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Berlin Map - EXPLAINED
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Mar 27, 2025
Watch the full version here: https://www.brighttrip.com/my-courses/berlin?utm_medium=ytberlinmap Berlin Tour Guide Ryan Balmer: @berlinreguided https://www.instagram.com/berlin_reguided/?hl=en RESOURCES: https://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/so-alt-wohnt-berlin/ https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/building-divided-berlin/ https://www.notion.so/Berlin-Map-Explainer-edbd5e91b5dc4c4fa99f1eb3d8d6047f#c31c8607168c4400b1a4be45fa460d7a https://www.slowtravelberlin.com/a-brief-history-of-tempelhofer-feld/ https://maps.arcanum.com/de/map/europe-19century-secondsurvey/?bbox=1435614.1216551277%2C6861630.767347558%2C1557719.15305885%2C6913381.0608671745&layers=158%2C164 https://war-documentary.info/soviet-memorial-in-tiergarten-berlin/ Leave a comment with any questions you have and we’ll make sure to include it in a future video. Make sure to subscribe to the channel to learn how to travel smarter. ===== FOLLOW ON SOCIAL =====
View Video Transcript
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This is a map of Berlin from 1811, and this is Berlin today
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On each you can see the Spree River that runs through the city, Museum Island, and Tiergarten
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They're the same city, but this one is at the beginning of a massive explosion in population
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And while they've both faced great destruction, for this one, the worst is yet to come
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Berlin has been called a city condemned forever to becoming and never to being
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Few cities have experienced the destruction Berlin has. But the events that scar this city are the same that have led to the vibrant Berlin of today
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For the free full version of this video and for a whole guide on Berlin, you can go to
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brighttrip.com which I have linked in the description. In this map of Berlin from 1811, you'll notice a zigzag line encompassing the center of the city
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remnant of a fortress wall that once surrounded Berlin. You can see Museum Island in its center
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This used to be called Kahn, with its sister city Berlin opposite the Spree. Also, I will say
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I don't speak German, so pronouncing these things is really hard for me and I'm going to get it
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wrong. So thanks for the patience on that. In 1650, and as a response to the Thirty Years' War
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a fortress was built surrounding both of them that eventually led to their unification
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Mostly gone by 1811, you can see its lasting influence on the layout of the streets
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And today, only a faint reminder of it can be seen. After the fortress, the next phase of expansion for the city is marked by a replacement wall surrounding a larger area, the Berlin Customs Wall
1:40
This wall has a much larger impact on today's map of Berlin in several ways
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Not only does its route remain relatively visible, but it's from the gates in this wall that many spots in the city get their name
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In German, the word gate translates to Tor. And these are all named for the places the gate or Tor led to
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Most famously, the one remaining gate is the Brandenburg Gate. Of this wall, only a small portion still stands, and even it has been reconstructed
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This is a pivotal moment in Berlin's history. Because if this is 1811, look at what is about to happen in the population
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This boom in population was a result of the Industrial Revolution, with people moving to the city to work in massive factories, some of which are still standing
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Up until the 1860s, this old customs wall contained a majority of the city's development
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but as the population grew, so too did the city limits. This came to a head in 1920 when the suburbs were annexed
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expanding Berlin by 13 times and doubling its population from 2 million to 4 million
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This city boundary is essentially the same as Berlin city boundary of today But amid all this growth mass destruction awaited Wait it actually starts before this
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As Hitler rose to power, he wanted Berlin to be the capital of an area much larger than the contemporary Germany
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But he didn't really like Berlin. He called it an unregulated accumulation of buildings and wanted to make some not-so-subtle changes
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He planned a massive redesign of the city, followed by a name change from Berlin to Germania
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The centerpiece would be a massive grand hall that could hold over 100,000 people at a time
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This was to sit near where the Reichstag is, and the boulevard that would lead to it would be just as monumental
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120 meters wide, it would lead to a grand arch. I sent a friend of mine, Ella, who is German and lives in Berlin
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To help show us some of the things that we can't see on the map It's really cold and I'm freezing my fingers off
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I've made it to the entrance of Tjagaten Behind me is the Brandenburg Gate, right there
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I just passed through it And now I'm going to walk into this beautiful park
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I'm supposed to be finding some curves on the sidewalk I haven't found them yet, but I'm going to keep looking
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These ghost curbs are essentially all that remain of the road that would have been
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Everybody's just walking by. Nobody's paying attention to these marks on the ground, even though they very clearly
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look like the curb of an old sidewalk. But then it leads to the forest
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Not much of his plan was ever realized, and only few remnants of it are visible
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A Prussian military victory column was moved, the east-west road in Tiergarten was widened
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and a place where the arch would stand sits this. This is the sch..
