Museum Berlin-Karlshorst

The Museum Berlin-Karlshorst is located on Zwieseler Straße in Berlin's Karlshorst district and is a historically significant site where the Wehrmacht's unconditional surrender was ratified on May 8, 1945. The cube-shaped building was constructed starting in 1936 as a military engineering school and served as headquarters of the Red Army during the Battle of Berlin and in the postwar period, and later of the Soviet Military Administration. It is the only museum in Germany to devote a permanent exhibition to the war of annihilation against the Soviet Union, known in the West as the German-Soviet War and in Russia as the Great Patriotic War. The complex is a listed monument that commemorates the end of World War II in Europe.

At the heart of the permanent exhibition is the former dining hall of the officers' casino, which has been preserved in its historical state. Here, representatives of the German High Command and the commanders in chief of the army, air force, and navy signed the instrument of surrender, which took effect on May 9. In this room, film footage of the historic event plays on a continuous loop. Across roughly 1,000 square meters, the exhibition offers insights into German-Soviet relations from 1917 to 1990, with a focus on the everyday lives of soldiers and civilians during the war. Alongside modernly designed rooms, you can also see older exhibits, including the 1967 diorama "Storming of the Reichstag." On the outdoor grounds, the museum displays historic Soviet military equipment, such as a T-34 tank, heavy battle tanks, howitzers, and rocket launchers from World War II.

The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and admission is free. It is run by a multinational sponsoring body that originally united Germany, Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, though it is funded solely by German federal money. In addition to the permanent exhibition, the museum regularly presents special exhibitions on topics such as war photography, diplomatic relations, and the consequences of Nazi occupation policy. The museum also organizes academic conferences and study trips. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the museum's management has used the name Museum Berlin-Karlshorst in order to commemorate all victims of the German war of annihilation regardless of nationality, and it participates in aid projects for Ukraine.