A charming Charlottenburg bookshop with a great selection of English titles and a warm, old school vibe…

Marga Schoeller Bookstore

Not many bookstores can say they’ve been in operation for over eight decades, especially in a city as historically turbulent as Berlin – but Marga Schoeller’s can.

Opened in 1929 by the eponymous Frau Schoeller, the shop originally specialised in European literature and theatre works. Schoeller managed to stay open during the National Socialist years despite refusing to sell Nazi literature and – even more impressively – sold books banned by the Nazis by hiding them deep in the basement.

Once the war was over Schoeller’s became the first bookshop awarded a license to sell English books, and quickly became a focal point for West Berlin’s burgeoning literary scene, attracting esteemed international writers like Beckett, Hesse, Mann, Eliot, Auden and the members of Hans Werner Richter’s famed Gruppe 47.

Originally located on Ku’damm, the shop relocated in 1974 to the
smaller, charming and perhaps more apposite Knesebeckstrasse, whose nearby
streets resonate with the names of philosophers, writers and poets (Schillerstrasse, Goethestrasse, Kantstrasse, Leibnizstrasse…).

Though Schoeller passed away in ’78, her son and colleagues have continued her good work. The shop still sells mostly German-language books, but still maintains one of the best English book selections in Berlin, located in an alcove on the left as you enter.

Marga Schoeller Bookstore

Here you’ll find a considered selection of books on poetry, theater, philosophy as well as fiction, history, biographies and plenty of tomes about Berlin and Germany. There’s also some kid’s books in English and several reading events (German and English) per year.

Best of all, staff are friendly, well informed and speak good English – in fact some of them are English. You may well overhear one of them calling a regular customer on the phone to let them know a new book has come in that they might enjoy. Far from an exercise in cynical telesales, this is the kind of old school personalised service Schoeller’s excels at. It makes online shopping feel like the sterile experience it is…

Marga Schoeller Bücherstube
Knesebeckstraße 33
10623 Berlin, Charlottenburg
Tel: 030 8 81 11 12/22
Open: Mon-Wed 9.30-19; Thu-Fri 9.30-20; Sat 9.30-18

About The Author

Paul Sullivan is a Berlin-based writer & travel photographer and the founder of Slow Travel Berlin. You can check out his personal website here and some of his photography galleries here.

Bookmark to: