Experience Görliwood® - the compact tour

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

Turn right and walk down Fleischerstraße to Hugo-Keller-Straße, then continue right to Bogstraße in Nikolaivorstadt. Molina Film filmed several scenes for the ARD/MDR crime series "Wolfsland" in the corner building with the Nikolai Café and in private houses in Lunitz and Bogstraße. The film production has also filmed several times in the adjacent Nikolai Cemetery and the adjoining municipal cemetery. The baroque Nikolai cemetery impresses with its historic tombs and crypts. It has already been used as a film location several times, for example for an episode of the ZDF series "Die letzte Instanz" with Jan-Josef Liefers and Stefanie Stappenbeck as well as the award-winning German-French film "Frantz".
Return to Bogstraße, cross Hugo-Keller-Straße again and walk straight ahead along Jüdenstraße to Untermarkt.
One of the most frequently used motifs here shows just how changeable Görlitz is. The Untermarkt was the location for the filming of "Around the World in 80 Days", "Goethe!", "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" and "Wolfsland", "The Captain", "The Reader" and DEFA cinema and television productions such as "Der Ochse von Kulm", "Jungfer, Sie gefällt mir", "Addio, piccola mia", "Gevatter Tod", "Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria" and others.among others.

The scene of the book burning for the film "The Book Thief" was shot on the side with the whispering arch (Untermarkt 22), directly in front of the Hotel Börse and in the middle of Görlitz's historic old town. It was the end of March, at night, freezing cold, the surrounding houses were draped with swastika flags, a stage was set up on the square, a snotty speech by a (drama) mayor, more than 300 extras in thinuniforms with torches in their hands, singing the forbidden verses of the Deutschlandlied and shouting "Sieg Heil", and a huge pile of books that had been set on fire. The set looked spooky and disturbingly real. Walk around the row of houses in the middle of the Untermarkt.
Can you hear the rattle of the machine gun? Look up to the town hall tower. Daniel Brühl was lying on the viewing platform as sniper Fredrick Zoller, firing at the American soldiers marching across the square. Bodies lay on the ground and in the fountain. (Just dummies, of course.) The scenes are part of the newsreel propaganda film "Pride of the Nation" in the movie "Inglourious Basterds", which Quentin Tarantino had filmed in Görlitz.

The Untermarkt also served as a battlefield in "The Captain" and was transformed into a marketplace for "Goethe!", "The Reader" and "The Ox of Kulm". Wes Anderson found locations for "The Grand Budapest Hotel" in almost every street and alley around the square.

The imposing corner building on the left on the corner of Neißstraße is the former "Brauner Hirsch" inn, one of the most frequently used film locations in Görlitz. Around 30 film sets are still visible in the building, from the filming of "Grand Budapest Hotel", "Goethe!", "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" and "The Young Karl Marx". The "Braune Hirsch" has already portrayed many things: Seville, Paris, Budapest, Frankfurt, Wetzlar - and even Görlitz for the crime series "Wolfsland". On Neißstraße, designed film showcases offer an insight into the "original" prison cell from "Goethe!", Agatha's bakery ("Grand Budapest Hotel"), information on film history and the house at Untermarkt 26. You can find out more about this exciting house on a guided tour of the location.

Directly opposite, on the other corner of Neißstraße, is the baroque house at Neißstraße 30, which houses the book room of the Oberlausitzische Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, built in 1807. The library of the Francke Foundations in Halle and British college libraries served as a model for the scenery library. In "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", the historic library hall serves as the "Secret Library" and in the mystery series "Oderbruch", Kai Kring researches vampires. You can visit the historic library room during the museum's opening hours and on a guided tour.

The building at the corner of Untermarkt 1 and Weberstraße, now 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 out of the third window from the right in the upper row and landed on a larger-than-life statue in the middle of the lower market square. For the filming, the square and entire streets of the historic old town were transported back to 19th century Paris by set builders and prop masters.

If you walk along Weberstraße, you will pass through the "Berlin Barn Quarter" in the series "The House of Dreams". From Handwerk to Elisabethstraße, traders, stores, passers-by and beggars bustled about. 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. You will see a wall on the right-hand side and the words "WÄHLT THÄLMANN!" around the corner. This is not a political statement, but a remnant from the filming of the GDR TV two-parter "Ernst Thälmann" from 1984. In the film "Grand Budapest Hotel", the wall forms the border of the fictitious cemetery "OLD LUTZ CEMETERY", which you enter through the small door. The existing lettering was painted over for this purpose. The paint adhered so well that a special team from Berlin had to arrive months later to restore it to its original state at the request of the Görlitz city council. Right opposite you can see a beautiful merchant's villa at Bergstraße 1. In 2013 it was still unrenovated. Wes Anderson contacted the owners and filmed here one day with Ralph Fiennes and Tony Revolori for "Grand Budapest Hotel".

In the film "The Reader", Ralph Fiennes walks along the mountain road, which was still paved with cobblestones at the time. If you look down the street, you will see the wasteland of the former VEB Kondensatorenwerk Görlitz. Filming also took place here several times, including for Wes Anderson's "Grand Budapest Hotel" and episode 6 "Heimsuchung" of the ARD crime series "Wolfsland".

Return to Elisabethstraße and turn left into Krischelstraße, which will take you to the fish market. You are already at the next film set here. The square in the direction of Klosterstraße was used for "The House of Dreams". In "The School of Magical Beasts 3", Mr. Mortimer Morrison rattles along the street in his red omnibus late at night. The large school building with the passageways on the left-hand side of the square was used for filming the movie "The Reader".

Use Schwarze Gasse to get to Brüderstraße. Near the Schönhof, the striking corner building with the red and gray façade and the stag's head on the bay window, was the small kiosk where bellboy Zero bought the newspaper in the film "Grand Budapset Hotel". Just a few steps and you have reached the Görlitz Information Center again.

Our overview map "Welcome to Görliwood®!" - available at the Görlitz Information Center, city map of Görlitz, small backpack and a small refreshment for on the way

Information on how to get to Görlitz can be found at: www.goerlitz.de/Anreise.html

From the train station, take streetcar line 1 or 2 to the Demianiplatz stop, then walk across Marienplatz and Obermarkt for about 5 minutes in the direction of the old town. The Görlitz Information Center is located at the end of the Obermarkt next to the Heroldbrunnen fountain. Further information is available at: https://www.goerlitztakt.de/de/

You can find more information at: www.goerlitz.de/Goerliwood

Explore Görliwood® individually with the SmartGuide app, take part in the "Film ab!" tour or book a "Film" group tour. If you would like to discover even more film locations, then take our second tour: a walk through Görliwood.

We recommend sturdy shoes, as the tour runs partly over historic cobblestones.

The overview map "Welcome to Görliwood®!" provides additional information. You can obtain it from the Görlitz Information Office. You can also find detailed information about Görliwood on the website.