
KaDeWe - Kaufhaus des Westens
Landmark department store rebuilt from a WWII bombing ruin, topped by a vast gourmet food floor.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to KaDeWe in Berlin opens with a British bomber crashing into the building on a January night in 1944, killing its crew and gutting the store built by Jewish merchant Adolf Jandorf in 1907. It follows what happened after Jandorf sold the business in the 1920s, and how the Tietze family who bought it next were stripped of it under Nazi race laws and forced to sell for a fraction of its worth, even losing the store's name. Listen for how the ruins were used in the last days of fighting for the city, before the long rebuild began.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Hackesche Höfe
Restored Art Nouveau courtyard complex with glazed-brick facades, boutiques and a cabaret theatre.
Neues Museum
Rebuilt neoclassical museum where bomb scars and bullet holes were deliberately left exposed beside its ancient Egyptian collection.
Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church
Bombed neo-Romanesque church tower left deliberately in ruins beside a modern octagonal hall of blue glass.
Arminiusmarkthalle
Cast-iron and brick market hall with gothic arches and a basilica-like gallery, filled with food stalls and street-food vendors.
Markthalle Neun
Nineteenth-century iron and glass market hall turned street food and craft market venue.
Berlin State Opera
Neoclassical opera house rebuilt three times after fire and bombing, still staging opera today.