Berlin

The Brandenburger Tor/Brandenburg Gate lies at the heart of the Historic Mitte/Historic Centre of Berlin. It was the backdrop to the events of 9th November 1989 that unfolded on television screens around the world and to which several people have made reference in their comments on my previous post about the Berlin Wall. As can be seen in my photograph above, it has now been fully restored to its former glory and it is hard to imagine the concrete panels of the Wall dividing east from west, that used to run directly in front of it.

A short distance south of the Brandenburg Gate is Potsdamer Platz, which until the Second World War, was the bustling heart of the city. Post 1945, it lay in ruins and was then divided by the Wall. Since reunification of the two German states in 1990, Potsdamer Platz has been completely redeveloped and now more resembles Manhattan than a European capital city. The photograph on the left is of the Sony Centre with its spectacular steel and glass roof. Below are pictured three skyscrapers which would not look out of place on the New York skyline.

Berlin 4 — Skyscrapers at Potsdamer Platz © Ricky Yates

Berlin 5 — Holocaust Memorial © Ricky Yates

In between the Brandenburger Tor/Brandenburg Gate and Potsdamer Platz is the Denkmal für die Erdemordeten Juden Europas, usually known simply as the Holocaust Memorial. Finally opened in May 2005, after many years of debate regarding its design and construction, the 2711 sarcophagi-like columns that rise up in silence across undulating ground, commemorate the Jewish victims of the Nazi-orchestrated genocide of World War Two.

Berlin 8 — The security controlled entrance for the official opening of the memorial to Sinti & Roma victims of the Nazi regime © Ricky Yates

It is often forgotten or not even realised by many people today, that Jews were not the only victims of the Nazis. Just across the road from the Holocaust Memorial, in the edge of the Tiergarten, there is now a small memorial to Homosexuals who were also victims of the regime. And on our third day in Berlin, a new memorial, also located in the Tiergarten, commemorating Sinti and Roma victims, was officially opened by Chancellor Angela Merkel. The picture above is the nearest we could get to it due to understandable security restrictions being in place. But you can see it and read more about it, in this BBC News report.

Berlin 7 — The *Reichstag* © Ricky Yates

The reunification of Berlin has allowed the restoration of older buildings which had been in disrepair for many years. This is the Reichstag, home of the German parliament until seriously damaged by fire in mysterious circumstances in 1933. It suffered further damage during World War Two. With the decision to move the capital of a united Germany back to Berlin, the Reichstag underwent a complete reconstruction led by the British architect Norman Foster. After its completion in 1999, the building once again became the meeting place of the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament.

Berlin 6 — Berlin Hauptbahnhof © Ricky Yates

However, some buildings have been transformed and are now hardly recognisable from their pre-1945 appearance. A good is example is the main railway station – Berlin Hauptbahnhof.

Berlin 9 — *Alexanderplatz* © Ricky Yates

East Berlin was the capital of communist controlled East Germany. Inevitably here, you can still find plenty of examples of severe communist era architecture. This is Alexanderplatz, created during the 1960s and rightly described as ‘soulless and without trees’ by our guidebook. This despite post-unification attempts to temper the socialist look with a few small trees in the distance!

Berlin 10 — Communist era housing in East Berlin © Ricky Yates

Nearby, I photographed this classic example of communist era housing, still looking horribly drab.

Berlin 2 — The Olympiastadion/Olympic Stadium © Ricky Yates

Dating from a different era, this is the Olympiastadion/Olympic Stadium, built in 1936 as a showcase for Hitler’s Nazi Germany. In more recent years, it has been modernised, specifically for the Football World Cup Finals in 2006. It is also the home of Hertha Berlin, the city’s leading football club.

One thing Sybille was very keen to do whilst we were visiting the German capital, was to enjoy a Berlin culinary speciality – a Currywurst. Here she is, experiencing her first Currywurst for many years with appropriate liquid refreshment 🙂

Berlin 11 — Sybille enjoying her first *Currywurst* for many years © Ricky Yates

The Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall 1 — A preserved section of the Berlin Wall © Ricky Yates

It is more than a little ironic that Berlin’s most popular tourist attraction, for the most part no longer exists! For 28 years, the Berlin Wall symbolised the Cold War and the division of Europe between the democratic and capitalist west, and the communist one-party states of the east, even if the communists did try to proclaim themselves as ‘democratic’ with the official name of the former East Germany being the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR).

Construction of the wall began shortly after midnight on 13th August 1961 when thousands of East German soldiers and police rolled out massive lengths of barbed wire, cutting streets in two and preventing East Germans from travelling into West Berlin. Shortly afterwards, the barbed wire was replaced with a wall made of concrete slabs.

The Berlin Wall was a desperate measure by the East German communists, to stem the population flow from east to west which had seen 3.6 million Germans migrate between the foundation of the DDR in 1949, and the wall being erected in 1961. If the population drain had been allowed to continue, it would have soon brought the DDR to a point of economic and political collapse.

Although very euphemistically entitled the ‘Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier’ by the DDR authorities, it was rapidly reinforced on the East German side with the area behind the wall being cleared, trenches dug, barbed wire fences put in place, and a further inner wall, the Hinterlandmaurer, built on the other side to enclose the intervening death strip. Floodlighting at night and watch towers manned by trigger-happy guards were put in place to try to ensure no one escaped from the ‘communist paradise’ of the DDR 😉

Berlin Wall 3 — Crosses commemorating individuals who lost their lives trying to cross the Berlin Wall © Ricky Yates

Many people did still try to escape, some successfully but many were killed or died in the process. This is one of several memorials commemorating some of the victims.

