It is a quiet street in the Berlin district of Karlshorst. Trees rustle in the wind; birds
are chirping. Yet it was precisely here—in an unassuming brick building—that
world history was written. For on the night of May 8 to May 9, 1945, at approximately 00:16 a.m.,
the Second World War in Europe officially came to an end at this very spot.
What serves today as the Berlin-Karlshorst Museum was, at the time, an officers’ mess of the
Wehrmacht. And it was right here that the German Wehrmacht leadership signed the
unconditional surrender to the Allies. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel,
Admiral von Friedeburg, and General Stumpff affixed their signatures to the
document that marked the end of twelve years of Nazi rule and nearly six years of war.
The representatives of the victorious powers—the Soviet Union, the USA, Great Britain, and
France—sat facing them. It was a moment heavy with gravity. No applause,
no cheers. Only a solemn gaze upon the conclusion of an act of destruction without parallel.
Yet this historic act was not the first attempt: a surrender had already taken place
on May 7 in Reims, France. But Stalin insisted on a second
signing—in Berlin, within the Soviet sphere of influence. For it was here that it had all begun.
And here—as history would have it—it was also to end.
After the war, the Soviet Union utilized the building as the headquarters of its military administration in
Germany, and later as a museum presenting its own narrative of the war’s end. It was not until
after the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1994 that the museum was established in its current form—
as a place of remembrance and enlightenment, supported by Germany, Russia,
Ukraine, and Belarus. Today, the Berlin-Karlshorst Museum presents not only the preserved original Surrender Hall but also an impressive permanent exhibition on the Second World War—viewed from the perspectives of the Soviet and German populations. It explores the front lines and the home front, perpetrators and victims, ideology and suffering.
And yet, towering above it all is that one silent moment: in the dead of night, within a austere room furnished with heavy wooden tables, the bloodiest war in human history came to an end. Here, in Berlin-Karlshorst, the guns fell silent.
Berlin-Karlshorst Museum / Unconditional Surrender
Aus dem Audiowalk Berlin Like You’ve Never Heard It Before – True Stories & Secrets
254:05 min Audio
8
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Andere Stationen in dieser Audiotour:
A Brief Excursion into Berlin's History (7:59 min) • St. Nicholas' Church / St. Nicholas' Quarter (2:49 min) • Newspaper District (4:28 min) • Checkpoint Charlie (1:55 min) • Former Gestapo Headquarters (2:57 min) • Former Tempelhof Airport (3:46 min) • 7 Wannsee Conference (4:45 min) • Walther Rathenau Memorial (2:34 min) • Olympic Stadium / 1936 Olympic Games (5:36 min) • Commune 1 (2:27 min) • Benno Ohnesorg / Student Movement (2:16 min) • Rolf Eden (1:54 min) • Café Kranzler (2:08 min) • Kurfürstendamm (3:03 min) • Zoo Palace (3:47 min) • Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (2:22 min) • Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg (3:28 min) • Schöneberg Town Hall (2:33 min) • Former Sportpalast / Sportpalast Speech (5:12 min) • Bendlerblock/Stauffenberg assassination attempt (4:47 min) • Kroll Opera House / Enabling Act (3:09 min) • Reichstag Building (4:14 min) • Reichstag Fire (4:28 min) • Brandenburg Gate (2:52 min) • People's Court (3:08 min) • Potsdamer Place (2:58 min) • Former "Führerbunker" (5:06 min) • "Tresor" (Safe) (1:43 min) • Popular Uprising in the GDR (2:11 min) • Reich Chancellery / Hitler's Seizure of Power (5:11 min) • "Die weiße Maus" (The White Mouse) (2:57 min) • Friedrichstraße Station / "Tränenpalast" (Palace of Tears) (3:46 min) • Humboldt University (1:56 min) • Berlin Palace (5:04 min) • Red City Hall (2:30 min) • Alexanderplatz (2:30 min) • Otto Weidt's Workshop for the Blind / Anne Frank Center (2:05 min) • Hackesche Höfe (5:21 min) • Rosenthaler Platz (2:58 min) • St. Sophia's Church (3:03 min) • Sophie-Gips Courtyards (2:08 min) • Koppenplatz (3:16 min) • Clärchen's Dance Hall (3:54 min) • New Synagogue (2:19 min) • Berliner Ensemble (3:55 min) • Friedrichstadt-Palast (4:02 min) • Dorotheenstadt Cemetery (2:25 min) • Bloody May (2:18 min) • Humboldthain Flak Tower (5:17 min) • Chris Gueffroy and the Victims of the Wall (1:28 min) • Tunnel 57 / Egon Schultz (2:40 min) • AMIGA (1:37 min) • Bernauer Street (4:07 min) • Former Bornholmer Straße Border Crossing (3:26 min) • Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn Sports Park (3:43 min) • Mauerpark (4:07 min) • Arkonaplatz (3:03 min) • Zion Church (3:44 min) • Prenzlauer Berg Fire Station (3:18 min) • Hirschhof (2:41 min) • Freya Klier (2:28 min) • Prater (2:28 min) • Oderberger Straße Municipal Baths (3:36 min) • Oderberger Street 2 (1:58 min) • Currywurst (2:16 min) • Konnopke's Snack Bar (2:43 min) • Gethsemane Church (2:09 min) • Museum in the Kulturbrauerei (1:06 min) • Kulturbrauerei (3:24 min) • Frannz-Club (2:31 min) • Husemann Street (1:58 min) • Jews' Passage (3:32 min) • Prenzlauer Berg Water Tower (2:37 min) • Rosa Luxemburg Square (4:34 min) • Mont Klamott (1:43 min) • Samaritan Church (2:23 min) • Former Stasi Headquarters / Stasi Museum (2:48 min) • East Side Gallery (2:59 min) • House Squatting in the 1980s (2:34 min)
