German Spy Museum

The German Spy Museum on Leipziger Platz takes you on a journey into the fascinating world of spies and secret services. With the help of state-of-the-art presentation technology, you’ll embark on a multimedia journey through the history of espionage. It begins with the first secret codes from antiquity and continues right up to the present day with the NSA debate. You’ll gain insights into sophisticated espionage techniques, legendary espionage cases and spectacular covert operations. Former top agents also have their say, recounting their lives in secrecy. The German Spy Museum is the only museum of its kind in Germany. The collection comprises more than 1,000 exhibits. You can view around 600 of these exhibits across numerous themed areas. At the same time, over 30 interactive installations invite you to get involved and be amazed.

Berlin and the Cold War

Berlin is regarded not only as a historic crossroads of the Cold War, but also as the former capital of spies. Curator Franz-Michael Günther therefore came up with the idea of opening a spy museum in Berlin. In 2004, he began compiling interesting exhibits. His sources included former intelligence officers, double agents and eyewitnesses. In September 2015, the German Spy Museum finally opened its security gates. Its location on Leipziger Platz is ideal for this purpose. After all, the square lies in the former border area between East and West, on the ‘death strip’ of the Berlin Wall. A key focus of this high-tech museum is therefore the world of the two superpowers: the United States of America and the Soviet Union.

The world of espionage up close

Right from the entrance hall, you are immersed in the mysterious world of spies: countless cameras look down on visitors. The surveillance footage blends with other film clips on a wall of monitors to form a flickering collage. From there, walk through the ‘Time Tunnel’. It leads into the 3,000-square-metre museum, which brings the history of espionage to life both digitally and through historical artefacts. The ‘tools of the trade’ of a secret agent are particularly fascinating at the German Spy Museum: umbrellas with built-in poison darts, shoes with bugging heels, or even gloves with a hidden pistol. Touchscreens also invite you to view these bizarre objects from different angles. The screens also provide fascinating information about the exhibits. Best of all, at the German Espionage Museum you can step into the shoes of a spy yourself. Become a hacker, crack codes or check the security of your passwords.

Main attraction: the state-of-the-art new laser obstacle course

Who can do it? Test your skills on the new laser obstacle course! It combines excitement, interaction and immersive technology: try to complete a secret mission in a high-security area ! The only way to do this is by taking on a special challenge and managing to get past 48 laser barriers!

What to expect at the German Spy Museum

• Challenge and excitement on the new laser obstacle course
• a Stasi Trabi fitted with an infrared camera
• a genuine Enigma cipher machine from the Second World War
• First-hand accounts from top Cold War agents
• the first drone in history: a carrier pigeon with a parachute
• a fresh perspective on data protection and the world of social media

Places of interest nearby

Right next to the German Spy Museum, you’ll find the Deutschlandmuseum, a multimedia immersive exhibition that lets you experience 2,000 years of German history in condensed form. At the Black Box at Checkpoint Charlie, you’ll learn fascinating and curious facts about the Cold War. The world held its breath in 1961 when Soviet and American tanks faced off at this very spot. With multimedia stations, a cinema and fascinating exhibits, the Black Box illustrates the political context. Anyone interested in iconic cars should visit the nearby Trabi Museum. It features curiosities such as a Trabi with a wooden frame. Also at Checkpoint Charlie is the ‘The Wall’ panorama by the artist Yadegar Asisi. Inside the steel structure, you can experience a slice of everyday life in West Berlin in the 1980s. The oversized circular mural allows you to look from Kreuzberg in the west all the way to Mitte in the east. It depicts the coexistence of two worlds and conveys the bizarre sense of normality in the once-divided city.

Useful information from visitBerlin for your museum visit

The German Spy Museum is situated right next to the Potsdamer Platz S-Bahn and U-Bahn station. You can reach it via the U2 U-Bahn line, the S-Bahn (S1, S2, S25) and bus routes 200, M41 and M48. With the Berlin WelcomeCard, you can travel on Berlin’s public transport network free of charge around the clock. If you’re driving, you’ll find plenty of parking spaces in the car parks at Potsdamer Platz and the Sony Centre. The German Spy Museum usually organises guided tours every hour. Children and young people aged 8 to 14 can celebrate their birthday parties here with age-appropriate guided tours, secret code experiments in the spy lab and the laser obstacle course as the highlight. For school groups, 60- or 90-minute museum tours are available on topics such as cryptography, the Cold War and data protection. On request, guided tours tailored specifically to the curriculum are also available. In this way, the museum raises awareness of the need to handle personal data more responsibly online. The countless, often bizarre exhibits from the Cold War alone are enough to fascinate children and young people.

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