Spring Break in Berlin

During spring break Benjamin and Kerstin went to visit Kristina who, as everyone probably knows, is studying there. A blog about Berlin must start with us in front of the Brandenburg Gate. Here are Kristina and Benjamin on our first, very rainy walking tour of Berlin. A few days later the sun was shining.
We had reserved an apartment very close to the Hackesche Markt and Alexanderplatz. A perfect location. Below you can see the high rise in the middle with the Alexander Tower to the left.


From our window on the 14th floor we had a great view of the eastern part of the city, former East Berlin. We had every kind of weather. Snow...
rainy and clouds...
and sunshine. We could have had more of that....
Our main attraction in Berlin was of course Kristina. We were invited to her host family for a wonderful dinner, fondue with all kinds of vegetables and lemonade to drink. They had a really interesting apartment in Kreuzberg in the western part of the city. It could probably be called an attic loft. Here we all are, daughter Paula, Kristina, Kerstin, Kristina's friend from UMBC Annie, son Maurius, mother Marlies, and Benjamin taking the picture.
We got a serenade from Kristina and Paula, and later Marius joined them on the piano. We all sang a farewell-song for Marius who was leaving for Israel the next day.
Here is Kristina in her very cute room.
We did not only visit Kristina, but also some of my students from Catholic who were studying in the same program as Kristina. Here they are, Salvatore and Nick. Just like Kristina, they were very happy to be in Berlin, as we can see here.
Of course we did a lot of sight seeing as well. There is so much to see in Berlin, that only a fraction can be covered in a few days. Below is Potsdamer Platz, representing the super modern rebuilding after the reunification of Berlin.
In the picture below, the memories of the old Nazi Berlin meet the memories of the old Communist Berlin. In front you can see the Topography of Terror, an outdoor museum on the grounds of the former Gestapo (the Nazi secret police) headquarters. Here information about all the victims of the Gestapo is displayed. The lives and deaths of resistance fighters and opponents of the Nazi regime --i.e., Jews, communists, socialists, homosexuals, gypsies, Catholics, Protestants, aristocrats, and ordinary Germans -- are documented on the posters . Behind the outdoor exhibit, you can see one of the few sections of the Berlin Wall that still remains.



Otherwise, the only way to see were the wall once stood is to look for these bricks in the streets. Along the stretch where the wall once stood, a line of bricks has been set into the street with plaques like the one above.

The only place where the wall and the death strip have been preserved is at Bernauer Strasse, where there is a tower and a museum. It is an interesting place to visit. Mostly, you see groups of German high school students visiting the museum. It is a bit hard to grasp that they were not even born when the wall came down. For them it is all history. Below, Benjamin is looking over the wall from the tower.



Even though not much of the Berlin Wall can be seen in Berlin anymore, attempts have been made to preserve the history of the wall. On the photo below you can see Checkpoint Charlie on Friedrichstraße, probably the most famous of the old checkpoints between the old West- and East-Berlin. This is now a big tourist attraction with a museum devoted to illustrate how East Germans tried to cross the wall and flee to West Berlin. The little check point hut certainly looks out of place beside the glass and concrete shopping and office buildings that now line Friedrichstraße.

Not far from there we could see these Trabants, the glorious cars of the former East Germany. People had to wait for 10 years or more to be able to buy one of these cars. Now, most of them have become scrap metal, but some have survived in museums or, like here, can be rented for a little ride around town.

The picture below is another good illustration of how contrasts and history meet in Berlin. In the background to the left is the old Reichstag, now housing the Bundestag (the German Parliament), with its famous super modern glass dome. To the right is the new American embassy complex and in the front in the new Holocaust Memorial. Under the Holocaust Memorial is a museum dedicated to the Jewish victims of the Nazis. This museum just opened and should definitely be visited if you go to Berlin.
One day, actually it must have been a Tuesday, we went to the Turkish Market in Kreuzberg. This is a great market with fantastic prices. Here you can buy anything you want, it seems, food, clothes, household goods, toys, electronics. And then, of course you can buy Kebabs. Here are Kristina and Benjamin waiting for theirs.
Kristina checking out the goods while eating the dried apricots we bought.
Another day we walked Unter den Linden, the major boulevard connecting Alexanderplatz and the Brandenburg Gate. Walking this street is a walk through Berlin's history, a history that dates about 800 years. True, there is not much left of medieval Berlin, only a little city block called Nicolai Viertel, which we did not visit this time. Everywhere you walk on this street, your eyes will catch historic buildings, all full of memories of Berlin's past. Most famous is perhaps the Neue Wache. This neo-classical building was built in 1816 and designed by the amazing architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel. In the beginning it was a guard house for the guards of the royal palace, which was located down the street.

