The end of the Second World War on 8 May 1945 in Berlin: the unconditional surrender of the German Wehrmacht is signed. The era of National Socialist terror ends and new times dawn. Hopeful and difficult years begin, with many challenges for people all over Europe - for the bereaved, the refugees and the wounded...
Berlin celebrates the 80th anniversary with diverse events and exhibitions. Take a look at our special recommendations and immerse yourself in a time for which there will be fewer and fewer contemporary witnesses in the future.
On our visitBerlin app ABOUT BERLIN you can find more touching stories and background information on the end of the Second World War 80 years ago.
1. Learn more about the resistance against the Nazis
Risky, imaginative and very courageous: how many women and men fought against the Nazi dictatorship at the end of the Second World War using a wide variety of means is not well known. They came from all social classes, had different world views and yet they were united by their resistance to the final orders of the National Socialists: In the weeks before the end of the war, the Nazi leadership had called for the war to continue until "the last drop of blood". Every place was to be defended, completely without regard for the civilian population.
Make your way to the German Resistance Memorial and learn unknown and dramatic facts about the last resistance fights of the population against the Nazi dictatorship shortly before the end of the war.
When: 10 April to 25 August 2025, Mon - Fri 9.00 am - Fri 9.00 pm. August 2025, Mon - Fri 9am - 6pm
Sat, Sun 10am - 6pm
Where: German Resistance Memorial Centre, Stauffenbergstraße 13 - 14, entrance via the Ehrenhof, Mitte
1945 - Resistance against National Socialism at the end of the war
2. Watch films about Jewish experiences after the Shoa
How did Jews fare immediately after the Second World War? How did a Jewish professor feel when he returned to his native Germany after the war, encountered hatred and rejection from colleagues and realised that the end of the war often did not mean turning away from anti-Semitism?
Between March and May 2025, films about individual Jewish experiences after the Shoah will be shown in Berlin, accompanied by panel discussions with experts from the fields of film, history and culture. The 1946 film "The Murderers Are Among Us", the first German post-war film, is dedicated to a special topic of the post-war period.
When: various film screenings until 8. May 2025
Where: Urania Berlin, An der Urania 17, Schöneberg
3. Visit the events of the theme week 80 years of the end of the war
For one week around 8 May, you can follow the many readings, theatre performances, concerts and guided tours that the state of Berlin is organising throughout the city to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the war and the liberation of Europe from National Socialism. Special highlights include the large open-air exhibition "...finally peace?!"" on Pariser Platz and the premiere of the oratorio "Liberation" by composer Marc Sinan with artists from various European countries on 2 May. It raises awareness of millions of untold fates and sends a message of peace. The musical work can then be experienced in an open-air sound installation until 11 May.
When: 2-11 May. May
Where: Events throughout the city
Theme week to mark 80 years since the end of the war
Tip: Combine your tour of the theme week with a visit to monuments, museums and well-known or hidden traces of the end of the war. We have put together a list of what you can see in Berlin:
4. Experiencing how children and young people fared in the post-war period
On the 80th anniversary of the end of the war, the Theatre im Palais is focusing on the children of war who grew up in divided Berlin in the former GDR after 1945. In the musical theatre piece "The Blue Scarf" by Klaus Wirbitzky, Hans-Jürgen, a schoolboy at the time, remembers his identity in the pioneer group, his parents' dissident attitude, their escape together and his first love. Experience the whole spectrum of both nostalgic and traumatic memories of a fictional teenager in the post-war period.
When: 10 May 7.30 pm, 11 May 4 pm, 30 May 7.30 pm
Where: Theatre im Palais Berlin, Am Festungsgraben 1, Mitte
5. Learn more about what flight and displacement mean
The end of the war 80 years ago meant the start of an uncertain future for millions of people in the years that followed. Among them were around 14 million Germans who had to flee from the former eastern territories of the Reich and Eastern European settlement areas, often under extreme conditions. In the exhibition at the Documentation Centre, spend an hour on the phone explaining the touching stories of individual possessions and memorabilia of those who fled and were displaced at the time, illustrating the fates of entire families. Learn to understand the experience of flight and displacement, the profound uncertainty and existential fears - then as now!
When: 7. May, 4-5 pm
Where: Documentation Centre Flight, Expulsion, Reconciliation, Stresemannstraße 90, Kreuzberg
80 Jahre Kriegsende - Flucht und Vertreibung
6. Who knows, who knows... follows a dramatic search
"The Office for the Search for Relatives received messages and greetings from relatives and friends from all over the country and the world."
Only a few people can remember this longed-for message from the radio today: this is how the programme "Who knows who knows" began, which was broadcast regularly by the radio station Kol Yerushalayim (the voice of Jerusalem) with a wide international reach after the end of the war in 1945, in German, Yiddish, English and Hebrew.
A dramatic search for relatives and friends: How many people will have sat in front of the radio to perhaps learn something about missing or simply missing relatives who disappeared in the Holocaust and were eagerly sought after.
