An abandoned brewery in Berlin

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It used to make one of the most loved beers in Germany but today it is abandoned. The Bärenquell Brewery, first called Borrusia Brewery, was founded in 1882 in the Berlin borough of Treptow-Köpenick. In 1898 it was bought by brewer Schultheiss-Brauerei AG, which expanded it adding more buildings and equipment. Only two of the original buildings remain today: the official residence and the administrative building, built in neo-Renaissance style.

After World War II, the brewery was nationalized and became part of Volkseigener Betrieb, the large publicly owned corporation of East Germany. The harder times came when Bärenquell Brewery was privatized, after the Fall of the Berlin Wall. East Germany turned its back to its local products, delighted by what the west had to offer. The eastern beers could not compete anymore to the trendy ones available from the west. That was the time that many breweries closed and Bärenquell was one of them, shutting its doors in 1994. 

Even though several of its buildings have been listed as protected since decades ago, the brewery has fallen in disrepair and have been heavily looted and vandalized. Around 2013, several buildings were de-listed in order to be demolished and make way for redevelopment. However, no action has been taken yet.

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Prora: Hitler's abandoned beach resort

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The beach resort of Prora, on the island of Rügen, Germany, is known for 8 abandoned large structures, part of a Nazi-planned tourism project. Hitler envisioned an ambitious plan for a gigantic beach resort, the "most mighty and large one to ever have existed", under the ideal that every worker deserved a holiday in the sun. The resort would hold 20,000 beds, and in the middle a huge building was to be erected. The resort had to be convertible into a military hospital in the event of war. 

Building took place between 1936 and 1939 as a Strength Through Joy (Kraft durch Freude or KdF) project. The design competition was overseen by Adolf Hitler's chief architect Albert Speer and won by Clemens Klotz. According to the designs, all rooms were planned to overlook the sea, while corridors and sanitation are located on the land side. Each room of 5 by 2.5 metres (16 by 8 feet) was to have two beds, an armoire (wardrobe) and a sink. There were communal toilets, showers and ballrooms on each floor. The buildings extend over a length of 4.5 kilometres (2.7 miles) and are roughly 150 metres (500 feet) from the beach.

All major construction companies of the Reich and a total of 9,000 workers were involved in the project. However, with the onset of World War II, construction stopped. The eight housing blocks, the theatre and cinema stayed as empty shells, and the swimming pools and festival hall never materialized. During the Allied bombing campaign, many people from Hamburg took refuge in one of the housing blocks, and later refugees from the east of Germany were housed there. By the end of the war, these buildings housed female auxiliary personnel for the Luftwaffe.

After the war, the Soviet army took control of the area and established a military base at Prora, demolishing two buildings by the end of the 1940s. In the late 1950s the East German military rebuilt several of the buildings to house several National People's Army units. After German reunification, parts of the buildings were used from 1990 to 1992 by the Military Technical School of the Bundeswehr and from 1992 to 1994 to house asylum seekers from the Balkans. Beginning from the 90s large parts of the buildings were looted and vandalized, with the a exception of Block 3, Prora Center, which from 1995 to 2005 housed a variety of museums, special exhibitions, and a gallery.

Starting in 2004, the site has began being sold off individually for various uses. Some of them are to be converted into hotels, other into shops and apartments. A house for the elderly and a shopping center is also going to be built. 

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Inside the abandoned Nazi Olympic village of Berlin

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The 1936 Berlin Olympics hosted in Nazi Germany was home to the first permanent Olympic village in history, which today is the oldest one to be partially still standing.

Built in Wustermark, in the west edge of Berlin, the Olympic village hosted about 4,000 athletes from all over the world, guarded by men in Nazi uniforms. The athletes were impressed by the village, as each house had its own steward and there had never been a swimming pool before at an Olympic village.

Inside the "Restaurant of the Nations", the main eating hall, the athletes consumed 100 cows, 91 pigs, over 650 lambs, 8,000lb of coffee, 150,000lb of vegetables and 160,000 pints of milk during the 3 weeks of the Games. However, no alcohol was not served as Hitler himself was a teetotaler.

After the Olympics, the Olympic village became a hospital during World War II and with the fall of Nazi Germany it was captured by Soviet troops. The Soviets used it as a base for SMERSH torturers and KGB interrogators. Inside the main amphitheater a drawing of Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin overlooks the room where functions and cultural shows were held.

When the Soviets forces abandoned it in 1992, only 25 of the 145 original buildings of the Olympic village were still standing - including the crumbling swimming pool, gym, theater and dining hall. For the next 20 years the village fell in disrepair with most Germans ignoring it due to its connection with Nazism.

Its new owner however, DKB Bank, decided to restore it as an exhibition space. One part that was restored first was the original room of black American athlete Jesse Owens -No 5, in block 39- who became the star of the Games when he won 4 gold medals in front of Hitler, a man that considered him inferior because of his color.

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An old fishing hut in the lake

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This old fishing hut was built in the crystal clear waters of Germany's Obersee lake. The lake is inside the Berchtesgaden National Park, in the mountainous area of Berchtesgaden Alps, very close to the borders with Austria. The national park was established in 1978 to protect this area of natural beauty. 

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Hitler's hospital: The abandoned Beelitz Sanatorium

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Beelitz-Heilstätten hospital, also known as the Beelitz Sanitorium, was build in 1898 by the Berlin Workers Health Insurance Corporation for the victims of tuberculosis. Its location, outside the city of Berlin, was ideal as the patients could benefit from the peaceful environment and the clean air. The hospital grew in size over the decades and it featured its own power station which offered the necessary heat during the winter.

