second world war

Back in 1988, one year before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Tilda Swinton took her bike and cycled round the Berlin Wall, together with the filmmaker Cynthia Beatt. What they created came to be known as Cycling the Frame and it’s a beautiful and surreal document that shows a city scarred by a wall that cut it in half.

Cycling the Frame: When Tilda Swinton cycled by the Berlin Wall

Berlin
3 min read
19/03/201915/04/2025

The House where the Wannsee Conference happened during the Second World War belonged to Reinhard Heydrich, who got the house as an entertainment center for those who belonged to the SS and their families. And Reinhard Heydrich was an essential man inside the Nazi Party. Above him, only Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler. He used the house as a meeting place for 15 other officials that got together to decide something that was described in a bureaucratic way. But, without any euphemistic terminology, those people had lunch while they talked about how the Holocaust would happen.

A Visit to the House of the Wannsee Conference in Berlin

Berlin
6 min read
04/01/201920/01/2025

Located in the western outskirts of Berlin, the Berlin-Grunewald station was used to deport Jews to ghettos and extermination camps in the east. Today, where all of this happened, there is the Platform 17 Memorial inaugurated in January 1998 to commemorate the deportation done by Deutsche Reichsbahn during the years of Nazi Germany.

Platform 17 Memorial Berlin: A Site of Holocaust Remembrance

Berlin
5 min read
30/10/201812/03/2024

One of the most important sights in Kaliningrad is Immanuel Kant's Tomb, the most important citizen of Königsberg. The philosopher never left his hometown and everywhere you walk around in the city, you’ll see tourist souvenirs mentioning his importance to the area.

In the Footsteps of a Philosopher: Visiting Immanuel Kant’s Tomb in Kaliningrad

Kaliningrad
5 min read
28/09/201815/01/2025

Hidden along the streets of Alt-Hohenschönhausen there is a memorial that seems to be long forgotten by people. This Soviet War Memorial is a grim reminder of the pain and struggles that the Red Army went through when it liberated Berlin from Nazism.

The Soviet War Memorial in Alt-Hohenschönhausen

Berlin
4 min read
21/09/201811/04/2024

It’s 2018, and there are still some Lenin statues left around Germany. We visited one of these statues in Berlin, and we continue looking for them around the country. One day we got lucky, and we managed to find two of them on the same day. That blessed day was back in October 2016 when we took our bikes north and went to Fürstenberg to do some urban exploration.

Hunting Down Lenin Statues in Fürstenberg

Urbex
6 min read
14/09/201810/12/2023

Highgate Cemetery is a large burial place in the North of London where more than 50.000 graves where 170.000 people are buried. The area has the status of a nature reserve and is known about a large number of famous people buried there. Like Douglas Adams, Malcolm McLaren, Michael Faraday, George Michael, and Karl Marx.

Highgate Cemetery: A Visitor’s Guide to London’s Most Famous Cemetery

London
6 min read
08/09/201812/11/2024

The Bunker Museum in Kaliningrad is, technically called the Blindage Museum, and it tells the history of the last days of the Second World War. These are the last days of Königsberg and inside you can see how the city fell to Soviet Forces.

Bunker Museum in Kaliningrad: Documenting the last days of Königsberg

Kaliningrad
5 min read
20/08/201812/11/2024

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

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

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

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

While I was browsing through these books, I realized that I have been to a lot of different places in Berlin and that, maybe, I should just write down my list of places to see in Berlin. Yeah, so this is my list of places to see in the beautiful German capital. These are the places that I bring my friends when they are visiting me; these are some of the places that I bring my family when they come here. These places are here because I like them. I might like the food there; I may like the experience of being there, I might like the history behind. And I believe that you should visit them.

52 Places to See in Berlin: One for each week of the year

Berlin
37 min read
30/06/201721/02/2024

Poznan is considered by many people as the birthplace of the Polish nation and, because of that, it has more historical places than we could visit. Also, Poznan is one of the oldest cities in Poland, and it used to be one of the most important areas for the Polish people during the Middle Ages. There are traces of those elements in most historical places that we visited in Ostrow Tumski, the island where the city came to be, and around Poznan.

These are our Top 5 Historical Places to Visit in Poznan, Poland

Poznan
11 min read
27/05/201730/01/2024

Like I said before, We Will Forget Soon is a fantastic book that documents a part of German history that most people don’t like to talk about but that needs to be told. Dario-Jacopo Laganá and Stefano Corso did a fantastic job with their book, and I believe that everybody that has some interest in this part of history needs to have this on their bookshelf.

We Will Forget Soon: An Interview with Dario-Jacopo Laganá

Berlin, Interviews
11 min read
08/05/201722/02/2024

If you ever wondered why Strasse des 17. Juni has its name, you have to watch this short movie from British Pathé from the Berlin Riots of 1953. This short movie is not a documentary but a newsreel report about the uprising of workers against the Communist Regime in East Germany. This is the real deal, not an interpretation of what happened.

Berlin Riots: The 1953 Uprising of Workers in East Germany

Berlin
2 min read
03/03/201703/02/2024

If you go back to Fotostrasse archives you’ll see that we love to see old videos of Berlin. This short one from Berlin in 1936 is no exception since it shows how beautiful the city used to be and focus on the changes that were happening to the German capital during the time it was governed by the Nazi party.

This is how Berlin used to look like back in 1936

Berlin
3 min read
16/01/201702/03/2025

Moscow Subway: Its Secrets and Curious Facts

Moscow
13 min read
04/11/201621/12/2023