Experience Görliwood® – the compact tour

And action! The Trinity Church opposite provided the backdrop for a monastery in the film "Grand Budapest Hotel." Turn your gaze right towards Obermarkt. Imagine the square without cars. Perfect for a driving scene in “The Monuments Men”, which was filmed here.

Go right down Fleischerstraße to Hugo-Keller-Straße, then continue right to Bogstraße in Nikolaivorstadt. The corner building with the Nikolai Café as well as private houses on Lunitz and Bogstraße have been used multiple times by Molina Film for the ARD/MDR crime series “Wolfsland”. The film production has also shot several times at the adjacent Nikolai and connected municipal cemeteries. The baroque Nikolaifriedhof impresses with its historic grave markers and crypt houses. It has been used several times as a filming location, for example for an episode of the ZDF series “Die letzte Instanz” with Jan-Josef Liefers and Stefanie Stappenbeck as well as the multiple award-winning German-French film “Frantz”.
Return to Bogstraße, cross Hugo-Keller-Straße again and go straight across Jüdenstraße to Untermarkt.
How versatile Görlitz is shows here in one of the most frequently used motifs. Filming took place on Untermarkt for “Around the World in 80 Days,” “Goethe!,” “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and “Wolfsland,” “The Captain,” “The Reader” as well as DEFA cinema and television productions like “The Ox from Kulm,” “Maiden, I Like You,” “Addio, piccola mia” “Godfather Death,” “Saxony’s Splendor and Prussia’s Glory” among others.

On the side with the Whispering Arch (Untermarkt 22), directly in front of Hotel Börse and in the middle of the historic Görlitz old town, the book burning scene for the film “The Book Thief” was shot. It was the end of March, at night, bitterly cold, the surrounding houses were covered with swastika flags, a stage was set up in the square, a mendicant speech by an (actor-) mayor, more than 300 extras in thin uniforms holding torches, singing the forbidden verses of the Deutschlandlied and loudly shouting “Sieg Heil,” and a huge pile of books set on fire. The set appeared ghostly and disturbingly real. Circle around the row of houses standing in the middle of Untermarkt.
Hear the rattle of the machine gun? Look up to the town hall tower. On the viewing platform lay Daniel Brühl as sniper Fredrick Zoller shooting at the American soldiers marching across the square. Bodies lay on the ground and in the fountain. (Of course, only dummies.) These scenes are part of the newsreel propaganda film “Pride of the Nation” in the film “Inglourious Basterds”, which Quentin Tarantino had filmed in Görlitz.

Also in “The Captain” the Untermarkt served as a war zone, for “Goethe!” and “The Reader” as well as “The Ox from Kulm” it turned into a marketplace. In nearly all streets and alleys surrounding the square, Wes Anderson found his filming locations for the “Grand Budapest Hotel”.

The imposing corner building to the left at the corner of Neiße Street is the former guesthouse “Brauner Hirsch,” one of the most frequently used Görlitz film locations. About 30 film sets are still visible in the house, originating from filming for “Grand Budapest Hotel,” “Goethe!,” “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” “The Young Karl Marx”. The “Brauner Hirsch” has represented many cities: Seville, Paris, Budapest, Frankfurt, Wetzlar — and for the crime series “Wolfsland” also Görlitz. On Neiße Street, decorated film shop windows offer insight into the “original” prison cell from “Goethe!”, Agatha’s bakery (“Grand Budapest Hotel”), information about film history and the house at Untermarkt 26. You can learn more about this fascinating house on a location tour.

Directly opposite, at the other corner of Neiße Street, stands the baroque house Neiße Street 30, home to the 1807-established book hall of the Upper Lusatian Society of Sciences. The model for the set library was the library of the Francke Foundations in Halle as well as British college libraries. In “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, the historic library hall serves as the “Secret Library” and in the mystery series “Oderbruch”, Kai Kring researches vampires. During museum opening hours and on guided tours, you can visit the historic book hall.

The building Untermarkt 1/corner Weberstraße, today Hotel Emmerich, was the starting point for a spectacular stunt performed by Jackie Chan in his role as servant Passpartout for the remake of “Around the World in 80 Days”. He jumped from the third window on the right in the upper row and landed on a life-size statue in the middle of Untermarkt. For filming, the square and entire street sections of the historic old town were transformed by set builders and prop masters back into 19th century Paris.

Walking along Weberstraße, you pass through the “Berlin Barn Quarter” in the series “The House of Dreams”. From craft to Elisabethstraße, traders, shops, passersby and beggars gathered. Elaborately staged, they brought the quarter around the Jonass department store to life at the end of the 1920s.

Turn left into Jakob-Böhme-Straße. On the right side, you see a wall, around the corner the inscription “VOTE THÄLMANN!” This is not a political statement but a remnant from filming for the GDR TV two-parter “Ernst Thälmann” from 1984. In the film “Grand Budapest Hotel”, the wall forms the enclosure of the fictional cemetery “OLD LUTZ CEMETERY” which is entered through the small door. The existing inscription was painted over for this purpose. The paint adhered so well that months later a special team from Berlin had to come to restore the original condition at the request of the Görlitz city council. Exactly opposite you see a beautiful merchant villa at Bergstraße 1. In 2013 it was still unrenovated. Wes Anderson contacted the owners and filmed here for one day with Ralph Fiennes and Tony Revolori for “Grand Budapest Hotel.”

In the film “The Reader”, Ralph Fiennes walks along Bergstraße, which was still cobblestone-paved at the time. If you look down the street, you look directly onto the wasteland of the former VEB Condensator Factory Görlitz. Filming also took place here several times, including for Wes Anderson’s “Grand Budapest Hotel” and episode 6 “Haunting” of the ARD crime series “Wolfsland”.

Return to Elisabethstraße and turn left into Krischelstraße, which leads you to the fish market. You are already standing at the next film set. The square towards Klosterstraße was used for “The House of Dreams”. In “The School of Magical Animals 3”, Mr. Mortimer Morrison rumbles down the street late at night with his red bus. The large school building with passageways on the left side of the square was used for filming the movie “The Reader”.

Use Schwarze Gasse to get to Brüderstraße. Near Schönhof, the striking corner building with the red-gray facade and stag head on the oriel, was the small kiosk in the film “Grand Budapest Hotel” where the hotel page Zero bought the newspaper. Just a few steps and you have reached the Görlitz Information again.