Museum Berlin-Karlshorst

Welcome to a site of global historical significance: the Museum Berlin-Karlshorst. You are standing in the very building where, shortly after midnight on May 8, 1945, the high command of the German Wehrmacht signed the…

We enter the heart of the museum: the Surrender Hall. This room has been preserved exactly as it appeared on that fateful night in May 1945. …

Following the surrender, this building became the headquarters of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany. We can now visit the restored office of Marshal Georgy Zhukov, the most celebrated Soviet commander of the war. …

While the surrender hall marks the end of the war, the museum’s permanent exhibition focuses heavily on its conduct, specifically the 'Vernichtungskrieg' or war of annihilation on the Eastern Front. This was not a traditional…

Beyond the high-level politics and military strategy, the museum also explores the 'Alltagsgeschichte' or daily life of soldiers and civilians during the conflict. This section features personal belongings—tattered uniforms,…

Leaving the main building, we enter the outdoor exhibition area, which houses a collection of Soviet military equipment used during the Battle of Berlin. Most prominent is the T-34 tank, the legendary workhorse of the Red Army…

To conclude our tour, we consider the unique nature of this institution itself. For years, the Museum Berlin-Karlshorst was a joint venture, governed by a board that included representatives from both Germany and the Russian…

As we finish our tour of Museum Berlin-Karlshorst, we return to the quiet streets of this residential neighborhood. It is hard to imagine that the silence we hear now was once shattered by the roar of the T-34s and the scratch of…