DDR Museum

Top choice


This touchy-feely museum does an insightful and entertaining job of pulling back the iron curtain on daily life in socialist East Germany. You'll learn how kids were put through collective potty training, engineers earned little more than farmers, and everyone, it seems, went on nudist holidays. A perennial crowd-pleaser among the historic objects on display is a Trabi, the tinny East German standard car – sit in it to take a virtual spin around an East Berlin neighbourhood.

The more sinister sides of daily life, including the chronic supply shortages and surveillance by the Stasi (secret police), are also addressed.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby attractions

1. Berliner Dom

0.06 MILES

Pompous yet majestic, the Italian Renaissance–style former royal court church (1905) does triple duty as house of worship, museum and concert hall. Inside…

2. Sealife Berlin

0.11 MILES

Smile-inducing seahorses, ethereal jellyfish, Ophira the octopus and a marine dinosaur skeleton that can be 'reanimated' are some of the crowd favourites…

3. Humboldt-Box

0.13 MILES

This futuristic structure opens up a window on the Humboldt Forum, a replica of the historic Berlin City Palace under construction next to it since 2013…

4. Berlin Dungeon

0.15 MILES

This is a 70-minute tour through a camped-up chamber of horrors that's brought to life by actors in nine shows with such spine-tingling names as 'Elevator…

5. Altes Museum

0.15 MILES

A curtain of fluted columns gives way to the Pantheon-inspired rotunda of the grand neoclassical Old Museum, which harbours a prized antiquities…

6. Block der Frauen

0.18 MILES

A reddish sandstone memorial in a small park on Rosenstrasse called Block der Frauen by Jewish-German artist Inge Hunzinger (1915–2009) pays tribute to…

7. St Marienkirche

0.18 MILES

This Gothic brick gem has welcomed worshippers since the early 14th century, making it one of Berlin’s oldest surviving churches. A 22m-long Dance of…

8. Humboldt Forum

0.18 MILES

Under construction since 2013, the Humboldt Forum is scheduled to open in 2019 or 2020 as Berlin's new cultural quarter. The humongous building itself is…