00:00In the middle of Oskort Station in Berlin, there is a tower built in 1912. Let me tell you what
00:06it is.
00:07Steam locomotives need enormous amounts of water to run, so they built this 59-meter tower right
00:14between the tracks, that pointed roof that looks like an old German military helmet.
00:19The water tank is hidden inside it, 400 cubic meters of pressurized water, invisible from the
00:25outside. The violet-glazed bricks were designed to resist the soot from the engines.
00:30Every single detail had a purpose. For 70 years, the tower did exactly that. Then diesel replaced
00:37steam. The tank, the valves, the pressure systems, all still inside, perfectly intact. The tower just
00:44stopped and has been standing empty ever since. In 2015, Deutsche Bahn sold it to a private investor
00:50for an undisclosed six-figure sum. There were 40 potential buyers. The plan was to turn it into a
00:56restaurant, a viewpoint, maybe apartments. Ten years later, nothing has happened. The pigeons
01:02are still there, 112 years old, 250,000 people walking past it every day, and nobody knows what
01:09to do with it. That is very Berlin. On Alexanderplatz in Berlin, you have probably seen this mosaic,
01:15but the real story is more than the mural itself. It is the building behind it. Its name is Haus
01:21des Lerers,
01:22the House of Teachers, and its story does not begin with communism. In 1908, 3,000 Berlin
01:29teachers opened their own association house on this exact spot, a library, a hotel for visiting
01:35teachers, a grand event hall, a civic temple built by teachers for teachers. In the final days of World
01:41War II, Allied bombs destroyed it. For 17 years, only a hole remained. In 1962, communist East Germany,
01:50the DR rebuilt on the same spot. They kept the old name. They changed everything else. The regime hired
01:56Walter Womacka, a loyal party artist, to cover it in 800,000 tiles, the largest socialist mosaic ever
02:03made. Today, the old teacher's house still stands at Alexanderplatz. The ideology is gone. The art remains.
02:09Walk past the TV tower and look up. Follow for more hidden stories. Frankfurter Tor, Berlin. These two
02:17domes look like the 18th century cathedrals of Gendarmenmarkt, but they are not. They were built
02:22in 1953, in East Berlin, as Soviet propaganda. The avenue you see here was called Stalin-Oli back then.
02:31Thousands of East German workers were forced to build this monument to Stalin under brutal work quotas.
02:36On June 16th, the men of Block 40 dropped their tools and marched. One million people joined them
02:42across the country. The next morning, Soviet tanks rolled down this same avenue and crushed them.
02:49At least 125 were killed. The workers who had built the street of Stalin became the first to die
02:55resisting him. Eight years later, in a single November night, the regime secretly tore down Stalin's
03:01statue and renamed the street Karl Marx Ali. The twin towers still stand at Frankfurter Tor,
03:07on the U5 line. You can walk the same stones the strikers walked and touch the very columns they built
03:14with their own hands. Follow for more stories. The Tranenpalast hides one of the most painful stories in
03:20Berlin. Berlin, the 13th of August, 1961. The wall divides the city in two. East on one side,
03:30west on the other. Families are torn apart. But there is one point at Friedrichstrasse Station
03:35where Western visitors could say goodbye to their Eastern family members before crossing back.
03:39It was called the Apfertigungshalle, the processing hall. And only those from the West could go through it.
03:46Those from the East stayed behind. East Germans were not allowed to cross. They could only stand
03:52there and watch their family walk away. Nobody knew if they would ever see each other again.
03:57The building had an official name. Nobody used it. Everyone called it the Palace of Tears.
04:03On the 9th of November, 1989, the wall fell. The Palace of Tears closed its doors. Years later,
04:10it became a nightclub. Then a museum. The original control booths are still there. Today, you can walk
04:17through the same corridor families once crossed and listen to the testimonies of those who lived
04:22those goodbyes. Free entry. Follow for more stories. The Reichstag hides a secret that millions of
04:29tourists walk right past. Berlin, the 2nd of May, 1945. The Soviet army had been fighting for four years
04:37to get here. On the 2nd of May, they take the Reichstag. Hitler was already dead in his bunker
04:42just a few meters away. The soldiers walked into the building and wrote on the walls. Their names,
04:48their hometowns, the road they had traveled. From Moscow to Berlin, from Leningrad to Berlin.
