A few weeks ago, we were lucky enough to go to Berlin. We had a very early morning flight on Saturday and arrived to cold and rain. But we made the most of it and did a walking tour of the city instead. On Sunday, we did a similar tour but this time on bikes...and the weather even cooperated with us a bit more.
One of the prettier buildings is the Reichstag, where the German Parliment sits. We did the walk to the top and were able to get some good veiws of the city. The building was set on fire when Hitler took office so he had moved his government during his tenure. People believe that Hitler may have caused the fire as he always hated the building but that has never been proven. The government buildings surrounding the Reichstag are now made of glass so that Germeny has a more transparent government. Another beautiful site was the Bradenburg Tor which was where the main processions through the city took place and one of the more famous people to go through the Gate was Napoleon. Another famous face in that plaza a few years ago was Michael Jackson - you can see the hotel where he hung his baby, Blanket just across the way.
Berlin is home to many WWII and Hitler sites. We saw Hitler's bunker where he spent the last few weeks of his life. Once he heard the Russians were coming, he decided to marry his long-time mistress and then as any loving husband would do, gave her a cyanide pill then took one himself. He instructed his guards to burn his body beyond recognition so that he would not be dragged through the streets the way the Italians dragged Mussolini. The only way they were able to identify his body were through dental records. The area is now filled with condos and a parking lot but it is definitely a main attraction. We also saw where his old office was which ironically enough, is now a Chinese restaurant.
One of the interesting things we found is that the Berliners seem to want to make right with the past but not forget it happened. There were two very moving tributes to the Holocaust. One is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. It is made up of 2700 concrete blocks that almost resemble a cemetary. The further you walk in to the memorial, the more clausterphobic you feel. The artist never said what it represents and leaves it open for interpretation. Berlin is very big into graffiti so the artist had a company put on anti-graffiti paint over the blocks. The media discovered that this was the same company that provided the Nazis with the lethal ingredient which was used in the gas chambers. Embarrassed, the company ended up doing it for free and issued a public apology in the newspaper. It is also controversial in that it does not commemorate the other groups of people who were killed in the concentration camps so Berlin is said to be making memorials to all the other groups killed. The other moving site was Babelplatz. In 1933, the Nazis burned 20,000 books written by Jewish or homosexual authors at the site. The site looks down into a basement with empty bookshelves that can hold 20,000 books. There is a plague beside it that has a quote from 1820 in reference to the Spanish Civil War but was very foreboding and chilling. It reads, "Where they burn books, they will also burn bodies in the end". As a tribute to this event, Hombolt University across the street, holds a book fair every Sunday selling books by these and other authors.
As facinating as the WWII history is, neither of us could get over that only 30 years ago there was a wall that divided the city which is still very prevelant today. We heard horrible stories that the Berlin Wall literally went up over night (it actually went up in 4 stages - the first being barbed wire and the last being 2 huge blocks of concrete. The Russians moved in and began construction overnight.) and if your friend or loved one woke up on the other side of Berlin the morning after the wall was erected, you would not see them again until the wall went down (the wall was up from 1961-1989). We also heard amazing survival stories. One of the most unbelievable ones was of a man who wrote a letter to his friend telling her to lose as much weight as she could. He drove across the border, made a whole in his car seat, put her bony frame in, sewed the seat back together and drove back across the border passing inspection. The desperation of the people was something you could literally feel. We also saw Checkpoint Charlie which now has 2 guys acting as American guards...although rumor has it this is only their day job and they are actually strippers by night!
Overall this was one of the most interesting cities we've been to. The city is haunting with all of its horrible history but we were so impressed that they haven't forgotten and they are still making up for what their ancestors did. It is not the most aesthetic city we've been to but certianly one of the more intriguing places we've ever visited and we definitely would like to go back.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/sharing/shareRedirectSwitchBoard.jsp?token=215894378309%3A659571775&sourceId=533754321803&cm_mmc=eMail-_-Share-_-Photos-_-Sharee
