Berlin live — the city that history made, unmade and remade

Berlin is the most historically dense city in Europe for the 20th century. Within walking distance of the Brandenburg Gate webcam you can stand at the site of Hitler's bunker (unmarked, beneath a car park), cross the line where the Berlin Wall ran (marked by a double row of cobblestones in the street), read the plaques outside the Reich Chancellery, walk through the 2,711 concrete steles of the Holocaust Memorial, look into the glass dome of the Norman Foster Reichstag, and have lunch at a café that opened in 2019 on a site that was a death strip until 1989. No other city on Earth compresses this density of historical consequence into a space you can cross on foot in 20 minutes.

Berlin is Germany's largest city with 3.5 million inhabitants from more than 180 countries — more nationalities than any other German city — and a metropolitan area of 6 million. One third of its area consists of parks, forests, lakes and rivers, giving it more green space per capita than any other major European capital. The Spree river runs through the centre; the webcam on the Oberbaumbrücke shows the water as it passes from Friedrichshain to Kreuzberg, the exact boundary of what was East and West Berlin.

The key cameras — what you see on webcamera24

Berlin beyond the cameras

The Holocaust Memorial (Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe), designed by Peter Eisenman and opened in 2005, covers 19,000 square metres adjacent to the Brandenburg Gate — 2,711 concrete steles of varying heights, creating a disorienting, unsettling topography that changes meaning depending on where you stand and how deep into the field you go. There is no inscription, no explanation at the surface. The information centre is underground. It is the most powerful public memorial in Europe and arguably in the world.

Checkpoint Charlie, the most famous crossing point between East and West Berlin (used by Allied military personnel and foreign nationals), is 1 km from the Brandenburg Gate. The original guardhouse was removed in 1990; a replica stands there now, surrounded by tourist shops and actors dressed as American soldiers offering photographs. The gap between the weight of what happened here and the commercialisation that has followed is one of Berlin's most uncomfortable ongoing tensions.

Berlin's club scene is the most internationally celebrated of any European city — Berghain, Tresor, Watergate, Sisyphos and dozens of others in former power plants, warehouses and abandoned GDR buildings have made the city the global reference point for electronic music since the early 1990s. The Spree riverside cameras at night show the queues beginning to form after midnight and continuing until Sunday afternoon.

When to watch

9 November each year: The Brandenburg Gate webcam on the anniversary of the Wall's fall (9 November 1989) shows a ceremony that has been held every year since 1990 — speeches, concerts, crowds gathering at the gate where the first East Berliners crossed in 1989. The most emotionally significant annual event visible on any webcam in this series.

New Year's Eve: The Brandenburg Gate hosts Berlin's New Year celebration — one of the largest outdoor parties in the world, with 1 million people along the Straße des 17. Juni. The webcam catches the fireworks launched from the gate and surrounding area, visible for miles.

Sunrise on the Spree: The Oberbaumbrücke camera at 6am on a summer morning catches the light on the river and the mist above the water, the Fernsehturm catching the first sun on its sphere. Berlin is at its most quietly extraordinary in the hour before the city wakes.

Getting there: Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) opened in 2020 after a famously troubled 9-year delay — it is 30 km from the city centre, connected by the Airport Express train (45 min) or S-Bahn (50 min). The city has three metro lines (U-Bahn) plus the S-Bahn ring and dozens of tram lines covering the former East Berlin. The Brandenburg Gate is U-Bahn Brandenburger Tor (U5); Alexanderplatz and the Fernsehturm are a major S/U-Bahn hub; Museum Island is a 10-minute walk from Hackescher Markt.