Stories
Fürstenberg's military traces
Years after he first visited, Lenin’s Soviet comrades brought him back to Germany for what they thought was a long haul. He still lingers in Fürstenberg.
Trabiwerkstatt
An old garage from DDR times, maybe even before, was home to several old cars in varying states of decay, including a Trabi prototype from before 1959.
Olympic village
The Olympic Games used to be the toast of the world. Berlin’s Olympics in 1936 were the most captivating games of all, albeit for all the wrong reasons.
Kaiser’s supermarket
Shelves are cleared, tills and aisles empty. Even the shelves, tills and aisles are gone. There literally isn’t a sausage of the abandoned Kaiser's left.
MS Dr. Ingrid Wengler
Bureaucracy is to blame, literally, for the grounding of this ship of the Spree river. The MS Dr. Ingrid Wengler is named after its owner’s true love.
Heilstätte Grabowsee
Lurking in the shadows of the forest, Heilstätte Grabowsee creaks and groans through the gloom, sighing with echoes of the past as it sinks into decay.
Metallhütten und Halbzeugwerke
VEB Berliner Metallhütten und Halbzeugwerke was spewing all sorts of contaminated evil crap into the Spree river until the plug was pulled on it in 1990.
Flugplatz Rangsdorf
Flugplatz Rangsdorf was the airfield from which Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg flew off with a bomb for Hitler as part of the unsuccessful July 20 plot.
Böhmisches Brauhaus
The saddest brewery in the world was right here in Berlin. At one stage, the Böhmisches Brauhaus in Friedrichshain just wanted to be put out of its misery.
Königin-Elisabeth-Hospital
Königin-Elisabeth-Hospital saw better days, days when it used to care. Don’t bother expecting treatment now unless you need a roof falling on your head.
Karlshorst
The Soviet military had its administration HQ in Karlshorst, near where Generelfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel signed the unconditional surrender of German troops.
Lostsee hotel
Only ghosts stay at the Ostsee hotel since it was abandoned by humans after Mauerfall. Nobody’s there to check guests in and nobodies take full advantage – they’re ghosts after all.
Kinderheim Makarenko
Kinderheim Makarenko was the biggest children's home in the DDR, where some 6,000 East Germans grew up without ever knowing where they came from.
Richter’s forgotten farmhouse
This Gutshaus was born of property speculation and onto property speculation it shall pass. Perhaps it’s apt, the old farmhouse is no longer gut.
Heilstätten Hohenlychen
Horrific experiments on concentration camp prisoners were carried out at Heilstätten Hohenlychen, formerly a complex of sanatoriums, then military hospital.
Flugplatz Sperenberg and Kummersdorf
Sperenberg was considered the ideal site for Berlin's long overdue shiny new airport until the powers-that-be opted to build it beside Schönefeld instead.
Chemiewerk Rüdersdorf
Chemiewerk Rüdersdorf is a rich hunting ground for filmmakers, with "Enemy At The Gates," "The Monuments Men" and a Rammstein video apparently filmed here.
Bernau Panzer Kaserne
Before the Soviets took over, Bernau's Panzer Kaserne was dedicated to the Nazis’ Heeresbekleidungsamt, which made or repaired Wehrmacht soldiers' uniforms.