04:54In Cyrillic, with charcoal and chalk. After the war, workers covered the walls with wooden panels to
05:01repair the building. That's how it stayed for 50 years. In 1995, architect Norman Foster removed
05:08those panels during renovation and behind them, carved into the stone, found the graffiti completely
05:13intact. Foster decided to keep them. Today, German members of parliament walk to work and pass by the
05:21messages left by the soldiers who defeated Nazism. They are still there. Did you know this story?
05:26Follow for more. Berlin, 1964. The car you see here is not like any other car. It hides an interesting
05:34story inside one that began not on these streets but 7 years earlier, in a factory in a city called
05:40Zwickau. That engine, 2 cylinders, 26 horsepower was built here. Zwickau, 1957. These workers built
05:49every single Traubont ever made. For 35 years, the engineers designed better cars, modern ones,
05:55faster ones. But the government always said no. There was no steel. No money. No will to change.
06:03So the factory kept building the same car, year after year, decade after decade, while on the other side
06:09of the wall, West Germany was building the Golf. But the real story is not the car. It's the weight.
06:15To get a Traubont in East Germany, you had to put your name on a list. The average weight, 13
06:21years.
06:22Most families signed up the day their child was born. By the time the car arrived, that child was a
06:28teenager. Then came November 9, 1989. The wall opened. And every Traubont in East Germany drove west.
06:37The streets of West Berlin filled with blue smoke. The Traubont's two-stroke engine burned oil mixed with
06:42fuel. That was its signature. People called it the perfume of freedom. Today, you can drive one yourself.
06:50In Berlin, Travi World offers a tour through the city, past Checkpoint Charlie, the Brandenburg Gate,
06:56and the East Side Gallery. The same car. The same smell. The same feeling of crossing to the other side.
07:03And live your own nostalgia. That's what East Germans called the nostalgia for a world that no longer exists.
07:10Two of the most powerful men on earth. Kissing on the lips. Intense, right? But in the socialist world,
07:17this was completely normal. The fraternal kiss was a ritual between communist leaders,
07:23a symbol of brotherhood and loyalty between nations. But this particular kiss between Soviet
07:29leader Leonid Brezhnev and East German ruler Eric Honecker became the most famous of them all.
07:34Years later, a Russian artist named Dmitry Ruble found the photo so revolting it almost made him vomit.
07:42But the image haunted him, until he painted it on the very wall that had divided the world.
07:48He titled it, My God, help me to survive this deadly love. But let me tell you what happened to
07:55these two
07:55leaders. Brezhnev suffered multiple heart attacks and could barely speak in his final years.
08:01He died in 1982, seven years before the wall fell. He never saw it come down.
08:08Honecker was diagnosed with liver cancer and thrown out of power just weeks before the wall fell.
08:13He fled to Moscow, then to Chile, where he died alone. Today, their kiss still lives at the East Side
08:20Gallery in Berlin. You can visit it yourself. Markthalanoin, Berlin. Today, one of the most iconic food markets
08:29in Europe. But when it opened in 1891, it wasn't built for foodies. It was built because a doctor,
08:35known as the Pope of Medicine, said open-air markets were killing people.
08:40Rudolf Verschau
08:41Born in a small Prussian town, now part of Poland, he designed Berlin's sewer system, founded modern
08:47pathology, and investigated a typhus epidemic that changed public health forever. He looked at Berlin's
08:54markets and saw blood running over the pavement, flies on everything, meat rotting in the sun.
09:00He convinced the city to build 14 covered market halls. This was number nine. In 2009, the city wanted
09:07to demolish it. Replace it with a discount supermarket. But this is Kreuzberg, Berlin's most rebellious
09:14neighborhood. The people fought back. And won. It reopened in 2011. Same building. 120 years.
09:23Still feeding whoever walks through the door. Follow for more hidden stories. All of them. Soon in your
09:30pocket. Bode Museum. Berlin. 2017. Someone stole 100 kilos of gold from this museum. On skateboard,
09:39at 3am. This is the big maple leaf. The largest gold coin ever made. Pure Canadian gold. 100 kilos.
09:46Worth 4 million dollars. And it was just sitting in a glass case on the second floor.
