Berlin Wall Explorer
Cold War History Map & Tour
$0.99
New: retrace the night of 9 November 1989, when the Berlin Wall opened – eight places, hour by hour, with archive photos and a map.
Stand where the Berlin Wall stood.
Berlin Wall Explorer turns the city into a living map of the Cold War. Walk through Berlin and the app tells you, in real time, whether you are in former East Berlin, West Berlin or the GDR territory that surrounded it — and exactly how far the Wall ran from where you stand.
Independent app: not affiliated with any government or government agency. Sources are listed at the end.
WHERE WAS THE WALL?
• Live side detection: East Berlin (GDR), West Berlin (FRG) or GDR territory, based on your location
• The Wall's real, mapped route on an interactive map
• Distance to the Wall — "The Wall ran 670 m from here", or "You are standing where the Wall stood" at places like Checkpoint Charlie and Bernauer Straße
• The whole app changes with your side: bold red and yellow in the East, clean blue in the West
HISTORY AROUND YOU
• Historical photos from the German Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv) and Wikimedia Commons, taken near where you are standing — 1946 to 1990
• Landmarks, museums and memorials nearby, sorted by distance: Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, East Side Gallery, the Berlin Wall Memorial at Bernauer Straße, Tränenpalast, Stasi Museum, DDR Museum, Glienicke Bridge, Oberbaumbrücke, Teufelsberg and more
• Mark the places you have visited and plan the ones still to see
THE NIGHT THE WALL OPENED
• New: follow 9 November 1989 hour by hour, from Schabowski’s press conference to the first open checkpoint at Bornholmer Straße and the new crossing at Potsdamer Platz
• Eight places you can still visit, with archive photos from those days, a map and walking directions
MADE FOR TRAVELLERS
• Plan before you go: browse Berlin's photos and sights from anywhere in the world
• Works offline: the Wall's route lives on your phone, and places you have loaded stay available without a signal
• 10 languages: English, German, Turkish, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Ukrainian and Arabic
PRIVACY
No account, no ads, no tracking. Your location is used to show your side of the Wall and the history near you; anonymous usage statistics never include where you are.
SOURCES
Historical information and photos come from public sources. Berlin Wall Explorer is not affiliated with any of them.
• German Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv): https://www.bundesarchiv.de
• Berlin Wall Foundation: https://www.stiftung-berliner-mauer.de
• State of Berlin – The Berlin Wall: https://www.berlin.de/mauer/
• Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA): https://commons.wikimedia.org
• Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors: https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright
more New: the night of 9 November 1989. Follow the night the Wall opened, hour by hour, through eight places you can still visit, with archive photos, a map and walking directions. You’ll find it at the top of Explore.
Also new: a note on the app’s independence and links to its historical sources under Credits.
1.2.3 Oct 7
• Anonymous, privacy-friendly usage statistics help us learn which features matter most. They never include your location, and there is no account or tracking.
• Updated privacy policy.
• Stability and performance improvements.
1.2.1 Sep 28
Now you can see not just which side of the Wall you are on, but exactly how close it ran.
• New: the map tells you how far the Wall ran from where you stand — and simply says you are standing where it stood at places like Checkpoint Charlie and Bernauer Straße. Tap it to jump to the nearest point of the route.
• No signal needed. The Wall's route is stored on your device, so the distance works with data roaming switched off.
• Photos and places you have already loaded now stay available offline instead of disappearing when the connection drops.
1.2.0 Aug 21
• Photos are back, and finding your side of the Wall just got a lot sharper.
• Fixed: historical photos and place images load reliably again.
• Much more accurate positioning. The map now follows the Wall's real, surveyed route instead of an approximation, so outer districts such as Wannsee, Frohnau and Kladow are finally on the correct side.
• New: GDR territory. Potsdam, Falkensee, Teltow and the surrounding countryside were East German soil but never part of East Berlin. They now get their own GDR banner instead of simply "outside Berlin".
• The map now shows the Wall's actual course and the GDR territory that encircled West Berlin, so you can see why the city was an island.
• Nearby photos are now genuinely the closest ones, from both sides of the Wall, each marked with the side it belongs to.
• Explore lists places that are really near you, closest first, and now works outside the city centre too.
• Location messages appear in your language, with a shortcut to Settings when permission is missing.
• Photo credits are shown wherever an image appears.
1.1 Aug 3
New: the night of 9 November 1989. Follow the night the Wall opened, hour by hour, through eight places you can still visit, with archive photos, a map and walking directions. You’ll find it at the top of Explore.
Also new: a note on the app’s independence and links to its historical sources under Credits.
more Version 1.2.3 Oct 7
Data Not Linked to You The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:
Location Usage Data Other Data