This post is a tour of Third Reich sights in Berlin.
In addition to the self-guided tour below, we also list several companies offering both pre-paid and pay-what-you-like guided Third Reich tours in Berlin.
- Guided Walking Tours
- Guided Bike Tours
- Self-Guided Tour
- Where is Hitler's Bunker
- Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp
- Berlin Bunker Tours
Guided Walking Tours
Take a walk back through history and see all of the famous war-torn locations where Nazi Germany made its last stand.
With the help of an expert tour guide, you’ll gain an entirely new perspective on the events that made these landmarks so significant.
Prices are typically under €20 per ticket, making the experience affordable for pretty much anyone. Each trip lasts between 2-4 hours on average.
Insider Walks
This is one of the most highly respected tour services in Berlin.
Their Third Reich walking tour will take you to a variety of different locations and covers a plethora of historical details about Nazi Germany.
This tour does require train tickets to get around, but they aren’t too expensive. Berlin Welcome Cards include train tickets.
Ticket prices for the walking tour are on par with similar services.
Seasonal schedule:
- November - March on Mon, Wed, Fri, Sun at 10:00
- April - October Every Day at 10:00
- €19 Adults | €17 Youth and Seniors
- More info and to book.
Free with the Berlin Pass or save 28% off these prices with the Berlin Welcome Card.
Insider Tours enjoys a full 5-star rating on TripAdvisor and Get Your Guide (read the reviews).
Berlin Walks
Discover some of the most significant landmarks in the history of this movement with the help of a professional guide.
As with their competitors, you’ll need a train ticket in order to take a short ride to one of the destinations on this journey.
The price of admission is very affordable, falling in line with every other walking tour on our list. Berlin Welcome Cards include train tickets.
- Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 10 am
- €20 - Adults | €18 Student and Seniors
- Save 25% off these prices with the Berlin Welcome Card
- More info and to book.
Much like their competition, Original Berlin Walks has also earned a 5-star rating on TripAdvisor and Viator (read the reviews).
New Europe Tours
Sandemans New Europe Tours provides yet another well-respected service which will guide you throughout some of the most significant historical locations in Berlin.
On this trip, you will visit locations such as the Reichstag, the Jewish Memorial, Hitler’s Bunker, Goebbel’s Propaganda Headquarters and several other important landmarks.
Just as you’ll find with every other similar service, a train ticket will be required for this excursion. Berlin Welcome Cards include train tickets.
Ticket prices are more than reasonable and comparable to other Third Reich walking tours.
- Thur, Sat at 14:30 (2:30 pm)
- €16/Adults | Children 13 and under are FREE.
- Save 30% off these prices with the Berlin Welcome Card
- More info and to book.
New Europe Tours has also received a 5-star rating on TripAdvisor and Viator (read the reviews).
Self-Guided Exploration Game
If you're looking for another way to learn about the WW2 history of Berlin, this type of game will give you the opportunity to solve a puzzle using clues from famous landmarks all over the city.
There is currently one game which focuses on the war, covering the history of Nazi Germany.
THIRD REICH BERLIN BIKE TOURS
If you don’t feel like walking around Berlin all day, a bike tour is an excellent alternative. Bike around town with a professional guide and learn all about the various historical landmarks that you’ll find along the way.
Visit locations such as Hitler’s Bunker, war-damaged buildings, and Nazi resistance monuments. Third Reich bike tours typically last between 3–5 hours on average and cover roughly 15 km of the city.
Ticket prices range from €20–€30 depending on the length of the trip. These tours are especially popular among couples, but they can also be a big hit with other audiences.
Be sure to check out our full post on Berlin bike tours.
Fat Tire Bike Tour - Nazi Berlin
This tour lasts for approximately 5 hours and covers much more ground than similar services. Considering that this is essentially a half-day tour, the ticket price is actually very reasonable.
Due to the length of the trip, you will be given the opportunity to stop for lunch. Discover sites such as the Bebelplatz, the Jewish Memorial, the Reichstag, Rosentrasse and more.
- Sunday, Monday, Friday at 10 am (tours run April - October)
- €30 for Adults | €28 for Children (4-12)
- Free for children 3 and under.
- More info and to book.
Much like their competitors, Fat Tire Tours also has a 5-star rating on TripAdvisor and Get Your Guide (read the reviews).
Third Reich Berlin Bike Tour
This company provides a variety of popular bike tours. Their Third Reich tour is actually a combo ticket which includes a visit to the Berlin Wall Memorial.
The concept behind this service allows tour guides to freely design their routes, which means that you’ll probably get an entirely different experience with every trip.
This excursion lasts for approximately 3 hours and covers a lot of ground. Ticket prices are fairly low and include a free bike rental for the length of the tour.
- 4-6 Days a Week at 14:25 (2:25 pm)
- €28 Adults | €24 Youth (ages 10-24) | €14 Child (9 and under)
- More info and to book.
Free Berlin Tours currently has a 4.5 out of 5 stars rating on TripAdvisor and Viator (read the reviews).
Self-Guided Tour
START at (A) Brandenburg Gate (map)
This monument has always been very symbolic for Germans and that’s why Hitler sent his paramilitary SA to march with torches on the evening of January 30th, 1933, the day he was appointed chancellor.
Go through the gate and look at the Park, the Tiergarten. At your right, near the Reichstag is the next stop.
