Photo Credit: akg images

On August 13 2026, it will have been 65 years since the construction of the Berlin Wall began. To mark the occasion in remembrance, Kulturprojekte Berlin and the Stiftung Berliner Mauer are organising a citywide programme of events from August 13-16. The programme focuses on highlighting the history of the Wall, questions of border regimes, the concept of freedom and democratic values during the separation of Berlin, as well as in our own present times. Here are some of the event highlights taking place across the city for the 65 year anniversary. 

Installation and Exhibition at the Brandenburg Gate

A spatial intervention will open along the path where the Wall once stood, inviting visitors to engage with the city’s history. The installation will allude to the physical presence of the Wall and confront visitors with the brutality of the border and will appear transparent, depending on the angle it’s viewed from, giving visitors the opportunity to feel an intangible freedom beyond the Wall. An open-air photo exhibition, Views of the Wall: Berlin 1961–1990, will run in parallel to the spatial installation. The main focus is on the people who had to live with this division – who suffered because of it, observed it, captured it on camera and whose job it was to keep it under surveillance. A guided tour will also be available. 

Aug 13-16, Platz des 18. März, details

Everyday Life With The Berlin Wall 

Everyday Life With The Berlin Wall at the asisi Panorama Berlin will be a 20-minute guided tour through the lives of the people in the West Berlin district of Kreuzberg in the 1980s. The tour offers an impressive 1:1 perspective of the city on a 360° panorama screen, vividly conveying the absurd normality and subtle cruelties of life in the shadow of the Berlin Wall.

Aug 13-17, 14:00, asisi Panorama Berlin, details

Photo Credit: Michael Reiner Ernst Stiftung Berliner Mauer

Where Hummingbirds Swim

This exhibition will be open to the public at the Berlin Wall Memorial visitor centre and will feature paintings and photographs by the artist Marie Jeschke, who explores the Baltic Sea’s role in the splitting of the city. For many, the Baltic Sea was a place where two realities overlapped. It was both a holiday destination and a state border under deadly guard. At least 135 people lost their lives while attempting to escape the SED dictatorship across those very waters.  

Aug 13-17, Besucherzentrum der Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer, details

Discover The East Side Gallery 

The East Side Gallery is the longest surviving section of the Berlin Wall. In 1990, 118 artists from 21 countries left their mark on it. Guides from the Berlin Wall Foundation will be on hand at the open-air gallery to answer questions, tell the stories behind the murals and point out the historical traces of the former Wall.

Aug 15, 14:00, Aug 16, 12:00, East Side Gallery, details

Michael Reiner Ernst Stiftung Berliner Mauer

Everyday Life in Divided Germany

The permanent exhibition at the Tränenpalast, the former departure hall at the Friedrichstraße border crossing, will have guided tours that will use biographical examples and original artefacts to show how the division of Germany affected people’s lives on a personal level.

Aug 13-15, 15:00, Tränenpalast, details

Border and Ghost Train Stations

The S-Bahn lines S1, S2, S25 and S26, which pass through former border and ghost stations, still link two of the main sites commemorating the history of German division: the Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Straße. There will be tours, readings and other events in both locations. There will also be exhibition panels displayed in the Friedrichstraße and Nordbahnhof S-Bahn stations telling the history of the border and ghost stations in a divided Berlin.

Aug 13-16, Various locations, details