Berlin 1

Ahhh Berlin...a city I have longed to see for so very long.  As modern German Historian, this is a city I had to see and that I felt I knew in many ways.  I knew it would not be like the other great European cities I had visited (Paris, Vienna, Rome, etc.) as so much of it had been destroyed, so I was anxious to get a feel for it.

We arrived a the beautiful new train station with its very contemporary architecture.  There is much in Berlin that is of the contemporary European style and this train station was by far the nicest I have visited. 

We were staying at a Holiday Inn Express not far from Potsdamer Platz which is the heart of the modern city in many ways.  We could easily walk to many areas and the day of our arrival was quite beautiful and sunny.  After leaving our bags in the luggage room (we had arrived early in the morning and could not yet check in), we set off to see what we could.  Now when walking in Germany, you must be careful to stay out of the bicycle path which is part of the sidewalk; Germans bike everywhere and they all have little bells to warn you that they are approaching -- and you had better move out of the way.  This was a bustling city and people were moving all about.

Interestingly, just down from our hotel we encountered an old ruin of a building and it appeared to be a train station to me and I know there are not many old ruins left here.  Sure enough it was the remnants of the train station that during WWII was used to transport people to the Theresienstadt camp.  Berlin is remarkable in that there are historical markers and explanation signs everywhere; you can walk down any street and see something that has a detailed historical sign written in at least 4 languages.   

 As we walked toward Potsdamer Platz I again consulted one of my guide books and yes this would be the place near where the old Hitler bunker had been located.  So much of my dissertation had dealt with this place and as I walked near, I could almost imagine the layouts of the subterranean rooms that I knew so well from all of my readings.   My visions of the city are mainly historical from the World War II period but they translate easily in my mind.    There are NO signs located in the region to indicate this was the bunker site, however.  The Russians first seized this area of Berlin and photographed the interior extensively and found Hitler and Eva's remains as well as captured most of those who had remained until the end with Hitler in the bunker.  They created a catalog of the last days of events and locations and then after a few years and after returning their prisoners to the site to walk through those last few days with Hitler, the Russians very deliberately destroyed it all.  They wanted to no place for people to someday gather and turn into a commemoration to Hitler.  So today it is a bustling city street.

Not far from here are preserved pieces of the Berlin Wall (another subject of my research in graduate school) and of course I had to take some pictures.  Funny the wall almost disappeared completely after it fell before Germans realized they needed to work to preserve this important part of their history. 

As we continued our walk toward the main historical center of the city, I immediately spotted the new Holocaust Memorial.  I must say I can see why there was so much discussion about it.    The memorial has an odd eerie feel with the hundreds of large rectangular gray stones that vary greatly in size and height.  There is only a small sign on the far side from where we approached that gives the name.  As you walk among the stones, you often disappear below street level and the walk is uneven.  There were many,many tour groups here and the guides were really quite eloquent in their forthrightness about what had happened in Germany during the Nazi period.  There were some tourists who sat upon the stones or were having their picture taken in front of them.  This I personally found distasteful and really disconcerting.     You cannot walk straight across the area and you can lose a feel for your direction.  There is a small museum that is underground and you enter at the far side -- near the only sign.  And this area is surrounded by large government and commercial buildings, including the US embassy as also just a stone's throw from the famous Brandenburg gate. 

As we departed this site, we moved toward the famous landmarks of Berlin, including the rebuilt Reichstag building with its huge crystal dome.  We would climb the dome the next day but the building is a site to behold and I can see how it must mean so much to Germans to see it used again after it was so heavily damaged during the war and much of the granite and limestone plundered to build other sites in the city (more on that later).   

We now walked through the Brandenburg Gate (which had been in East Berlin); they were setting up for a big street festival for the next day so there were tents and vendors all about (not good for pictures).    We were now on the famous "Unter den Linden" street (under the lime trees) that had be the governmental heart of the old German Empire and where foreign governments had placed their embassies.      I had to have a picture of the large and historical Russian/Soviet embassy with its flag flying.  All throughtout this area of Berlin, buildings have huge national flags flying above to signal the various embassies and to remind one that this city is once again the capital of a re-united Germany. 

From here we walked thourgh parts of the famous Tiergarten - a a huge park in the middle of the city that was completely destroyed during the war and so all the growth is from what was later replanted after the war.  The Berliners love this area and it was filled with folks laying in the grass, walking and of course the many bicyclists!    We also walked through this area to reach the Soviet War Memorial.  It is a massive site and the Russian soldier on top his absolutely huge!  The memorial was erected almost immediately upon the war's cessation and was built in large part from granite taken from the destroyed German Reichstag.  It was clearly meant to show and remind the Germans to whom they had lost the war.  Interestingly, the memorial ended up being in the British zone when the city was divided and the British had to protect it from West Berliners and vandalism.  At the time of German reunification the Russians gave control of it to the Germans and the German army now maintains the site!    

 There were also memorial flowes placed here although I am not sure why there  were red poppies that represent WWI on the Western Front. 

Our last stop of the evening was at the famous chocolatier Fassbender and Rauch for a great chocolate dessert and rich hot chocolate with great views of some of the poshest areas of
Berlin.     And yes our Berlin hotel was GREAT!!  Plenty of electrical outlets and the best shower and the staff were extremely helpful as were all the Germans we encountered even when they lost their game in the World Cup!