With all of Berlin’s big political moments, groundbreaking music and exciting art movements, Berlin’s literary history tends to get a little overlooked. It’s easy to forget that we walk in the footsteps of great writers every day. Some of the world’s most influential German- and English-speaking authors, poets and essayists have lived in, worked at or written about the buildings you live next to. Their graves lie in the cemeteries you bike past. Their most famous words are on memorials you never stopped at to read. By following this writing tour of Berlin, you can embrace a little literary romance and gain insight into some life stories that are stranger than fiction.
Dahlem
John F. Kennedy Institute
We start our tour out west. Dahlem is full of literary history, not least because of its John F. Kennedy Institute, the workplace of legendary poet and activist Audre Lorde. Lorde first came to Berlin in 1984 to teach African American literature and creative writing. One of the first questions she asked was, “Where are the Black Germans?” Today, the John F. Kennedy Institute hosts the Audre Lorde Archive, where you can explore writings and recorded lectures by the author, who returned to Berlin for several months each year until her death in 1992. The archive includes plenty of photos of Lorde enjoying the city, including boat trips on Schlachtensee, coffees at Grunewald’s Chalet Suisse and readings at Schöneberg’s historic café Begine. It also chronicles her work here. This is where she made her major contributions to Black internationalism and literature, coining the term ‘Afro-German’. She actively criticised racist violence and structural hatred against those who were marginalised in Germany. Her poem ‘East Berlin 1989’ captures her anger about rising racial crime after the Mauerfall: “Afro-German woman stomped to death / by skinheads in Alexanderplatz.”
Schöneberg
Alter St. Matthäus-Kirchhof
I will be African, even if you want me to be German,” she wrote in her poem ‘Borderless and Brazen’, “and I will be German, even if my Blackness does not suit you.
From Dahlem, it’s a direct trip up the U3 to Schöneberg, home to one of Berlin’s most beautiful, tree-laden graveyards: Alter St. Matthäus-Kirchhof. It includes the burial sites of literary greats like May Ayim and the Brothers Grimm. The latter are easy to find, as theirs are part of a line of tall, black family headstones where people have left small fairytale figurines. May Ayim’s grave is not so prominent – if you ask the gardener, he might not even recognise her name – in that it’s simply a small, round headstone with red writing and a grave brimming with wildflowers. A mentee of Audre Lorde, Ayim also used poetry to navigate her Black identity in a land of everyday racism. “I will be African, even if you want me to be German,” she wrote in her poem ‘Borderless and Brazen’, “and I will be German, even if my Blackness does not suit you.” In 1996, suffering from depression and a recent diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, Ayim died by suicide at the young age of 36 in her Kreuzberg apartment.
Isherwood’s Berlin
I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.
In Schöneberg, you can explore Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin. As is still the case for so many queer Berliners, this was the neighbourhood in which the British writer could explore his sexuality, which he did by wading deep into the magic of Weimar Republic nightlife. He wrote with an observational, detached style, summarised by his famous first-page line in Goodbye to Berlin, “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.” Start at Nollendorfstraße 17, where a memorial plaque marks the apartment building in which he lived from 1929 to 1933. From there, it’s a short walk to Motzstraße 24, where an unassuming Denn’s Biomarkt sits on the corner. A grocery store might not seem like a literary landmark, but between the wars, it was there that the iconic nightclub and underground haven for artistic and sexual freedom for the queer community, Eldorado, once stood. Isherwood’s long nights there inspired the novels Mr Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin, which in turn inspired the musical Cabaret.
Charlottenburg
Romanisches Café
It might be hard to believe, but what is now the Europa Centre was once the pinnacle of the Berlin salon scene. Here stood the Romanisches Café, the self-proclaimed “second home to the cultural elite” in Berlin, where creatives and intellectuals gathered to exchange ideas and shape modern thinking. Regulars included writers Else Lasker-Schüler, Alfred Döblin, Bertolt Brecht, Billy Wilder and Mascha Kaléko. After 1933, many of the café’s patrons were professionally and politically persecuted, went into exile, committed suicide or were murdered by the Nazis. Today, there is a free-admission museum remembering the artistic dialogue and debate that took place between the web of Berlin writers during the Weimar era, as well as the catastrophic shutdown that followed.
