Main Info
- This guided tour is offered exclusively as a Private Tour.
- You choose the day and start time you prefer.
- The duration of the tour is 3,5 hours.
- There is no minimum number of participants, if the group is very numerous there will be a second guide to guarantee the quality of service.
- The meeting point with the guide can be your hotel or another place that you prefer.
- The tour is normally done on foot and by public transport. If you wish to take a tour by bicycle or bus with a private driver, please request this in the corresponding form.
- The cost of the tour depends on your preferences and the size of the group. Request a quote.
THIS TOUR INTERESTS YOU IF…
- You want to visit the ancient “Jewish Quarter” of Berlin with a tour in mother tongue English and you want to understand the Holocaust (Shoah) beyond the clichés.
- You are interested in understanding how Germany today lives with its historical memory and how the victims of Nazism are remembered in Berlin.
- You want to discover places with an immense historical and emotional charge to understand in depth how Hitler and National Socialism came to power.
- You want to get to know Berlin with the only tourism agency that has placed Stumbling Stones and actively participated in the reunification of the descendants of a Jewish family who were the victims of Nazism.
WHAT WE WILL SEE
- Jewish Quarter
- Memorial Rosenstraße
- German Resistance Memorial Center
- Anhalter Banhof
- New Synagogue
- Museum Blindenwerkstatt Otto Weidt
- Stumbling Stones
- T4 – Memorial for the Victims of the Nazi Euthanasia Program
DETAILED ROUTE
With this guided tour you will discover how Hitler came to power in 1933 and all the secrets of the fascinating and tragic relationship between Christian Berliners and the Jewish world.
The tour of Berlin in Nazi Germany will begin from our meeting point in Potsdamer Platz and then move to the former location of the T4 operation command center, where the SS planned the extermination and sterilization of tens of thousands of their fellow disabled citizens.
We will pass by the ruins of historic buildings destroyed by the fighting that took place during the Second World War and relive the tragic moments that led to the capitulation of Nazi Germany in May 1945.
We will see little-known memorials such as the one to the American journalist Varian Fry, who organized the flight from Nazi Europe of more than 3,000 persecuted Jews, including the painter Marc Chagall, the philosopher Hannah Arendt, and the writer Heinrich Mann.
We will travel by public transport to the “Jewish Quarter”: in this very meaningful place, we will shed light on the progress of Berlin’s Jewish community during in the Middle Ages, on anti-Semitic prejudices and the complex relationship between Christians and Jews over time.
Next, we will find out where the Old Synagogue stood and where the exciting Rosenstraße protest took place, carried out in the middle of the Nazi period by a group of women demonstrating against the detention and deportation of their Jewish husbands: not even the machine guns of the SS could make them back off!
We will also visit the former site of Otto Weidt’s factory, now a memorial and documentation center, the Schindler of Berlin who managed to save many of his Jewish workers.
We will visit the old Jewish cemetery, where the modernizing Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn is buried, and will go as far as the New Synagogue and the Jewish hospital.
On the way, we will retrace the transformation of Judaism in the eighteenth century and the birth of modern anti-Semitism. By shedding light on the dynamics and the propaganda strategy used by National Socialism to first stigmatize and ultimately deport and assassinate the Jewish community of Berlin, we will address the meaning that the German word “Mitläufer” has assumed today, which defines most of the German population as silent accomplices of the executioners of the SS due to their opportunism, fear, or indifference.
The tour will continue through a series of courtyards hidden in the heart of Berlin, ending with the Memorial dedicated to the grandparents, mothers, and uncles of some previous customers of our cooperative; their fortuitous participation in one of our tours years ago opened the first chapter of an incredible and moving story, in which ViveBerlin Tours played a decisive role.
In 2017, in the Kleine Auguststraße, 23 members of the same family, separated by the Nazis and coming to Berlin from three different continents, met for the first time in their lives. With them, the only survivor, a ninety-year-old, returned to the streets of his childhood. Three generations of Holocaust survivors affixed 6 Stolpersteine (Stumbling Stones) to commemorate their loved ones who were victims of the Nazis, and in so doing, to use the words of the only surviving member of the family still alive, they added: “one more ring in a very long chain of events that, despite its tragic character, represents the light at the end of the tunnel”.
WHERE IS THE MEETING POINT LOCATED?
The guide will pick you up at your hotel or in another place of your choice.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
- You can extend the duration of the guided tour, personalize the tour or take a longer break in a restaurant that we will recommend based on your gastronomic preferences.
- We will be happy to suggest activities for your stay in Berlin, where and what to eat, and which museums or neighborhoods to visit. We are available to advise you as best as possible based on your needs.
Please do not hesitate to write in case of doubts or questions – we are here for you!
ViveBerlin Tours, the Tourist Guide Cooperative. Discover the different facets of Berlin with our Private Berlin Tours.
Hello Kai,
I hope you are doing great.
I just wanted to give you a big thank you for the organization of the III reich tour.
Stefanie was such a great tour guide. The family was really grateful and impressed with all the places and stories that she told us in detail and with so much patience.