Guided tours in Berlin and Potsdam
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SACHSENHAUSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP
Tour information
North of Berlin, near the small town Oranienburg, is the memorial site of former concentration camp Sachsenhausen. During the Third Reich this was the center of the system of concentration camps. From 1936 to 1945 approx. 200.000 people were imprisoned here and tens of thousands of people died from starvation, forced labor, torture and executions. The remaining camp buildings have been turned into a museum. Learn how the camp’s terror system worked and understand how Germany’s grueling past affects the country’s self-perception until today.
Tour description
This tour takes you back in time to Germany’s darkest historical period: the times from 1933 to 1945 that ended with World War II, millions of dead people and the Holocaust. The Nazi crimes were based on a network of concentration camps to imprison anyone who didn’t fit into their radical world view. Sachsenhausen was a model camp, designed to be copied at other camp locations. The administration of the whole camp system moved there and until the end of WW II 200,000 people were imprisoned in Sachsenhausen. Many died or were executed there while others were transported to so-called extermination camps in the East.
If you want to learn more about the perpetrators and the victims of this system, the functions it served and the story of the camp after 1945, let our guide show you around the camp site. The tour starts in Berlin at a place of your choice, and a one-hour ride will take you all the way to the reception building. You will walk through the gate with the dreaded words “Arbeit macht frei” (“Work makes you free”) beneath the watchtower where a machine gun turret controlled the entire camp. The guide will explain and show you how the inmates tried to survive, how the camp changed over the years, where the cells for important prisoners were located and where executions took place. After approximately two hours in the camp the coach or minivan takes you back to Berlin – on your way back you will have a chance to discuss your impressions with the guide and try to understand the difficulties of coming to terms with history and what are the consequences of Germany’s past for the country’s present and future.
No interior visits of buildings on the site of the former concentration camp possible on Mondays.