Footsteps of WWII · Berlin & eastern Germany
Museum Berlin-Karlshorst
Museum · 8–9 May 1945
The story
Shortly before midnight on 8 May 1945, in the officers' mess of a former Wehrmacht engineer school in Karlshorst, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg and General Hans-Jürgen Stumpff signed Germany's unconditional surrender for the army, navy and Luftwaffe. Marshal Georgy Zhukov signed for the Soviet high command and Air Chief Marshal Arthur Tedder for Eisenhower's SHAEF, with General de Lattre de Tassigny and General Carl Spaatz as witnesses. It ratified the surrender signed at Reims the day before. The building became Zhukov's headquarters, then a Soviet museum; it reopened in 1995 and dropped 'German-Russian' from its name in 2022.
What to look for
The signing hall is kept as it was in 1945, with the flags of the four powers behind the table. The upper floor covers the German–Soviet war from both sides. Outside stand Soviet guns, a T-34 and an SU-100 tank destroyer.
Plan your visit
Tue–Sun 10:00–18:00, closed Mondays; admission free. No booking needed for individual visitors. Take the S-Bahn to Karlshorst, then walk about 15 minutes.
Things change, so check opening times before you travel.
Nearby sites
- Soviet War Memorial, Treptower Park · 5 km
- Topography of Terror, Berlin · 11 km
- Site of the Führerbunker · 11 km
- Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe · 11 km
- Reichstag, Berlin · 12 km
- Soviet War Memorial, Tiergarten · 12 km
All 160 sites in Footsteps of WWII →
Footsteps of WWII: Europe 1939–1945
A free field guide for your phone: the route, the maps and the stories built in, even with no signal. The whole Second World War in Europe, from the first shots at Westerplatte on 1 September 1939 to the German surrender in May 1945: Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, Normandy, Arnhem, Bastogne, Stalingrad, Berlin and the camps, in 15 areas from Britain to Russia.
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