Schinkel deserves a blog post devoted just to his architecure. Even though a lot of the buildings he created were destroyed in the war, there are still many that have been restored, such as the church below, the Friedrichswerder church, which now houses a museum devoted to him and his architecture. You can click here, if you are interested in Schinkel and his impact on Berlin.

At one end of Unter den Linden located on the Museum Island is the Cathedral of Berlin, the Berliner Dom, the center of the Lutheran Church in Berlin. This church was almost completely destroyed during the war but has been rebuilt. Benjamin and I attended a Saturday vesper, which featured organ music.

Other buildings along Unter den Linden include the beautiful Zeughaus, which houses the German Historical Museum. It also has a real nice cafe, it you need to rest your feet.

And here is the Humboldt University.
We did not attend an opera at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden this time. Instead we went to the other main opera house, the Deutsche Oper Berlin in the former West Berlin. We saw an amazing performance of Verdi's Rigoletto. One of the best performances I have ever seen.

But the rich German culture is, unfortunately, always interrupted by the horrors of the Nazi period. On Bebel Square, across the street from the Humboldt University is a monument commemorating the events of May 10, 1933 when the Nazis ceremoniously burned books considered ''un-German.'' This included all Jewish authors as well as any other author who was critical of the Nazis or whose works were considered ''degenerate'' or ''un-arian.'' The monument consists of a window through which (under which) you can see a room with empty book shelves. Nearby is a plaque with the prophetic words of the Jewish-German author Heinrich Heine who in 1820 wrote the famous words, ''Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.'' (There, where books are burned, in the end people will also be burned.)

Another place rich with Berlin's complicated history, is the deconstruction of the Palace of the Republic, which can be viewed below. The Palace of the Republic was the seat of the East German parliament from 1976 to 1990. But it was also included restaurants, auditoriums and a bowling alley and was a well known meeting place for East Berliners. After long debates and discussions after the fall of the wall it was decided that it would be demolished and instead the old city palace -- where the kings of Prussia and later the emperor of Germany resided --will be rebuilt.


As mentioned, we lived very close to the Alexanderplatz. We could see the Alexander Tower from our window.

From being the center of the former communist East Berlin it has now turned into a center of western style consumerism with new malls and shops. The old ''Weltzeituhr'' - world clock, which shows the times around the world, is now surrounded by malls that can compete with the biggest malls in the US,

such as this ultra modern mall in three levels.

For the most part we stayed in the center and eastern part of Berlin. But once we went over to the center of the old West Berlin around Kurfürstendamm, where we visited the Gedächtniskirche. Below is the inside of the new ''box.''
And here is the outside view with the tower of the old, bombed out church and the tower of the new addition. It cannot be called a pretty church, but it is a strong reminder of the destruction that war and agression lead to.

In the middle of our stay, we were surprised to find out that workers running the subway and busses were going to strike. Berlin is otherwise known for its amazing system of public transportation. Anywhere you want to go, there are busses, trams, subways, or commuter trains that can take you there. Below is the brand new main train station.



But, as can be imagined, when the system is down, there will be a bit of a chaos. The only workers who were not included in the strike were those running the commuter trains. Below you can see how crowded those stations became.
Since we had a bit of a hard time to get around in the city, we decided to take a commuter train to Spandau. Spandau is a little town on the out-skirts of Berlin. It has a very interesting fortress, the Spandau citadel that was built in the 16th century.

The town is very different from Berlin because it decided to rebuild the town trying to keep its old medieval character. Below is the Nicolai Church.

The town is full of old houses such this one. Spandau is a place well worth visiting. I would think it would be especially pretty in the spring or summer, when the narrow streets and squares would be full of outdoor cafes. If you want to see more pictures, go to Ben's blog.