Berlin’s Lost Places: Unveiling History Through Urban Exploration

Some of Berlin’s Lost Places offer a unique and intriguing journey through the forgotten corners of its recent past. These abandoned spaces, which carry the marks of historical events such as the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the aftermath of World War II, and the economic changes following reunification, create a compelling backdrop for urban exploration.

They are also a fantastic way to explore photography since they have a different visual quality than the day-to-day world that we see around us every day. There is beauty in decay if you dare to see it.

Urban Exploration came to me as a different way of experiencing history. It is the closest I can get to the events before I arrive in Berlin, and this is one of the many reasons I explored the places below. Every time I find a new place, I feel like a version of Indiana Jones walking into a temple of sorts.

So, now you can give into the temptation of Berlin’s Lost Places as we uncover the stories behind these neglected relics.

Abandoned Berlin and Beyond Urban Exploration

The Abandoned Vaubeka Crane

At the edge of Tempelhof and Neukölln, the Vaubeka Crane reminds Berlin of its turbulent past. This industrial giant, a symbol of resilience during a crisis, is also a remarkable feat of engineering.

With its towering framework and a 233-meter track, the crane was designed for efficiency across a large area. Now idle since 1991, the rusting structure reflects the city’s industrial roots and its determination to overcome adversity.

Flying Drones above Flugplatz Oranienburg

Near the main station in Oranienburg, you can find the remnants of Flugplatz Oranienburg. This pre-WWII airfield was constructed between 1936 and 1939. It served both the Luftwaffe and Heinkel-Werke Oranienburg until 1945.

Today, only a few scattered buildings remain around a hangar, as the site has undergone significant changes. In 2003, a federal highway cut through the airfield, and part of the land is now occupied by a REWE distribution center.

Having been fascinated since 2012, we finally decided to visit in March 2021, bringing bikes, cameras, and drones. The aerial views we captured showcased the airfield’s desolate state, validating our long-awaited trip. Before sharing the drone pictures, it’s important to understand the site’s history and connection to Heinkel-Werke Oranienburg.

Exploring the Abandoned Lager Koralle

Initially intended as a naval academy near Berlin, the Lager Koralle site transformed into the German Navy High Command (OKM) during World War II. Facing aerial bombardment in Berlin, the OKM relocated to the safer, forested location in January 1943. A crucial radio station channeled all naval communications, particularly to submarines, from this hidden complex.

It’s striking to realize that Nazi Germany’s entire submarine warfare strategy was directed from this secluded bunker in Brandenburg. The remote, unexpected location provided security, making it an unlikely yet effective command center.

Flugplatz Brand — Exploring Soviet Barracks Close to Berlin

Flugplatz Brand is an abandoned airfield about 60 kilometers south of Berlin. It was built in 1938 as an air base for the Luftwaffe, the aerial warfare branch of the Wehrmacht. After the Second World War ended, Soviet Troops took over until 1990, when the airfield was transferred to German authorities.

A couple of years later, Cargolifter bought the area and started building the most massive hangar in the world. In 2002, the company went bankrupt, and the airship hangar was turned into Tropical Islands, a fantastic tropical-themed water park!

I went to explore Flugplatz Brand in January 2017 when I went to Tropical Islands and realized that the area around the park used to be a military airfield. I looked for some pictures online and found a gold mine of urban military exploration with a Lenin mural, abandoned hangars, and bunkers. And everything seemed terrific, covered in snow!

Berlin Lost Places: The Flugplatz Johannisthal

Flugplatz Johannisthal was one of Germany’s first commercial airfields when it opened to the public in September 1909. We passed by bike a few times on our way to Adlershof, and we always wondered what it would look like from inside the fences.

We had known about the abandoned Flugplatz Johannisthal for years and had even tried to find our way there a few years ago. Still, we only made it in early January 2021.

Friedhofsbahn: The Abandoned train tracks between Wannsee and Stahnsdorf

Traditionally, Berlin is known for its vast transport network comprising S-Bahn and U-Bahn lines covering almost 500 km of tracks across the city. The German capital used to have even more train tracks, but some were abandoned due to political divisions, world wars, and economic problems.

One of those is known as Friedhofsbahn, which connects Berlin-Wannsee to Stahnsdorf. Here are some pictures of the abandoned tracks in the middle of the forest and their history. 

Kaserne Krampnitz in Potsdam

Regarding Urban Exploration, the best place we ever went to was Krampnitz. We don’t even need to think twice about that. Krampnitz is the easy answer. 

Krampnitz Kaserne was a military complex in Potsdam that was close to Berlin. The area was built before the Second World War as a training center for Nazi Germany, and later, it was used by the Soviet Forces stationed in Berlin.

The military base was abandoned by Soviet Troops in 1992 and remains empty today since most of the plans to build something there seem to have failed. Berlin is an excellent place for urban exploration.