When World War I broke out in 1914, Beelitz-Heilstätten was converted in order to care for the the massive casualties inflicted at the front. In the late 1916, a young soldier called Adolf Hitler was sent there to recuperate from a thigh injury acquired during the Battle of the Somme. During the later decades many would start calling Beelitz, 'Hitler's hospital'.

Beelitz-Heilstätten once again became a sanatorium until World War II when it was converted to a military hospital again. Many of its buildings were destroyed by Allied bombing.

After the war, Beelitz- Heilstätten was part of the East Germany and under control of the Soviets who used it as a treatment center for the soldiers stationed in the area. It was also used for the treatment of many East German government officials, including Erich Honecker.

In the early 1990s the Soviets left the area and the hospital was abandoned. Today, only a few of its 60 buildings are in use (as a neurological research rehabilitation center and a care and research center for people with Parkinson’s disease) while the rest of the building remains abandoned. The location was used as a film set for the 2002 movie, The Pianist and the 2008 film Valkyrie. Rammestein's music video for Mein Herz Brennt was also filmed inside the abandoned hospital.

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Inside the Honecker nuclear bunker in Berlin

Codenamed 17/5001, this secret bunker was one of the communist world's most advanced bunkers, built to protect the leaders of the former East Germany from a nuclear attack but it was never actually used. 

The three-storey bunker was built in a forest 25km (16 miles) north-east of Berlin, near Wandlitz, where the the East German government was accommodated in a special colony. The bunker reaches a depth of 70m (230ft) below ground.  85,000 tonnes of concrete were used while a four metre thick 'blast cap' over the bunker was designed to protect from explosions above. Complex filters shielded the bunker's occupants from radioactive or biological agents.

Its submarine-like tunnels divided by heavy metal doors lead on to 170 rooms. It was fitted with a fountain, power generators, air conditioning and "springed" rooms able to cushion residents from detonations. Over 

Its construction began in secret in 1978 and finished in 1983, It was intended to house the East Germany leader Erich Honecker who ruled the German Democratic Republic (GDR) for almost two decades and 400 staff. It is rumoured that Honecker himself visited the bunker only once and wasn't happy with its environment.  

Although urban explorers had found a way to enter inside earlier, the bunker opened for the first time to the public and for only 3 months in 2008, with its walls now covered in mould and the decontamination chambers long-defunct.

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An abandoned 1920s cabaret theatre in Berlin

This abandoned cabaret theatre was discovered in the central Mitte area of Berlin, Germany. It opened in 1905 as a musical hall and restaurant, named “Fritz Schmidt’s Restaurant and Festival Halls” and soon became an established venue for Berlin’s ballroom society. In 1919 it changed operators and became “Kolibri Festival Halls and Cabarets”. It was the era of the German "Kabarett" and that was when this theatre hall had some of its best days. It all ended at some point after 1934 when the Nazi regime started its crackdown on the cabaret scene. 

The cabaret theatre was found inside an abandoned three-storey building surrounded by taller apartment buildings. After tons of rubble were removed from its interior, a 300 square metre (3230 sq feet) ballroom with wall paintings and metre-high stuccoed ceilings was revealed. The kitchen on the ground floor had a special lift to send up food and drinks to the hall on the second floor. LAVA architecture firm undertook the task of restoration of the building in order to be used as a space for performances and exhibitions, studios, meetings and conferences, and luxury apartments for short term and executive rental.

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An abandoned NSA spying station in Berlin

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Teufelsberg (German for Devil's Mountain) is an artificial hill in west Berlin built by Second World War rubble. On top of that hill is where the American National Security Agency (NSA) built one of its largest listening stations. 'The Hill', as it was known to American soldiers, began operation in 1961 while a permanent construction was built in 1963. 

It remained active until the fall of East Germany and the Berlin Wall, but after that the station was closed and the equipment removed. A group of investors bought the hill in the early 90s from the City of Berlin with the intention to build hotels and apartments but this never happened. Today, the buildings and radar domes still remain in place.

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Spreepark: An abandoned amusement park in Berlin

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Headless dinosaurs, rusty roller coasters and a time-frozen Ferris wheel. This is Spreepark, an abandoned amusement park in Berlin, Germany, in operation between 1969 and 2001. Kutlurpark Plänterwald as it was originally named was built in the north of Plänterwald area of East Berlin, next to the river Spree. It was the only theme park of its kind in the whole of Berlin as well as East Germany. During the communism era it thrived attracting up to a million and half visitors per year.

Worse times came after the fall of the Berlin Wall when the park was sold off to Austrian financier Norbert Witte who renamed it 'Spreepark'. Until 1999, large debts had piled up while the number of the visitors kept dropping. In 2002, Witte decided to close down the park, move together with his family and closest colleagues to Lima, Peru and operate an amusement park there. In 2004 however he was sentenced to seven years in jail for attempting to smuggle 180 kg of cocaine  from Peru to Germany in the masts of the Fliegender Teppich ("flying carpet") ride. In October 2006, a Peruvian court sentenced Wittes' son, Marcel Witte, to 20 years for drug smuggling.

Meanwhile, Spreepark remained closed since 2002 as it had amassed more than 11 million euros (14.7 million US dollars) in debt. From then, the abandoned facilities are attracting tourists and urban explorers. In 2011, scenes for the film Hanna were filmed in the park.

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