Saturday and Sunday in Berlin

Saturday I woke up early and had breakfast with people from Ecuador and Peru who were studying in Barcelona and had come to Berlin for the weekend – this is when I realized how international my life had become.

The Three Little Pigs hostel is part of the New Berlin Tours. New Berlin (or New whatever city you happen to be staying in) is a really great program where guide pick people up from the hostels and take them to a central meeting spot. From the meeting spot there are free tours around the city in either Spanish or English. It’s a three and half hour walking tour and pretty darn amazing. The program believes everyone deserves a tour of the city regardless of their financial status so the tour guides only work on tips.

My tour guide, Colin, was from Scotland and excellent at his job. He was able to be funny at times and somber at others which is completely appropriate for the city of Berlin.

We started at the Brandenburg Gate where I learned about the history of the statue on top of the gate. It was first a symbol of peace with the goddess on top holding an olive branch. When Napoleon conquered Berlin he took the statue back to France with him as a spoil of war. Once the Germans got her back they changed the olive branch to a spear, tilted her head so she’s looking at the French Embassy, and changed her name to Victoria, making her the goddess of victory. To add insult to injury the Germans renamed the square “Pariser Platz” – and who says those Germans don’t have a sense of humor?

From the Brandenburg Gate we headed to the Reichstag, the German Parliament Building, where I learned how the building was set on fire under suspicious circumstances during Hitler’s early reign. We also saw the memorial to the politicians who had been killed by the Nazis.

We walked through the Tiergarten (a large park) to the Jewish Memorial. This time instead of just wandering around I was able to hear analysis of the blocks and learned how the memorial was purposely left open to interpretation. They varying sizes of the blocks from flat to 2.6 meters high (8.5 feet) can represent a graveyard, the rise and fall of anti-Semitism, the train cars that took the Jews away, or anything else. My initial impression was of a mountain. We took some time at the memorial for reflection.

After the memorial we moved to the spot where Hitler’s secret bunker (obviously not so secret anymore). This is the place where Hitler and his wife, Eva, committed suicide. The actual bunker is not open and probably will never be open for visitors. The German government is afraid that the neo-Nazis or a similar group will turn it into a shrine or rallying point. Today there is just a sign over the spot marking it.

From the bunker we moved on to the last Nazi building standing. This building is massive, dark, and designed to make people feel insignificant. It was originally used as Luftwaffe Headquarters by the Nazis. When the communists took over it became their Ministry of Ministries (they approved of the looking, dark architecture). During the communist era a huge mural was painted on the side of building showing the joys of communism. Today the mural is still there and mirroring it is a memorial to those who protested communism in the East Germany the exact same size of the mural. It is very thought provoking. Today the building the is German tax building – clearly this building will always be used for evil purposes.

Next we looked at a section of the Berlin Wall that was next to the evil building and learned that there were actually two walls – an inner and an outer wall with the “death strip” in between them. The walls had sewage pipe along the top which was apparently more effective than barbed wife for deterring people from escaping. The death strip had sand or gravel to slow people down, land mines, and armed guard towers every 150 meters that held guards with shoot-to-kill orders. Friendly place to say the least.

We moved on to Checkpoint Charlie again and heard about a couple of successful escape stories, but also the story of a young man who bled to death in the death strip. He was shot by the communists and the people on the West Berliners were unable to reach him.

After a brief lunch we headed to Gendarmenmarkt to see the French Cathedral, the German Cathedal, the Konzerthaus (Concert Hall), and a statue of Schiller, the guy who wrote lyrics to Ode to Joy. It was lovely.

From there we walked to Bebelplatz where the Nazis burned over 20,000 books from the Humboldt University library. They burned books by Jewish, Gypsy, homosexuals as well as any books that had ideas that the Nazis considered inflammatory. This is where I cried. I cannot imagine people suppressing ideas and knowledge just because it is contradictory to what they believe. There is a memorial to the books, some of them centuries old and completely irreplaceable. There is also a plaque with an 1820 quote from Heinrich Heine, “Where they burn books, they also burn people”. It was very moving for me.

We passed by Humboldt University and headed to Neue Wache, the memorial to all those killed in the name of fascism and tyranny which is also moving. Inside the building there is a pieta, a mother holding her dying son by artist Käthe Kollwitz.

The last stop on our tour was the Museum Island – obviously lots of museums there and the Berlin Cathedral. Colin, the tour guide, told us the dramatic story of how the Berlin Wall came down and pointed out his favorite museum. The group split up and I ended up going up and down a street fair, doing some shopping. It was really nice just to wander a little bit.

After picking out some Christmas gifts I went to the German History Museum which was really cool. There were lots of early Catholic artifacts that featured women on them which was sort of unusual, but I loved looking and learning.

I decided to make my way to the East Side Gallery which is part of the Berlin Wall that has political art painted on the sides. It took me a little while to get there and by the time I did it was getting dark, threatening to rain, and not in the best area of town, so I looked briefly then decided I would move on to the Hard Rock Café of the far, far side of town.

Getting to the Hard Rock Café turned out to be quite the adventure. First it involved me figuring out Berlin’s public transportation system which is never a strong point for me. I managed to get off at the right stop, but took a wrong turn and ended up in Berlin’s Red Light District. Managed to find my from there to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and another street fair, which was very interesting, but not the Hard Rock Café. After asking about 4 times for directions I managed to get there and was so happy to be there. I got an American Cheeseburger, onion rings, and a virgin daiquiri. It was delightful. After that I got my Berlin Hard Rock Café souvenir shirt and very happily headed back to my hostel. It was about 10:30 by the time I got back there and I collapsed from tiredness.


Sunday was a quieter day. I woke up late and went back to see the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church during the day. The KWMC is a church that was bombed during World War II and never rebuilt. Instead it was preserved as a memorial to loss. I picked the one day of the week to go when it was closed, but it was very pretty look at from the outside and I am glad I got to see it.

My next big adventure was getting home – it involved four trains and took about 6 hours. By the time I got home to Vegesack, my little area of Bremen, I was completely exhausted.

Over all I have some great memories of Berlin and am so impressed by the town. I learned so much and was overwhelmed by the amount of history crammed into one town. I’d like to go back some day.

Much love you all.
Ebits


PS - I took over a hundred pictures and the best ones you can see by clicking these links:


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059239&l=64870&id=164002077

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059286&l=3da9c&id=164002077