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The government of the German Democratic Republic and Iraq seemed to have been fast friends after Iraq became the first country to recognize East Germany as a country in 1969 but the abandoned Iraqi embassy building in Berlin more accurately reflects the two countries' current relationship. The Iraqi consulate moved into the austere concrete building in 1974 and used the embassy regularly to nip over to the west for various naughty political things. This malfeasance isn’t an assumption either; for instance, in 1980 the secretary of the embassy and the head of Iraqi intelligence were caught red-handed collecting a suitcase full of explosives!
After the reunification of Germany the new government ordered the Iraqis out in January 1991 due to the (1st) Gulf War and you get the feeling that they didn’t even bother packing or cleaning their desks out before shutting the door. The empty building is now littered with mouldering documents and old furniture just waiting for any urban explorer to read, assuming that they are fluent in Arabic.
Update May 2018: The embassy is boarded up. However, at your own risk, if you walk past it you on the main street, you can hop the fence into adjacent lot and follow the creek to the broken part of the fence. Follow the path to it. There is a part where someone kicked the board in and propped it up.
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Know Before You Go
The correct address is Tschaikowskistraße 51, but better check Google Maps before going. Tschaikowskistraße forks at some point, and both forks branches are called Tschaikowskistraße. The shorter one that ends on a parking lot is the right one.
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Published
September 3, 2012
