 |
| Reichstag restored (wikipedia photo) |
Since it
was founded in 500 AD by Lithuanian shepherds, the town they called Berlin (Slavic for "swampy
place") has been many things: divided city of the Cold War ...
 |
| Topography of Terror: Part of Berlin wall, old Gestapo cells below, Luftwaffe HQ behind |
center of Nazi
terror ...
 |
| Total War...! |
capital of Prussia ...
 |
| Friedrich the Great of Prussia |
They say it was one of the busiest commercial and cultural
cities in 18th and 19th century Europe. It was also a fascinating place to celebrate 34 years of marriage this past October 1.
 |
| Anniversary dinner at Lokal ... |
We found ourselves in Berlin because Brad had a certificate (through credit card points), which had to be
redeemed in October for three nights at a Ritz-Carlton hotel. Berlin happens to
have a really nice Ritz. We got friendly with one of the doormen, Phil Knapp (originally from South Carolina and raised in Flint, Michigan) who was stationed in Berlin and stayed. He gave us luggage tags when we were leaving, (too
bougie to keep using, right?) …
 |
| Phil on left ... |
Almost as soon as we arrived, we started to wish we
could stay longer but we discovered that Air Berlin had just
declared bankruptcy and would not reschedule our flight, not to mention that an
actual paid night at the Ritz was too rich for us. But here are my (lengthy!) impressions of Berlin.
Food
Our hotel
was on the former East Berlin side of town, in between the inner and outer
walls of communist times. This area was in the center of old Berlin, and the Soviets razed what was left after the Allied bombing to create the ‘death
strip” between the walls. (Many East Berliners died there in escape attempts.) Except for small preserved portions, all that's left of the outer wall is this line of cobble stones that follows its path ...
 |
| Berlin Wall 1961-1989 |
German reunification occurred only in 1990, so all the nearby building are modern,
especially the Sony Center across the street from the hotel.
 |
| Sony Center courtyard "roof" |
One of the towers
there preserves at its base (behind thick sheets of modern glass) some portions
of the Esplanade Hotel’s ground floor that survived the 1945 bombing.
Throughout the rest of central Berlin most buildings are modern as well, with
the occasional odd 18th or 19th century survivor wedged in between. An
unexpected harmony exists on the boulevards, though, because all the facades,
new and old, are in the same plane and the heights of the new buildings are uniform with the old.
 |
| Condo building going up near Checkpoint Charlie ... |
Although there are a few exceptions (e.g., some of the highrises around Sony Center), building heights have always had a natural limit in Berlin because its swampy land can’t support tall structures. There is a dramatic-looking system of colorful drainage pipes throughout the city.
 |
| High rises near hotel ... |
 |
| Drainage pipes like these run everywhere ... |
 |
| Soviet-era TV Tower, Brandenburg Gate, etc. |
 |
| Mercedes showroom |
 |
| On the river (TV Tower in back) |
Berlin had a fun, wacky kind of vibe, a case of "I laugh ere I weep" perhaps?
Sunday
Tour
We took a
tour with Context Travel (we can't
recommend them enough for insightful tours in cities around the world), and I
learned much of what I now know from a charming Irishman, named Finn Ballard,
who has a PhD in German folklore and has lived in Berlin for many years.
With Finn, we
learned about the Brandenburg Gate, built in 1788 by Friedrich Wilheim II of
Prussia (successor to Friedrick the Great, pictured earlier) to commemorate a treaty with the English and Dutch. While we were in Berlin, the Gate was not directly accessible, blocked off for the commemoration on Tuesday of Unity Day and surrounded by food stands and amusement rides for the holiday. The Tiergarten was also largely blocked (for the parade to be held on Tuesday), so we weren't able to visit it (but I just read a good novel, In the Garden of Beasts, that featured it).
 |
| Nazi-era torch light parade through the Gate |
We also talked about the
much-later wall, which ran directly behind the Gate and was called the Anti-Fascist
Protection Rampart by the East Germans. The wall was over 140 km long and
circled West Berlin.
 |
| Checkpoint Charlie |
 |
| Another shot of Checkpoint Charlie (notice KFC and McDonalds) |
 |
| Historical photo of Checkpoint Charlie |
 |
| "To break the wall" 2006 |
 |
Portion of wall behind glass in building lobby. Graffiti at top:
"Things will be better but not good" |
After unification in 1990, there is still some lingering "Ostalgia" (nostalgia for the Soviet-era safety net).
