The Berlin Zoological Garden (German: Zoologischer Garten Berlin) is the oldest surviving and best-known zoo in Germany. Opened in 1844, it covers 35 hectares (86.5 acres) and is located in Berlin’s Tiergarten. With about 1.380 different species and over 20.200 animals, the zoo presents one of the most comprehensive collections of species in the world. […]

“Berlin Zoo.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 June 2022, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Zoo.

Credits: data is credited to “© OpenStreetMap contributors”. The data is available under the Open Database License. | Data also credited to: HistoMapBerlin | Graphics, adaptation and code are mine and are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license (CC BY-SA 2.0).

What was it like to have a walk at the zoo in the spring of 1976? Here is an amateur video from 1975.

Video. Source: Archival footage shot by a West German filmmaker, probably from West Berlin, in 1975.. License: footageforpro.com All Rights reserved. | Music. Artist: FeldGrau, Track: “Schöneberg” from the Album Wir Sind die Kinder 2022. License: FeldGrau, All Rights reserved.

Berlin Zoo map 1971. Credits: HistoMapBerlin | Graphics and adaptation are mine and are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license (CC BY-SA 2.0).

Zoologischer Garten Berlin was not and is not the only Zoo in Berlin. Since the city was divided, East Berlin had its own Zoo (Tierpark Berlin) in the Friedrichsfelde area (DDR).

Resources:

  • The video of the Zoo is kindly offered by footageforpro.com, a professional service that provides high quality digitalized videos of original vintage footage.
  • The music of video is kindly offered by FeldGrau. They are developing a musical project of four albums inspired by the story of Christiane F. You can find them on Spotify and on BandCamp
  • Berlin Zoo on Wikipedia