Checkpoint Charlie Self-Guided Audio Walk: Topography of Terror, Berlin Wall and Holocaust Memorial
1 hour and 30 minutes
About this experience
A few streets south of the Brandenburg Gate ran Prussia's ministries, then the Nazi state, then the Berlin Wall. Since the war the city has made very different choices about what to show here: one site left as a car park, one dug up and opened, one stretch of Wall kept damaged on purpose, and one famous crossing largely rebuilt. Start at the edge of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, pass the Führerbunker site and the steel profile of Georg Elser, then walk Wilhelmstrasse to Göring's limestone Air Ministry, the Bundesrat and Leipziger Platz. Follow the Wall's line past the old Prussian parliament and the Gropius-Bau to 200 m of original Wall at the Topography of Terror, then Zimmerstrasse, Checkpoint Charlie and the Peter Fechter memorial. Twelve stops, about 2.4 km and 90 minutes, flat and on public pavements, at your own pace, in English. Museum entry is not included; the Topography of Terror and the Holocaust Memorial's Information Center are free.
- Experience type
- Day tour or activity
- Duration
- 1 hour and 30 minutes
- Guide
- English
- Audio guide
- English
- Categories
- Walking tour · Cultural and theme tours · City tours
What's included
Self-guided audio tour in English: 12 stops, 2.4 km, 1.5 hours Stops at field of stelae, Führerbunker site, Nazi Air Ministry GPS map and walking directions in your phone browser, no app needed Lifetime access: start any day, at any hour, and replay it
What's not included
A live guide: you set the pace and the pauses A fixed start time: begin whenever you arrive Museum and monument tickets, all optional extras Tip or gratuity Food and drinks Entry or admission fee
Please note
To start the tour, enter the ticket code from your confirmation on the Roamer redemption page linked there. Do this before you set off, while you still have signal. The tour then opens in your phone browser, with no app to download. Bring a charged phone and earphones. Mobile data helps; if you have none, open the tour on wifi before you set off. Best time: Tuesday to Sunday, starting at about 10am: the Holocaust Memorial's Information Center opens at 10:00 and is closed on Mondays, the Topography of Terror opens at 10:00, and its outdoor areas close at dusk (before 19:00 in early October, before 17:00 after the clocks go back on 25 October). The Gropius-Bau is closed on Tuesdays. Checkpoint Charlie is least crowded in the morning. The walk is all outdoors on pavement and works in any season; the Wall remnant and the Air Ministry are in open view whatever the leaves. Checked 9 October 2026. Getting to the start: stop 1 is on the south pavement of Hannah-Arendt-Strasse, across from the south-east corner of the field of stelae. The nearest stations are U Anton-Wilhelm-Amo-Strasse (U2), S+U Brandenburger Tor (S1, S2, S25, S26, U5) and S+U Potsdamer Platz (S1, S2, S25, S26, U2), each about five minutes' walk; buses 300 and M48 stop nearby. Line details from berlin.de; checked 9 October 2026. The walk ends on Zimmerstrasse, about 300 m on foot from U Kochstrasse/Checkpoint Charlie (U6), back along Zimmerstrasse and down Friedrichstrasse. Holocaust Memorial Information Center (stop 1): free, Tuesday to Sunday 10:00 to 18:00, last admission 45 minutes before closing, closed Mondays; security check, no large bags or suitcases. Allow at least an hour. Checked 9 October 2026 at stiftung-denkmal.de. Topography of Terror (stop 9): free; the Documentation Center and the exhibition trench along the Wall are open daily 10:00 to 20:00, the other outdoor areas until dusk, 20:00 at the latest. It deserves an hour or two of its own. Checked 9 October 2026 at topographie.de. Martin-Gropius-Bau (stop 8): 15 euros, 10 euros reduced, one ticket for all exhibitions; Monday and Wednesday to Friday 12:00 to 19:00, weekends 10:00 to 19:00, closed Tuesdays, ticket desk until 18:00. Checked 9 October 2026 at berlinerfestspiele.de. Berlin's House of Representatives (stop 8) runs free open tours in German on Wednesdays at 11:00 and Fridays at 16:30 (not on public holidays): bring photo ID and arrive ten minutes early, no booking. The Bundesrat (stop 6) can be visited only by registration. Checked 9 October 2026. The asisi panorama of the divided city stands at Friedrichstrasse 205, beside Checkpoint Charlie: daily 10:00 to 18:00, from 14 euros, about an hour. Checked 9 October 2026 at visitberlin.de. This walk covers Nazi crimes and deaths at the Berlin Wall. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and the Peter Fechter memorial are places of mourning: the foundation asks visitors to enter the field on foot, slowly and quietly, and not to climb or jump on the stelae. Checkpoint Charlie and Potsdamer and Leipziger Platz are crowded: watch your bags, walk past photo sellers and souvenir touts, and never let anyone stamp your passport. There are no traffic lights at Checkpoint Charlie: the crossings of Friedrichstrasse and Zimmerstrasse are unmarked, so look both ways. Elsewhere, cross Wilhelmstrasse and the six-lane Leipziger Strasse only at the lights. On Stresemannstrasse a separate bike path runs right beside the pavement: keep to the footway. The Bundesrat extension (stops 6 and 7) is a building site until about 2029: expect trucks, hoarding and possible pavement closures on Erna-Berger-Strasse. If the short passage off Leipziger Platz or Erna-Berger-Strasse is closed, go round by Potsdamer Platz and Stresemannstrasse. The Führerbunker board (stop 2) stands beside a private car park: read it from the pavement and keep clear of cars turning in. The Air Ministry building (stop 5) is the Federal Finance Ministry and is guarded: stay on the forecourt and the pavement, and look into the colonnade from outside. The Topography of Terror's outdoor grounds close at dusk (before 19:00 in early October, before 17:00 after 25 October); the Wall remnant can be seen from the street pavement at any hour. Checked 9 October 2026. Public transportation nearby
Itinerary
- 1Day 0
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe: The Field's Edge
Hannah-Arendt-Straße, south pavement facing the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, 10117 Berlin, Berlin
The field of stelae from its edge. Peter Eisenman's memorial, opened in May 2005 on the former ministers' gardens, with a free underground Information Center that is closed on Mondays.
