House of Travel

Haus des Lehrers (German for House of the teacher) is a building in Berlin, located near Alexanderplatz, built between 1962 and 1964 under the German Democratic Republic. Its most notable feature is a mural wrapping around the entire building and extending between the second and fifth above-ground floors. Designed in the style of Mexican mural art by artist Walter Womacka, it is titled Unser Leben ("Our Life") and depicts various occupational groups of and aspects of life in the GDR. Adjacent to the building is a two-story congress hall, known since November 2003 as Berliner Congress Center. Between 2003 and 2011, the annual Chaos Communication Congress was hosted there.

Project Blinkenlights was a light installation in the Haus des Lehrers building at the Alexanderplatz in Berlin that transformed the building front into a giant low-resolution monochrome computer screen. The installation was created by the German Chaos Computer Club (CCC) and went online on 11 September 2001 as a celebration of the club's 20th birthday. Some novel uses of the screen are for people to call a number and play Pong via mobile phone or display animations sent in by the public. Similar installations were created by the CCC for the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris in 2002 (called Arcade) and for two towers of the City Hall in Toronto (called Stereoscope). Both installations feature higher resolutions and eight shades of grey. In August 2023 a new Installation was shown on the CCCamp in Mildenberg. It was called Polychrome and used RGBw LED which have been calibrated as Tim Pritlove shown in a Talk about the Project on Aug. 16. The electrical engineering and computer science students of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics turn their Schönherz Dormitory into a giant display ("the Matrix") at their annual Schönherz Cup competition, where amongst others, teams compete to create the most interesting and funny animations. A similar display, featuring three colours, is annually created by students of Wrocław University of Technology and the University of Bordeaux,who have released open-source software to create interactive architectural displays. Independently, an installation displaying the message "FERTiG" (German for "FINISHED") was shown at the completion of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg in 2016. The term "blinkenlights" originates in hacker humor. One of the CCC installations is depicted in the Golden Boy and Miss Kittin video for their song "Rippin Kittin".

Königsstädtisches Theater was the name of different theater buildings in Berlin in the 19th and 20th century. The first Königsstädtisches Theater was built by Carl Theodor Ottmer in Königsstadt, a former settlement neighboring Berlin that is today part of the boroughs of Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg and Friedrichshain, and opened in 1824. Its first director was Karl Friedrich Cerf, who managed it until his death in 1845. An Aktiengesellschaft from its inception, the theater had to rely on financial support by the King of Prussia. When the monarchy stopped its support in 1840, the theater fell on hard times. Involvement in the German revolutions of 1848–49 meant that the theater was closed in 1851 by royal decree.Cerf's son, Rudolf Cerf, had inherited the license and the name from his father, and named the building used by Circus Renz "Königsstädtisches Theater" from 1852 to 1854. The license then was sold to Franz Wallner, a popular actor, who used the name for his own Wallner-Theater until 1858. In the following years, a number of different theaters used the name but none achieved any lasting success. The original theater building was used for various purposes after its closure. It was demolished in 1932.

The Conference of Communist and Workers Parties of Europe was an international meeting of communist parties, held in the city of East Berlin, capital of the communist-governed East Germany, on 29–30 June 1976. In all, 29 parties from all Europe (except Albania, Iceland and some microstates) participated in the conference.The conference highlighted several important changes in the European communist movement. It exhibited the declining influence of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and a widening gap between the independent and orthodox camps amongst European communist parties, with the ascent of a new political trend, Eurocommunism.

Alexanderplatz (German: [alɛkˈsandɐˌplats] (listen)) is a large public square and transport hub in the central Mitte district of Berlin. The square is named after the Russian Tsar Alexander I and is often referred to simply as Alex, which also denotes the larger neighbourhood stretching from Mollstraße in the north-east to Spandauer Straße and the Rotes Rathaus in the south-west. With more than 360,000 visitors daily, Alexanderplatz is, according to one study, the most visited area of Berlin, beating Friedrichstrasse and City West. It is a popular starting point for tourists, with many attractions including the Fernsehturm (TV tower), the Nikolai Quarter and the Rotes Rathaus (Red City Hall) situated nearby. Alexanderplatz is still one of Berlin's major commercial areas, housing various shopping malls, department stores and other large retail locations.

