Guided tours

Look, experience, discuss

Our guided tours for adults

Why did the Western powers decide on an Airlift to Berlin? How did the Allied intelligence services operate during the Cold War? What does the inside of the last guardhouse from Checkpoint Charlie look like?

We answer these questions and more on the history of the Western powers in Berlin from 1945 to 1994 in our guided overview and thematic tours, which focus on selected objects from our permanent exhibition or the current temporary exhibition. In conversation we elucidate the exhibition contents, discuss your questions, and make history come alive through direct encounters with objects.

We offer guided tours in German, English, French and Spanish. If you would like to book a group tour, please use the reservation form. Please submit your booking request at least two weeks before the desired date. For the dates of free public tours in German, check the events calendar.

How Enemies Became Friends

Overview tour of the permanent exhibition
Get to know the most interesting exhibits from 50 years of Allied presence in Berlin.

The first part of the exhibition in the former Outpost Theater is dedicated to the period from 1945 to 1950. Numerous documents, photos and objects tell the checkered history of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany up to the early occupation period in Berlin.

The Cold War reached an initial highpoint with the Soviet blockade of Berlin and the Western powers’ Airlift in 1948/49. A tour of the British Hastings TG 503 transport plane on the grounds of the Allied Museum brings the unique history of the Airlift to life.

The second part of the permanent exhibition in the Nicholson Memorial Library documents not just everyday life in the American, British, and French military communities up to 1994, but also the controversial activities of their intelligence services in Cold War Berlin. A highlight of the guided tour is the American-British spy tunnel of 1955/56.

How enemies became friends
(overview tour of the permanent exhibition)
Length: 60 minutes
Cost: 45.00 EUR

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LITTLE AMERICA. Life in the military community in Germany
A photo exhibition

Tour of the temporary exhibition
With some 200 photographs, the photo exhibition LITTLE AMERICA offers a varied impression of the everyday working and personal lives of members of the American military community in Germany. Alongside training, maneuvers and military technology, the pictures especially highlight the complex infrastructure of shopping centers, schools, sports facilities and GI clubs. Other photos address the family and housing situation of US soldiers or focus on encounters between Americans and Germans.

All of the photographs from the 1940s to the 1980s were published in American military newspapers. These inside views were thus by no means intended for an outside audience, but only for their own community.

The exhibition offers all of us the chance to gain a glimpse of the Little Americas, the rather inaccessible worlds of US soldiers and their families. An interactive station also allows visitors to follow the photographic production process of the time and (re)discover analog photography.


Maximum number of participants: 25

LITTLE AMERICA. Life in the military community in Germany
(tour of the temporary exhibition)
Length: 60 minutes
Cost: 45.00 EUR

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Interior Views of the Cold War

Thematic tour of the large-scale objects
Haven’t you always wanted to see the inside of a genuine Airlift plane, inspect the desks of military policemen at Checkpoint Charlie, or know what the French military railcar looked like?

This thematic tour offers you the unique opportunity to do just that and view the large-scale objects on the Museum grounds from the inside. The Hastings TG 503 “Candy Bomber,” the French military railcar, and the last guardhouse from Checkpoint Charlie bear powerful witness to West Berlin’s island status and the threat to access routes to the western part of the city.

Interior views of the Cold War
(thematic tour of the large-scale objects)
Length: 60 minutes
Cost: 45.00 EUR

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The American Outpost Theater

Architectural tour
The American Outpost movie theater on Clayallee was built in the early 1950s, when it was considered one of the most modern cinemas in Europe. The Allied Museum presents the first part of its permanent exhibition in the building, which was designated a historic landmark in 1995.

Join us in touring the Outpost Theater inside and out. You will gain insights into the now virtually forgotten history of this American movie theater in West Berlin. The tour will also take you to places not generally accessible to Museum visitors. With the help of architectural plans and historic photos, the tour traces the changes the building has undergone over the years.

The American Outpost Theater
(architectural tour)
Length: 45 minutes
Cost: 45.00 EUR

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Berlin in the Cold War

City tour
Like no other city in the world, Berlin was a Cold War hot spot, and traces of this period can still be found in the city today. They represent much that makes Berlin fascinating. On foot and by public transportation, we will visit places in East and West Berlin that tell stories of Berlin crises, emergency plans and espionage as well as everyday life in the divided city.

Our tour begins at Platz der Luftbrücke, just a stone’s throw from Tempelhof Airport, which played a crucial role during the Berlin Blockade of 1948/49. We will travel by U-Bahn to Checkpoint Charlie, scene of the Soviet-American tank standoff in 1961. From there we will continue to the former air-raid shelter at Anhalter Bahnhof, where part of the Berlin Senate reserves were stored during the Cold War. We go on from there first to the Brandenburg Gate, alongside which the Berlin Wall once ran, and then to Friedrichstraße, once a key border control point and spy gate. Our city tour ends at Zoo Station in the former center of West Berlin.

The tour is not barrier-free.

City tour: Berlin in the Cold War

Duration: ca. 180 minutes
Price: 90.00 EUR (max. 25 participants)
Meeting place: The Airlift Memorial at Platz der Luftbrücke (U6, Buses: 104, 248)
Participants will need a valid AB zone ticket for the BVG and comfortable shoes.

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Opening hours

 

Daily except Mondays 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

We will be open over the Easter holidays from 10 to 6 pm daily, from Good Friday, April 19, 2019 until Easter Monday, April 22, 2019.

Admission is free of charge.

Topics

 

History in overview

The Allied Museum offers information on such important topics as the Cold War-era Airlift and Berlin crisis.
further information

 

Object in focus

 

Let us surprise you

Occasionally, the Museum will present particular objects from its collection. further information