Which city?

I would choose Berlin with those interests.

Only those two choices, given that, it's Berlin...obviously. Just focus on Berlin with a day trip to Potsdam, or even skip Potsdam and concentrate on Berlin from Spandau to Köpenick.

But, if you are intent on doing a day trip, then I suggest these choices...Potsdam, Neuruppin, Rheinsberg, Neustrelitz, Halle, Lutherstadt Wittenberg, or Weimar, a bit far but certainly doable if you're so interested.

Hands down, Berlin. Architecture and museums describe this reborn city.

Where will you be, before and after? The logistics might make one a better choice.

I agree, with only time for one city and based on your interests, it's Berlin. Berlin has some of the best museums I have ever visited and it's a very interesting city to explore.

As resident I am allowed to vote for my own town? :-)

Berlin wins for me every time. Munich is just ok for me as a travel destination, nothing very exciting there. No idea why Rick loves it so much. Berlin is exciting and chock full of interesting things to see and do. Can't wait to go there again.

Welcome every time, Ms. Jo :-)

Are you buying the coffee, Mark?

Sure :-) Either Impala coffee shop at Nollendorfplatz or at Hamdi's Einstein Kaffee near Gendarmenmarkt - my alive Egyptian "godness" of coffee.

Years ago, there was a thread here entitled "Berlin Munich cagematch." So, some people like both, some like only one or the other, and some don't like either one.

You will only know which one you prefer after you have been to both.

I strongly prefer Berlin, but with only 3-4 days, you won't run out of things to see and do in either.

I agree that a big part of your decision should be based on which one works best, logistically, with the rest of your itinerary.

The rest of your decision should be based on your research. Read about each place, and watch videos (Rick's are here - scroll down to Germany): https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/video/tv-show. Which one calls to YOU more, right now?

I agree that logistics may play a significant role in your decision, but I'll offer my opinion. Both cities are fine cities, but I adore Berlin.

I'm not much for museums unless its raining, but for the cityscape, forget both Munich and Berlin. See Trier, Bernkastle, Rothenburg, Nordlingen, Passau, Nurnbung, Bad Wmipfen, Schwabish Hall, Regensuburg, Wittenburg, Meissen,, Dresden (also museums), Lindau, Meersburg, Tubingen.

"Cityscape" and architecture are two very different things to me.

Ideally, if time permits, you ought to see BOTH cities. Since the time does not allow visiting both, then, as I pointed out above, it's most definitely Berlin. Most likely, on every trip I stay in Munich for a night or two but not necessarily, but with Berlin I always go back on every trip, only missed it once out of 24 trips.

My family and I are on a plane right now traveling home from 2 weeks in Germany. We went to Bacharach (incredible), Baden Baden (incredible), Munich (wouldn't go back), and Berlin (wanted to stay longer.)

Not that Munich isn't a nice place to stay but other than drinking the same not so good beer at different Beer Gardens we were bored by day three. Day 4 we couldn't wait to get moving. Berlin we could have stayed for another week. We love food and drinks plus history. It was our 11th trip to Europe and all 6 9f us were disappointed in Munich. Just our opinion.

none of the above unless you are really into museums. For museums and architecture, Dresden.
For architecture, just to name a few, Bad Wimpfen, Schabish Hall, Bernkastle, Trier, rothenburg odT, nordlingen, Passau, Regensburg, Wurzbrug, Nurnburg, and on and on.

I would not bother with Munich on a first trip to Germany unless I had other Bavarian stops as well, or, say, Salzburg. Have been to Berlin 3 times, Munich once.

I just returned from Berlin last night. I'll build on Kevin's post by saying I've spent 3 nights in Munich and 33 nights in Berlin in the last 4 years. For me, Munich is a fine city, but I feel like I've seen what I want to see there; Berlin has innumerable treasures.

Architecture in Berlin? Despite being bombed flat, there is still much to see in Berlin. I'll give you far too many ideas for the time you are there, including some obvious things to see, along with some more obscure sites. Here goes...

• There are grand old buildings like the Berlin Dom and the Museum Island buildings that still stand.
  
