or what are you most interested in?

Mark - WW2 is everything you have mentioned, and more. I have made a list of the sights that I would like to see on this trip to Berlin.

I will not tell you to use Google since I don't do that myself...not necessary.

If your focus is on WW2 military sites, there is a more to see in the greater Berlin, the guide book is of no use. Berlin-Karlshorst I heartily recommend as its focus is the Eastern Front, the Nazi-Soviet war of extermination, you'll see Russian armour on the premises, sort of like a Tank Garten.

You need at least a week to track down these sites. would suggest going to Seelow. See the battlefield memorial museum there, Gedenkstätte Seelower Hoehen but that has changed over the years too as to its exhibit as has the Karlshort museum. Like Karlshorst Soviet armour is also displayed on the premises.

Another military site I recommend depending on your depth of interest and time is take a day trip from Berlin Hbf to Halbe, the miltary cemetery re: the Halbe Pocket, der Halbe-Kessel.

You can walk from Berlin Hbf to the Invalidenfriedhof, have done this several times. The WW2 section is only part of the cemetery , a good deal of it is on the War of Liberation against Napoleon and on German commanders in WW1.

Does your interest on seeing WW2 sites include the military cemeteries, must be if you're going to the Invalidenfriedhof, the oldest Prussian-German military cemetery in Berlin.

If yes, mainly Russian and German sites or that of the British as well? They are there in Berlin too.

Museum Berlin Karlshorst - the closest thing to a must-see. We really enjoyed the Surrender Museum in Reims, and would like to see
this one.

This was an important place for me to see on my first trip to Berlin, and it was a very worthwhile activity. While the museum is great (including the room where German's military leaders surrendered), it is also nice to see the Karlshorst neighborhood, which began being built in 1895. For an excellent memoir that shows the life of a child in Karlshorst pre-war (and follows the author's life into WWII and post-war Germany), see Joachim Fest's excellent Not I: Memoirs of a German Childhood.

> Platform 17 Memorial

This is another site that was important for me to see on my first trip to Berlin. If you happen to have interest in Dietrich Bonhoeffer, his parents' house (which was also his home while in Berlin and the site of his arrest) is a 30-minute walk away. This walk also passes through a gorgeous neighborhood built in the early 1900's; picture perfect gardens are all along the way. The Bonhoeffer Haus is typically open on Saturday mornings, but there is a mechanism for private appointments if you can't make it on a Saturday (which you can't). A tour includes a viewing of Bonhoeffer's bedroom with some original furniture. https://www.bonhoeffer-haus-berlin.de/

> Nazi Forced Labour Documentation Center

This is a new one for me. I wasn't aware of its existence. This looks like a good one.

> Soviet Memorial in Schonholzer Heide and/or Soviet Memorial Treptow

Both memorials are interesting, but the Treptow Park memorial is more impressive with its ENORMOUS sculpture of a Soviet soldier holding a German child while his feet stand on a crushed swastika. The Schönholzer Heide memorial is also very worthwhile to see, but (1) with your time being short and (2) with the ease of combining a Treptow Park visit with The Nazi Forced Labour Documentation Center visit (on the same S line), I would probably just do the Treptow Park Memorial.

> Alter Garrison Friedhof and/or Invaliden Friedhof

This would not be high on my list of places to see during my first visit to Berlin, but you may value this more highly than I.

> Militarhistorisches Museum

I'm assuming this is the museum at Gatow Airport. If so, it is a good museum. It is in the middle of a re-working of the museum; the former exhibit in one of the hangars regarding the Berlin Airlift from 1948 to 1949 appears to be a victim of the re-. To me, the Berlin Airlift is one of the US's greatest moments, and I am a particular fan of Gail Halvorsen, the US pilot who began dropping candy to Berlin's children during his flights into Tempelhof Airport. The airport was greatly expanded by the Nazis; it was their central airport for Berlin; and it was the central airport for the Berlin Airlift. A critical place for me to see during my first visit to Berlin (and well above the Gatow Museum) was Tempelhof Airport and the nearby Berlin Airlift memorial. There are 2-hour tours of the airport, if this is of interest to you -- https://www.thf-berlin.de/en/your-visit/guided-tours.

> German Resistance Memorial Center

Good museum. The entrance is off the courtyard where Claus von Stauffenburg was executed after the failed Operaion Valkyrie assassination attempt on Hitler.

The Humboldthain partially-collapsed flaktower is cool, and it can be combined with the Berliner Unterwelten Darkworlds tour, which takes visitors into a a WWII bunker for citizens of Berlin (https://www.berliner-unterwelten.de/en/guided-tours/public-tours/dark-worlds.html). BUT your schedule is already quite full.

I hope that helps -- and I hope it is not too much information.

There are the two flak towers in Humboldthain Park by the Gesundbrunnen Bahnhof.

There's only one Flak Tower, and only half of it is visible in the park. The two towers are corners of the same tower. It's one of three built, of four planned, in Berlin. If you have the time I highly recommend doing the underground tour of this interesting fortification.

Also, don't overlook the Victory Column and the Soviet Memorial, both in the Tiergarden. You can easily walk to both from the Brandenburg Tor. Just look down the road to the Tower and stay to the right and you'll hit the Soviet Memorial.

There's a huge amount of WWII still visible if you know how to look. Not museums, actual buildings and structures built during the war and still standing. One thing about the Germans, they build to last. Many of their wartime buildings are so heavily overconstructed they're too expensive to tear down. This is particularly true of the bomb shelters. Here's a good link to see some of those.

https://ftrc.blog/berlin-bunkers/

I like to walk around Berlin and see the actual architecture from that period, even more than repetitive displays of items in museums. Places like the Luftwaffe building and the Messe Center are still in use. Others sit abandoned. Most people just walk by without noticing.

Note: the Nazi's build hundreds of tower type bomb shelters, and many of these also still stand, mainly around major industrial or railroad centers. Most people don't even know what they are. Built to withstand constant bombardment they, like the huge old forts of the earlier centuries, will remain long after we're gone.

If all aspects are interesting for you then I would sort it by relevance and value for travel time:

From your list I would skip:
Platform 17 Memorial
Alter Garrison Friedhof and/or Invaliden Friedhof
Militarhistorisches Museum

I would add:
Topology of Terror - first as intro (understand Nazi Terror)
Sachsenhausen Memorial in Brandenburg
Memorial for the murdered Jews
Stolpersteine - just a few to get known of some real cases
Russian tank memorial near Brandenburg Gate