Walking Tour of Berlin

So 9 months after moving, I finally did a tour of Berlin! It only took my parents coming for a visit to make this happen 😊 Unfortunately the weather was miserable so the tour was probably not the most enjoyable it could have been but I did learn a few things along the way. Now there might be some repetition in the sites but I will try to keep them to a minimum . . .

The tour of course starts at the most famous site in Berlin, the Brandenburg gate and of course I have another photo (or two)!

The commentary on the Holocaust Memorial was very interesting. 

The site was very controversial when it was decided because no one could really agree on what should be built there and when the design was revealed, there was no agreement on whether it was the right choice. As you can see in the photos it is a very stark monument made up of rows of large grey blocks. 

There is no rationale for the number of the blocks or a real explanation of why they are set up the way they are though speculation is that it is supposed to make you feel uncomfortable. Once you start walking through the rows you can no longer see beyond the next corner, the temperature gets a bit cooler, the ground is uneven causing you to stumble a little and you are force to work in single file because there isn’t enough space for two people. It is also built across the street from where Hitler’s bunker was during the war which has since been destroyed.

The ugliest building in Berlin is actually known as the Ministry of Finance. 

The building opened in 1936 and is used today for the Department of Finance. As I know people working there I have had the privilege of dining in the canteen. It was conceived as the Ministry of Aviation, the “Reichsluftfahrtministerium” under the Nazi regime and some of the lights inside are from old runways. Even though modern architecture was banned in Nazi-Germany, it was considered a modern building as the architect, Ernst Sagebiel, used steel framework and reinforced concrete. The building was also a public project to create work and it was finished in less than two years. In this aspect it was part of the NS propaganda of economic recovery. It is also rumoured that one of the conference rooms is where the famous speech was delivered before the Berlin Wall went up stating that a wall would never be built. Today, as mentioned, it is known as the ugliest building in Berlin!

It sits right beside the Topography of Terror so you have already seen some photos in a previous post but here is one of that shows you the lovely weather we were enduring.

So while I mentioned Checkpoint Charlie already, I didn’t really go into its significance since I knew I had better photos forthcoming. This is probably the most famous crossing point between the two Germanys as it was the site of the 1961 standoff between Soviet and American tanks.  The name comes from being the 3^rd checkpoint set up (Alpha, Bravo, then Charlie). Charlie was notable for its location on Friedrichstrasse, a historic street in the American-occupied city center. Even more important was that it was the only gateway where East Germany allowed Allied diplomats, military personnel and foreign tourists to pass into Berlin’s Soviet sector. In response, the United States, France and Britain stationed military police at Checkpoint Charlie to ensure their officials had ready access to the border. The standoff occurred when an American diplomat refused to show his papers to East German officials as only the Soviets were allowed to request such information. As a result, the East Germans began to deny entry to Americans which led to the US moving their tanks in to which the Soviets countered. After a 16hr standoff, the situation was resolved when President John F. Kennedy contacted Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Today the entire site is fake except for the posts that hold the sign that says you are entering the American Sector. The original checkpoint and signs can be found in various museums. 

Humbolt University is one of Berlin's oldest universities, founded on 15 October 1811 as the University of Berlin (Berliner Universität) by Frederick William III of Prussia, on the initiative of the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt. 

It is located on Bebelplatz and also hosts a memorial to the Nazi book burnings. The burnings were a campaign conducted by the German Student Union (the "DSt") to ceremonially burn books in Nazi Germany and Austria in the 1930s. The books burnt were those viewed as being subversive or as representing ideologies opposed to Nazism such as those written by Jewish, classical liberal, anarchist, socialist, and communist authors etc. While the photo is hard to decipher, it is underground and is set of empty book shelves.

And then we ended the tour on Unter den Linden. . .