(B) Memorial for the Gypsies (in German “Sinti und Roma”) who were killed in the camps. Take a left on the Ebertstraße to the next stop.
(C) Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe (map)
This memorial is also known as the Holocaust Memorial (read our full post). It opened in 2005 and designed by architect Peter Eisenmann from New York.
Above the ground, you see 2,711 concrete blocks or stelae. They are all of different height and size and you can walk between them.
Straight and left, at the corner of Cora-Berliner- and Hannah-Arendt-Straße is the entrance to the free of charge information center (D) with more information about the Holocaust.
At the corner of Hannah-Arendt-Straße and Ebertstraße in the park is another memorial.
(E) Memorial to the Homosexual Victims of the Third Reich
Near the information center, cross Hannah-Ahrend Straße and follow Gertrud-Kolmar-Straße until you see a parking lot on your left with an information board.
More often than not you’ll see groups of people with a guide.
(F) Hitler’s Bunker (map)
This is where Adolph Hitler spent most of his remaining time between January 16th and April 30th 1945, when he finally took his own life.
The Soviets destroyed all the facilities at the surface such as exits or ventilation shafts.
The board provides useful information both in German and English. In the year 2004, the German movie “Downfall” about the last days in the bunker was released. Read our full post.
(G) Outline of Georg Elser (map)
Turn left into An der Kolonnade and then right into Wilhelmstraße.
The outline of a face shows Georg Elser, a worker who unsuccessfully tried to kill Hitler in November 1939 in the “Bürgerbräukeller” in Munich, where Hitler and many high Nazi officials celebrated the anniversary of their unsuccessful coup in Bavaria in 1923.
Georg Elser was killed in the Dachau camp in April 1945. In 2015, a German movie about him, “13 minutes”, was also released internationally.
(H) New Chancellery (map)
Continue on Wilhelmstraße until you reach the next intersection at Voßstraße.
The whole block on your right was the site of the former “New Chancellery” (“Neue Reichskanzlei").
The purpose of this building, with a length of 421 m (1,263 ft.), was not to live or work (Hitler spent more time in his apartment in the Old Chancellery next door where he worked), but to impress.
(I) Ministry on Aviation (map)
Continue on Wilhelmstraße and you’ll see an enormous gray building, which is today houses the German Department of Finance.
It was built in 1935/36 as the Ministry of Aviation under Hermann Göring. The building has more than 2,000 offices and several courtyards.
Here, Göring organized the German Air Force and planned the blitz of U.K. cities.
As part of the peace terms resulting from World War I, Germany had not been allowed to have an Air Force, thus the ministry chose the more civilian name.
The allies spared the building to have a landmark among the ruins and the German Democratic Republic used it as well as does the Federal Republic of Germany now.
In many movies about the Third Reich, the building serves as location and stars as the New Chancellery “ (see above), e.g. in the film “Valkyrie”. Read our full post on the building.
(J) Topography of Terror (map)
At the end of the block turn left at Niederkirchner Straße (named after a communist resister) and you’ll see about 200 m of the Berlin Wall.
Behind the Wall is Topography of Terror, a documentation center on the site where the SS and the Gestapo had their headquarters.
The buildings (a former hotel and a school of arts and crafts as well as office buildings) were razed after the war.
In the late 1980s, the documentation center was created. A jail and underground interrogation cells were found.
The documentation center has permanent exhibits outside and inside the buildings as well as special shows. And there is a cafeteria and lots of restrooms in the basement.
Read our full post on the Topography of Terror.
(K) S-Bahnhof Anhalter Bahnhof (map)
Follow Niederkirchner Straße, take a left on Stresemannstraße and arrive at the S-Bahnhof Anhalter Bahnhof.
The yellow brick structure is the portico of the former station Anhalter Bahnhof, the biggest in pre-war Berlin. This is one of the stations where German Jews were sent to the camps in the East.
Here, third-class railway cars were added to regular trains and the mostly elderly Jews had to buy their tickets to Theresienstadt; 9,600 people were transported in 116 trains.
Go downstairs into the S-Bahn station for pictures of the old station building.
(L) German Resistance Memorial Center (map)
Follow the Schöneberger Straße down to a waterway, the Landwehrkanal and follow the canal West passing the new buildings of Potsdamer Platz and the Kulturforum (the big yellow library building and the glass building with the black roof, a museum under renovation), the Berlin Science Center (a building from the 19th century with a 1980s annex in light blue and salmon).
After the big white building turn right into Stauffenbergstraße. Across the street enter a courtyard: this is the entrance to the German Resistance Memorial Center.
Graf Stauffenberg, the German officer who tried to kill Hitler on July 20th 1944 (that’s what the film “Valkyrie” is about), was shot in the yard as his office was in the building.
The Memorial is a museum not only about him but about all Germans who tried to resist the Nazi Regime in one way or another. Some scenes of “Valkyrie” were filmed here as well.
At the Kulturforum or at Potsdamer Platz you find buses and the S- or U-Bahn.
More suggestions:
Take the S-Bahn 5 or the U-Bahn 2 to “Olympiastadion” to see the Olympic Stadium from 1936. First, check if the stadium is open for visitors as it’s still used for football/soccer and other sports events.
At S-Bahn (the ring) /U-Bahn (U 8) “Gesundbrunnen” you find the exhibit “Mythos Germania” about Hitler’s and Albert Speer’s plans for a new capital “Germania” by Berliner Unterwelten e.V.
