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Cold War Berlin - Conflict, coexistence and the making of modern Berlin
5
days
from
US$4,060
Book today with a deposit from
US$609
19th - 23rd April 2027
Tour highlights
- Sites that rarely feature on a standard visit: the Stasi prison at Hohenschönhausen and Steinstücken, the West Berlin enclave entirely surrounded by the GDR.
- The Wall’s full arc, from Bernauer Strasse’s surviving death strip to the Reichstag, where the Cold War’s symbolic end took place.
- The world of Cold War espionage: the Teufelsberg listening station, the spies who inspired le Carré and Deighton, and the prisoner exchanges at Glienicke Bridge.
- Led by Dr Timothy Phillips, author of The Curtain and the Wall, a Guardian Book of the Year.
For almost half a century, Berlin was a microcosm of the divided world that the Cold War created. Encircled in barbed wire, and, from 1961, by 100 kilometres of 3-metre high concrete wall, it was the front line where two ideologies faced each other down. As the poet Stephen Spender wrote, Berliners lived ‘on the far side of fear’. After the Second World War, one of Europe’s great capitals found itself divided into sectors by the victorious Allies. Because of ideological divisions, these sectors quickly morphed into East Berlin, the capital of the German Democratic Republic, and West Berlin, an isolated and beleaguered, but also pampered, exclave of West Germany.
At numerous moments over the ensuing decades, the two parts of the city looked like they might cause the end of the world. While the Superpowers always managed – just! – to step back from the brink, people on either side of the Wall were forced to find ingenious ways to survive. Glasnost’ and perestroika crept across Eastern Europe from the mid-1980s onwards, but East Germany seemed immune. Its leadership had the most adamantine commitment to authoritarian Marxism-Leninism of any communist state. But, only a month after celebrating its 40th anniversary, the GDR collapsed on 9th November 1989. That night and in the days following, hundreds of thousands of East Berliners queued to pass through and over the Wall which had held them in for so long. It was a moment that has not yet lost its power to move.
Over five days, we will get to know Cold War Berlin through its physical legacy, the city’s unsurpassed museums, and the stories of those who lived and died in these circumstances of unprecedented tension. We will walk many parts of the former Wall together, discovering how a courageous few managed to cross it, and encountering the history of the international forces (American, British, French and Soviet) who maintained the uneasy peace. The city was once thick with them, inspiring John le Carré, Len Deighton and dozens of other authors and film directors. We will visit the haunting Stasi offices, preserved exactly as they were in 1989, and the incomparable Western listening station at Teufelsberg (the Devil’s Mountain).
What made Berlin so distinct during the Cold War endures in both halves of the city: West Berlin’s anarchic, subsidised freedom, and East Berlin, the capital of a surveillance state where daring cultural phenomena nevertheless pulsed in the shadows.
Itinerary
Fly from London Heathrow to Berlin at c. 11.15am (British Airways). Drive via Treptow to visit the Soviet War Memorial where 300,000 are buried. An introductory lecture on the early years of the Cold War is followed by dinner.
Start the day at Schöneberg Town Hall, seat of Berlin city government of the western sectors and site of Kennedy’s speech: ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’. Continue to the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse, which retains one of the few complete sections with double wall and death strip. In the afternoon visit the Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen, a Soviet then Stasi (secret police) prison for political deviants. End the day at Checkpoint Charlie, the infamous crossing point between American and Soviet sectors (marked by a replica hut and museum), and Zimmerstrasse, the site of the Fechter shooting which shocked the world.
A morning walk takes you to Alexanderplatz and the Marx-Engels Forum, open spaces at the heart of the Soviet sector, dominated by the Television Tower. Visit the permanent exhibition on everyday life in the GDR at the Museum in the Kulturbrauerei. The Friedrichstraße station was from 1962 the crossing point from East to West; known as the Tränenpalast (Palace of Tears) it now houses an exhibition documenting the fates of those who passed through its doors. Some free time for the DDR Museum or one of the great art museums.
Drive to Potsdam, the residential city of the Prussian kings containing many palaces and gardens. Walk along the site of the Wall to the Glienicke Bridge on the south-western edge of Berlin. Straddling the border, it was used for the exchange of prisoners. Drive via Steinstücken, a unique neighbourhood that belonged to West Berlin and West Germany but was entirely surrounded by the GDR. The Allied Museum in Zehlendorf well illustrates the western occupation. Before returning to the hotel, stop at the former British and American listening Station at Teufelsberg.
Drive to Karl-Marx Allee (Stalinallee until 1961), a showpiece boulevard of socialist monumentalism. Then to Kino International, site of the premiere of Coming Out on the night the Wall fell, with its Brutalist lobby and main hall. Continue to Pariser Platz: the Brandenburg Gate, the Russian (formerly Soviet) embassy and the Soviet War Memorial in the British sector. At the Reichstag the Cold War symbolically came to an end with the reunification ceremony in 1990. Lunch is here in the restaurant under its great glass dome. Fly from Berlin arriving London Heathrow at c. 5.45pm.
Expert speaker
Dr Timothy Phillips
Dr Timothy Phillips is a historian of the Cold War. His book, The Curtain and The Wall: A Modern Journey along Europe’s Cold War Border (Granta, 2022), was a Guardian Book of the Year and was widely praised for its new research and strong storytelling. He has travelled extensively in the former Soviet Union and on both sides of the old Iron Curtain, interviewing eyewitnesses and examining archives. He holds a doctorate in Russian from Oxford University and has spoken on Cold War history and contemporary Russia on BBC Radio 4 at the Barbican Centre and in numerous other venues. He is currently writing a history of the 1980s Olympic boycotts, while advising the Wende Museum in Los Angeles for its forthcoming exhibition on the same subject.
More tours led by Dr Timothy Phillips
Practicalities
Two sharing: US$4,030 or US$3,560 without flights. Single occupancy: US$4,530 or US$4,060 without flights.
Flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (aircraft: Airbus A320); travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 2 lunches & 3 dinners with wine; all admission charges; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager.
Westin Grand Berlin: a 5-star hotel built in the 1980s and renovated in a classicist style, located on the corner of Unter den Linden and Friedrichstraße. Single rooms are doubles for sole use.
This tour covers a great deal in a relatively short time and is best suited to those comfortable with a busy itinerary. Most days involve a considerable amount of walking, together with extended periods of standing in museums and at historic sites. Average distance by coach per day: 30 miles (primarily on two days of the tour.)
Between 10 and 22 participants.
Before booking, please refer to Travel.State.Gov to ensure you are happy with the travel advice for the destination(s) you are visiting. As a British company we follow the advice of the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office.
Dates & prices
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2027
Date
Speaker
Price
Date:
19th - 23rd April 2027
Speaker:
Dr Timothy Phillips
Price:
from US$4,060
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