Historical Berlin

Saturday, August 23, 2014
Day 11—Historical Berlin

This is us playing in that thing that we didn't
know was a memorial. Oops.

So, picking up from my last blog, I was in a coma on a lofted bed in a strangers flat in Berlin, sleeping next to my friend Morgan who was also in a coma. Now skip 13 hours. Yes, 13 hours because that is how long we slept. Exhausted much? We woke up around noon… actually that’s not totally true. I also woke up once around nine, and so did Mo. You see, we had strict ground rules about our slumber party. Historically, I have a habit of waking up before her and then ACCIDENTALLY and by TOTAL COINCIDENCE (although no one believes me), I happen to be staring at her when she wakes up, which is apparently really creepy. So she told me that if I wanted to sleep in the bed and not on the couch, I had to promise that I wouldn’t stare at her if I woke up. So naturally, I agreed that I wouldn’t stare at her or even look at her while she was sleeping. However, at around nine I woke up facing her, I had literally opened my eyes for about .06 seconds when she opened hers… I was so afraid that she would push me off the loft, that I closed my eyes really quickly hoping she didn’t see me (SEE I told you, complete coincidence). Then I fell back asleep and so did she. She says she doesn’t remember it, so I guess I freaked out for nothing, and I am just now realizing that this is a super weird story. Sorry about that.

Anyways, we got up around noon, and got ready for our 2pm tour. The metro system here is probably slower than walking, but being lazy bums that sleep til noon, we opted for the sluggish metro. So, we missed the 2pm tour. No big deal, we just bought some more food, this time we had sandwiches (and Dunkin Donuts...tehe, don’t judge me) and sat at the same park, this time with a great view of a statue’s butt. We also has a good view of a little boy (picture Manny from Modern Family) playing the saxophone incredibly well! He was so cute and very, very talented! At about a quarter til 4, we walked over to go on our next free tour! This tour was actually one of my favorites because the city of Berlin is filled with SOO much history! Especially recent history from the last century. They were central aspects of both WWI, WWII, and the Cold War, and their involvement in each war was tied to the war before it.



We started the tour by walking to the Holocaust Memorial. During our little stalling time after we missed the 2 o’clock tour, we walked around in the memorial without a clue as to what it was. When you walk up to it, it looks like a ton of really huge grey blocks that form a sort of maze. The blocks start shorter on the outsides, and they get taller and taller in the middle. We wondered what it was, but we didn’t see a plaque or anything. We felt bad when we got to the memorial on the tour and found out what it was, because we had played in it earlier. It was designed by a Jewish American artist. The design is meant to make you question it, and as we talked about its potential meanings with the tour group, we were told that no interpretation could be wrong because the artist designed it with versatility of opinion in mind. Our guide (a girl this time) told us that many different people have seen it in very different ways, and even though she has done the tour loads of times, she hasn’t stopped hearing new interpretations. I really enjoyed that part of the tour, because it was interactive and I enjoyed hearing all of the different ideas that people in our group had about it.

Holocaust Memorial

Next, we went to a parking lot. The lot actually sits on top of the bunker where Hitler and his wife killed themselves. Hitler’s men, even after his suicide, followed his orders to burn his body. Hitler did not want to be a war prize so he asked his soldiers to burn him into ash before anyone could find his body. They poured gasoline all over him and tried to burn him, but they didn’t have enough time, because it would take days to burn a body this way and the allied forces were moving in. So, the dug a shallow grave and buried his charred, but still recognizable body in the grave. Later, the Soviet’s found his body, cremated it and then dumped the remains. They didn’t want him to have an actual grave, because they didn’t want any Neo-Nazi’s to have a place to celebrate him. Now, above his bunker is a parking lot, because the German’s don’t want Hitler to be important, they want to treat his place of death as if it is as important as a parking lot. Which I think, is awesome.

We also got to see the building that was used as the S.S. Air Force Headquarters. The architecture screams Nazi, and there is a mural on the wall of the building depicting a perfect or ideal society form the eyes of the people running the Third Reich. On the ground in front of the building is another mural depicting the truth, diversity, and disorderliness of a real society, and you get the idea that modern Germany wants to emphasize that the utopian society depicted above is unrealistic and flawed, and that they dislike Hitler and the misery he caused just as much as the rest of the world. We walked a little further and saw the front of the same building, which is one of the main buildings that they used to film Valkyrie. Our guide told us that when they filmed the movie, they didn’t tell anyone what they were doing, (because they didn’t want people showing up to the set) and they started putting up swastika’s and Nazi flags, and they had soldiers dressed up with arms bands on and guns in hand, and people started to freak out because they had no idea what was going on. Which is pretty funny. She also said that this building, still serves an evil purpose because it is now the headquarters for the German Tax Agency, which is also pretty funny.

