A street name is rarely neutral. It commemorates, honours, obscures—and sometimes does all of these things at once. In this guided tour, curator Tabea Thielmann takes visitors through the exhibition, uncovering the stories behind Berlin’s street signs, explaining how renamings come about, and exploring why some names remain unchanged.
We walk through streets every day without asking ourselves whose names we are actually speaking. Who was this person? Why were they honoured—and by whom? And why is their name still there today?
Curator Tabea Thielmann guides visitors through the special exhibition Renaming?! Berlin’s Street Names and Their History, offering a look beneath the surface at the political decisions, citizen initiatives, lengthy debates, and surprisingly swift resolutions that shape how streets are named—or renamed. With a particular focus on Berlin-Mitte, the tour reveals how East and West, continuity and rupture, remain inscribed in the city’s geography to this day.
The tour is part of the public programme accompanying the exhibition, which is on view at the Mitte Museum until 27 September 2026.
Mitte Museum
Pankstraße 47
13357 Berlin