09:51Two cousins with ties to organized crime got a security guard hired weeks earlier as their inside
09:57man. At 3am, they climbed through a window, smashed the case with a carbon-reinforced axe,
10:03and grabbed the coin. 100 kilos of gold. They put it on a skateboard, wheeled it through the museum,
10:09out to a park, and into a car. 16 minutes. Gone. The coin was never found. Police believe it was
10:17melted down and sold in pieces. You can still visit the Bode Museum. Byzantine art, Donatello sculptures,
10:24and half a million coins in their collection. Just not that one. And you thought museum robberies only happened
10:30in Paris. Follow for more hidden stories. All of them. Soon in your pocket. The Hakkische Hufa in Berlin are
10:37the
10:37most beautiful courtyards in the city. Every day, thousands of tourists walk through them, take photos,
10:45drink coffee, and admire the Art Nouveau tiles. But these walls remember something the guidebooks
10:51don't tell you. A hundred years ago, these streets in the Schoenen Wirtel were the beating heart of
10:57Jewish Berlin. Tens of thousands of Jewish families lived, worked, and raised their children right
11:04here. The Hakkische Hufa was their center. In 1942, a young Jewish man named Gad Beck lived in this
11:12neighborhood. When the Nazis arrested his boyfriend Manfred Lewin and his entire family, Gad disguised
11:18himself as a member of the Nazi youth and walked straight into the deportation center to get him out.
11:25Gad found Manfred and told him, come with me, we can escape. But Manfred looked at his parents and
11:31his siblings waiting in line. He refused to leave without them. The next morning, the entire Lewin
11:38family was deported to Auschwitz. None of them came back. Gad Beck survived the war and moved to Palestine.
11:45Years later, he came back to Berlin, where he told this story, until he died in 2012.
11:51Today, you can walk through the Hakkische Hufa exactly where these families once lived. If you visit
11:57Berlin, walk through them and remember who was here before. Follow for more stories.
12:04In the heart of Berlin, there's a clock that shows the time of 148 cities around the world. Millions of
12:12people meet here every day without knowing that behind this clock, there's a story nobody tells.
12:18In 1932, a boy named Eric John was born in Kartits, a tiny village in Czechoslovakia. When the war ended,
12:27his family was thrown into a camp and expelled from the country. They lost everything. Eric arrived as a
12:33refugee in East Germany at 13 years old, with no home, no money, and no future. But Eric didn't give
12:41up. He studied metalwork, then design, and became a professor. In 1969, the East German government asked
12:49him to create a clock for the republic's anniversary. 124 volunteers built it, working through the nights.
12:58A clock that showed the time of the entire world, in a country that wouldn't let its people leave.
13:03And the most incredible part is what's hidden inside. The mechanism that spins this 16-ton clock
13:10is a gearbox from a Trabant, the iconic car of East Germany. Today, the Weltzeit Tour still stands in
13:17Alexanderplatz, and it's free. A clock built by a refugee, powered by a piece of the Trabant,
13:23the car that defined a generation in a country that no longer exists. But the clock keeps turning.
13:30Follow for more stories. In the heart of Berlin stands Europe's second largest department store,
13:35but behind its luxury hides one of the city's darkest stories. In 1907, a Jewish man named Adolf
13:43Jandorf opened the doors of Kadewe. Born into a poor family, he had already built six successful
13:49stores across Berlin, and Kadewe became his masterpiece, where even the King of Siam spent
13:55a fortune in just two days. Adolf Jandorf never saw what happened next. He died in 1932. When the
14:03Nazis rose to power his family was hunted down, their belongings auctioned off, his wife fled to
14:08Holland, his son escaped to Los Angeles. They never returned. And the store? It was handed to Gorg Karg,
14:16who bought it for almost nothing. During World War II, the Allies bombed Berlin to destroy the Nazi
14:22regime. In 1944, a British bomber was shot down over the city and crashed directly into Kadewe.
14:29Seven crew members died instantly. The fire consumed the entire building. The store that Adolf
14:36Jandorf built from nothing was reduced to ashes. Today, Kadewe stands again, now owned by the
14:43Sharathivat family from Thailand. Inside you'll find Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Rolex, and Hermès
14:49across 60,000 square meters of pure luxury. A store founded by a Jewish businessman stolen by the Nazis,
14:57destroyed by a plane crash, and still standing in the heart of Berlin. You can visit it today.