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I've just made it to the Schwebelastungskörper. So I have made it to the entrance, and there's a sign here
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It says, The Schwebelastungskörper bears witness to the biggest construction project Berlin has ever seen
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planning for a gigantic project commenced in 1937 that was intended to completely redesign Berlin
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This was built to see if the ground could support the weight of the huge triumphal arch that was
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going to be here. It was planned to be way bigger than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris
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The reason they had to test the ground is partly because of the same reason Berlin has so many
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lakes and is so lush. This whole area is essentially a swamp. Look at this elevation map of Berlin
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It's almost perfectly flat, which can make it hard to escape the water beneath
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This dense 12 ton structure has remained basically because the effort of dismantling it is so hot It still stands and has been described as a silent monument to Nazi megalomania which
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I think is just a perfect description for it. But the biggest effect this whole plan of Germania had on the city was the Nazis' destruction
5:54
of much of Berlin to clear way for it. But this destruction was soon overshadowed by what would happen during World War II
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Berlin sustained so much damage from the war that nearly 80% of its buildings and structures near the city center were destroyed
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It's honestly a miracle that the Brandenburg Gate still stands at all
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Just look at it in the middle of all of these ruins. This is also true of Tiergarten
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In all of these maps, you've been able to see it since it's been here since the 16th century
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But it almost didn't survive the war. Heavily bombed, most trees and monuments were destroyed
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Then during reconstruction, big portions of it were used for farming. Slowly, it was restored to the major piece of the city that it is
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After the war ended in 1945, the city would be divided between the victors, with the Soviet
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Union taking the east and the Allies taking the west. But it would be another 16 years in 1961 before the infamous Berlin Wall was to be built
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One thing that often surprises people is that West Berlin is something of an island during
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the Cold War. This was a microcosm of the divided country. You can see on this map that the Allies
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controlled the western half of the country, while the Soviets controlled the eastern half. This was
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also true of Berlin, but you'll notice that Berlin lies within the Soviet-controlled region
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meaning that West Berlin was fully surrounded by East Germany on all sides. This division had an
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immeasurable impact on the city's development. If you're unfamiliar with the Berlin Wall
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it's easy to imagine it's just a simple wall. But the reality is it's an entire security complex
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built by East Berlin. Initially in 1961, it began as a simple barbed wire fence
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But by the time it was torn down, it was two walls about 100 meters apart
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separated by the death strip. Guard towers, anti-artillery obstacles, and guard dogs
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It took up a lot of space. And its construction didn't discriminate from cemeteries or historic sites
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cutting neighborhoods in half and destroying churches. But while the wall was another point of destruction in Berlin's history
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it also marked a distinct era of construction. Each side operated under different governments with different ideals
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and the East especially wanted to represent their socialist ideas through their architecture
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Look at Karl Marx elite on the Eastern side for example Named after the father of communism this street was the center of a massive construction project to create palaces for workers under socialism
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The street was made unusually wide, and Frankfurter Tor was marked by two buildings reminiscent of the sister domes at Gendannenmarkt
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However, the difference between the ideology of the workers being venerated and the reality
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of their working conditions was pretty large. This led to an uprising in 1953 of workers striking and protesting their working quotas
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West Germany supported the workers and viewed this as an ideological win, even renaming
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the Main Street through Tiergarten after the day of the uprising. The West experienced quite a different reconstruction
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Because of its isolation from the rest of West Germany, its economy didn't bounce back so quickly and new building projects were much more difficult to execute
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There's actually a part of today's map of Berlin that once you see, it's hard to miss
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I want to point out this because it plays into this. This is Tempelhoferfeld
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For over 100 years now, it has been used as an airfield and it's witnessed flight demonstrations from Orville Wright and other early aviators
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During the Cold War, this was a lifeline for West Berliners. Basically, everything had to be flown in, from medical supplies to food to construction materials
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And at one point, planes were landing every 45 seconds to drop off goods
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This meant that taking on new construction projects and flying and everything was not very cost-effective or feasible
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This airport was in operation until 2008 when it was decommissioned, and it's now used as a park
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To me, this perfectly encapsulates Berlin. It has a deep history before, through, and since World War II
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and today serves as a beautiful green space with community gardens and bike routes
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I know I've given a very narrow narrative of all of Berlin
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and that's because I can't fit everything into a single video. But if you are interested in going to Berlin and learning more
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and understanding how to practically get around, We have created an entire guide about Berlin on our website, which is linked in the description below, brighttrip.com
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Huge thank you to Ella, who took the footage on the ground and helped me pronounce things the proper way
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And to Ryan Balmer, who I interviewed for this, who does tours of Berlin. I'm going to link his info below
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You can find his YouTube channel, and if you want to book a tour, you should do it through him
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If you are interested in diving deeper into this stuff, I'm going to leave a bunch of links in the description to resources that I used
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and there was one really cool interactive map that you can like see a timeline of when the
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buildings were built throughout Berlin. So I'll leave that all in the description and you can kind
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of poke around on your own. Let me know what cool stuff you find in the comments. Please like and subscribe and I'll see you in the next one. Bye
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