The tripto catalogue lists 27 historic sites and memorials: places of Germany's division, concentration camp memorials, Roman excavations and historic settlements. Many of them are free to visit.
The Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Straße shows the original Wall, a reconstructed border strip with a watchtower and the Window of Remembrance. The East Side Gallery is the longest surviving stretch of the Wall, with more than 100 paintings from 1990, including the Fraternal Kiss. The Topography of Terror, on the former site of the Gestapo and SS headquarters, documents Nazi crimes. The Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site stands on the site of the first permanently operated Nazi concentration camp, and the Buchenwald Memorial on the Ettersberg near Weimar commemorates one of the largest camps. The Fuggerei in Augsburg tells a very different story: the oldest social housing complex in the world still in use, founded in 1521 – the annual rent is still €0.88.
Most sites in the catalogue are in Berlin (a handful) and Bavaria (a handful), followed by Hesse and Saarland with their Roman sites.
In practice: allow two to three hours, and half a day for Dachau or Buchenwald. Memorials such as Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, Bergen-Belsen and the Topography of Terror are free; public tours are inexpensive – €4 at Dachau. For Buchenwald, reserve a free timed ticket online. Concentration camp memorials are not suitable for young children; for families, the East Side Gallery and the Fuggerei are better choices.
Historic sites & memorials
Berlin
The Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse is the most important place in Berlin to understand what the Wall really meant. Stretching for about 0.9 miles (1.4 km) along the former border strip, it preserves an original section of the Wal…
Historic sites & memorials
Berlin
The East Side Gallery in Berlin is the longest surviving stretch of the Berlin Wall and one of the largest open-air galleries in the world. Running for 0.8 miles (1,316 m) along Mühlenstrasse in the Friedrichshain district, it is covered w…
Historic sites & memorials
Augsburg
The Fuggerei in Augsburg is the world's oldest social housing complex still in use, and one of the most unusual things to do in Bavaria. Founded in 1521 by the merchant banker Jakob Fugger "the Rich," it still houses around 150 people in n…
Historic sites & memorials
Berlin
The Topography of Terror in Berlin is a free documentation center on the exact site where Nazi Germany ran its machinery of persecution. From 1933 to 1945 this block housed the headquarters of the Gestapo, the SS leadership, and the Reich…
Historic sites & memorials
Dachau
The Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site (KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau), just northwest of Munich, preserves the grounds of the first long-running concentration camp set up by the Nazis. Between 1933 and 1945, more than 160,000 people were im…
Historic sites & memorials
Weimar
The Buchenwald Memorial (Gedenkstätte Buchenwald) on the Ettersberg hill above Weimar preserves the site of one of the largest Nazi concentration camps on German soil. Between 1937 and 1945, about 277,800 people from some 50 countries were…
Historic sites & memorials
Berlin
The Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse is the most important place in Berlin to understand what the Wall really meant. Stretching for about 0.9 miles (1.4 km) along the former border strip, it preserves an original section of the Wal…
Historic sites & memorials
Berlin
The East Side Gallery in Berlin is the longest surviving stretch of the Berlin Wall and one of the largest open-air galleries in the world. Running for 0.8 miles (1,316 m) along Mühlenstrasse in the Friedrichshain district, it is covered w…
Historic sites & memorials
Berlin
Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin was the most famous crossing point between East and West during the Cold War, and today it is one of the city's most visited sights. On Friedrichstrasse, where the American and Soviet sectors met from 1961 to 1…
Historic sites & memorials
Augsburg
The Fuggerei in Augsburg is the world's oldest social housing complex still in use, and one of the most unusual things to do in Bavaria. Founded in 1521 by the merchant banker Jakob Fugger "the Rich," it still houses around 150 people in n…
Historic sites & memorials
Berlin
The Topography of Terror in Berlin is a free documentation center on the exact site where Nazi Germany ran its machinery of persecution. From 1933 to 1945 this block housed the headquarters of the Gestapo, the SS leadership, and the Reich…
Historic sites & memorials
Weimar
The Buchenwald Memorial (Gedenkstätte Buchenwald) on the Ettersberg hill above Weimar preserves the site of one of the largest Nazi concentration camps on German soil. Between 1937 and 1945, about 277,800 people from some 50 countries were…
Historic sites & memorials
Dachau
The Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site (KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau), just northwest of Munich, preserves the grounds of the first long-running concentration camp set up by the Nazis. Between 1933 and 1945, more than 160,000 people were im…
Historic sites & memorials
Perl