15:03Carl Friedrich Schinkel lost his father as a child. He grew up in poverty. But in 1810,
15:09after seeing a painting by Caspar David Friedrich, he decided he would never be that good of a painter
15:14and devoted his life to architecture. That decision changed everything. He became the architect of the
15:22King of Prussia and received a commission that didn't exist anywhere. The first museum opened to
15:28everyone. Until then, art was only for the rich. Schinkel built 18 columns on the facade and hid inside a
15:36secret rotunda inspired by the pantheon in Rome. A century later, Hitler gave speeches from these
15:42very same steps to a million people. And at the end of the war, a fuel truck exploded in front
15:49of the
15:49museum, destroying Schinkel's original frescoes forever. In 1945, the Soviets stole thousands of
15:56artworks and hid them in secret vaults in Moscow. More than 430 paintings vanished. Caravaggio, Rubens,
16:05three Botticellis. They were never found. Today, the Altus Museum is fully restored and a UNESCO
16:11World Heritage Site. The rotunda is still there, exactly as Schinkel dreamed it almost 200 years ago.
16:18You can visit it on Museum Island in Berlin. Follow for more hidden stories.
16:23In 1961, the NSA built a secret spy station on top of a hill in Berlin. It is Teufelsberg.
16:31Inside the domes, American soldiers listened to every Soviet radio signal,
16:36military order, and phone call. They worked in secret 24 hours a day,
16:41intercepting thousands of messages that the Soviets never knew were being heard.
16:45When the wall fell in 1989, the soldiers left. By 1992, the station was completely abandoned.
16:54Investors tried to build hotels and apartments on the hill, but every plan failed. Millions were lost,
17:01the projects collapsed, and the building was left to be swallowed by graffiti and silence.
17:07Today, Teufelsberg is covered in over 400 graffiti works from artists around the world. You can climb the
17:14hill, walk inside the old spy domes, and see Berlin from the spot where America once listened to its
17:20enemies. You can visit it yourself. Berlin, 1962. Only one year after the construction of the wall,
17:29Peter Fechter made the decision to escape from communist Germany to the other side. It cost him
17:35his life. Peter was a young bricklayer just 18 years old, trapped in the DDR. His sister Lise had
17:42escaped to the west years before, and he was determined to cross the wall to reunite with her.
17:48In West Berlin, people could walk right up to the wall and cover it with graffiti. On the other side,
17:54there was a death strip. Attacked dogs, barbed wire, and guards with orders to shoot anyone who tried
18:01to cross. But Peter tried. He and his friend Helmut ran toward the wall. Helmut made it over.
18:08Peter was shot while climbing. He fell into no man's land. For hours he cried for help. No one could
18:14reach
18:14him. Peter never made it to the other side. Peter died just meters from Checkpoint Charlie,
18:20the most famous crossing of the Cold War. For 28 years, this point divided the world in two.
18:26Today, a replica of the guardhouse stands on Friedrichstrasse where the original once stood.
18:32You can visit it and stand exactly where it all happened. In the middle of Rau-Galende in Berlin,
18:38there's a climbing wall. But this is no an ordinary wall. Let me tell you what this really is.
18:44In 1934, an architect named Leo Winkle patented a radical idea, an above-ground bomb shelter shaped
18:52like a cone. Bombs would slide off the sides instead of exploding on impact. To test it,
18:58they put goats inside and dropped 500 kilo bombs on it. The goats survived. They went deaf,
19:04but they survived. They built over 200 across Germany. The walls were almost two meters thick.
19:11Only one was ever destroyed by a direct hit in the entire war. This one in Berlin held 400 people
19:18on small floors connected by wooden stairs. The rule was simple. Stay 30 centimeters away from the wall
19:25or go deaf from the vibrations. At the very top, a small viewing tube. That was the only way to
19:31see
19:32when it was safe to come out. After the war, 60% of these towers were demolished. This one survived.
19:39Today, it's a climbing wall in the middle of Rau-Galende in Berlin. The same concrete that kept 400
19:45people alive is now just a wall people climbed for fun. Did you know that Berlin's famous Fernse term
19:51was in East Berlin? The communist side, the DDR, built it right here in the heart of their territory.