Meineke-Straße 3
On an everyday street in Charlottenburg sits a memorial plaque that marks the home of Hungary’s first ever Nobel Prize winner, Imre Kertész. The plaque includes his famous quote: “Auschwitz can repeat itself at any time.” The author lived there from 2001 to 2003 as a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Institute for Advanced Study). A Holocaust survivor, Kertész wrote about his harrowing experience in Auschwitz and Buchenwald in the novel Fateless. His writing upheld “the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history”, according to the academy that awarded him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2002. It was from Meineke-Straße 3 that Kertész would step out to explore the Kurfürstendamm neighbourhood with his wife Magda, writing in his diary about his urban routine: “the mighty trees, the white houses on this place, the security and serenity.”
Kaiserdamm 28
From Kertész’s old residence, it’s only a short U2 ride to Alfred Doblin’s. You’ll find a similar memorial plaque that notes that this is where he lived from 1930 to 1933 after he moved from his previous home on Karl-Marx-Allee. As a Jew targeted by the Nazis, he fled to France via Switzerland the morning after the Reichstag fire, and later left for the US. His famous book Berlin Alexanderplatz was marked as ‘asphalt’ literature, defined as “metropolitan literature that is no longer rooted in its homeland”, and fell victim to book burning. Considered Germany’s first urban novel, the book focuses on the chaotic lifestyle of 1920s working-class Berlin, using a Kafkaesque style of montages and local slang. Doblin was a key voice of Weimar-era expressionism.
Pankow
Amalienpark 7
To speak with my own voice: that is everything. More, or different, I never desired.
Pankow is one of the more surprising places for a literary wander. It was home to some great Berlin writers, one of which was Christa Wolf. A plaque outside her old building at Amalienpark 7 quotes Kassandra: “To speak with my own voice: that is everything. More, or different, I never desired.” There’s also a sculpture in the garden named ‘Maske der Medea’, referencing her famous novel. Remembered as much for her politics as her writing, Wolf was an active dissident of the DDR. Her criticism of the system shone through in her Der geteite Himmel (Divided Heaven), published soon after the Wall went up. In it, she wrote, “Even the sky was not divided. It was not concerned with our divisions.” She lived in Pankow after a stint in Kleinmachnow and Mitte and wrote the novels Medea, Leibhaftig (In the Flesh) and Stadt der Engel (City of Angels), all of which reflected her ongoing conflict with a communist society.
Rudolf Ditzen Weg 19
We all acted alone, we were caught alone, and every one of us will have to die alone. But that doesn’t mean we are alone.
The story of Hans Fallada could be a novel in and of itself. At 18, he killed his friend/lover in a suicide pact disguised as a duel, suffering his own self-inflicted chest wound. From there, he bounced between prison and psychiatric institutions, developing a lifelong addiction to alcohol and morphine. Then, just before he died in 1946, he wrote one of Germany’s most famous novels in only a few weeks: Jeder stirbt für sich allein (Every Man Dies Alone). It tells the story of the Hampels, the couple who were killed for distributing resistance postcards during World War II. Often titled ‘Free Press!’, the cards encouraged a refusal to participate in the Nazi dictatorship and a call to overthrow Hitler. In the novel, Fallada wrote, “We all acted alone, we were caught alone, and every one of us will have to die alone. But that doesn’t mean we are alone.” A plaque outside his house in Pankow memorialises him, and on the way, you can stop off at the Memorial for Otto Hampel and Elise Hampel outside Rathaus Wedding.
Mitte
The Grimm Zentrum Library
What would a literary tour of Berlin be without a library? And this is one of Berlin’s finest, with a huge, staggered, wood-panelled reading room that looks like some kind of futuristic forest. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were both members of the Academy of Sciences and alumni of the Humboldt University, the campus on which the library is located. It holds 6,000 privately owned volumes of folklore research, including handwritten notes and margin markings left behind by the brothers. The library also houses the fairy tale collection: 700 historic volumes used as a working reference library for Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales) and one of the world’s most famous works of literature.
