Die Geschichte von Berlin!

Well this is Post 2 of the exploration of Berlin. This one might be a bit history and architecture heavy so if you are bored at any point just quit reading! :)

Saturday we met with Courtney and Derek at 11 for a free walking tour of Berlin. I really enjoy the tours with this company and definitely recommend them to anyone interested. Our guide was a German born in Portugal and raised near London who just finished his PhD in European History. He was full of information that he shared during our 3 and a half hour walking tour.

The Pariser Platz on the East side of the Brandenburg Gate (pictured left) is surrounded by foreign embassies and famous hotels, including the hotel where Michael Jackson held his son out the window. The U.S. Embassy building is quite large. The buildings all look new since the area used to be a death trap of sand, mines, observation towers, and fences up to the Iron Curtain.

The Reichstag (pictured below) is the German House of Parliament just off the Platz and was suspiciously burnt down in 1933. With a reservation, you can now tour the building and view the "heart of German Democracy" from the dome. It stands near the entrance to the Tier Garten off the busy street in which bricks mark where the wall used to stand.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (pictured right) is an interesting memorial. The location near the Reichstag was intentional so that members of Parliament will pass it on their way to work and it will serve as a daily reminder to them. A large area is covered with cold, grey, slabs of concrete at varying heights that remind you of tombstones. One can walk in between them on a hilly brick path and become disoriented and "lost" in the center. I think he said that it was an American or Canadian artist that designed the memorial which cost 27 million Euros.

We walked by the site of Hitler's former Bunker where he eventually commit suicide but the topic was not heavily discussed.

*Side note, the word Berlin has Slavic origin and means "swamp". The area is a marsh with the River Spree. Due to the land conditions, there are above-ground pipes all over the city to move water. Many have been painted pink, purple or shades of blue (pictured below).

The cold Nazi architecture of the Luftwaffe Headquarters or German Air Force is lessened by the mural painted on the side of the building with over 2000 offices. The mural (pictured right) depicts how everyone can work together.

 Here is what is left today of the Berlin Wall (pictured left). There is now a fence here to protect the wall from people coming to take pieces of it. There is a larger section of the wall at another place in the city but we did not venture that way. Ryan and I also stopped at an artistic memorial display of the wall. Sections are now covered in chewing gum. I guess you can call that art.

In my opinion, Checkpoint Charlie (pictured above) is now just a tourist trap. Near the large photos of an American soldier looking into East Berlin and a Russian soldier looking into West Berlin you can take pictures with American "soldiers" dressed like soldiers in the 70's. Everything in this area has been re-created since it was destroyed by Berliners in the 90's after the wall came down. Now there are people selling their wares on the street and asking for money in crowded intersections of tourists. I am glad we just walked through this area before taking a coffee/lunch break.


The Gendarmenmarkt (pictured left) is a plaza of the German and French Protestant Cathedrals and Konzerthaus. It is near the Bebelplatz with the Catholic Cathedral (built at a time when there were only 50 Catholics in the city) and Humboldt University. Famous people have studied and taught at the Humboldt University including the Brothers Grimm, Marx, and Einstein. There is also a memorial below the Platz remembering when Hitler burned 20,000 books from the University. If you look at the sculptures at the top of many of the buildings pictured here, you may notice that they are black and discolored compared to the rest of the building. The sculptures were removed during World War II and stored in a salt mine. The salt has changed the material and the sculptures, although saved from destruction, were never returned to their original color. They stand out on top of the rebuilt buildings as a reminder of the past.

The Neue Wache (pictured right) memorial has changed meaning numerous times in the past. Today it is the Main German Memorial to the Victims of War and Tyranny. There is a large circular opening in the roof over the statue and when it is raining or snowing the wetness creates tears on the woman's face. There is a soldier and victim of a concentration camp buried beneath the Memorial.

 


Every major city in Germany has a TV tower (pictured below behind the church)!

What a tour!