Visited in 2014 with Katia during a weekend trip to Berlin. It was top of the list for Katia as she had a love for abandoned theme parks. We landed in Germany and drove to Spreepark straight away. It was so busy walking around the park but the first thing I noticed was how lovely the surrounding woodland was. It seemed everyone had an interest in the place, from people looking through the fence and pointing at old parts of the park to people obviously trying to get in themselves.
We were a bit more tactful. We spotted an entry point and walked around until there was an opportunity. Once in we headed straight to the roller coaster “cat face” and spent about 30 minutes taking photos of it before we got too complacent and security came by and asked us to leave. Walking us to the gate we chatted with some girls that had also been caught and were being shown out too. The security said that they had shown 30+ people out that day.
Desperate to see the rest of the park, we returned a couple of days later, managed to avoid security and pretty much covered the whole site before we left of our own accord.
Originally known as Kulturpark Planterwald, Spreepark, situated next to the river Spree, attracted 1.5 million people a year. The park gradually changed to to a western style park and people paid a fee to use all the rides, previously people would pay for each ride individually. Over time the area around the Ferris wheel was changed into a lake and a western town and an English village was added.
In 1999, with major debts and falling visitor numbers the park suffered up until its closure in 2001 with only 400,000 people visiting. In 2004 Norbert Witte who owned Spreepark was sentenced to 7 years in jail for attempting to smuggle 180 kg of cocaine to the value of £14 million from Peru to Germany in the masts of the Fliegender Teppich (Flying Carpet) ride. In 2011 the Hollywood film Hanna was filmed on location.
