The Tourists' Berlin

On Wednesdsay I went on a walking tour with a group of other English speaking tourists. Our guide was a young fellow named Edo, who came to Berlin from Amsterdam for six months to finish his masters degree. That was six years ago. He is now married with a small child and working on his PhD in German History. He had some very entertaining stories. I am sure some of them were even based, at some point, on fact.

The Berlin Wall is a part of Berlin history that no doubt everyone has heard of. The part that remains is now an outdoor museum, protected from 'wall-peckers' or those who want a piece of the wall, by a mesh fence. Rather ironic that a fence that once kept people in, is now fenced to keep people out.

Checkpoint Charlie was the crossing point between the American zone in West Berlin into East Berlin and was probably the most famous of all the checkpoints which kept the citizens of East Germany safe from western influnces.

The story goes that among the several escapes, was one young fellow who crossed through Checkpoint Charlie everyday from the west to attend university in the east. He fell in love with a fellow student and wanted to help her defect to the west. He had noticed that the movable arm of the barrier was quite a distance from the ground and started to make his plans. He rented a (I'm sketchy on the name of the car; an Austin or a Cooper) Sprite and drove across into East Berlin. He then loaded his future wife and her mother into the car and went racing back through the barrier, driving right underneath the arm. The successful defection became quite famous and was heard by a student in Brazil who was also in love with a woman in East Berlin. He apparently travelled to Germany and managed to rent the exact same car (remember, this is the story I was told) and rescued his wife-to-be in the exact same manner. Apparently the East German security forces lowered the height of the barrier after that.

The Reich Air Ministry Building occupies a full city block. The Nazis built it to house the operations of the Luftwaffe and it was the command center for the German Air Force during the war. Even tho' the buildings across the street were destroyed by Allied bombers, this building somehow remained untouched.

After the war, it became the 'Ministry of Ministries' for the East German government. It now houses the German Ministry of Finance and looks much like it did when it was built, except the swastikas have been removed.

Anhalter Bahnhof used to be one of the busiest train stations. It is about 1/4 of the size it was before it was bombed. The entrance to the S-bahn can now be found about 250 meters away. Our hotel was about a block from here. It was nice and central. Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church

Deutscher Dom

Brandenburger Tor The Brandenburg Gate now stands as a symbol of the unified Germany. Originally tho' this was the gate used by Prussian royalty when they left and entered the city. At that time the city was walled to keep the citizens safe from those outside, not to prevent them from leaving.

The gate is topped by a quadriga that was originally a symbol of peace and was at one time taken home by Napoleon as a souvenier after one of his trips to Berlin. This so outraged the Prussians that when they next went to visit Napoleon, they brought it back again. (This was obviously before the travel companies started charging for oversize and overweight luggage.) The Prussians also made some changes to the statue. They added an iron cross to stand for victory over the French. They also re-named the square the quadriga overlooks to Pariser Platz, all done in a very sarcastic manner.

After the re-unification, France was looking for a place to build its embassy. They thought Pariser Platz would be perfect, unaware of the history of the name.

The American and Russian Embassies are across the street.

Memorial to Burned Books (if this picture doesn't enlarge, there is a better one on the link)
A quote by Heinrich Heine "Where they burn books, they will ultimately also burn people." is engraved on a plaque near the memorial. It was written 99 years before the Nazi book burning. Some books authored by Heine were some of those chosen to be burned.

The Victory Column

The Reichstag. Germany's parliament. The cupola in the center was added after the re-unification and replaced the original crystal dome.
Tiergarten, as seen from the Reichstag dome's observation deck. It was the hunting park of the Prussian nobility.

The Berlin State Opera was built in 1742, destroyed by Allied bombs in 1941. It was re-built for its 200th anniversary in 1942 and then bombed again in 1945 giving it the dubious honour of being one of the few buildings in Berlin to be destroyed twice.

Humboldt University was attended such by such notables as Karl Marx, Arthur Schopenhauer, Albert Einstein, and many others that I am too uncultured to recognize.

Neue Wache houses the National War Memorial or the Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Victims of War and Tyranny. I think most people use the shorter name. The statue is of a woman cradling the body of her dead son. The artist was a woman who lost a son in WWI and a grandson in WWII.

Deutsches Historisches Museum is housed in the former Prussian amoury building. Our guide thought it was probably the only pink armoury in the world.

Schlossbrücke connects Museum Island to Unter den Linden.

Berliner Dom

Alte Nationalgalerie is undergoing some restoration work. The scarring on the columns are bullet holes. One lady insisted to the guide that they were the result of 'rockworms', not bullets. I'd like to have been a fly-on-the-wall in her school.

The Altes Museum is an art museum on Museum Island. It has a neon banner across the front reading 'All Art Has Been Contemporary'. The large bowl in front of the museum was intended to be in the interior but the builders either didn't know about it of forgot it was coming, because by the time the bowl was completed, there was no way to get it inside. So they built a cover for it and left it where it was.

Both the bowl and the building's columns also have had a serious rockworm infestation.

This is a TV tower located in the former East Berlin. When the communists took over, all churches were required to remove the crosses from their establishments. After the tower was built they noticed that on sunny days, as is wont to happen, there is a 'cross' on the spherical surface of the tower. They arrested and interogated the architecht to find out if he had secret Christian sympathies and then tried to paint the sphere to eliminate the cross. Nothing worked. Those communists should have spent more time paying attention in science class.

Hackescher Markt. One of the two remaining Bahnhof stations build before the war. Back in those days, buildings could obviously be both functional and attractive.

Also greatly appreciated was the sunny day I had for the tour.