Historical & Heritage Tours in Berlin

Discover the history of Berlin through the eyes of a local, on this private walking tour. Your guide will show you both well-known, big-name sights as well as lesser-known places that you may miss without local help. You'll hear stories about Berlin's eventful past, which will help you better understand its present. An informative and fun trip for active travelers who like to learn new things when they travel.

East Germany may have died in November 1989 when the Wall came tumbling down but the eastern portion of Berlin is still a fascinating monument to the city's strange and intriguing 20th-century history. This Private 3-hour tour immerses you in the East Germany of the Cold War, taking you to the headquarter of the Stasi (the state police), the wide Stalinist building-flanked Karl Marx Boulevard and Berlin Wall, among many other sites. Learn from the guide about the history of the GDR, German Democratic Republic (AKA East Germany) and about Communist rule and East Germans’ growing discontent and their government’s brutal suppression.

In this guided tour we'll dive together into the history of sexual science and sex life in Berlin, from Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld's institute of sexual science, through past-Berlin's infamous Eldorado to present-day Berlin's Kit Kat Club. We'll start in the late 19th Century and go through the roaring twenties and the downfall of sexual freedom at the hand of the Nazis. We'll cover the resurrection after the war in a divided Berlin, as well as the current state today.

Travel back to 1970s Berlin - a time when the city was split in two and West Berlin was "cut off from its world, art and culture, dying with no hope of retribution" - on this 3-hour tour. Together with a specialist guide, you'll navigate the city on foot and by public transport, in search of the Berlin that inspired David Bowie's seminal Berlin Trilogy. See Hansa Studios, where 'Heroes' and 'Low' were recorded, as well as 155 Hauptstrasse, once home to Bowie and Iggy Pop. You'll also visit Potsdamer Platz, Zoo Station, Neues Ufer Caf e, and other culturally significant sites.

Explore the Dorotheenstadt Cemetery in Berlin on this 2-hour walking tour. Visit the 18th-century Dorotheenstadt Cemetery with a guide, and gain insight into the famous figures that lie buried there. Discover the graves of theater director Bertolt Brecht, actress Helene Weigel, novelist Heinrich Mann and anti-fascist activist Arnold Zweig. Hear the life-stories of artists and politicians living and working in a divided Berlin, and gain insight into life before unification. See where famous fighter pilot Manfred von Richthofen lies interred, and learn of the no-man's-land behind the Berlin Wall.

Discover Sachsenhausen, one of the first concentration camps established by Nazi Germany's Third Reich, on this private, 6-hour trip from Berlin. Listen as an expert historian details the facts surrounding Sachsenhausen's creation, as well as a timeline of the atrocities that took place here. Today, this entire location serves as a national memorial to the prisoners who lived and died within its walls. Learn about Germany during the days of the Third Reich and explore the various locations inside the camp, like the command headquarters, execution trench, and more.

The Berlin neighborhood of Kreuzberg, crammed with cobblestoned streets and enough street art to fill a vast art museum, is the most fascinating part of the German capital. This 3-hour small-group tour takes you to the heart of the neighborhood, historically a haven for Turkish immigrants. Today the area is made up of a diverse set of Turks, Arabs, hipsters and many others. Learn the history of the area while traversing Kreuzberg on foot and bicycle. This small-group tour is limited to no more than six.

Take a sobering trip inside Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp during this 6-hour tour with a small group. See camp landmarks like the infamous 'Arbeit Macht Frei' (work sets you free) sign and the Jewish Barracks, plus much more. Best of all, your trip is led by the only non-profit tour company operating at the site, ensuring 100% of proceeds go to the memorial and good causes.

Explore Berlin's divided past with a local historian on a 3-hour, small-group tour of the city's key communist-era sites. Start your tour at the Brandenburg Gate that divided East and West Berlin, and learn how families were separated as they tried to pass through the Friedrichstrasse train station. Visit a moving memorial to murdered East Berliners at the once-notorious 'death strip.' See an expansive Soviet housing complex and the headquarters of East Germany's secret police, then finish your tour at Alexanderplatz, where fierce demonstrations helped end Communist rule.

Get a sobering look at the Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg Nazi concentration camp during this 5.5-hour guided excursion from Berlin. Learn about the more than 200,000 prisoners that passed through the camp's gates as you tour its barracks, pathology department, 'appellplatz' (roll call square), 'Zellenbau' (Gestapo prison), and more.

Gain a better understanding of WWII's impact on Berlin during this 3.5-hour Third Reich walking tour. Follow your guide through Germany's capital, and learn about its dark WWII history. Stop by the Memorial to Homosexuals, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Holocaust Memorial), and Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism. See the New Synagogue and Hitler's bunker in Führerbunker. Plus on your stroll, catch sight of the Reichstag building, the Soviet War Memorial, and Berlin's Jewish neighborhood.

Take a 2-hour private walking tour from Bornholmer Straße to Bernauer Straße in Berlin. Explore East and West Berlin as you follow the old boundaries of the infamous Berlin Wall. Learn about the history of the Cold War in Germany that lasted from 1961 to 1989 and the impacts it had on Berlin and the country. Visit key landmarks along the way and listen to informative commentary from your guide.

Combine cultural treasures and sweet treats on this unique 4-hour walking tour of historic Berlin. Learn about the horrors of WWII as you visit the Topography of Terror and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Then, see the remnants of the Cold War years with visits to the Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie and the remains of the Berlin Wall. After admiring landmarks like the Reichstag, the Gendarmenmarkt and the Humboldt University, end on a high note with a chocolate tasting at Berlin's oldest chocolate shop.

Berlin may have been the capital of the 20th century, being at the the epicenter of every history-making, world-changing movement and phenomenon. But this small-group tour takes you back 300 years to trace the roots of Prussian militarism that led up to the 20th century. Learn from the professional guide how Berlin became the world capital of culture, arts and tolerance. Visit the Tiergarten, the former Death Strip where the Wall once ran and Potsdamer Platz.