Germany: Battered and Bustling Berlin

December 2007, by Tom

After a comfortable and relaxing six hour train ride from Prague we arrived in Berlin. An S-bahn followed by the U-bahn and we had reached our hostel.

I had very few preconceptions of Berlin - I had read about very little and hadn't expected it to be one of our destinations for this year. This is a good way to approach a city such as Berlin. With such a unique and devastating background and a lot of which is so recent, there is a lot to try and take in and understand.

We started our sight seeing the following morning with a free walking tour of the city. We started in the former Soviet sector and were taken past a few of the structures which mostly survived WWII - the Pergamon museum and the Berlin Cathedral which they are still trying to complete (they are saving up to be able to place the gold cross on its top). Both buildings have patches in various places covering up bullet holes caused during the Soviet invasion and it's suddenly apparent that this was a place of conflict.

With the Soviets attacking from the ground and the other allied forces bombing by night, most of Berlin was in ruins by the end of the war. It always saddens me thinking of how many historic and irreplaceable buildings are destroyed during wartime. It has come a long way since then however, with a communist inspired look here and there of dreary grey concrete blocks and a bunch of new classier looking buildings it's coming back to life nicely.

The walking tour took us through the cold and wet streets past the German History Museum, past the site of the Nazi book burning - which is now a memorial with a glass window in the pavement looking into an empty library large enough to house every burnt book. We were taken past a piece of the Berlin wall left standing - very chilling and also incredible the lengths people took to try and cross from east to west. Many people died when trying to cross the "death strip" only to be shot by the Soviet army.

Eventually we reached Check Point Charlie. Once the main (only?) border crossing from East to West Berlin, now a tourist trap where you can get a photo taken with or your passport stamped (and invalidated) by actors wearing an American or Soviet uniform.

The last leg of the tour was to pass over Hitlers Bunker where he spent the final months of his life hiding, which is now just a car park, and onto the final stop on the walking tour - the Berlin Holocaust Memorial. Designed by an American, the memorial is made up of 2,711 plain gray stone slabs all at varying heights. Wandering thorough the memorial gives you a feeling of isolation and aloneness. A very unique and well designed memorial. It would be an impossible task to create something to scale with what happened in the war but this is definitely a memorable memorial and serves its purpose well. The controversial thing is that each concrete slab is coated with a chemical to prevent graffiti artists from leaving their mark. Why is it controversial? Because this chemical is made by Degussa, whose parent company were makers of the Zyklon B gas used in the gas chambers during the war.

The following day we returned to the center of Berlin and spent a couple of hours at the German History Museum. A fantastic and massive undertaking. Unfortunately we spent too long on the early history without realising that to read everything, you would need to spend a couple of days here. We were tired by the time we reached WWI and WWII but managed to take in some bits and pieces. The rest of the day we wandered through the Christmas Markets and ate some tasty sausage as well as some deep fried potato stuff which came with apple sauce. Rather tasty. On our way back to the hostel, we wandered through the streets filled with Christmas lights. Amazing! Every tree was coated in lights, the most impressive Christmas lights we've seen yet.

Our last morning in Berlin was an early start so we could reach the Reichstag parliament building with hopefully a small queue to walk up the glass spiral staircase. We were in luck. With less than a 30 minute wait, we were walking our way to the top of the immense glass structure. Very cool. It's designed in such a way so that you can see underneath you the German parliament at work. No more will the people be lied to by it's government.

With such a massive amount to see and do in Berlin, we were unable to cover it all in three days so we will one day return. For now though, it's off to catch a train east to catch up with Nick in Warsaw. Wish I had a few more jerseys with me ...

T
A colourful assortment of buildings - a change from the dreary grey

A colourful assortment of buildings - a change from the dreary grey

A section of the Berlin Wall still standing

A section of the Berlin Wall still standing

Inside the memorial you felt very isolated

Inside the memorial you felt very isolated

The Berlin cathedral from a far

The Berlin cathedral from a far

Tom hanging in a dried up fountain

Tom hanging in a dried up fountain