We wrote about our visits to Krampnitz here: the first one in August 2013 and the other in November 2013.

Exploring the abandoned soviet base known as Vogelsang

Vogelsang used to be more than just a Soviet military base. This place used to be a city filled with secrets and soldiers, but today, it lies empty in Brandenburg and rots away in the middle of a forest.

Before the Second World War, Vogelsang was known for its people who worked and lived off the forest. The area changed after the Second World War when it became strategically important to the Soviet Forces in Occupied Germany.

Construction of the barracks and the military base started in 1952, and after it was done, it housed up to 15.000 people. It was considered to be the third-largest Soviet base in East Germany.

The abandoned Flugplatz Rangsdorf

If you manage to walk into the abandoned Flugplatz Rangsdorf, you will never suspect what the place used to be and how much history happened there.

It was here that Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg landed after trying to kill Hitler back in 1944, and this is why we took our cameras to explore this abandoned airport ten kilometers south of Berlin’s city limits.

Spreepark in Planterwald

The Spreepark is an abandoned amusement park that has been lying abandoned close to the heart of Berlin since 2002. When you enter the park and start walking around, you can see the remnants of the previous decades, and this is why this location is so unusual for people. 

I first learned about this park in 2009. A couple of years later, I watched a movie called Hannah, which featured many scenes from the German capital. As I learned later on IMDB, some of these scenes were filmed at Spreepark.

Schloss Schulzendorf: One of the locations from Queen’s Gambit

While we were watching The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix, some places on screen seemed familiar to us. Some places that were supposed to be foreign, like Moscow and Mexico City, looked like places we recognized daily in Berlin. With this thought in mind, we decided to look for Queen’s Gambit locations, and the first place we visited was the Schloss Schulzendorf, also known as the Methuen Home orphanage.

During our research, we learned a lot about Schloss Schulzendorf. We discovered that this historic place is way more interesting than we expected. If you want to learn about its history, you have to click on the link below to visit the article we wrote about it.

Blub Berlin’s Watery Ruins: Exploring a Deserted Leisure Park

After our first visit, we decided to call Blub Berlin the Mad Max Water Park of Neukölln. This place used to be a famous waterpark in West Berlin, but it was infested by rats around 2005, and things were never the same.

In English, Blub is short for Berliner Luft—und Badeparadies or Berlin Air and Bathing Paradise. It opened in Neukölln in February 1985 at over 40 million Deutschmarks cost and was supposed to be excellent. It’s too bad we never got to see it like that.

If you are lucky, you can still see Blub Berlin before it is torn down at the end of 2022. Somebody is going to make a lot of money with luxury buildings there. It’s too bad it won’t be possible to explore urban Berlin anymore.

The Abandoned Checkpoint Bravo

Before 1969, Checkpoint Bravo was located on a motorway bridge over the Teltow Canal. The Autobahn A 115 used to have a different course. It used to zig-zag between East and West Berlin since it was built before the Second World War and everything that happened to Berlin.

Since East Germany wanted to avoid having parts of the road cross its territory and West Berlin, it built a new motorway and, eventually, the Berlin Wall. But before it moved the Checkpoint Bravo to this new location, it left the old one in place as a relic of the past.

Hunting down what is left of the Red Army around Berlin

It’s a new millennium, and some Lenin statues remain in Germany. We visited one of these statues in Berlin and continue looking for them nationwide.

One day, we got lucky and found two of them on the same day. That blessed day was back in November 2016 when we took our bikes north and went to Fürstenberg for urban exploration.

The Abandoned Pool Freibad Lichtenberg

Since it closed in the late 1980s, swimming has been prohibited at the Freibad Lichtenberg. Some say it was the end of the Berlin Wall, but who knows for sure? Today, you can visit it and consider better times for this abandoned pool in the middle of Lichtenberg.

The pool was built in 1928 and is an addition to the neighboring BVG-Stadion, which was built a couple of years before in 1920. From what I read, the Freibad Lichtenberg was even used by foreign swimmers to train for the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which put some of the pictures here into a weird perspective.

Krankenhaus Mariendorfer Weg – Abandoned Hospital in Neukölln

We called this place the Abandoned Hospital in Neukölln, but its official name is Krankenhaus Mariendorfer Weg. The complex of hospitals for children and women was built in parts; the first was built in 1917, then expanded in 1969, and a new building for premature babies was built in 1978.

Everything was going well for the Krankenhaus until 2005, when the complex was shut down and moved up the road to an even bigger complex. Now, this hospital lay abandoned in the middle of Neukölln.

The Abandoned Freibad Wernersee in Kaulsdorf

Far away from the tourists that flock to Berlin is a neighborhood called Kaulsdorf. There, you will find the lonely hippo, Knautschke, after a famous hippo born in the Berlin Zoo in 1943.

