Berlin 8-28,30

Just a quick Berlin page.  I am running bit short on time but wanted to get some pics up.  This town makes you think,I will narrarate when I get more computer time this week. 9-4-02 - Update If there was one city so far that left a real impression on me, it was Berlin.  Usually after every city, I rip out the pages from my guide book to save weight.  Well for some reason I left the Berlin pages in there.  The city is a huge field trip and it's amazing how uninformed I was before coming here.

The Berlin Wall separated East Berlin from West Berlin.  Did you know that West Berlin was completely surrounded by communist territory.  Imagine a doughnut where the dough was communist and the hole was capitalist (or fascist as the Soviets used to call it).  The French, Brits, Americans and other westerners used to support west Berlin because they wanted the East to see how good capitalist life was.  A few pieces of the wall still exist throughout the city and there is a brick path that runs through the street that marks the entire wall. To the left is the HQ of the former Nazi Air Force and to the right of the wall were Hitler's bunker.  There are still gunshot marks all over the city.  Almost every old building in Berlin is a controversey about whether or not to tear it down because of the bad memories.

This is the Kaiser Wilhem Memorial Church right outside of the main trainstation (Zoo) in Berlin.  90% of Berlin was leveled during WWII and there are many memorials around the city so that we never forget the tragedy of what happened.  My train from Copenhagen actually arrived in a station in the former East Berlin and it was a bit eery.  There was nothing wrong with the place but you could tell that some major things happened there.  When I took the subway (S-bahn) to the Zoo station, you can imagine how I felt when the first thing I see outside the station is this church.

This is a recreation of Checkpoint Charlie.  On this side heading east is a picture of a Soviet Soldier, if you are heading the other direction toward the west, there is an American soldier.  Right next to the checkpoint is the great checkpoint charlie museum.  Everyone I've talked to agrees that it is one of the best museum's in Europe.  (One of my Japanese friends, who couldn't read English even loved it)  Inside is filled with hundreds of stories about people trying to escape via tunnels, cars with low-rooftops, hanging from cables, hot air balloons. Amazing stuff.

The lighted white sign in the distance is Checkpoint Charlie, the only checkpoint that allowed passage between East and West Berlin.  If you were a westerner returning home or an Easterner trying to escape, this is the view you would have had.  One of the amazing things is that they built the underground trains (u-bahn) before the wall went up in 1961.  So since the wall curves, In order to get from North-west berlin to south-west Berlin, you still had to go through east berlin.  After the wall went up, the East Berliners rented the stations to the west for passage only.  The stations themselves were closed to the public and patrolled by the Nazis.  Imagine going to work by train, and looking out your window at the enemy every morning.

The Reichstag building caught fire in ~1931, a month after Hitler was voted into office as Chancellor.  At the time, Germany was poor after losing WWI and there was much dissention in the public, this allowed Hitler to win an election with about 31% of the votes.  After coming the office, this building burned (theory: Hitler did it) and blamed the Communists and instituted martial law.  The Germans felt for this building much in the same way we feel for the World Trade Center.  Hitler continued to become more and more dictatorial and the rest is one of the darkest times in the modern age.

The next two pictures are of the new dome of the Reichstag (parliment) building.  The building itself is a 19th century renaissance style building but it was damaged twice, both with severe political consequences.  You can climb a circular staircase (like the one in Nordstrom's SF) to the top and this is looking down.  The idea is that the people are above the officials, always keeping an eye on them.

This picture kind of sums up East Berlin.  On the left is a Lutheran church, funny because the state was officially athiest but the East Berlin Communist leader wanted to show that he was open minded and allowed this church to be built.  In the center is the communist erected TV tower. The Communists wanted to build something glorious to show how advanced they were, the problem is that the needed help from Sweden to complete it.  On the right is the ugly Communist Parliment building. It seems that everyone in Berlin agrees it's an eyesore but they want to leave it up as a memorial.  They finally decided to tear it down to rebuild the Palace that was here in the 19th century that Hitler tore down.

I did a day trip out to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp outside of Berlin.  I wanted to come here because I had heard Dachau (by Munich) was very crowded and I wanted to really take it in.  I didn't take many photos because it just didn't feel right.  Hitler started sending political enemies here first (mostly communists), then enemies of the state, then worst of all social enemies (Jews, Gypsies, non-whites).  Altough this was not a death camp like Auschwitz, many died here because the conditions were so poor and the treatment by the SS so bad.  I think I mentally prepared for most of it but when I saw the autopsy tables, it really it home.