Good Bye, Lenin!: East Berlin

The film is set in East Berlin from October 1989 to a few days after German reunification in October 1990. When Christiane wakes from her coma, Alex keeps the fall of East Germany from her inside the family flat, even repackaging new Western food in old East German jars. The production planned to place the flat at Berolinastraße 21 in East Berlin, but its interiors were shot in a studio, so this pin shows the street, not a real front door.

Location precision: The flat's interiors were built in a studio; the pin marks Berolinastraße 21, the street the production chose for the exterior.

Most of Good Bye, Lenin! was shot at original locations, around the Plattenbau buildings near Alexanderplatz and along Karl-Marx-Allee. The square itself was extensively redeveloped in the 1960s and early 1970s as a civic and commercial centre of East Berlin. Today the Fernsehturm (TV tower), the Nikolai Quarter and the Rotes Rathaus all stand close by.

Visitor guidance: A public square in central Berlin; the TV tower and Rotes Rathaus are close by.

One odd sight after another threatens Alex's illusion, among them a gigantic Coca-Cola banner on a building next to the flat. Alex and his friend Denis answer with fake news broadcasts in the style of old East German news tapes, and one was shot at the former West Berlin Coca-Cola headquarters in Lichterfelde. The place had already appeared in Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three. The branch at Hildburghauser Straße 224 has stood empty since 1992.

Christiane gets stronger and one day wanders outside while Alex is asleep. There she sees a statue of Lenin being flown away by helicopter, the film's title scene. The production chose Karl-Marx-Allee as a symbolic place in East Berlin, and the statue was modelled on computer. The boulevard, 2.3 kilometres long and 90 metres wide, was built by East Germany between 1949 and 1960 as a showcase of socialist urbanism and architectural grandeur.

Visitor guidance: A public boulevard you can walk along.

At the family dacha, Christiane reveals her secret: her husband had fled not for a mistress but because of the difficulties he faced for refusing to join the ruling party. The film leaves Berlin only once, for this trip. The episode was shot in Finsterwalde, so the pin marks the town in Brandenburg rather than a specific garden plot.

Location precision: The dacha scene was shot in Finsterwalde; the exact plot is not identified, so the pin marks the town.