THURSDAY, JULY 11
Rick Steves was such a great guide through Prague, we decided to give him another try in Berlin. As we walked along the Spree River to our starting point, sunshine added to the brilliance of the impressive, geometric and futuristic architecture that dominates the river’s north side.
STARTING AT THE REICHSTAG
The Reichstag is the government building from which Hitler and his predecessors reigned. After WWII, the Reichstag was abandoned and the capital moved to Bonn. The seat of power has returned to the updated Reichstag and Berlin, a city of three million and the capital of Germany.
Berlin feels very much a city of the future, the architecture, the attitude on the street, which reminded me of NYC years ago, and a proliferation of art. Hope, energy and multicultural vitality seems to have transported Berlin to a new era of self awareness — acknowledging the horrors of WWII and moving forward.
THOUGHTS ABOUT ARCHITECTURE
My ruminations about how architecture affects a city’s psyche continued in Berlin. Unlike Prague, which is a gorgeous living museum but with slightly gloomy inhabitants, Berlin isn’t necessarily pretty (in fact, it could be argued it’s the opposite), but this city is charged with vitality. Experimental architecture and design is everywhere: apartment buildings painted in unusual yellow or other odd colors; bold geometric patterns in the construction of buildings; office buildings designed of severe angles, metal and glass. A five-story fish tank in the lobby of the Radisson is another example of having fun with expression and experimentation.
FAST HISTORY
Germany wasn’t officially a country until 1871. Before that, it was part of the Prussian empire, and before that a regional power of the Germanic people. The seat of power had always been Berlin. After the fall of the Weimer Republic (which ruled from 1918 to 1933), Hitler came to power. As we all know, he reeked havoc upon the world, causing the death of 11 million people, murdering 6 million Jews and most of the Roma and Sinti peoples. After his defeat by the Allied forces in 1945, Berlin was divided. The eastern portion went to the Soviets (Russians) and the west becoming a democracy (with support from the US and other Allied powers).
LIFE WITH A WALL
In 1989, East and West Germans broke down the wall, erected to divide them, and the city became one. Families separated since the 1950s were reunited, but the differences between life in the East and West caused friction. Those differences are gone now, as Berlin today is a seamless city.
I went to the first International Film Festival in Berlin in 1989, held on both sides of the wall, which at the time was still being hacked away. In order to move from West to East to see films, we had to drive through a guard-less Checkpoint Charlie. Upon return to West Berlin, we could see long lines of East Berliners queued to buy TVs and appliances that had been unavailable to them under Soviet rule.
Today, there is no sign of the wall. Only a small memorial on a metal fence, and at one end of Unter den Linden Strasse, near the Museum of the DDR (the old communist government in East Berlin) small stands selling fur Soviet hats, Soviet pins, and paraphernalia.
NO MEMORIALIZING OF HITLER
Where Hitler died in his bunker with Eva Braun, his wife of only hours, is a parking lot today. The Germans are loathe to memorialize Hitler; they don’t want to add fire to Neo Nazi movements. In Munich, you can’t buy Mein Kampf. It’s different in Berlin…more open, more securely liberal. But the spot that marks Hitler’s demise is a parking lot!
MEMORIAL TO THE MURDERED JEWS OF EUROPE
A most impressive memorial to the victims of WWII is the “Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.” It has two components; the above ground memorial art piece, and the documentation center underground. The above ground memorial is several acres of hilly land covered in concrete slabs that look like upright coffins.
Walking down a labyrinth of passages between the blocks, you lose your bearings as the ground falls and rises, and when you sense the relief of escape, you are more often than not met by a fence. Other shadow-like figures move between and behind the blocks as you search for a way out. This eerie, evocative memorial was designed by Peter Eisenman. Amazingly, construction didn’t start until 2003 and it wasn’t completed until 2005. That’s 70 years after the war, a testament to how hard it is for Germans to own up to this brutal chapter of human history.
We spent over an hour in the documentation center, reading the timeline of events related to the extermination plans and the stories of individuals and families murdered by the Nazis. A database, where you can look up names of those murdered, is in the last of five rooms. We are related to a Jewish family, on my mother’s side, but I don’t know the name of my grandfather’s parents. So we just looked up Koch. There were so many Kochs from Germany and France who were killed during the holocaust. What a bizarre feeling to realize we may have had relatives killed during the war but we don’t know enough of our Jewish ancestry to know if it is so.
A PRESCIENT PHILOSOPHER
In 1823, a German philosopher, poet and lyricist, Heinrich Heine wrote: “Where books are burned, in the end, people will also be burned.” These words, like others he wrote over the years, were prophetic. He also predicted Germans would be responsible for unknown horrors. One hundred years after his prophesies, in May, 1933, the infamous burning of 25,000 volumes of “anti-German books” took place in front of the State Opera House, across from Humboldt University and its library in Bebelplatz.
A small, square of thick, foggy glass in the middle of Bebelplatz remembers that day. Below ground is a room, painted white, with walls of empty bookshelves, and next to the glass view is a copper plaque with Heinrich Heine’s prescient words.
Our walking tour lasted more than five hours. We stopped when we wanted, adding time, like at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and the silent room by the Brandenburg Gate, and we ducked into a mall for a juice, and ate lunch by the Spree. The tour covered over two miles, ending in Alexanderplatz.
TIDBITS AND ODDITIES
Between the Reichstag and Alexanderplatz, we walked down Unter den Linden (under the Linden trees) and saw a Frank Gehry design inside a bank administrative building, the Art Institute building near it and the famous Hotel Adlon where Michael Jackson dangled his baby from a window.
We stopped in the Radisson to see the giant fish tank that rises five stories. There was a man inside cleaning the tank. All very strange. But another example of a city taking risks, on an adventure into the future.
Nearing Museum Island is a Neo classical war memorial with a powerful sculpture by Kathe Kollwitz.
MUSEUM ISLAND AND LUSTGARTEN
After crossing the bridge onto Museum Island, the monumental buildings — a palace, a government building and a domed Protestant church — surround the Lustgarten, a park designed for kings and used for demonstrations by Hitler. Beginning in 1841 under King Frederick William and the Prussian dynasty, these massive buildings were constructed by Karl Friedrick Schinkel, who also designed much of old Berlin. Hitler paved over the Lustgarten in 1934 so it could be used for mass rallies of up to a million people.
ADORABLE MARX AND ENGELS
Discreetly tucked into a small park are stiff, social realist statues of Marx and Engels. They are particularly likeable. Both look like nice old gentlemen.
Further up the road is Alexanderplatz, a square that has witness much change. Here East Berliners rose up against the Soviet regime. At the moment we passed through, a rapper performed for a large crowd in front of Top Shop. A market of tents was set up in the middle of the square. One man was selling mobile hotdogs (his little store wrapped over his shoulders and propped on his waist). Many people sat on the stairs around the square just taking in all the activity and people.