Listen to the one-hour radio play by authors Noam Brusilovsky and Ofer Waldman and find out more about their special research from them personally.
When: 11 May, 4 pm
Where: W. M. Blumenthal Akademie, Klaus Mangold Auditorium, Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 1, Kreuzberg
(opposite the Jewish Museum Berlin)
7. Discover the very first exhibitions about the violence of the National Socialists
Between 1945 and 1948, the first exhibitions on the violence and crimes of the National Socialist dictatorship and their direct consequences for people were held everywhere in Europe. Very often, the exhibition organisers were themselves survivors of the Holocaust, victims of persecution and atrocities under the Nazis. They endeavoured to take a documentary look at the crimes of the Nazis, the resistance against them, the victims and perpetrators and to raise general awareness of what had happened.
Immerse yourself in the times, the challenges and ultimately the motivations behind these exhibitions of the time and take a look at the first efforts to make the National Socialist crimes as visible as possible.
When: 24 May to 23 November. November, daily 10 am - 6 pm
Where: Deutsches Historisches Museum, Pei-Bau, Unter den Linden 2, Mitte
8. Attack-Triumph-Terror: Deciphering the architecture of the Nazis
At the end of the Second World War, everything was in ruins. You probably still have few concrete ideas about what the cities looked like under the National Socialists, what kind of gigantic, overwhelming architecture they planned in Berlin and why. Special aspect: What did the architecture look like in comparison in other European countries that were also ruled by dictatorships? In the Soviet Union, Italy, Portugal, Spain? If you are not only interested in architecture, but also in how it is instrumentalised under a dictatorship - namely simply as a political instrument of power - then come to the event Attack, Triumph, Terror - National Socialist Urban Planning in a European Context
organised by the Berlin Architects' and Engineers' Association on 22 May. Research on this topic has been conducted there for 25 years with exciting results.
When: 22 May, 2-8 pm
. May, 2-8 pm
Where: Erwin-Brandes-Saal, Architektenkammer Berlin
Alte Jakobstraße 149, Kreuzberg
9. Find out about the fate of forced labourers at the end of the war
The exhibition "Forgotten Liberation" at the Documentation Centre in Schöneweide may be a little far away for you, but it is well worth a visit to learn about the fates of mostly forgotten people today:
At the end of the war, there were around 370,000 foreign civilian workers, prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates in the Reich capital Berlin. They had been exploited for several years and their dignity had been taken from them. Hard labour, hunger and thirst, air raids and violence - that was their everyday life, while outside the city of Berlin increasingly became a battlefield. At the end of April 1945, they were released into freedom; our exhibition picture shows liberated Russian forced labourers. For many of them, however - traumatised and often aimless and helpless - a new odyssey began.
By the autumn, they had virtually disappeared from Berlin's memory, and today they are barely remembered.
On the 80th anniversary of the end of the war, the Forced Labourers in Berlin. On the 80th anniversary of the end of the war, trace the fates of individual forced labourers and let the small, excellently designed Documentation Centre NS Forced Labour at an authentic location take you into a world closed to us that is as globally present today as it was then.
When: 30. April to autumn 2025, Tue-Sun, 10am-6pm
Where: Documentation Centre on Nazi Forced Labour, Britzer Straße 5, Schönweide
10. Delves deeper into the forgotten topic of forced labour
You read that right: there are around 13,000 nails that came to light during an archaeological excavation on Tempelhof Field. They fastened the many barracks of the large forced labour camp, which - now largely forgotten - stood on Tempelhof Field during the war.
Take a trip to the Kulturforum until Good Friday and see what the Berlin artist Sonya Schönberger has made of these nails in the Church of St Matthew: A touching room installation for Passiontide, which will evoke all aspects of forced labour in you and trigger deep consternation. You can experience the final performance there on Maundy Thursday.
When: until 18 April, Tue-Sun, 11am-6pm
Where: St. Matthäus-Kirche, Matthäikirchplatz, Kulturforum, Tiergarten
11. Take a walk in the Stubenrauch cemetery
Finally, we recommend a little neighbourhood walk that you can take at any time of year:In the heart of the Berlin district of Friedenau lies a quiet, green oasis with benches under large trees: the Stubenrauch cemetery. Most visitors to the cemetery come from the neighbourhood to honour the memory of their loved ones. Of course, some also come for the graves of famous Berliners such as Marlene Dietrich or the artist couple June and Helmut Newton.
As you walk through the cemetery, you will discover an open area of grass on which several rows of small old stone crosses can be seen. If you take a closer look, you will see different birth dates - but similar death dates everywhere: April and May 1945. An indication of the harrowing battles that raged throughout Berlin shortly before the end of the war, how many people lost their lives in the final days of the war and, although often so young, were not allowed to live to see the dawn of a new era.
When: daily, from sunrise to sunset
Where: Stubenrauchstraße municipal cemetery, Stubenrauchstraße 43-45, Friedenau