 |
| Soviet souvenirs |
 |
| Soviet-era Trabi cars: now available for city tours ... |
But Berlin is once again Germany's capital (growing up, I knew Bonn as the West German capital). The
renovated Reichstag, where Parliament meets, has an amazing glass dome, open to
the public and overlooking the legislative floor below: a brick and mortar symbol
of transparency in government.
 |
| (photo from Wikipedia) |
We also walked through the Holocaust Memorial
(more properly, the Memorial
to the Murdered Jews of Europe). It consists of almost 3,000 coffin-shaped
pillars, some short and some towering, on an undulating field. The pillars are
already starting to crack and tilt (given the swampy ground underneath) and, as
Finn pointed out, the effect is reminiscent of the old Jewish cemetery in
Prague (a city we also visited recently).
 |
| Jewish cemetery in Prague |
In talking about the
Nazis and their philosophy, Finn mentioned a recent book, The
Kaiser’s Holocaust, which argues that German policies in South-West Africa (now
Namibia), horrible in their own right, presaged the Nazis—complete with
concentration camps and soldiers wearing brown shirts. Hermann Goring’s father
was even the colony’s first governor-general…
An interesting homage to the history of resistance by Berliners is the modernist statue of Giordano Bruno in the
Potsdamer Platz metro station. Bruno was a monk who died in 1600, burned at the
stake for heresy in Rome’s Campo dei Fiori. (It was apparently common for people to be burned at the stake naked and upside down. What a world.) A more traditional statute to him
stands in the Campo, erected in 1889 by supporters of Italian unity (and opponents of the papacy).
We also went down into a now-operational-again "ghost" station. It is one of several in the Nazi era metro line that ended up in East Berlin. The West paid the East to allow the line to continue running but, to prevent stops in the East during the Cold War, the stations were bricked up and the platforms patrolled by guards.
 |
| Nazi-era Unter den Linden ghost station (the Nazis even had their own typeface) |
 |
| Linden trees of Under den Linden replaced by Nazi stanchions for the 1936 Olympics |
Want more about this part of Berlin? Here’s a video
tour of the government quarter (which oddly has a little tour of Dublin
stuck in the middle); our own tour guide, Finn, also makes an appearance, midway
through, talking a little about the Nazis in Berlin.
German History Museum
The
history of central and eastern Europe, with its ever-changing rulers,
identities, and borders, is daunting. We resolved to learn a bit more by
visiting Berlin’s wonderful German History Museum. The permanent exhibition
covers German history to 1918 on one floor, with 1918 to present on another. I
think I left with more questions than I had before but it is a great exhibition, highly
recommended.
Yes, those Ramones. It was something
Brad had read about before we left, so we took in this little museum before our
dinner at Burgermeister. Funny and very charming (if punk rock can be charming).
 |
| Ramones Museum Berlin |
 |
| Punk stays punk |
 |
| Hey Ho Let's Go |
 |
| Songs ... |
 |
| Johnny's jacket |
Film
museum
We spent
our last day at the Deutsche Kinemathek (Museum of Film and Television) right next door in the Sony Center. Another
unexpectedly impressive and interesting place, with fascinating Marlene
Dietrich exhibit, not to mention information on crazy films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
(full movie on YouTube!) and Metropolis from
the 1920s, and groundbreaking artists like Rosa von Praunheim, an early gay rights and AIDS activist who was born in a Latvian prison under
the Nazis … (!)
 |
| Berlin movie theaters of the 1920s |
 |
| Eyes in Film exhibit in entry hall |
 |
| Films and Stars |
 |
| Marlene Dietrich in Blue Angel |
 |
| A mystery German film star |
 |
| Still from Metropolis |
 |
| Photo of actual metropolis (NYC with Bronx on the boat, I just liked it) |
 |
| Marlene with the Duke (she had affairs with everyone, including him) |
 |
| Marlene and Groucho |
 |
| To my dearest Kraut, with all my love, Papa 1934 - 1959 - always |
 |
| Her civilian noncombantant ID card used in her many USO tours |
That's all folks ...
German reunification occurred only in 1990, so all the nearby building are modern,
especially the Sony Center across the street from the hotel. 
One of the towers
there preserves at its base (behind thick sheets of modern glass) some portions
of the Esplanade Hotel’s ground floor that survived the 1945 bombing. 
An interesting homage to the history of resistance by Berliners is the modernist statue of Giordano Bruno in the
Potsdamer Platz metro station. Bruno was a monk who died in 1600, burned at the
stake for heresy in Rome’s Campo dei Fiori. (It was apparently common for people to be burned at the stake naked and upside down. What a world.) A more traditional statute to him
stands in the Campo, erected in 1889 by supporters of Italian unity (and opponents of the papacy). 