19:58Let me tell you why. In 1965, Walter Ulbricht, the leader of East Germany, ordered the tallest
20:06structure in the country built at Alexanderplatz, a giant symbol of communist superiority visible from
20:13every corner of West Berlin. They demolished an entire neighborhood to make room. They used Swedish
20:19steel because their own wasn't good enough. They went four times over budget, all to prove that their
20:25system was better. But then something happened that nobody planned. When the sun hits the steel sphere,
20:32it creates a giant cross, visible from both sides of the city. The atheist communist government had
20:39built the biggest cross in Berlin. West Berliners called it the Pope's Revenge. Can you see the cross?
20:46This was a big deal. The East German government was destroying churches and ripping crosses off
20:52buildings across the country. They wanted to erase religion completely. Today, the tower still stands.
20:58The cross still appears every time the sun comes out. And you can go up there yourself. 368 meters above
21:06Berlin. The best view in the city. It's not cheap though. $25.50 for adults, $14.50 for kids. But
21:14come on.
21:15A communist tower with a holy cross and a view of the entire city. Worth every cent. Next time you're
21:23in Berlin, go check it out. You won't regret it. This is Kaiser Wilhelm I. Walking through the Hall of
21:30Mirrors in Versailles after the biggest victory of his life. Let me tell you what happened here. In 1871,
21:37this man destroyed France. The most powerful country in Europe. And instead of going home,
21:45he walked into their palace and crowned himself emperor. Right in front of the French generals.
21:51When Wilhelm died, his grandson built a giant church in Berlin with bells made from French cannons.
21:57A permanent insult. But in 1918, Germany lost World War I. And guess where they made them sign the
22:05surrender. The same room. The Hall of Mirrors. Revenge. The grandson fled to Holland. The empire fell.
22:17The church still stands in Berlin. Broken by British bombs during World War II. The city wanted to demolish
22:25it but the people said no. Today you can still see the mosaics inside. The face of the crown prince
22:32who
22:32waited his whole life for a throne that never came. In 1902, Berlin built a train station in a neighborhood
22:39called Kreuzberg. Under the tracks, they put a public toilet. For decades, workers stopped here on their
22:45way home. Then came the wars. Then came the wall. For 28 years, this neighborhood was trapped. The Berlin wall
22:53surrounded it on three sides. This was one of the poorest corners of West Berlin. The toilet was forgotten.
22:59In 2003, the wall was gone. But the toilet was still here. Empty. Abandoned. A man walked past and saw
23:08something nobody else did. He wanted to sell burgers inside. Everyone said no. The city said no. It took him
23:15three years to get permission. In 2006, Burgermeister finally opened. The first customers laughed. Then they
23:23tasted the burger. Today, this toilet has lines around the block. Tourists come from everywhere. A building
23:30that survived 100 years of history is now a Berlin legend. And yes, you can still see the old bathroom
23:37signs on the wall. Germany started three wars in seven years and won all of them. But here's the thing.
23:44Germany didn't even exist yet. It was a kingdom called Prussia fighting to become a country. They crushed
23:50Denmark, then Austria, then France. By 1871, Germany was born. To celebrate, they built a giant golden
23:58angel in Berlin and pointed her directly at France. Forever staring at the country, they humiliated.
24:05Hitler moved the statue in 1938 because it blocked his plans. That accidentally saved it. Bombs
24:12destroyed the original spot. After the war, France begged to demolish it. The answer was no,
24:18it still stands. The angel still faces west. 150 years later, Germany still won't let France forget.
24:26Follow for more. This hill in Berlin is made of 400,000 destroyed buildings. And there's a secret
24:32buried underneath. After World War II, Berlin was in ruins. For 22 years, women piled millions of tons of
24:40rubble right here, creating this 120-meter hill. But nobody knew there was a building underneath.
24:46A 1930s military school that was too strong to demolish. So they just buried it. Years later,
24:54the Americans realized this was the highest point in West Berlin. Perfect for spying on the Soviets.
25:01So they built a listening station on top. Now it's abandoned, a spy station, on top of a buried school,
25:07on top of the ashes of a destroyed city.
