A federal state, a capital and a landscape of overlapping histories
Berlin is both Germany’s capital and one of its sixteen federal states. The Spree crosses a large, low-rise city whose neighbourhoods often feel like separate centres connected by an unusually effective transport network.
Its twentieth-century history is unavoidable: the Nazi dictatorship, wartime destruction, four-power occupation and the division into East and West Berlin left visible marks. The Wall went up in 1961, opened on 9 November 1989, and Germany was reunified on 3 October 1990.
Yet Berlin is not frozen in memory. Prussian monuments, GDR modernism, industrial buildings and contemporary architecture coexist block by block. The rebuilding around Potsdamer Platz and Museum Island shows that the city is still negotiating how to present its past.
The best approach is to connect places on foot: Brandenburg Gate to Museum Island along Unter den Linden; the Reichstag through the Tiergarten; Checkpoint Charlie to the Wall sites. Public transport covers the longer gaps.
