A museum in the Karlshorst district of Berlin, in the former officers’ mess where the German unconditional surrender was signed on the night of 8 May 1945. It documents the war between Germany and the Soviet Union from both perspectives.
At a glance
The museum stands at Zwieseler Straße 4 in Berlin-Karlshorst, in a building that served as the officers’ mess of the Wehrmacht pioneer school before the surrender ceremony took place there. The permanent exhibition covers the German war of annihilation against the Soviet Union, while the building itself and its outdoor displays, including a T-34 tank, are part of the visit.
Key facts
- Where: Zwieseler Straße 4, 10318 Berlin
- What: Museum
- When: not documented in the sources found
- GPS: 52.4863, 13.5397 · Open in Google Maps
History
On the night of 8 May 1945, representatives of the Wehrmacht signed the unconditional surrender in the large hall of the former officers’ mess, ending the Second World War in Europe. After serving as the seat of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany from 1945 to 1949, the building housed a Soviet surrender museum from 1967. Following the agreements on the withdrawal of Soviet forces, Germany and the Soviet Union decided in 1990 to establish a joint museum here; it opened as the German-Russian Museum in 1995. In 2013, the permanent exhibition was substantially revised to present the war from both German and Soviet perspectives. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the museum dropped the name “German-Russian Museum” and now calls itself “Museum Berlin-Karlshorst”.
What you see
The photographs show the grey, symmetrical front of the museum building with its columned entrance and a low wall carrying a long inscription sign reading “Deutsch-Russisches Museum”. Flagpoles stand in front, and a black display case with the museum’s bilingual name and visitor information sits behind a white railing. A third photograph shows the façade with German, Russian and Ukrainian flags flying and a few visitors near the entrance. Inside, the building retains the hall where the surrender was signed and the original Soviet-era stained-glass windows and slogans.
Do you know more about this place?
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Nearby
- None of our place cards are yet close to this site.
Gallery
Sources
- Museum Berlin-Karlshorst, Ort der Kapitulation Mai 1945: the museum’s official site, used for the permanent exhibition and the historical role of the place
- visitBerlin.de, Museum Berlin-Karlshorst | visitBerlin.de: details of the surrender, the museum’s history and the permanent exhibition
- Museumsportal Berlin, Museum Berlin-Karlshorst: address, opening hours, exhibition details and the building’s history
- 1014, Neutrality shows its limits in Berlin: The Museum Berlin-Karlshorst: the 2022 name change and the museum’s international collaborations
- Dark Tourism, German-Russian Museum Karlshorst: details of the surrender ceremony, the T-34 tank and the museum’s displays
- berlin.de, Museum Berlin-Karlshorst – Berlin.de: address, opening hours and the permanent exhibition
- Stefano Vigolo, photographs and notes to the editorial staff (2026): identification of the subject. Not a published source
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