history

The original Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church is known in German as Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche. It was built in the 1890s by a Kaiser Wilhelm II and his consort Augusta Victoria as an initiative to counter the German socialist movement by a return to traditional religious values.

Understanding the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in the Heart of West Berlin

Berlin
6 min read
17/08/201827/04/2024

Exploring the Abandoned Flugplatz Rangsdorf Close to Berlin

Urbex
6 min read
29/07/201821/02/2025

Sometimes I go on Youtube and search for movies related to Berlin in any way. This is how I discovered some of the youtube videos I have written about here, and this is how I found out about Background to Berlin, a NATO Information Service movie that explains, in a little less than 30 minutes, the history of the German capital from 1945 to 1961.

Background to Berlin: A NATO Information Service explaining everything about Berlin from 1945 to 1961

Berlin
3 min read
25/07/201808/10/2024

Back in 1911, when the Old Elbe Tunnel was opened to the public, it was an engineering marvel of the world. Back then it was called the St. Pauli Elbe Tunnel due to the area where the tunnel is located but, like the St. Pauli neighborhood, a lot has changed in the last years.

Old Elbe Tunnel: Exploring the Hamburg Underground

Hamburg
5 min read
28/05/201821/12/2023

Most visitors to Berlin, even those curious about World War II history, miss one of the city’s greatest, most curious, and most impressive memorials, the Soviet War Memorial at Treptower Park. Treptower Park just might be the most impressive and important war memorial you never have heard of, demonstrating how a monument can both educate and facilitate reflection.

Check out the Soviet War Memorial in Berlin’s Treptower Park. It’s epic!

Berlin
8 min read
21/05/201821/05/2018

Flugplatz Brand: Abandoned Barracks and Bunkers Close to Berlin

Urbex
7 min read
30/04/201818/02/2024

Kaliningrad is a city rich in history, and most of its touristic sights are related to its Prussian past. One of these sights is the Brandenburger Tor in Kaliningrad, the only one of the seven city gates that are still being used for the intended purpose.

Brandenburger Tor in Kaliningrad: The Gateway to Prussia in Old Königsberg

Kaliningrad
5 min read
05/04/201805/07/2024

The last original standard meter is called mètre étalon in French and is a small piece of marble that can be found on a wall next to rue Vaugirard 36, across the street from the Senate at the Palais du Luxembourg. This is the only one of 16 that still exist today, and all of them were installed in 1791 when the Académie des Sciences defined what would be the meter.

Mètre Étalon: The Last Original Standard Meter in Paris

Paris
4 min read
16/03/201807/01/2025

London is one of the leading destinations in Europe and the world and a lot of people visited the city and ended up doing exactly what everybody else did before. Since our idea with Fotostrasse was always to bring cool people to fantastic place, we decided to come up with this list of unusual things to do in London.

Unusual things to do in London: Exploring the City’s Quirks and Hidden Gems

London
6 min read
23/02/201828/05/2024

Like I said before, I first heard about the London Canal Museum due to its ice well, a unique artifact from Victorian times that it’s so unusual I had to see it with my own eyes. This artifact is the King's Cross Ice Well, and it was used by Carlo Gatti to house imported ice from Norway. The ice was brought to the ice well by ship and canal barge, and it was preserved in two wells under the buildings where the London Canal Museum is located today. One of these ice wells can be viewed from the public area of the museum, and it’s a weird sight to see.

London Canal Museum and the King’s Cross Ice Well

London
5 min read
21/02/201828/05/2024

Back in 1999, local historian Christian Bormann found something that it wasn’t supposed to be lost. Nine years after demolition began, he found a piece of the Berlin Wall, somehow forgotten in the woods between a train station and a supermarket. More than 80 meters of the original Berlin Wall, built in 1961, is standing there, some with the V-shaped brackets that once had barbed wire on it. It’s hard to believe that something with this historical importance was lost and this is why we went there to see it with our own eyes.

