Berlin · Köpenick · Germany

Rathaus Köpenick

town hallhistoricarchitecturegoogle verified

easy

9/10

best: morning, afternoon

quirky, historic, neighbourhood

A local would say...

A cobbler put on a costume and robbed the town hall — and it worked, because in Prussia the uniform was more powerful than the man wearing it.

A fairytale neo-Gothic town hall with frilly turrets, soaring tower and stepped gable, built in 1904 and famous for one of history's greatest confidence tricks: in 1906, an unemployed cobbler named Wilhelm Voigt dressed as an army captain, marched in, arrested the mayor, confiscated the city coffers and disappeared — and nobody questioned his authority. Free to enter and stroll around.