deSta - Decolonial city tour

BOOK YOUR COLONIAL HISTORY TOUR

See Berlin & Hamburg in a New Light.

Discover the history behind the city's most famous landmarks. Hear stories you won't find in ordinary guidebooks. Leave the tour with a whole new perspective on Berlin.

Suitable for individuals, groups, schools, and institutions.

With over 22,000 participants and more than 1,200 ⭐️ 5-star reviews on Google, countless people have already put their trust in our decolonial city tours.

Why do so many people choose deSta?

View all our tours 👇🏾

Discover Berlin and Hamburg from a new perspective and learn how hidden colonial history continues to shape our city and society to this day.

Whether you're on your own, as part of a team, or with your organization, our decolonial city tours combine in-depth knowledge, forgotten stories, and fascinating places to create a unique experience.

Our public tours:

Berlin Through a Colonial Lens: Landmarks from a New Perspective
Thursday to Sunday

Museum Island: Colonial Connections in the Heart of Berlin
Thursday and Sunday

Black and Queer Feminist City Tour
Monday through Sunday

African Quarter: Traces of Colonialism and a History of Resistance
Saturday and Sunday

Hamburg's Speicherstadt: Traces of the City's Colonial Past
Saturday and Sunday

Personal. Well-founded. Offering a fresh perspective.

We look forward to rediscovering Berlin together with you!

Tourist Attractions Under Scrutiny—Traces of the Colonial Era in Berlin Mitte

2 hours

Discover the hidden colonial history behind the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, and the government district: Millions of people take photos of the Brandenburg Gate every year. Few people know the colonial history behind it all. We'll share stories with you that you won't find in any travel guide.

Explore the colonial history of Museum Island

120 minutes

Nowhere else in Berlin are world-famous cultural treasures and colonial history so close together as on Museum Island. What do Berlin’s most famous museum artifacts really tell us? Come along and experience Museum Island from a new perspective. Using the bust of Nefertiti, the Pergamon Museum, Berlin Cathedral, and other historic sites as our starting points, we’ll explore the interconnections between art, cultural colonialism and power. You'll never walk into a museum the same way again.

Black & Queer Feminism in Berlin Schöneberg

2.5 hours

Saturdays and Sundays

Explore Berlin through the stories of courageous women, queer activists, and Black visionaries. Take a guided tour of Schöneberg and discover how figures like Audre Lorde, May Ayim, and Ika Hügel-Marshall changed Germany—and why their stories are more relevant today than ever.

Discover the African Quarter

90–120 minutes

Saturdays and Sundays

Follow the traces of German colonialism in the African Quarter and discover stories of resistance, remembrance, and change. Learn more about the historical connections between the street names and the former German colonies. Discover a side of Berlin you’ve never seen before and understand why it remains important to this day.

Black Life in the GDR

2 hours

The history of the GDR is often told through the lens of the Wall, socialism, and the state. But who tells the stories of the people who lived in the GDR as Black contract workers, students, or activists? On this bike tour, we’ll explore East Berlin from the perspectives of people of color and visit places where people lived, worked, built communities, and fought for visibility.

Decolonial Tour of Hamburg: A New Take on Commercial History

120 minutes

See Hamburg through a different lens: Behind the brick facades of the Speicherstadt lies a history that’s often left out of traditional city tours. How did Hamburg become one of Europe’s wealthiest trading cities, and what role did colonial goods, global trade networks, and power dynamics play in this? Instead of dry facts, you’ll encounter compelling stories, forgotten perspectives, and exciting “aha” moments.

An Alternative City Tour That Opens Your Eyes

Learn how colonialism continues to shape our present day.

A Change of Perspective in Just Two Hours

Discover stories that often remain hidden in the cityscape.

A space for questions and discussion

Our tours encourage participants to think for themselves and engage in discussion.

Complex topics explained in an easy-to-understand way

Engaging and easy to understand—whether you have prior knowledge or not.

Would you like to gift a tour? Click here for the voucher.

Join over 22,000 people

Our participants were impressed by our guides' extensive knowledge of history and current topics. But don't just take our word for it. Take a look at some of our reviews.

5,0

Thanks to 1200 reviews

Very good. German colonial history brought closer in concrete terms using the Berlin cityscape. What is hidden everywhere in our everyday life... Find out! Suitable for Berliners, newcomers and tourists all together ;-)

The tour was very interesting, informative and inspiring. I think this kind of first-hand experience of the colonial consequences is important and I am glad that I was able to educate myself a little more :)

As a supposedly well-educated person, I was really amazed at how big the black hole of the German curriculum is in the context of German colonial history. Thanks to the excellent guide, I learned a lot of new things and gained new food for thought.

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We offer private group tours, workshops and lectures

Get out of the office or classroom! Take your colleagues, friends or family on an exciting weekend trip! Come and experience a tour that will give you plenty of food for thought and create incentives.

Workshops & Talks

Find a workshop or Lunch & Learn topic that suits you and your team. Our workshops open up new perspectives on the city, history and the present. Together we ask: Which stories were deliberately omitted? Through interactive methods, historical research, visual materials and personal reflection, we create spaces for critical learning, encounters and empowerment.

Whether for school classes, universities, initiatives, organizations or companies - our workshops impart knowledge about colonial history, racism, resistance and the culture of remembrance, always with reference to today's cityscape. Participants are encouraged to recognize their own position in social power structures and to develop options for action for a fairer future.

All workshops can be adapted to the respective group in terms of content, language and time. We work in a diversity-conscious, power-critical, discrimination-sensitive manner and at eye level.

Together we create new perspectives on urban coexistence - decolonial, inclusive, lively.

Young person in blue jacket sitting at a table in a workshop, looking at the camera, presentation in the background.

Workshop: Decolonizing language - words, power and perspectives

Lunch & Learn: Colonialism in the cityscape

Lunch & Learn: Black & queer feminism

Impressions

Former Lüderitzstrasse renamed Cornelius Fredericks Strasse

Historical area monument in Wedding in Berlin

Volkspark Rehberge

Historical city tour through the African Quarter

Historische-Orte.org in Schöneberg

Collaboration with the Museum Schöneberg

Afro-German movement in the Schöneberg neighborhood

Miss Germany visits the African Quarter

Queer city tour in Schöneberg

Creating inclusion in the women's rights movement

Sojourner Truth Ain't I a woman?

Beguine as a meeting place for women and lesbians since the 80s

West African cuisine in Berlin

Ethiopian restaurant

Learning and teaching materials

In our library you will find teaching materials to help you understand and lead discussions about colonialism and racism.

Library

Find interesting articles, recommendations and learning and teaching materials in our library.

Dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum in Berlin: The Colonial History Behind Them

Sale of Human Skulls (from a Colonial Context) at Flea Markets in 2024

Witch Hunts: How Female Healers Became Victims of Patriarchy

T4 Euthanasia Program: Nazi Medical Crimes in the Name of Eugenics

Cobalt from the Congo: The Bloody Price of Our Smartphones

The Botswana elephant debate: Why there is a colonial legacy behind it

Our mission

We are committed to equal opportunities. A strong society and inclusive institutions should be the future of Germany. Decolonization is an important process that helps to understand and overcome the effects of colonialism on today's society.