Knautschke has the entire Freibad Wernersee to himself, but I didn’t see him enjoying much of it when I was there. Maybe it was cold, or perhaps the pool was frozen. Maybe he was just waiting for a time when he would have company, but this would probably never happen.

Freibad Wernersee was closed in 2002 after some concerns about the water quality there. This is a problem because it is a natural pool with water from the ground. This is why it became the first outdoor public pool in Berlin in 1905.

A Visit to Güterbahnhof Pankow-Heinersdorf

There are no trains at the Güterbahnhof Pankow-Heinersdorf, but they used to come here a lot before somebody figured out how to make them drive in the other direction. Yes, this place was built to allow trains to go in different directions, and it is one of the only remaining buildings with this history in Germany.

Arriving at the Güterbahnhof Pankow-Heinersdorf is pretty simple. You just need to take a train to S-Bahnhof Pankow-Heinersdorf, and you can see the place from the train tracks. Go over the bridge, and you will find your way inside.

A Visit to an Abandoned Boat in the Spree River

You’ve probably seen an abandoned boat in the Spree River. It has been there since 1996, lying quiet between the Molecule Man sculpture and Badeschiff.

That was the year German bureaucracy showed Franz Günther Van de Lücht, the boat’s owner, that his dreams of cruising through the waters wouldn’t become reality. But there is a lot more to this story than I thought there would be.

Chemiewerk Rüdersdorf – a HUGE Chemical Factory

The Chemiewerk Rüdersdorf is a giant abandoned factory in Rüdersdorf, a small town close to Berlin. The factory started its life in 1899 as a cement factory, and through the years, it has produced bauxite, animal feed, and phosphates for farming purposes. All of this is in the past. This giant abandoned factory is standing still without any practical use.

In March 2015, we gathered a small group of friends and took our bikes on a train to Erkner. Once we reached Erkner, we put our bikes on the road and cycled to the Chemiewerk Rüdersdorf. It was easy to spot the giant building surrounded by fences with razor-sharp barbed wire.

SS Brotfabrik in Oranienburg

The SS Brotfabrik was part of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, and from 1941 until 1991, it operated as a full-time bakery. Nowadays, you can “visit” the place.

It’s in Oranienburg, a town north of Berlin, that you’ll find the SS Brotfabrik. You will be exploring one of the buildings from the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Complex there.

The building is pretty empty, but its creepiness makes everything interesting. The old baking ovens and the surrounding forest will give you chills—we are sure of that.

Siemensbahn: A Ghost Train Track

Another abandoned place to explore in Berlin is Siemensbahn, with its famous S-Bahnhof Siemensstadt Station. This is a deserted train line in the northern part of Berlin; we still don’t know how it is still there.

The Siemensbahn S-Bahn line was built at the beginning of the 20th century to bring more than 17.000 workers to the Siemens factory close by. After the Second World War, Siemens moved its headquarters to Munich, and there wasn’t much to do with this S-Bahn line. When it comes to urban exploration in Berlin, nothing beats this place.

History says that the decrease in passengers in the late 70s was so substantial that, in September 1980, the line crossing the former Siemensstadt was shut down forever. Now, only junkies and explorers visit this place.

Elisabeth Sanatorium between Berlin and Potsdam

Elisabeth Sanatorium in Stahnsdorf is an abandoned clinic built in 1912 and first used to treat tuberculosis. Later, during the DDR era, it became the only facility to treat skin and lymph node tuberculosis. But this was long ago, and nothing is left of these years of glory.

We explored the Elisabeth Sanatorium in Stahnsdorf on a cold Sunday morning in January 2015. There was still some snow on the ground, and everything was gray around this abandoned building between Berlin and Potsdam.

Urban Exploration Berlin: Flugzeughallen Karlshorst

The history of this place dates back to 1911, when Germany and the world were still learning how to fly. This is how Flugzeughallen Karlshorst was born, so we decided to explore it. Flugzeughallen Karlshorst lies somewhere in Karlshorst, an area of Berlin not famous for its tourist spots.

The site is renowned for being the place where the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany against the Allied forces was signed on the 8th of May 1945. But Flugzeughallen Karlshorst doesn’t have the glory of those days.

The place seems ready to be torn down, and construction workers are everywhere. You need to go there for the First World War hangars!

Urban Exploration Berlin – Want to know more?

If you want to know more about urban exploration in Berlin, you should buy the book that the guys from Abandoned Berlin wrote. You will learn a lot about these abandoned places in Berlin and, maybe, where you can find them.

We have a fantastic post about what you should bring when exploring urban areas; read it here. We even interviewed Abandoned Berlin about the book and urban exploration; you must read it.

You should follow Abandoned Berlin online for tips and ideas for new places to explore in Berlin.