Known locally as “der hohle Zahn” — the Hollow Tooth — Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church stands at Breitscheidplatz as both a landmark and a reminder of Berlin’s turbulent past. Its surviving tower, scarred yet striking, draws the eye amid the modern buildings around it.
The original church was built between 1891 and 1895, designed by architect Franz Schwechten. Thick walls, rounded arches, and simple decoration showed a neo-Romanesque influence, though the surviving fragments make any single style hard to define today.
On 22 November 1943, Allied bombing devastated the structure, leaving only one tower standing. That broken spire became a powerful symbol of the city’s wartime destruction and later reconstruction.
After the war, Berliners faced a difficult choice: demolish the damaged church and rebuild it completely, or preserve the ruins as a memorial. The decision led to a compromise. Architect Egon Eiermann designed a new complex completed in December 1961, while the shattered tower remained.
The ensemble includes four main parts around the old tower: a central worship space, a foyer, a new bell tower, and a chapel. The new octagonal church, famous for its blue stained-glass windows, contrasts boldly with the weathered remains beside it, highlighting the passage from past to present.
Beneath the ruined tower, a small memorial museum displays artifacts from the original church. Mosaics, fragments, and other salvaged details speak to the building’s imperial origins and its transformation into a monument against war. Together, the preserved ruins and the modern structures form one of Berlin’s most recognizable ensembles, keeping history visible in the heart of the city.
Source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Wilhelm_Memorial_Church
The main street of former East Berlin. It is a big avenue, featuring neoclassical East German buildings, fountains and lakes.
At a former Luftwaffe and Royal Air Force (RAF) airfield, RAF Gatow. The museum's focus is on military history, particularly the history of the Luftwaffe of the Bundeswehr, with a collection of more than 200,000 items, including 155 aeroplanes, 5,000 uniforms and 30,000 books. There are also displays (including aeroplanes) on the history of the airfield when it was used by the RAF. Aircraft include reproductions of Otto Lilienthal's gliders, of World War I planes such as the Fokker E.III, and World War II planes such as the Bf 109 and Me-262, as well as at least one aircraft of every type ever to serve in the air forces of East and West Germany. Most of those postwar aircraft are stored outside on the tarmac and runways, however, and many are in bad condition. There are long term restoration projects, including a Focke-Wulf Fw 190. RAF Gatow is notable as the "missing third airport" of West Berlin. Each sector used to have its own airport; the French sector had Tegel, the American sector had Tempelhof and the British had Gatow. However, RAF Gatow never saw much traffic of any kind, was more kept as a political statement than for transportation value, and thus was shut down after reunification. Tempelhof, after having been shut down for civilian traffic from 1975 to 1981, closed for all flights in 2008, while Tegel shut down in November 2020.
The charming Baroque water palace of the Hohenzollern electors surrounded by the Dahme river and an English garden.
Built 1859-1866 this is one of the most architecturally stunning synagogues in Germany to survive both the Nazi era and the war.
The oldest museum of its kind in Germany which, despite great losses during the World War II, still possesses one of the world's primary collections of European applied art. There are two sections to the collection: one located at the Kulturforum in Tiergarten, the other at Köpenick Palace.
More than 30 million objects in the scientific collection and a fascinating exhibition in one of the most significant institutions of its kind in the world. Some parts still under construction.
A fortress built between 1560 and 1590 to Italian design on the site of a 12th-century castle. The Juliusturm housed part of the huge indemnity (in physical gold coins) France had to pay after the war of 1870/71 until what was left of it was returned to France after Germany's loss in World War I. The term "Juliusturm" remained in usage in German for a large "rainy day fund" into the 1960s. Museums housed within the citadel cover the history of the town of Spandau, monumental public art in Berlin, and artillery.
The museum’s treasures include the sculpture collection with works of art from the middle ages to the 18th century. The Bode museum is best known for its Byzantine art collection and the coin cabinet.
Closed for renovations; the temporary Bauhaus-Archiv is at Knesebeckstraße 1-2 in Charlottenburg. Building designed by Walter Gropius. Inside a museum, library, cafe and shop.