Berlin's Vanished Canal: A Self-Guided Walking Tour

Discover the remarkable story of a Turkish guest worker who planted onions at the Berlin Wall, creating a hidden Kreuzberg garden that survived in its shadow. Marvel at how this small act of quiet resistance endured through decades of division.

Stroll past Sankt-Thomas-Kirche as you trace the canal's forgotten course through the neighbourhood. Learn how this stretch of Berlin, including one of the city's oldest hospitals nearby, escaped large-scale demolition thanks to local activists and squatters in the 1970s and 80s.

Visit Engelbecken, the only stretch of the old canal that still contains water, home to more than a tonne of fish and an occasional rogue swimmer. Take in this rare survivor of a waterway that otherwise vanished from Berlin's map long ago.

Discover Waldemarbrücke, which marked the border between East and West Berlin after 1961. Learn why 6,880 glowing balloons floated above the former Wall route here in 2014, marking 25 years since its fall.

Pass this stretch of Erkelenzdamm, where a murdered Jewish family were symbolically rejoined again nearly 70 years later. Reflect on this quiet, personal act of remembrance along the former canal's course.

See how landscape architect Erwin Barth transformed the drained canal into this public park. Discover the poignant detail that Barth even designed his own final resting place within it.

Explore the industrial courtyards of Elisabethhof, where grand pianos, telegraph equipment, and even a top-secret Nazi cipher machine were once produced. Learn how a simple human mistake helped crack this code system, even more sophisticated than Enigma.