- 2Day 0
Führerbunker Site: A Car Park and a Board
Gertrud-Kolmar-Straße, pavement at the Führerbunker information board, 10117 Berlin, Berlin
A car park over Hitler's last bunker. Left unmarked for decades after the war, the site has carried a sober information board since June 2006, put up by a private association.
- 3Day 0
Georg Elser Marker: A Profile in Steel
Wilhelmstraße, pavement at the Georg Elser memorial, 10117 Berlin, Berlin
A steel profile for a lone resister. More than 17 m tall, unveiled on 8 November 2011 on the former Reich Chancellery grounds, it remembers the carpenter who tried to kill Hitler in 1939 to prevent the war.
- 4Day 0
Wilhelmstrasse: The Street of Ministries
Wilhelmstraße at Voßstraße, west pavement by the history board, 10117 Berlin, Berlin
The street that ran Prussia and the Reich. Almost nothing is left of the Reich Chancellery, the Foreign Office or the President's palace; a trail of numbered boards tells where each stood.
- 5Day 0
Air Ministry: A Stone Skin on a Steel Frame
Wilhelmstraße at Leipziger Straße, forecourt of the Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus (Finance Ministry), 10117 Berlin, Berlin
Göring's Air Ministry and the 1953 uprising square. A 1936 office block clad in shell limestone over a steel frame, now the Finance Ministry, with a GDR tile mural in its colonnade and a 1953 photograph set in the paving.
- 6Day 0
Bundesrat: A Palace for Sixteen States
Leipziger Straße, south pavement facing the Bundesrat (Leipziger Straße 3-4), 10117 Berlin, Berlin
A 1904 palace that now houses the Bundesrat. Built for the Prussian House of Lords around a courtyard of honor, it has been the chamber of Germany's sixteen states since September 2000.
- 7Day 0
Leipziger Platz: A Wall Built for the View
Leipziger Platz, by the Berlin Wall segments on the octagon's west side, 10117 Berlin, Berlin
An eight-sided square and its tidy wall. Cleared into the death strip after 1961 and rebuilt since 1990, Leipziger Platz keeps a few Wall slabs: inner wall, built from front-wall sections to look orderly from the West.
- 8Day 0
Niederkirchnerstrasse: Stone Front, Brick Back
Niederkirchnerstraße, north pavement facing the Berlin House of Representatives and the Gropius-Bau, 10117 Berlin, Berlin
Prussia's old parliament and the Gropius-Bau. Berlin's House of Representatives, built for Prussia's elected chamber, faces the red-brick Gropius-Bau, whose main door the Wall closed off from 1961 to 1989.
- 9Day 0
Topography of Terror: The Wall Left Standing
Niederkirchnerstraße, by the Berlin Wall remnant at the Topography of Terror (no. 8), 10963 Berlin, Berlin
The Wall remnant beside the Gestapo site. About 200 m of the 1970s border wall, chipped to the steel in 1989, in front of the free documentation center on the site of the Gestapo, SS leadership and Reich Security Main Office.
- 10Day 0
Zimmerstrasse: Living on the Line
Zimmerstraße, north pavement west of Friedrichstraße, 10117 Berlin, Berlin
The street the Wall ran along. From 1961 to 1990 the Wall followed Zimmerstrasse past the old newspaper quarter, beside houses whose windows were barred and bricked up.
- 11Day 0
Checkpoint Charlie: A Crossing Rebuilt for Visitors
Zimmerstraße, near the corner of Friedrichstraße, west of the Checkpoint Charlie guardhouse, 10969 Berlin, Berlin
The Allied crossing and its replica hut. Where foreigners and Allied soldiers crossed, and American and Soviet tanks faced off in October 1961; today a replica hut and a light box of two soldiers' portraits, one of a man who never served here.
- 12Day 0
Peter Fechter Memorial: A Column and a Name
Zimmerstraße, at the Peter Fechter memorial column, 10117 Berlin, Berlin
A steel column for Peter Fechter. The 18-year-old was shot trying to climb the Wall here on 17 August 1962 and lay in the border strip for fifty minutes; a granite slab marks the spot.
Meeting point
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin Hannah-Arendt-Straße, south pavement facing the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, 10117 Berlin, Berlin, Berlin, DE
Pick up
Pickup is not provided.
Cancellation policy · Checkpoint Charlie Self-Guided Audio Walk: Topography of Terror, Berlin Wall and Holocaust Memorial
Standard Viator policy
- Cancellation 0–24 hours before departure: 100% cancellation fee.
- Cancellation 24–24000 hours before departure: 0% cancellation fee.
Good to know
Operated by Roamer and sold by AGORA. Your voucher and booking reference arrive by email straight after payment.