Retrace the route of the Red Army advance into Berlin’s central district – Defense Sector Zitadelle – from the arrival of the first Soviet troops on the city’s outskirts to the surrender of the city and final Nazi capitulation on May 8th 1945 in the suburb of Karlshorst.

Explore what remains of this urban battlefield and follow in the footsteps of the bloody ‘Race to the Reichstag’. Seventeen decisive days that ensured the defeat of National Socialism and end of WWII in Europe – in the largest confrontation between Allied and Axis forces on German soil.

Visit what remains of the major and minor locations of this epic battle; from the ‘first liberated house in Berlin’ to the former SS/Gestapo headquarters, site of the Rote Burg police station, Tempelhof airport, and the Spittelmarkt that would become chokepoints over the course of the brutal fighting.

Follow the path taken by the remaining members of Hitler’s entourage in escaping through the frontlines, the gauntlet-like frontal assault that Red Army troops carried out while fighting through the current government district and learn about the controversy surrounding the iconic photo of those same Red Army troops raising the Soviet flag over the main Soviet objective – the Reichstag building.

This tour is an opportunity to discover the story of the Battle of Berlin through the eyes of the defenders, the Soviet personnel tasked with attacking the city, but also the millions of civilians who would share the burden.

Explore the former Nazi government quarter and Defence Sector Zitadelle, the site of Adolf Hitler’s Führerbunker and command centre for the last days of his life. Hear the stories of the reluctant commander of the Berlin Defence Area who narrowly escaped execution for treason, the fanatical resistance from French and Swedish SS fighters, and the tragedy of young boys and old men forced to act as cannon fodder to blunt the Soviet assault.

The result would be a decisive Soviet victory – the death of Adolf Hitler and the coup de grâce to National Socialism. This bitterly contested battle, however, would leave Berlin almost unrecognisable to visitors fortunate enough to have witnessed the German capital in its pre-war splendour. A city that still today bears the scars of the street-by-street, house-by-house, cellar-by-cellar fighting that would become emblematic of the most symbolic battle of the war.

More than 80,000 Soviet soldiers would die before this battle was over and this tour includes access to two huge Soviet memorials – Treptower Park and the Tiergarten – that were established after the war to commemorate these dead. We additionally visit the German Russia Museum in Karlshorst, where less than a week after the end of the Battle of Berlin the instrument of surrender of Nazi Germany was signed.