As we walked toward the Berlin wall, she explained that all throughout Berlin there are bombs buried that are still there from WWII. She said that sometimes they go to renovate or build a new building and they find a bomb that has to be disarmed because it could technically still go off, and that is not so funny. She also explained as we walked the history behind the Berlin wall, which I had actually never heard before (or at least understood or remembered). Essentially what happened, for those of you that don’t know, after the war, the allied forces (UK, America, France, and the Soviet Union) divided Germany and each country got a fourth. Berlin, being the main center of the Nazi Regime, was also divided into four parts (even though the whole city was within the Soviet’s territory). The American’s, the British, and the French, wanted to rehabilitate and grow the economy of Germany and set it up as a democracy, while the Soviet’s wanted to control it and form a communist and socialist government. So Berlin, and Germany on a larger scale, became divided into East Germany and West Germany. With the east being controlled by the Soviet’s and the west being controlled by the US, France, and the UK. The U.S. put 17 million (today’s equivalent of 160 million) into the economy and people started to succeed. They became wealthier and wealthier, and they started owning refrigerator’s, TV’s and other new technologies that the East Berliner’s could not afford. People in the east started flocking to the west, and the Soviet’s got sick of that. So, in the middle of the night on August 13, 1961, with the help of 400,000 soldiers, police, and construction workers, the first form of the wall was built around West Berlin. People woke up the next morning unable to see their family members and friends, and they were completely separated for the next two years. And in all of this aftermath of WWII, you can see the beginning of the Cold War, and Berlin, was central to all of that history. We saw a small strip of the wall and a portion of the old “death strip.” It was incredible to stand there and see such an iconic piece of history, and be amazed that it isn’t nearly as large or daunting as you might have imagined, and yet it separated the city and the county, forming the Iron Curtain, and representing another sad part of the city’s incredible history. Leaving the strip of the wall, we walked a little farther to the place where Checkpoint Charlie used to stand (and where a fake checkpoint currently stands with fake guards ready to take your picture and stamp your passport with a fake stamp). This iconic place is where the Soviet and American tanks faced off in a standstill for 16 hours, where WWIII almost began. Our guide noted that if one of the men had accidentally pulled the trigger, the city of Berlin would not likely have survived a third world war and would as a result not exist today.



WHile shopping, I found two signs for my parents.
Dad's fix-it shop, specializing in hurt
feelings and mending with hugs. He doesn't
fix broken toys though, he gave our toys
to Goodwill.  And Mama's kitchen is closed
most days, but  on Sundays she makes the
BEST chili in the world.
 

We also walked past gorgeous historical churches and a theatre where there is a statue of the German version of Shakespeare. We walked to the site of the 1933 book burning, where thousands of books written by or about Jews and the Jewish people were turned to ash. This book burning took place right outside of the University library where Albert Einstein was a professor. Einstein, a Jewish man, immigrated to the US in 1934 and escaped the Nazi’s by a few short years. In the plaza, in front of the library, where the book burning took place, is a memorial to the horrible event. The memorial is a small piece of glass on the ground, where if you look closely you will see empty bookshelves, an empty library with just enough space to hold the number of books that were burned in 1933. Next to the piece of glass is a quote from the German Shakespeare that translated reads, “When you burn books, then you will burn people.” The quote was written sometime in the 1800’s long before the book burning took place and the Nazi’s were a political party, but it foreshadows the horrid event that we call the Holocaust. The quote also shows us that propaganda is a warning sign of things to come. 


I really loved the guide that we had for this tour. She was so passionate about the history around her, and was adamant about the importance of recognizing the history of her country and the mistakes and tragedies that it includes, as a way of learning from the past and aiming to not repeat it. She mentioned that one of the many things that she loves about Berlin (and Germany as a whole) is that while many countries recognize in their history books on the good things, Germany assumes responsibility for its past, admits its mistakes, and educates it’s young people about the bad things too. She, our guide, believes that is something for them to be proud of, and I agree with her.

TheAmplemann!!

Once the tour was over, Morgan and I walked around and went shopping a little. We found a store called Amplemann, which was basically a brand that carried all sorts of items with their country’s Amplemann on it. An Amplemann is the little guy that appears in the walk or don’t walk signal at a cross walk. Germany’s Amplemann happens to be particularly cute, cause he wears a little hat.

Eventually, we realized that we hadn’t eaten in a very long time, but that everything (or at least everything in our price range) was closed. We did, after some searching, find McDonalds, and we happily went in to get burgers and flurries. While we were there, two tipsy German guys, told me that they were, “falling in love this second with your eyes.” To which I said okay thank you. He asked if I was falling in love too, and I said no and then walked away. Morgan and I sat down and started eating, and suddenly, they reappeared, this time to ask if Morgan and I were lesbians, to which I also responded no. They he apologized for being drunk, and said that he hoped we enjoyed Germany. It was quite humorous. After McDonald’s we went back to the crib and went to sleep. All in all, it was another fantastic day.