• The Reichstag's melding of an old facade with sleek internal design and a modernist dome is definitely worth a visit (make a reservation for a free visit to the dome or a tour of the building online well before arrival).
• Randomly stop while walking and look around. Admire the pre-WWII facades interspersed with the plain, post-WWII facades (and realize just how much of Berlin was destroyed).
• There are the Berlin Modernism Housing Estates, a collection of 6 housing projects built between 1913 and 1934 that have UNESCO World Heritage status. The Siemensstadt Estate (Großsiedlung Siemensstadt) is representative and located near the enormous Siemens campus, which includes the company's memorial to employees who died in military duty during WWI and WWII (Denkmal für die Gefallenen der Siemenswerke). The kind photographer Christian Fessel has a workspace and photography showroom at the main information point for Großsiedlung Siemensstadt at Goebelstraße 2 and will gladly share his in-depth knowledge of the housing estate, if he is present.
• Context Travel has a couple of very nice architecture tours: (1) Divided City: Cold War Berlin, which compares post WWII architecture in the former East and West Berlin and (2) From Bauhaus to Futurism: Berlin's 20th Century Architecture, which uses a walk from the Bauhaus Archive to Potsdamer Platz to illustrate 20th century architecture in Berlin. I have done both tours and found them excellent. Unfortunately, Context no longer offers these tours as small-group tours; they only offer them as private tours with a premium price that I think would be "worth it" if someone truly enjoys architecture.
• There is a lot of interesting architecture in more outlying regions of Berlin. Potsdam, Spandau, and Köpenick all have interesting architecture. Museum Pankow has its main museum in a former school that tells the history of the district but also has 2 other locations that consist of flats in historically-authentic buildings that show the residence of a skilled workman and the residence of a factory owner. The architecture around the factory owner's flat is impressive, including the visually-stunning Carl-von-Ossietzky-Gymnasium Museum Pankow is not on the English tourist radar, so nearly everything is in German.
• If you google "Berlin architecture tour," you can find other companies that offer architecture tours; I can't vouch for any of them.

Architecture in Berlin? Despite being bombed flat, ...

Bombed flat is not really matching to whole Berlin but somehow for some center areas. For the historically interested rbb assembled some numbers from WWII results for Berlin. Translation of German page.

363 air raids
British and American bombers flew 363 air attacks on Berlin, including 35 major attacks.

100,000 tons of explosives in just under three months
Between 1 February and 21 April 1945 alone, more than 100,000 tons of explosives and phosphorus were dropped on Berlin.

2.8 instead of 4.3 million Berliners
In May 1945, of the original 4.339 million Berliners from 1939, only 2.807 million still lived in the city.

75 million cubic metres of rubble
An estimated 400 to 500 million cubic meters of rubble were found throughout Germany, around one seventh of which fell on Berlin: at least 45 million cubic meters of rubble were stored in West Berlin, at least 30 million cubic meters in East Berlin. With the Berlin rubble, it would have been possible to build a wall 30 meters wide and five meters high as far as Cologne.

11.3 percent of all buildings destroyed
Of the 245,300 buildings, 11.3 percent were totally destroyed immediately after the end of the war, 8.3 percent were badly damaged, 9.7 percent were recoverable and 69.4 percent were habitable.

600,000 uninhabitable dwellings
Of the original 1,562,641 apartments, only 370,000 could be immediately resettled after the war, 380,000 were slightly damaged, over 500,000 were totally destroyed and around 100,000 were severely damaged. In the districts of Mitte and Tiergarten, more than 50 percent of the apartments were totally or severely destroyed.

28.5 square kilometres of destroyed area
A total of 28.5 of 187 square kilometres of built-up urban area were totally destroyed.

Damaged road network of 1,350 kilometres
Berlin's road network comprised a total of 4,300 kilometres, of which 1,350 kilometres were completely destroyed.

57.6 percent fewer companies
In 1939 there were still 277,628 workplaces in Berlin, in 1945 there were only 117,845. 560,000 of the 2,171,690 jobs still existed, from 1,179,731 employees 293,618 became.

24,500 fewer hospital beds
Instead of the original 33,000 hospital beds there were only 8,500 left in May 1945.

149 destroyed school buildings
Of the 649 school buildings, 149 were completely destroyed and 127 severely damaged.

20 intact cinemas
Only 20 of the original 400 cinemas were still intact after the war.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

Yeah... I actually hesitated on using the phrase "bombed flat" but went with it anyways. :)

Hi,

In reference to your interest in architecture pertaining to Berlin, evidence of it prior to the war, ie examples from Prussian history can be seen, likewise in Potsdam aside from Sans Souci...just a matter of knowing where they are and tracking them down. I've seen them.

I would also suggest seeing the Invalidenfriedhof, (one of the oldest and most famous of the Prussian-German military cemeteries), where you can see a memorial to the victims of Anglo-American bombing of the city.

I happened to think of a way to make the Context architecture tours less expensive, if you are interested in one of them. Robert Summer is one of the Context guides, but he also works independently (http://thetrueberliner.com/). He did my Divided City tour, which lasted around 3 hours. A friend and I just did a couple of private tours with him; he quoted us a price for our tours that would be substantially less than the Context private tour price. Just contact him through his private website (if interested), and he can probably make a tour happen for you.

Robert is also an interesting fellow. He has a PhD in Cultural Studies; his dissertation focused on prostitution in the concentration camps. He is a consultant for the Ravensbrück concentration camp exhibition and currently has a special exhibit there that consists of photos of objects from the concentration camps with the stories behind them (e.g., a teddy bear). He grew up in East Berlin as the son of a fairly high-ranking bureaucrat. He was a 15 year old who was starting to dabble in the counter culture when the Berlin Wall fell. So, you can learn about a whole lot more than architecture from him.