Berlin TV Tower
Soviet-inspired broadcast tower topped by a mirrored sphere that famously reflects sunlight into a giant cross.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Berlin TV Tower follows Walter Ulbricht's plan in the 1960s to build a monument to Communist East Germany, modeled on Stuttgart's TV tower and the Soviet Sputnik satellite, completed in 1969 just before the state's twentieth anniversary. It traces the accident nobody planned: sunlight hitting the sphere's tiled dome threw a glowing cross into the sky, and Berliners nicknamed it the Pope's Revenge against a government that had torn crosses off East Berlin's churches. Look up on a clear day and you can still catch it.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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