In this building, which looks like a stylized Roman temple, houses a memorial museum, Victims of Fascism and Militarism. For years one of the most ironic communist rituals in the form of changing the guard of honor took place here: one ward each, who walked away with the patter of boots, was coming next.
Right next to it, in one of the most beautiful baroque buildings in East Berlin, the former armory, mieści się Museum of German History (German History Museum, Mon-Thu. 9.00-18.00, sob.-nd. 10.00-17.00; 0.50 DM, students 0.30 DM, retirees and children up to years 10 - free) Although for people who do not know German, the exhibition may not be very accessible, the museum is quite interesting, especially sections devoted to the interwar workers' movements and communist opposition to Nazism, as these themes are not well documented in museums in the West.
The section devoted to the development of the GDR sheds some light on the social and political situation in the past era. Na Schliiterhof, the inner courtyard of the museum, pay attention to decorating walls 22 distorted faces of dying warriors by 18th-century sculptor Andreas Schliiter. Every Thursday in summer, Fr. 19.30 classical music concerts are held here. The Maxim Gorki Theater is located right behind the German History Museum (ticket office 207-1790, pn.-pt. 12.00-14.00 i 14.30-18.00; with a good repertoire of many plays by contemporary German authors.
Platz der Akademie is located directly on the south side of Unter den Linden, surrounded by a group of restored monuments and once considered one of the most beautiful squares in Europe. You will find the French Cathedral here (French cathedral), built for the influential community of Berlin Huguenots at the beginning of the 18th century. It is a distinguished building with classical accents, rebuilt after almost total destruction during the war. The cathedral tower houses a refined restaurant (see "Gastronomy"), and from the balcony around the top of the tower there is a great view. The Hugenot-tenmuseum is located on the ground floor (pn.-pt. 10.00-17.00), depicting the escape of the Huguenots from France and the founding of a Huguenot colony in Berlin. Nearby German Cathedral (German cathedral) was built around the same period by the Berlin Lutheran community, and is the stylistic twin of Franzósischer Dom. The building of the former theater rises between them, neoklasyczny Drama Theater Schinkla, which is perfectly shared with two churches and makes the corner of the square one of the most captivating and architecturally sustainable in the whole city.
Leipziger Śtrasse runs a little further south, show behind budo- and a residential and commercial building from the seventies, when the slogan "big is beautiful" prevailed in the East Berlin urban planning. 17 June 1953 here the anti-government and anti-Soviet demonstrations focused. Several hundred people died, when the Soviet tanks were shipped, to restore order, and Bertold Brecht later noted acrimoniously, that the GDR government should "dissolve the nation and choose a new one". Uniform and functional 1 Today buildings rise up on both sides of the six-lane roadway, and the whole street seems deserted, as if the whole enterprise was intended to prove some lofty architectural theory, rather than providing housing and shops to real people.