The Red Island is a 33-hectare triangle in Schöneberg surrounded by train tracks. The steel skeleton of the Gasometer towers above the neighborhood. Once, up to 30,000 people lived here in tenements — today, it’s more like 10,000. “Red” might have once referred to red-brick military barracks next door. But the Island was also a socialist and communist stronghold. The train tracks created something of a fortress, and even after 1933, the Nazis had great difficulties establishing a foothold here.

On this walking tour, we will look at anti-fascist resistance struggles, from Marlene Dietrich to Julius Leber to Willi Stoph to Paul Zech. In two different eras, the neighborhood was almost demolished to make way for freeways, and we discuss how these plans were stopped. We will see where communists met, and also where several generations later, activists occupied empty apartment buildings.

Our tour will be meeting at Ella-Barowsky-Straße 68, behind the Shell gas station on Sachsendamm, just a few minutes walk from S-Bhf Schöneberg. Our tour will end two hours later near Yorckstraße.

Suggested donation is 10 euros per person, but any contribution is appreciated and none is required. You can also pick up a signed copy of the book “Revolutionary Berlin.”