The best of the best in Germany

Hi there,
We were in Berchtesgaden in May 2023 and loved it. I am attaching my trip report for your review. I am sure you would like to visit the Eagle Nest since you're a WW II aficionado.

We had rain when we were there, but did some hiking and loved it. Lots of nature and beauty.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/trip-report-germany-austria-may-2023-part-i

Welcome to the forum.

Be optimistic that you will find the best places to see because most of them are well communicated. In addition I recommend to use the local (towns) and regional (states) tourist websites, e. g. VisitBerlin including their blog with tips for the next days, and also event calendars.

I doubt that you will feel bored in Berlin but Potsdam has World Heritage palaces from imperial time or Oranienburg has a Holocaust Memorial (former concentration camp). Day 1 is typically orientation, e. g. by a HoHo bus tour. Berlin is huge, so using public transport makes sense. The next days I recommend to do topic packages, e. g. WW2 or ColdWar, so you are diving into the surface a little. This forum contains many day itineraries already.

In Nuremberg the Nazi Documentation Center re-opened recently.

Before we write too much about every city I suggest that you put together a short bullet list for every town / place what you already found.

Example:

Schwerin

• castle
• museum
• dome
• Schelfmarkt for oldtown impressions
• backverrückt for German bread

Just commenting on Berlin, there is a LOT to see. We booked an architectural / history bike tour with Fat Tire the first day, great orientation and amazing guide! Reichtag needs to be booked in advance, it's completely worthwhile. Museum Island is a 1/2 day at least, preferably on a skip the line tour or go in the afternoon for a shorter Q. Had you thought about going to Potsdam by train? (or a bike tour).

As a general comment, we've really enjoyed our walking food tours - Rome was with Eating Europe, there are a lot of foodie tours in Berlin & I suspect Munich, if not the other destinations.

I would use the search bar on the RS home page for more insights into each of these places, and I know some of our German resident members will add other ideas, have fun!

In the past 3 years I've spent almost two weeks in Berlin alone and haven't seen everything. You seriously need to narrow down your plans to just 2-3 areas/cities. Because as it stands you'll spend more time traveling than actually seeing anything.

In Berlin, take the underground tour of the flak tower. Walk the Tiergarden starting around 0600 before the tourist busses start moving; the light will be fantastic and you'll get shots of the Brandenberg gate without the crowds. Go down to the Soviet Memorial. Realize this was used as an airstrip after Templehof fell. Visit the Zoo. See the Altes Museum. If you're into films go see the Bud Spencer museum. Look for the pop up flea markets held in the evenings; excellent places for street food. Go to the Technical Museum!

Dresden is another city that can take weeks to see. If you did one museum a day you'd still need a couple weeks. Do visit the Military History Museum and Pillnitz Castle.

And then, if you throw in Schwerin and the Baltic Coast it's time to go home.

Nuremberg and Munich are another trip, because in the same area you have Ingolstadt with the Bavarian Military Museum, the Messerschmidt hanger, and Audi. Also Augsburg, Neustadt, and Regensburg, plus gems like Eichstatt, Weissenberg, and Amberg; all of which have places that should be visited, and usually are overlooked. Plus the entire "Romantic Road". Save this for the next time you have a month.

And the Bavarian/Tyrolian Alps? That's another trip too.

Have been to Berlin 5 times and still haven't seen everything I want to see. As a tip, hop over to Trip Advisor and look at their Things to Do lists for each of the cities you want to visit, then look at what tours might be offered for each city. Book direct though, not with Viator.
For Berlin, my suggestions would be a good walking tour the 1st day, not a HoHo bus. This gives you good orientation, plus ideas for places to visit. I like Insider Tours. Consider going to the Olympic Stadium, Track 17, Sachsenhausen KZ or Ravensbrück KZ, Wannsee Villa, Topography of Terror, tour of the Reichstag, plus at least a day in Potsdam.