The Roman Villa Borg in Perl-Borg is an archaeological open-air museum in the far west of Saarland, just a few miles from Luxembourg and France. On original foundations, archaeologists have fully rebuilt a Roman country estate, or villa ru…
Historic sites & memorials
Kempten (Allgäu)
The Cambodunum Archaeological Park in Kempten preserves the remains of one of the most important Roman towns in what is now southern Germany. On a hill above the Iller River in the Allgäu region, you can walk through a rebuilt Gallo-Roman…
Historic sites & memorials
Zossen
In the pine forest south of Berlin lies one of the strangest places in Brandenburg. In Wünsdorf-Waldstadt near Zossen, the German Army High Command sat in camouflaged bunkers during the Second World War, followed until 1994 by the headquar…
Historic sites & memorials
Nürnberg
The Documentation Center Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg (Dokuzentrum) is one of Germany's most important places to learn about the Nazi era. It occupies the north wing of the Congress Hall, a vast, never-finished Nazi building, and…
Historic sites & memorials
Gersheim
The European Archaeological Park of Bliesbruck-Reinheim straddles the German-French border in southeastern Saarland and Lorraine, and lets you step from Celtic times into Roman Germany within a single day. Across roughly 700,000 square met…
Historic sites & memorials
Horn-Bad Meinberg
The Externsteine near Horn-Bad Meinberg are a striking group of sandstone pillars rising up to 130 feet (40 meters) from the Teutoburg Forest in northwestern Germany. With a medieval rock relief, carved grottoes and a viewing platform reac…
Historic sites & memorials
Lohheide
The Bergen-Belsen Memorial in Lohheide, Lower Saxony, marks the site of a prisoner-of-war camp, a Nazi concentration camp and a postwar camp for displaced persons. It is known around the world as the place where Anne Frank and her sister M…
Historic sites & memorials
Berlin
The Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial is the former central remand prison of the Stasi, East Germany's secret police. Political prisoners were interrogated and psychologically broken here, in a restricted zone that did not appear on East Be…
Historic sites & memorials
Rasdorf
Point Alpha on the former border between Hesse and Thuringia is one of the best places in Germany to grasp what the Cold War looked like on the ground. A US Army observation post and the East German border fortifications face each other ac…
Historic sites & memorials
Oranienburg
The Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Memorial in Oranienburg, about 35 km north of central Berlin, preserves the site of one of the major Nazi concentration camps and of the Soviet special camp that followed it. It is one of the most visit…
Historic sites & memorials
Messel
The Messel Pit (Grube Messel) near Darmstadt is Germany's oldest UNESCO natural World Heritage Site and one of the richest fossil sites on Earth. A former oil-shale mine, it preserves animals and plants from the Eocene, including early hor…
Historic sites & memorials
Busdorf
Hedeby (Haithabu in German), near Schleswig in northern Germany, was one of the great trading towns of the Viking Age and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. On the shore of the Haddeby Noor, a quiet inlet of the Schlei, merchants from ac…
Historic sites & memorials
Sigmaringen
White mud-brick walls, a timber wall-walk on top and thatched half-timbered houses behind: what stands on the Heuneburg above the upper Danube looks more Mediterranean than Swabian, and that is exactly what makes it special. In the 6th cen…
Historic sites & memorials
Trier
The Trier Imperial Baths (Kaiserthermen) are among the most impressive Roman ruins north of the Alps. Begun around 300 AD as a monumental bathhouse for the imperial residence of Trier, they were never finished as baths and later became bar…
Historic sites & memorials
Flossenbürg
The Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial (KZ-Gedenkstätte Flossenbürg) in eastern Bavaria preserves the site of one of the major Nazi concentration camps, close to the Czech border roughly halfway between Nuremberg and Prague. Around 10…
Historic sites & memorials
Xanten
The LVR Archaeological Park Xanten on the Lower Rhine is an open-air museum built on the site of the Roman city of Colonia Ulpia Traiana. You can walk Roman streets, climb into a rebuilt amphitheater, admire a reconstructed harbor temple a…
Historic sites & memorials
Schleiden
From the Urft dam the ridge above the water looks almost peaceful, until you notice the massive tower and the long rows of buildings. Here, in what is now Eifel National Park, the Nazi Party began building a training castle for its future…
Among others, the Berlin Wall Memorial, the East Side Gallery, the Topography of Terror and the concentration camp memorials at Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, Flossenbürg and Bergen-Belsen.
The oldest social housing complex in the world still in use, in Augsburg, founded by Jakob Fugger in 1521. The annual rent is still €0.88. Visitor entry costs €8, including the museums and the bunker.
At the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Straße, with its border strip and watchtower, and at the East Side Gallery, the longest surviving stretch. Both are free.
Updated: · Opening hours and prices can change — check the attraction page before you go.