Berlin Socialist History and Architecture Tour

This street at the heart of eastern Berlin has had three names. Stalinallee, once the prestige boulevard of socialist East Berlin, was built up from the ashes of WWII in the 1950s. On this tour, we will discover how socialist ideology shaped life from architecture and surveillance to simple everyday activities. Beyond the bombastic facade, this street has been the stage for violent street fighting, demonstrations and funeral marches. We will ask the question what it meant to live well for those who built this street and the generations after. This tour doesn’t end with the collapse of the Berlin Wall but follows it into the 21st century and the stories of those Berliners still living there.

Meeting Point

Call a Bike

U Frankfurter Tor / Warschauer Straße, 10243 Berlin, Germany

Meet by the Nextbike stand outside the Frankfurter Tor underground station at the corner of Warschauer Strasse and Karl-Marx-Allee – look for your guide holding an orange umbrella!

What's included:

• Guide

What to expect:

Duration: 2 hours

Frankfurter Tor

Intersection of Karl-Marx-Allee & Frankfurter Allee, Berlin

Marvel at the symmetry of the Frankfurter Tor towers built by Herman Henselmann and find out how the plans for the first socialist street in Germany were made in early 1950s. Learn about the success of the national rebuilding program that mobilised thousands of volunteers.

20 minutes

Laubenganghäuser

Karl-Marx-Allee 104, 10243 Berlin, Germany

See the modernist architecture from immediate post-WWII years by Hans Scharoun and find out more about his utopian urbanist ideas born in the ashes of destroyed Berlin but rejected soon after by the new East German regime.

15 minutes

Hochhaus an der Weberwiese

Marchlewskistraße 25, 10243 Berlin, Germany

See the building that served as a prototype for the rest of the socialist Karl-Marx-Allee and offered its first tenants unprecedented luxury. Find out how the building project became a propaganda tool and a magnet for Western architects.

20 minutes

Gedenkstätte Arbeiteraufstand 17 Juni 1953

Rosengarten an der, Karl-Marx-Allee 103, 10243 Berlin, Germany

Visit the place where disgruntled workers started a mass uprising in June 1953 that almost toppled the socialist government of East Germany. See the controversial monument dedicated to the uprising.

20 minutes

Café Sibylle

Karl-Marx-Allee 72, 10243 Berlin, Germany

Discover how one of the most exclusive cafés on Karl-Marx-Allee in the days of East Berlin is connected with the statue of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator, whose statue was standing nearby until 1961.

15 minutes

Karl Marx Bustendenkmal

Strausberger Pl. 12, Straußberger Platz, Ecke Karl-marx-allee, Berlin, 10243

Meet the author of "The Communist Manifesto" and find out how socialist ideology affected everyday life of East Berliners.

15 minutes

Admire another splendid example of Hermann Henselmann's style and hear stories about life in Karl-Marx-Allee after the Fall of the Berlin Wall and today.

15 minutes