I can assure you that with two weeks and the large area you plan to cover you will miss a lot of MUST see sites. You could easily spend all the time in Berlin and at the Baltic coast area and would not even see all the MUST see sites there. Granted, your interest in history limited to the 20th century reduces the list of places remarkably. But still, there is Leipzig with the sites related to the peaceful revolution in 1989, there are the concentration camps (Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald), Dresden with the monuments that remind of the bombing in 1945 but also the Military History Museum, the Stasi museums in Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden, the Prison in Bautzen ... and along the way you'll miss all the countless sights related to earlier history. And the beautiful nature like National Parks Saxon Switzerland and on Rügen Island (cliffs), the Spreewald. And UNESCO world heritage sites, I just want to mention those in Saxony: Erzgebirge (mining related), park Bad Muskau, Herrnhut (Moravian church) ...

I love Germany. Berlin? 61 nights spent there since 2016. I am particularly fond of WWII, Cold War, and post-unification history. A few things that I think are particularly grand...

• The Reichstag. You can do an in-person tour of the building and then a tour of the dome with an audio guide OR you can just do the audioguide of the dome. I have just done the audioguide twice. My suggestion is to schedule a bit before sunset. Walk the dome with the audioguide first while there is light, and then just hang out on the roof and watch darkness fall on the city as its lights come on. It's a super cool experience with very nice views of the city.
• Tempelhof Airport. A small airfield transformed into a massive airport by the Nazis pre-war, complete with monumental Nazi architecture. In 1948-1949, the airport was used as the primary airport for the Berlin Airlift, which was, in my mind, one of America's greatest moments, making this almost hallowed ground. A tour of the airport includes the public spaces of the decommissioned airport and the private spaces used by the US during the Cold War. Nearby is the Luftbrückendenkmal (Airlift Memorial).
• The Soviet Memorial at Treptower Park. A massive memorial and burial site for WWII Soviet soldiers with an enormous statue of a Soviet soldier holding a German child with a crushed swastika beneath the soldier's feet; the statue is built atop a mound of around 6,000 Soviet soldiers who died in the Battle of Berlin.
  

I agree with Ms Jo that a tour on the first day in Berlin to orient yourself would be good. Insider Tours is great for a group tour. If you have time and funds for a private tour, Robert Sommer is great. He was the 15-year-old son of a high-ranking East German bureaucrat the night the Berlin Wall fell. He can tell you about growing up in East Germany, the events in his home the night the Wall fell, and life as a punk-rocker in post-unification Germany. He ended up getting a PhD in history and is married to a former member of Germany's Parliament. He's a very interesting guy. He historically has charged 50-100 euro per hour for a tour according to your ability to pay and your enjoyment of the tour, but that was pre-COVID. I'm not sure if that is still true. He's a very cool guy with whom to spend a half day or a day. http://thetrueberliner.com/

A good video about the Berlin Airlift: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFlLWcRFLB4

In the first 90 seconds, you see my hero Gail Halvorsen. US pilot in South America during WWII. US pilot for Berlin Airlift. Dropped candy to the kids of Berlin during the Airlift. Commander of the 7350th Air Base Group at Tempelhof Central Airport in the early 1970's. Retired from the US Air Force after 31 years of service as a colonel. And... the nicest man I ever met.

You'll also see tough-as-nails General Lucius Clay, the governor of the US Zone, Germany, from 1947 to 1949. All of Truman's advisors said to let the communists have West Berlin. Lucius Clay responded that if Truman did that, it would only be a matter of time before the communists would then take West Germany and then continue to annex countries in western Europe. He challenged Truman to not allow West Berlin to fall into communist hands. Truman listened to Clay. And the Airlift happened. Thirteen years later, Clay challenged JFK to stand strong during the Berlin Crisis of 1961 that resulted in the stand-off of tanks at Checkpoint Charlie. Later that year, he appeared with JFK on the stage at Rathaus Schöneberg for JFK's "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech.

To add to what's been suggested above, if you're interested in 20th C German history you might like the DDR Museum in Berlin: https://www.ddr-museum.de/en