We have really enjoyed Berlin and have learned and experienced a lot here. Saying that the city is filled with historical significance is an understatement: Berlin was the epicenter of most of the world’s conflicts of the 20th century, and a lot of events before that, too. It becomes evident that, tragically, the resolution of one (disastrous) conflict set the stage for another (disastrous) conflict… etc.
The first impression of the city is that it is HUGE. The city itself is huge, the buildings are huge, even the roads and train station are huge; the sheer amount of information and number of historical sites (and their importance) is overwhelming. We traipsed all over the city for 5 days and we saw many (not all) of the historical sites, and we saw about 6 of the 158 museums – which was still an overwhelming amount to digest.
The next impression was how destructive WWII was in Berlin; every building not built or restored since 1945 has bullet holes and shell damage; almost all buildings have had extensive re-building done. We also saw some of this in Ashauffenburg & Wurzburg, but it is even more extreme in Berlin. (One note: it is frustrating to learn that Germany had clearly lost the war by January 1945, but Hitler refused to surrender for 4 more months – the period of most bombing destruction. Also, the Nazis held many massacres and death marches during these 4 months that killed thousands of concentration camp victims, who may have otherwise survived the Holocaust.) But I digress…
We did different tours/exhibits on different days, so I am organizing this blog into 4 sections: (1) general Berlin/around the city; (2) The Third Reich and WWII; (3) Splitting up Berlin/Berlin Wall, Communism; (4) Summary & General impression of Berlin.
(BTW, this is Megan, and I am seriously breaking my previous promise of brevity… Doh. I’m getting dangerously close to “novel” length, and nobody wants that unless there are some lusty vampires. Oh well.)
- Reichstag
Also an example of a big building with an eventful past. It housed the parliament of the German empire from 1894 to 1933. It was damaged in a fire (in 1933), further damaged by WWII bombing, attacked by the Red Army, and restored in 1990.
- Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church (known as Berliner Dom)
This is a huge protestant church built in 1905; the congregation has been around since 1451, in smaller buildings. It’s huge: 381 feet tall, 374 feet long. It has statues of major reformers: Calvin, Luther, and Zwingli.
We went up to the dome and looked over the city.
Exterior:
Interior:
- Museum Island
An example of the many impressive buildings and museums:
- Pergamonmuseum
This museum was built from 1910-1930, constructed for the collection, reconstruction, and display of impressive walls & buildings from Pergamon (Turkey). Like many relocated exhibits, whether these were collected legitimately is questionable. I think we might add another destination to our list this year: Pergamon (looks like it's to the north of current-day Bergama, Turkey)
These walls are from Pergamon, about 100 B.C:
Ishtar Gate – from Babylon, built 575 B.C, King Nebuchadnezzar II
((2) The Third Reich & World War II
- We took a bike tour of the city of the Third Reigh & WWII. It was a 7-hour bike tour with a “history buff” guide named Kate, who focuses on the human/social aspect of the period. She explained how the dismal economic/international environment following WWI allowed Hitler to come to power, how he made himself a dictator (Germany was a democracy when he entered government.) In short, he was bad man who did a lot of manipulating and political maneuvering (including dissolving parliament) to gain power. He did encounter opposition/resistance, but he either executed them on the spot or put them into “protective custody” – concentration camps. Once he had power, he started persecution against the people that he hated – and he hated a lot of people.
The Luftwaffe building is the only complete Nazi building still standing (big building in back). The remains of the SS Headquarters are below street level, in the foreground in front of the Berlin Wall
o Humboldt University library/square, site of the 1933 book burning
Humboldt University:
Vince & I on bikes: Square across the street from Humboltd University - where book burning happened & is memorialized – Opera House and Church (dome) are in background
o Separate Holocaust monuments to the different groups murdered:
§ (A note about the monuments, which are surrounded by controversy: There are separate monuments to the different ethnic/religious groups that were murdered. On one hand, it may seem fitting to recognize each group with its own monument, as the holocaust was devastating to each. On the other hand, separating people into specific groups is not ideal in most cases, and is at the core of the Holocaust in the first place. Some think that there should have been one monument to all of the victims of the Holocaust, because people are people, and categorizing them again defeats the purpose.) But the memorials are built/being built (since 1990), and that is the most important thing.
§ Monument to the 6 million Jews murdered - photo does't capture the size (and really powerful museum underground, beneath the monument)
o Site where the “Valkyrie” assassination plot was planned, and where von Stauffenburg and his partners were shot. (There we 54 unsuccessful assassination attempts on Hitler’s life). Following the Valkyrie attempt, Hitler killed 5,000 people in retaliation, many of them innocent family & friends of the attempted assassins.
o Jewish quarter, site of the only successful demonstration against Nazi persecution (these protesting people were able to get Hitler to release Jewish men, because shooting non-Jewish German women would have been a PR nightmare). All other demonstrations in Berlin ended disastrously for the protesters.
Jewish synagogue in the Jewish quarter, near the protest site (reconstructed).
- “Checkpoint Charlie” museum focuses on the events from 1945 to 1989. Needless to say, the Communist party was extremely oppressive – it’s a bad sign when you have to build a 12-foot wall with barbed wire to keep your own citizens in - - and people still risk their lives over “deathstrips” to get to the other side.
- Eastside Gallery:
After the unification of Germany, one section of the wall has been memorialized with murals by artists. Most murals portray the darkness of the previous era, and/or the message of freedom for the present and future.
((4) Summary & General impression of Berlin
I think we were expecting Berlin to be really big and full of history, but we had No Idea.
In a lot of ways, it is similar to other large European international cities – but with a heavier past than some others - or maybe the heaviest events are more recent here. It seems that Berliners are acutely aware of the past, and (since 1990) the city/country realizes the importance of recognizing and memorializing its past.
Today, Berlin seems to be a diverse, tolerant place with a lot of culture and creativity. It also has great food: We enjoyed Vietnamese, Turkish, Thai, and Italian food, along with some traditional German cuisine – and Berlin’s own delicious “CurryWurst,” – there’s a stand in every neighborhood. We also can’t say enough about the public transportation, public parks, and beer gardens.
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