The World Clock (German: Weltzeituhr), also known as the Urania World Clock (German: Urania-Weltzeituhr), is a large turret-style world clock located in the public square of Alexanderplatz in Mitte, Berlin. By reading the markings on its metal rotunda, the current time in 148 major cities from around the world can be determined. Since its erection in 1969, it has become a tourist attraction and meeting place. In July 2015, the German government declared the clock as a historically and culturally significant monument.

The Park Inn by Radisson Berlin Alexanderplatz is the tallest building and the eleventh-tallest structure in Berlin and the 29th-tallest building and tallest hotel-only building in Germany. The 37-floor high-rise is in the northeast of Alexanderplatz in the central Mitte district and has a height of 125 metres (410 feet).

Alexa Centre (German: Alexa Einkaufszentrum) or simply Alexa, is a shopping centre near Alexanderplatz in Berlin, Germany. With a rental area of 56,200 m2 (605,000 sq ft), it was the second-largest shopping centre in Berlin at the time of its opening, after Gropius Passagen, but Alexa was the largest in terms of number of shops (180 vs. 151). Over one million people visit the Alexa Centre per month (for example, there was an average of 1.1 million visitors during the first quarter of 2009).

The Stasi Records Agency (German: Stasi-Unterlagen-Behörde) was the organisation that administered the archives of Ministry of State Security (Stasi) of the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany). It was a government agency of the Federal Republic of Germany. It was established when the Stasi Records Act came into force on 29 December 1991. Formally it was called the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic (German: Bundesbeauftragter für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik); the official German abbreviation was BStU. On June 17, 2021, the BStU was absorbed into the German Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv). The Stasi was established on 8 February 1950. It functioned as the GDR's secret police, intelligence agency and crime investigation service. It grew to have around 270,000 people working for it, including about 180,000 informers, or "unofficial collaborators". It was renamed the "Office for National Security" (German: Amt für Nationale Sicherheit) on 17 November 1989. It was dissolved on 13 January 1990.The Stasi spied on almost every aspect of East Germans' daily lives, and it carried out international espionage. It kept files on about 5.6 million people and amassed an enormous archive. The archive holds 111 kilometres (69 mi) of files in total. About half of the material is held in the Stasi Records Agency's headquarters in Berlin, and the rest is in its 12 regional offices. As well as written documentation, the archive has audio-visual material such as photos, slides, film, and sound recordings. The Stasi also had an archive of sweat and body odour samples which its officers collected during interrogations.

Berlin Alexanderplatz is a German railway station in the Mitte district of Berlin's city centre. It is one of the busiest transport hubs in the Berlin area. The station takes its name from its location on Alexanderplatz, near the Fernsehturm and the World Clock.

The Karl-Liebknecht-Haus or Karl Liebknecht House is the headquarters of the party The Left in Germany. It is located between the Alexanderplatz and Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Berlin-Mitte. Constructed in 1912 as a factory, the building was purchased by the Communist Party of Germany (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, KPD) in 1926. It became the seat of its Central Committee and was named in honor of Karl Liebknecht, the KPD leader who was murdered by a paramilitary unit in January 1919. After Adolf Hitler was appointed as German chancellor, the Berlin police raided the headquarters, and by March 1, the Nazi swastika flag was flying over the building. Renamed the Horst Wessel House, the building at first served as a district police station and detention center in which Jews and political opponents were tortured. In 1935, the finance department of the state of Prussia moved into the building. Severely damaged during World War II, the building was repaired in 1948, and the name "Karl Liebknecht House" restored. It housed the East German Institute for Marxism-Leninism after 1950. The building became the headquarters for the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the reformed successor of East Germany's former ruling party, in May 1990. In 2005, the PDS was renamed "The Left Party PDS" in preparation for its merger with the Party of Social Justice-Electoral Alternative (WASG). The building continues to serve as the headquarters of the new party, which is called simply "The Left" (Die Linke) after the merger was completed in June 2007.

The 1757 raid on Berlin took place during the Third Silesian War (part of the Seven Years' War). Cavalrymen of the Holy Roman Empire attacked and briefly occupied Berlin, the capital of Prussia.