Alexanderplatz & the TV Tower
A vast, breezy plaza crowned by the soaring Fernsehturm, East Berlin's proud landmark and still the tallest structure in Germany. Around you spread the wide pavements, the spherical fountain and the beloved World Clock, the everyday heart of the modern capital.
About this place
Alexanderplatz, known to every Berliner simply as 'Alex', is the city's great open-air living room. Once a medieval cattle market and later a military parade ground, it was renamed in 1805 to honour a visiting Russian tsar, Alexander I, whose alliance Prussia hoped to win against Napoleon. The square you cross today, though, is overwhelmingly a creation of the German Democratic Republic, which flattened the war-ravaged district in the 1960s and rebuilt it as a showcase of socialist modernity, all broad concrete expanses, the chiming World Clock and, above it all, the 368 metre Fernsehturm. Completed in 1969 for the GDR's twentieth birthday, the television tower was meant to broadcast the confidence of the eastern state across the whole divided city. It still does, in a way, rising over a reunified Berlin as the unmistakable point on the skyline where every layer of this city's story, medieval, royal, divided and rebuilt, finally comes together.
Key facts
- 368 metres — The Fernsehturm's full height, making it the tallest structure in Germany
- 1969 year — Both the TV Tower and the World Clock were unveiled for the GDR's 20th anniversary
- 30 minutes — How long the tower's restaurant takes to complete one full rotation
📍 Alexanderplatz, 10178, Berlin