A visit by day, free music
Visiting the Memorial Church without a ticket
How to see the Gedächtniskirche without a concert ticket: opening, guided tours, the memorial hall and the free organ music the church puts on itself.
Reserve your seat for the concert ↗Quick answer
The Memorial Church says the church and its foyer are open to visitors outside services, events and concerts, and that guided tours of the ensemble run on a voluntary donation. It also offers organ and choir vespers on Saturday evenings and a summer organ series. Check its visit page for hours and works.
Open outside events
The church, the memorial hall and the foyer are open for visits outside services, devotions and concerts, according to the church's own site. It lists opening hours for the new church from Monday to Sunday and asks visitors to watch its calendar for notes, since events close the nave. The chapel is open only during events. Because hours and notices change, the visit page is the place to check on the day.
The memorial hall
The hall in the base of the old tower shows mosaics and marble reliefs that survived the 1943 raid, and an exhibition on the history of the church. The church has announced that the hall closes for renovation work. That is why the daytime visit and the concert are best seen as two separate things: the new church is open on its own schedule and the tower has its own.
Guided tours
The church offers tours of the ensemble from Tuesday to Sunday on a voluntary donation basis, including a half-hour tour of the buildings, with set times the church lists on its site. On Sundays there is also a tour of the passage between the two glass walls, which most visitors never see. Tours for groups of 60, 90 or 120 minutes are arranged by agreement and are charged. Only these individual group tours need to be booked in advance.
Music that costs nothing
On Saturday evenings the church alternates Bach cantata services, organ vespers and choir vespers, with readings and prayers around the music. In summer it has also run an organ series by guest organists, with free entry and a suggested donation. The church lists current dates in its calendar. These are services and recitals rather than ticketed concerts, so the format is quieter and shorter on spectacle.
What you see by day
By day the blue is at its deepest, and the double wall means the glass you see inside differs from the glass outside. Above the altar hangs Karl Hemmeter's figure of the resurrected Christ. Near the northeast wall are a bronze plaque for the Protestant martyrs of 1933 to 1945, placed in 1964, and the Stalingrad Madonna, a charcoal drawing Kurt Reuber made at Christmas 1942 and which the church treats as a symbol of hope and reconciliation. Copies were sent to Coventry Cathedral and to Volgograd.
Which is right for you
A daytime visit is the way to see the glass lit by the day and the memorial hall, if it is open. The booked concert is the way to hear a full programme with an orchestra and soloists in the same room. If time is short, the vespers and the summer recitals give you the room and the organ without a concert ticket. If you have one evening and want a fixed time and date, the concert is easier to plan around.
Practical notes
The church reaches its podium by two ramps, and its visit page lists the connections: Kurfürstendamm and Zoologischer Garten stations. It also warns about road closures around the square. The building is in a long renovation programme, and the church says services, concerts and tours go on during the works. Look at the notices on the visit page before you go, and leave time on a concert evening if you want to see the glass by daylight first, since the nave closes for events.
Sources
- Gedächtniskirche Berlin: opening hours (the church's own site)
- Gedächtniskirche Berlin: guided tours (the church's own site)
- Gedächtniskirche Berlin: the memorial hall exhibition (the church's own site)
- Gedächtniskirche Berlin: organ and choir vespers (the church's own site)
- Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (Wikipedia)