Street sights in Germany
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A
Deichstrasse
Hamburg’s Great Fire of 1842 broke out in Deichstrasse, which features a few restored 18th-century homes, most now housing restaurants. You can get a feel for the old canal and merchants quarter here.
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Riverfront Promenade
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Herbertstrasse
Along Davidstrasse, a painted tin wall bars views into Herbertstrasse, a block-long bordello that’s off-limits to men under 18 and to women of all ages. It's the notorious sinful heart of the district.
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Karl-Marx-Allee
It’s easy to feel like Gulliver in the Land of Brobdingnag when walking down monumental Karl-Marx-Allee, one of Berlin's most impressive GDR-era relics. Built between 1952 and 1960, the 90m-wide boulevard runs for 2.3km between Alexanderplatz and Frankfurter Tor and is a fabulous showcase of East German architecture. A considerable source of national pride back then, it provided modern flats for thousands of people and served as a backdrop for military parades.
Until the early 1970s, this was also the 'Ku'damm of the East', lined with shops, cafes, restaurants and the glamorous Kino Kosmos. Living here was a privilege and, in fact, for a long time there was no better…
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Bergmannstrasse
Bergmannstrasse, between Mehringdamm and Marheinekeplatz, is western Kreuzberg’s main drag for shopping (lots of second-hand stores), eating and bar-hopping and is great for soaking up the district’s bohemian spirit. On Marheinekeplatz, the Marheineke Markthalle is one of Berlin’s few surviving market halls, although it sacrificed its grungy 19th-century charm to a recent modernisation. The red-brick Passionskirche, also on the square, often hosts classical and jazz concerts.
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Bernauer Strasse
The Berlin Wall ran north–south along Schwedter Strasse through today’s Mauerpark, then continued west on Bernauer Strasse. Some of the best known escape attempts took place along here, including the leap across barbed wire of 19-year-old GDR border guard Conrad Schumann at the corner of Ruppiner Strasse and Bernauer Strasse. Peter Leibing’s photograph of the scene became an iconic symbol of the Cold War. Four multilingual panels commemorate Schumann’s escape and three others that took place along this fateful street. Not everyone was successful: on 22 August 1961 a despondent Ida Siekmann leapt to her death from a 3rd-floor window. For more about the Wall, it’s well…
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D
Strasse des 17 Juni
The broad boulevard bisecting Tiergarten was named Street of 17 June in honour of the victims of the bloodily quashed 1953 workers' uprising in East Berlin. With origins in the 16th century, it originally linked two royal palaces and was doubled in width and turned into a swastika-lined triumphal road under Hitler.
The section between the Brandenburger Tor and the Siegessäule (Victory Column, located 2km west of Brandenburg Gate) turns into a mega-party zone on New Year’s Eve and for such festivals as Christopher Street Day.
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E
Böttcherstrasse
This charming lane with a golden entrance and staggered red-brick walls is a superb example of expressionism. The 110m-long street was commissioned in 1931 by Ludwig Roselius, a merchant who made his fortune by inventing decaffeinated coffee and founding the company Hag in the early 20th century. Most of the street was designed by Bernhard Hoetger (1874–1959), including the Lichtbringer (Bringer of Light), the golden relief at the northern entrance, showing a scene from the Apocalypse with the Archangel Michael fighting a dragon.
Hoetger’s Haus Atlantis, now the Bremen Hilton, features a show-stopping, multicoloured, glass-walled spiral staircase. Hoetger worked around…
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