Dorotheenstadt Cemetery

The Friedhof der Dorotheenstaedtischen und Friedrichswerderschen Gemeinden at Chausseestrasse 126 in Berlin-Mitte may be the densest concentration of German intellectual history compressed into 1.7 hectares. Laid out in 1762, it holds the philosophers Hegel and Fichte side by side, architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow, playwrights Bertolt Brecht and Heiner Mueller, novelist Anna Seghers. Brecht lived with Helene Weigel in the house next door; both lie under unpolished granite boulders just inside the gate. Protected as a garden monument, the tombs range from Neoclassical to GDR modernist. Walk down the avenue of old limes and in an hour you can pay your respects to Schinkel, Brecht and Hegel – a literary-philosophical pilgrimage no other city offers in such a compact space.