October 5

Berlin by Foot: Alone in Berlin — Anti-Nazi Resistance in Wedding

On October 5, guide Finn Ballard leads us along the trail of Otto and Elise Hampel, a couple who resisted the Nazi regime.

Resistance to the Nazis took many different forms. Perhaps you’ve seen the movie Valkyrie, about one of the many attempts to assassinate Hitler — but the ‘smaller’ efforts could have deadly consequences, too.

On this tour, we’ll follow the trail of a working-class Berliner couple in Third Reich-era Wedding: Otto and Elise Hampel, who embarked upon their own act of dissidence.

Together, they produced and secretly delivered dozens of postcards hand-written with critical messages about the Nazis, and calls to take action against their dictatorship. But the loyal Germans of the day delivered most of these to the Gestapo, and the chase was on.

The Hampels could well have been forgotten, had it not been for the author Hans Fallada, whose novel ‘Alone in Berlin’ (recently adapted into a movie with Brendan Gleeson, Emma Thompson and Daniel Brühl) is based upon their story.

We’ll meet at the corner of Müllerstrasse and Lindowerstrasse (Mülerstraße 12) at 14:00 for a walking tour which should last 90 minutes and end near the Seestr. U-Bahn station. We will leave the meeting point by 14:10!

Join us for the tour and get a free copy of The Berliner magazine!