Berlin: Wearing the Past With Dignity

The flight from Stockholm arrived very early in the morning, and we just decided it would be much easier to stay up the previous night. So we arrived in Berlin bleery eyed and unrested, and like the true troopers we are, decided to go on a 3 hour walking tour in the middle of the coldest weather we have experienced so far. Our reasoning behind this was fairly solid at the time. We couldnt check into our hostel until 3pm that afternoon, and therefore couldnt sleep until then. An easy way to stay awake was to take a tour around one of the most fascinating cities in the world. Unfortunately, 10 minutes into the tour with our feet completely numb and our fingers aching with the cold, we regretted our decision. The tour itself was fantastic though. We proved that we couldnt escape the Swedish for very long as our tour guide ended up being from Stockholm. He was very well informed though and showed us all around Third Reich Berlin and also Communist Berlin. We went to sites such as the famous Pariser Platz (where you will not only see the famous Brandenberg Gate, but also the hotel window from which Michael Jackson dangled his baby), the site of Hitlers Bunker, The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin Wall, Museum Platz and a plethora of amazing architecture and sites. To go on and name everything we saw would take up 90% of this blog post. It was easily the best tour we have been on so far. However, once 3pm arrived, we were off to our hostel like lightning and checked in. We relaxed a little at the hostel before turning in for a very early night and to catch up on some much needed sleep.

The next morning we decided to go to the Nazi Concentration Camp of Sachenhauzen (I probably spelled it wrong). It is just outside of Berlin and was reputedly the 'model' camp, the one that all camps tried to live up to. Needless to say, this was NOT the funnest way to spend a day in Berlin, but I think it was definately necessary. The sheer brutality and genocide of the concentration camps is something that needs to be seen to be believed. It was absolutely staggering. The tour itself was done in a very informative way, and tried to get across as accurately as possible the day to day functioning of the camp. The whole place was simply evil. Pure and simple. There was a chill in the air that wasnt just from the cold. The Nazis and the SS turned killing into an industrial process at these camps, and this wasnt even a death camp like Auschwitz. It was here that political prisoners, Jews, homosexuals, and other undesirables of Nazi society were sent to work in the most horrible conditions imaginable in order to fuel the Nazi war machine. The SS soldiers were animals in the way they treated their fellow human beings. Absolute monsters. I think that everyone should visit one of these camps in their lifetime. It is something that has to be seen to be believed. The fact that humans can do this sort of thing to one another is nightmarish, and all in the name of some radical and eccentric doctrine imposed by a minority on a majority. It is simply madness. I think the more people who are aware of the consequences of such ideas, the less likely they are to happen ever again in the future. Education about the past is the key.

We wanted to do our own thing on our third day in Berlin, so we could visit some of the sites we had passed by on the walking tour. We went to a bombed out church in West Berlin that was left there as a memorial to the war. It was destroyed by bombings in WWII, much like 90% of Berlin, but was left in its sad state as a reminder of the destruction of war unlike most of Berlin which has now been rebuilt. We then headed to an art gallery called the Hamburger Bahnhof where lots of modern art is displayed. Unfortunately, 90% of the '''''''art'''''' on show was by one guy, Joseph Bueys, and we absolutely hated it. The guy is a crack pot. We did enjoy a very good Andy Warhol exhibit whcih had some very cool and famous photograph prints on display, as well as some of his film work. After this general dissapointment we decided it was time for some lunch and grabbed some Wurst at a small store. MMMMMMMMMMMMMM! Filled up and thoroughly satisfied, we headed to Museum Island, to see the world famous Pergamon museum (lap it up my fellow Alexandrian Scholars! *points and laughs at you*). It contains the famous 'Pergamon Alter', a Hellenistic sanctuary probably dedicated to Athena or Zeus at the Anatolian city of Pergamon, the seat of power for King Eumenes I (one of Alexander the Great's generals). It has some of the best Hellenistic friezes I have ever seen, and the magnificence of the Alter was such that even Rishi was enthralled with the mythical scenes depicted. Another of the museums highlights was the famous Ishtar Gate from Babylon. This is an entire gate that was moved from the excavations at Babylon and reassembled brick by brick inside the museum. It was really amazing to see. Considering the gate was almost 5 stories high, and that it was the smallest of many gates really makes one think about the sheer magnificence of Babylon in those ancient times. This was of course built by Nebuchadnezzar II about 2500 years ago. The fact that such things could be built so long ago is awesome. Anyway, with my inner history nerd satisfied for a little while, we headed towards the Parliament Building. This was where a fire allowed Hitler to seize power, and the Soviets raised their flag to signal Nazi Germany's defeat. A very cool building, but we were not able to get up inside the glass dome at the top because the ques were way too long.

Our final day in Berlin consisted of us going to the magnificent Berlin Cathedral, a fairly modern building that consisted of so many architectual styles it made the eyes bleed. It was quite spectacular none the less. We also decided to do another tour called 'Red Berlin'. Basically it was a tour in East Berlin, showing us life under the communists. We were shown examples of what life was like behind the wall, famous sites of revolution and squashed rebellion. We were also told the story of the wall from its conception to its final stage in the 1980s, and also told stores of escape attempts and brutal executions. We were shown the Stassi Headquarters, the most powerful spy organisation to have ever existed. At the hight of its power, there was 1 person working for the Stassi for every 6 living in East Berlin. We were also told stories of the paranoia and brutal treatment of the people by this organisation and the government. The tour ended at the famous East Side Gallery of the Berlin Wall. Its the longest surviving stretch of wall, and contains a number of badly damaged artworks (concrete is not the best material to paint on, it seems). All in all, a good end to an historic city. We were to catch a night train to Munich, where the German adventure would continue without pause.

Berlin was incredible all up. There is no other city that wears its past on its shoulder with such dignity. It might not have much it can be proud of, but it has a great load to teach us. It would be so easy for Berliners to try to forget their horrible history, but instead they remember it in their every day lives and make sure that they learn from it. I have great respect for Berlin and the German people because of this.

Chris