DDR

Examples of abandoned or forgotten sites and buildings in or around Berlin that are left over from the time of the DDR (East Germany).

Niederlehme TSL 44

Niederlehme TSL 44

Niederlehme’s Treib- und Schmierstofflager 44, aka TSL 44, was a former oil and fuel storage facility used by Nazi Germany, then East Germany’s armed forces.

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Vogelsang

Vogelsang

Vogelsang still clings to its nuclear secrets. One sneaky deployment of bad weapons was so damned secret it was even kept from the Soviet soldiers involved.

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Rheinsberg nuclear plant

Rheinsberg nuclear plant

Inside the belly of the beast. Refuse from East Germany’s first nuclear plant will continue to cast a threat long after the DDR itself was shut down.

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Iraqi embassy

Iraqi embassy

They must have just left the Iraqi Embassy to the DDR with no notice. “We’re leaving. Pack your bags and get out!” The party at Saddam’s house was over.

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Flugplatz Schönwalde

Flugplatz Schönwalde

Germany’s Luftwaffe used Flugplatz Schönwalde for the war. The Soviets took over afterward and left their traces after abandoning the airfield in 1992.

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Delphi silent film theater

Delphi silent film theater

The 1920s Delphi silent film theater was reborn as the Moka Efti club in the Babylon Berlin television series, then it was silent once more.

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Spreepark!

Spreepark!

The rollercoaster story of East Germany’s only full-time fun park, later called Spreepark, abandoned and left to rot with its dinosaurs in 2001.

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Flugplatz Brand

Flugplatz Brand

Flugplatz Brand was strategically important for the Soviet Air Force. Thankfully its battalions of flying fighters remained on ice for the duration of the Cold War.

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Sporthotel Hohenschönhausen

Sporthotel Hohenschönhausen

The Sporthotel und Kongresszentrum des Sportforums Hohenschönhausen is in a sorry state, beyond salvation, thrashed and abused. Not even drugs can help.

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Haus der Statistik

Haus der Statistik

Haus der Statistik looms over Berlin’s Alexanderplatz with STOP WARS across its bow in big red letters. The DDR’s former statistics HQ is right to be angry.

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Stasi Hotel

Stasi Hotel

East Germany checked out right before the Stasi could check in. Their hotel was never completed. Now it’s just a great hulking ruin between the trees.

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Spreepark 2022

Spreepark 2022

Spreepark is but a shell of what it once was. The city’s plans to refurbish the old fun park involve removing anything that might be fun.

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Jüterbog

Jüterbog

Jüterbog and its military camps played host to soldiers’ charades, men playing with guns, for around 130 years before the last ones left in 1994.

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SS Bakery

SS Bakery

The SS Bakery only went bust when the Nazis did. They forced prisoners from nearby Sachsenhausen to make bread to keep other concentration camps going.

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