Berlin Wall 5 — Old East German watchtower © Ricky Yates

The demise of the Berlin Wall came almost as quickly as its creation twenty-eight years earlier. In the Autumn of 1989, the DDR once more started losing its people in large numbers as Hungary opened its border with Austria. Demonstrations and demands for reform grew quickly within the DDR and on 9th November 1989, the communist authorities bowed to the inevitable and announced on DDR television that all restrictions on travel to the west would be lifted immediately.

Crowds gathered at various checkpoints along the Wall that evening, eventually overwhelming the border guards by their sheer weight of numbers. People started to dance on top of the wall whilst others began to attack parts of it with sledgehammers, chipping away pieces of concrete as souvenirs. Over the following months, large sections were demolished and removed.

Today, other than a few preserved sections such as that in the photograph at the beginning of this post, there is very little left of of the Berlin Wall and its associated fortifications. This former East German watchtower pictured here, sits slightly incongruously in a side street near Potsdammer Platz. In the meantime, the two city halves have visually merged making it difficult to discern whether one is in the East or the West.

Other short sections of the Wall have been preserved, including the remains of artwork or graffiti, (depending on your point of view 🙂 ), with which West Berliners decorated their side of the wall, with explanatory boards placed in between, explaining the history of the Berliner Maurer. The example in the photograph below is located on the line of where the Wall once stood, also not far from Potsdammer Platz.

Berlin Wall 4 — Preserved sections of the Berlin Wall with explanatory boards © Ricky Yates

Berlin Wall 2 — The double row of cobblestones marking the former course of the Berlin Wall © Ricky Yates

In recognition that visiting tourists will want to know where the Berlin Wall once stood, a double row of cobblestones has been placed showing the line of its former course.

Since the collapse of the Berlin Wall and subsequent German reunification, the derelict area between the original Wall and the Hinterlandmaurer, has been prime land for redevelopment. Some older, often war-damaged buildings located in or adjacent to the ‘security strip’ have been renovated and restored, whilst elsewhere, completely new construction has taken place.

The picture below shows an area of the ‘security strip’ just south of the Brandenburg Gate. On the right, in the foreground of the photograph, is one corner of the Holocaust Memorial about which more in text and pictures in a future post. Immediately beyond are a series of newly-constructed cafés and restaurants, where even in late October when we visited, it was still possible to sit at outside tables.

However, the apartment blocks beyond the cafés and restaurants are located in the former East Berlin and were built by the communist regime post-1961. They are colloquially known as Luxusplatte – luxury flats, but still built in the typical communist manner using concrete panels. Only very faithful Communist Party members were allowed to live in them, that is only those who could be trusted not to try to escape to the west, because they lived so close to the Wall 😉

Berlin Wall 6 — Part of the redeveloped former ‘security strip’ with *Luxusplatte* beyond © Ricky Yates

One of the buildings that lay within the former ‘security strip’ was that which housed the British Embassy until the breaking off of diplomatic relations at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. The building itself was subsequently badly damaged by allied bombing. When the newly reunited Germany once again made Berlin its capital city in 1999, the British government decided to rebuild its embassy on the same site with the new building pictured below, being officially opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on 18th July 2000.

Berlin Wall 7 — The British Embassy in Berlin © Ricky Yates

Alles in Ordnung – Everything in order

Berlin Policeman 2 — The card and message left under my windscreen wiper – name, email & phone details removed by me for obvious reasons 🙂

At the end of October, I took the last week of my annual leave for 2012 and with Sybille, visited Berlin for a few days, before travelling back to Prague via Wittenberg.

We were kindly hosted by our two friends, Alex and Bernd, who live in Wannsee on the south-western edge of the German capital city. On Monday 22nd October, we drove north-west from Prague along the motorway to the Czech-German border near Dresden, before heading northwards on the German autobahn to the outskirts of Berlin. Then, following Alex’s instructions, we carefully made our way to the street where their apartment is located.

Unfortunately, Alex’s last instruction, said ‘turn right’ when it should have said ‘turn left’. But we eventually spotted the correct house number on the opposite side of the street and, as there was the ideal gap between two parked cars, I pulled across the street and successfully reverse parked into the gap. We locked the car, rang the doorbell and were warmly greeted by Bernd – Alex was out walking the dog.

We had not been in the apartment for more than five minutes when the doorbell rang. Bernd went and answered it. It was the resident of another apartment in the block, an Erster Polizeihauptkommissar of the Berlin Police.

“Do you have guests from Prague staying with you?”

“Yes,” Bernd replied.

“Could you please ask the driver to go at once and turn his car around one hundred and eighty degrees? It is facing the wrong way! If their car is allowed to stay parked like that, others will start doing the same thing and will completely disrupt order in the neighbourhood.”

Bernd returned to us in the sitting room and, with a wry smile, recounted his conversation at the door with his near neighbour. Not wanting to cause any future hassle for Alex and Bernd, I duly went out and moved my car. Already under the windscreen wiper was the Erster Polizeihauptkommissar’s card. Written on the back was his clear instruction – ‘Bitte richtig herum parken‘ – ‘Please park the right way’.

Sybille has not lived in Germany since 1999 and describes herself as a ‘Germaphobe German’. After that little incident, I fully understand why 🙂