Museum am Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin

Also known as the ‘Mauermuseum’, the ‘Museum am Haus Checkpoint Charlie’ is one of Berlin’s most popular tourist attractions. It’s so popular, in fact, that there was a long queue stretching outside the doors and down the street when we visited on a freezing Saturday in December. The museum looks at the history of the Berlin Wall, why it was built, how it affected the lives of the people of Berlin and how desperate people tried to get over the wall to escape from ‘the east, and how the wall came to be torn down. It’s housed in a building that overlooks Checkpoint Charlie, one of the fortified ... more

Dr Haim Ginott once said that “children are like wet cement. Whatever falls on them makes an impression.” If you think back to what events or experiences made the biggest impression on you, I bet most (if not all) of them happened when you were a child. One of my most memorable experiences happened on a family outing when I was aged 10, and can’t have lasted for more than a few minutes. When Granada Television opened their studio tour in Manchester in 1988, the tour originally started off by taking you on a bus through a mock-up of Checkpoint Charlie, before heading down Baker Street and ... more

The Checkpoint Charlie Museum is one of Berlin's main tourist attractions. It commemorates the Cold War period in Germany when Berlin was divided in two by the Berlin Wall, with East Germany being controlled by the Communist Russian regime while West Berlin was controlled by the combined control of the French, British and Americans. Entry to the museum costs €12.50 for an adult and you can also buy an audio guide for an additional €3. Discounts are available for groups of 20 or more. The museum is open from 9am to 10pm daily as is the small coffee shop situated at the museum. The museum also ... more

In a city that is rich with history, both good and bad, Checkpoint Charlie and the museum that sits next to it is possibly one of the most interesting and one of the most prominent reminders of Germany's chequered past. The Haus Am Checkpoint Charlie is located next to the old allied crossing point for the Berlin wall and houses an exhibition of the history of the wall. Briefly, the Berlin wall was built by the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) in 1961 to officially prevent 'the fascist elements conspiring to prevent the will of the people by building a socialist state in Eastern ... more