Kurfürstendamm

The Kurfürstendamm — the Ku'damm — is West Berlin's defining boulevard, stretching 3.5 kilometers from the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church to Halensee. Bismarck commissioned its transformation in the 1880s along the lines of the Champs-Élysées, and the ornate Gründerzeit apartment blocks he initiated still frame much of the street today. The boulevard's deeper significance came with Cold War division: when East Berlin claimed Unter den Linden as its prestige axis, the Ku'damm became the capitalist West's deliberate counter-showcase — luxury hotels, variety theaters, cinema palaces, and fashion houses competed for space along its length. The bombed-out tower of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, left deliberately unrestored since World War II, anchors the western end at Breitscheidplatz as one of Berlin's most direct antiwar memorials. Today international flagship stores sit alongside traditional Berlin cafés like Kranzler, while the cluster of theaters around the boulevard draws evening audiences from across the city.

2-mile boulevard from the Memorial Church to Halensee — department stores, starred restaurants and the Ku'damm theatres.