The Newly Found Original Berlin Wall that was lost in the woods in Schonholz

Berlin
5 min read
05/02/201823/05/2024

Imagine that you could drive down to a local church or a monastery and ask for a room to spend the night, with breakfast in the morning. Imagine how it must be to sleep inside a church with the glass stained windows next to the bed. This is what we did at the Kruisherenhotel Maastricht, unique hotel experience and one of the most amazing places we have ever stayed of our Fotostrasse life. We spend one night there in the middle of December 2017, and we will share everything about it below.

Kruisherenhotel Maastricht: a Luxury Design Hotel inside a former 15th century Church

Maastricht, Netherlands
9 min read
17/01/201828/11/2023

During the years where Nick Cave was living in Berlin, back in the 1980’s, he was filmed for a Dutch documentary called Stranger in a Strange Land. Produced by Bram van Splunteren for the Dutch TV channel VPRO, you get a glimpse of the life of Nick Cave in Berlin even though some parts of the movie are voice-over in dutch. But you don’t need to worry about it, all the interviews with Nick Cave are in English.

Nick Cave in Berlin: Stranger in a Strange Land

Berlin
3 min read
16/12/201713/08/2024

You can still see the tall gothic tower of St. Nicholas Church from almost anywhere in Hamburg. But this Gothic Revival church doesn’t mark the skyline of the city like it used to when it was the tallest construction on Earth, from 1874 to 1876. Nowadays, the church is the second-tallest structure in Hamburg and a memorial to everything that happened during the Second World War.

The View from St. Nicholas Church in Hamburg

Germany, Hamburg
8 min read
14/12/201712/05/2024

Risiko was a legendary bar & club in the West Berlin of 1980’s, and Uli M Schueppel did a short film about its last morning, all the way back in 1986. The footage captures and documents a little piece of Berlin history with a cover of Lost in Music by Anita Lane and Alex Harvey as the soundtrack of this movie shot in Super8.

Last Morning of Risiko, one of Berlin’s legendary bars from the 1980’s

Berlin
3 min read
11/12/201723/06/2025

I was in Kaliningrad in the last days of October 2017, and the House of Soviets caught my attention since I arrived in the city. The building can be found in the middle of the central square of Kaliningrad, close to where the Königsberg Castle used to be but not quite there. The House of Soviets was built over the moat of the castle, and you can clearly see this in the following picture. There you can look at the ruins of the castle and the abandoned building in the back.

The Monster of Kaliningrad: The Story of the House of Soviets

Kaliningrad, Russia
7 min read
22/11/201730/10/2024

It was August 21, 1988, and four people decided to risk their lives crossing the Spree River in an attempt of escaping East Germany in hope for freedom in West Berlin. Three men and a woman risked their lives and watching it today make everything look like a distant event in the past, but that was Berlin at the time.

Escaping East Germany: Swimming Across the Spree into West Berlin in Video

Berlin
3 min read
12/11/201705/02/2024

Konrad H. Jarausch explains the Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall on a TED-ED video animation

Konrad H. Jarausch explains the Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall on a TED-ED video animation

Berlin
2 min read
07/10/201708/04/2024

Neukölln is a weird place in Berlin. At first glance, the neighborhood looks like a clash of cultures or, maybe, the future of Germany. But, in the back streets, you can find a glimpse of the past, and this is called Popraci, a hay roll race that has been happening for ten years yet most people don’t even know it exists. Fotostrasse got together with a few friends and put a team to race in this year Popraci Neukölln 2017, and here you can read everything about it.

Popraci Neukolln 2017: When we pushed rolls of Hay around Neukölln dressed with Black Metal war paint

Berlin
3 min read
16/09/201701/04/2024

If you are a walk along where the Berlin Wall used to be around Bernauer Strasse, you will see a meat mural that might be our favorite street art piece in Berlin. This enormous painting shows the side of buildings being cut by a large knife with the shape of the city being represented in some white tissue. For us, this shows how the Berlin Wall was a scar running along the city.

If Walls Could Talk… — A Meat Mural by Marcus Haas where the Berlin Wall used to be

Berlin
3 min read
07/09/201710/10/2024

Why you need to visit the Olympiastadion even if you dont care about sports_

Why you need to visit the Olympiastadion Berlin even if you don’t care about sports

Berlin
8 min read
30/08/201719/03/2024

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