Sculpture of Brecht
Speaking of Brecht, if you take a stroll down Friedrichstraße, you’ll come to Bertolt-Brecht-Platz, the square dedicated to the man who pioneered epic theatre and loved to break a fourth wall. In the middle of the square sits a simple, plain-clothed statue of the famous playwright on a circular foundation that resembles a turntable on a revolving stage. Around the edges are the words of his poem ‘Questions of a Reading Worker’, including the line, “In what houses of gold glittering Lima did its builders live?” This sculpture by Fritz Cremer sits directly outside the Berliner Ensemble, the theatre company Brecht established with his wife, actress Helene Weigel, in 1949.
Bebelplatz
Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people, too.
Cross the river and head towards Unter den Linden, then follow the lindens towards Bebelplatz. Those are the very same trees that Heinrich Heine wrote to a friend about from Berlin: “Here under the lime trees you can build your heart.” At Bebelplatz, you’ll discover a darker side of Berlin’s literary history at the site where the Nazis burned 20,000 books in one night in 1933. Pressed into the ground beside Micha Ullman’s ‘The Empty Library’ memorial is one of literature’s most haunting quotes: “Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people, too.” They’re the words of Heinrich Heine written in his 1821 play Almansor and reference the burning of the Quran during the Spanish Inquisition. It was over 100 years later that his words took on another tragic layer – a premonition of what was to come in his own homeland.
Dorotheenstädtischen Friedhof
If you’re a fan of visiting Berlin graveyards, this small, central Friedhof is a must-visit for book nerds. It’s truly a who’s who of literary burial sites, with authors including Bertolt Brecht, Christa Wolf, Heiner Müller, Johannes R. Becher, Arnold Zweig and Anna Seghers having been laid to rest there. From Brecht’s simple, flat stone headstone to Müller’s modernist, bronze monument, each grave holds its own personality. Just remember to bring a pen – anything from a fountain pen to a biro will do – because it’s somewhat of a tradition to leave one on the white marble headstone of Christa Wolf.
Friedrichshain
The Märchenbrunnen
You’ve probably walked past this fountain many times. You’ve probably admired it, too. It is, after all, a huge water feature right at the entrance to Volkspark Friedrichshain. Grand and made of light-coloured stone in a sweeping neo-baroque style, it’s the largest fountain in Berlin. But have you ever looked closely? Directly translated as ‘Fairy Tale Fountain’, it features no less than 106 sculptures depicting characters from nine Brothers Grimm tales: Hansel and Gretel, Puss in Boots, Hans in Happiness, The Seven Ravens, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Little Brothers and Sisters, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Sleeping Beauty. It might not be the home or workplace of a great writer, but it does hold a romantic literary energy, and it’s a peaceful place to read a book.
Kreuzberg
May-Ayim-Ufer
Previously named after some colonial German guy, in 2010, May-Ayim-Ufer was renamed after the iconic poet and activist, a fitting gesture considering Ayim’s criticism of everyday racism being present in colonial street names. Ayim was a founding member of the Initiative Schwarzer Menschen in Deutschland. She voiced how racism from German colonialism and National Socialism continues to this day. Her memorial plaque includes a photo and a quote from her poetry collection blues in schwarz weiss (translated to English): “Calm / Like a mirror / Show what is / without fear of being smashed / of what is visible / before something becomes visible”. You can walk now along the peaceful riverside with a gorgeous view of the Oberbaumbrücke and remember a literary hero.
Audre-Lorde-Straße
Where are the Black Germans?
We end where we started: with one of the greatest writers to have influenced Berlin’s streets. As Ayim and Lorde were in life, the streets named after the two are close. Walking under 10 minutes from May-Ayim-Ufer will bring you to Audre-Lorde-Straße, towards the bright pink memorial that commemorates the self-described “Black, lesbian feminist, fighter, poet, mother”. While suffering from breast cancer, she published The Cancer Journals to “transform silence into language and action”. Her publications Sister Outsider, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name and The Black Unicorn encouraged Black women to make their own history visible. Her writing immensely influenced Black feminism in Germany and hopefully will for generations to come.
