Immediately I set out to the task of exploring this side of town. Adjacent to my hostel was the magnificent Tiergarten, a humongous park filled with bike trails and dense forest. Incidentally, on the other side of the Tiergarten from my hostel was the Reichstag, so I set out to go find it. In the park, I found a monument to Otto von Bismarck, the genius statesman that was responsible for German unification in the late 19th century.
Along the way, I also found Victory Column, a large column in the middle of a traffic circle, adorned with a gold angel on top of it.
Exiting one end of the park and continuing along a street, I ran into another point of interest in W. Berlin, a bombed out church. This church had been bombed during WWII and had not been rebuilt, perhaps as a reminder of the atrocities of the war. Right next to it, however, was the new church, which resembled a bomb shelter. I guess the Germans got the point.
A little farther, the Reichstag came into sight. Along the way, I came across a WWII memorial to the soldiers who fought, and died, for the German military. I took a moment to pay my respects to these fallen soldiers. What is very lost in historical lessons regarding WWII is that the German military operated as any military should, in that it followed the orders of its government without question in what they viewed as the defense of their homeland. What many Americans tend to believe is that the entire German military was responsible for the atrocities committed during the war, in particular, the Holocaust, but we must remember that this was the doing of specialized units within the German military, especially the SS. The German army, navy, and air corp. had very little to no involvement with the Holocaust (in fact, one of the few acquittals of the Nuremberg Trials was a ranking German naval officer). My point here is that these fallen soldiers deserve just as much respect as our fallen. They gave the Allied forces, in particular the Russians, the hardest fight war has ever known. I took a moment of reflection, paid my respects, and continued on.
At long last, I made it to the Reichstag. This building is very important to the German people, and not because it is simply their national seat of government. This building burned, under conspicuous circumstances, in 1933, giving then-Chancellor Adolf Hitler the justification for declaring a state of emergency, suspending the Weimar Constitution, and making himself Fuhrer. The building has since been restored to its former glory since the fall of Communism, and is actually quite beautiful.
On the backside of the Reichstag is the Brandenburg Gate. This is a tremendously beautiful and powerfully moving gate, much larger than its recreation in Amsterdam.
In front of it, if one were to look closely, is a line of bricks in the ground. This marks where the Berlin Wall once stood.
Following the brick line, I eventually came across what had once been Checkpoint Charlie. This point was one of several checkpoints between the Soviet sector of Berlin and the American side of Berlin. This point had been a point of serious contention at times, with Soviet and American tanks squaring off during one of the more intense moments of the Cold War. What it has become now is a tourist trap, complete with “guards” dressed in full garb asking for money for you to take pictures with them in front of a mock guard post which sells outdated stamps for your passport. I took a few pics for my amusement, but the place really is a shell of itself:
Continuing on farther down the brick line, I eventually came to the Wall … or what was left of it. Most of the Wall had been torn down in 1989, but a few sections here and there, those that actually did serve a useful demarcating purpose, were kept intact. Although it was corded off to keep people from further chipping away at the wall, I took a picture to commemorate this brutal instrument of division and symbol of oppression. The feeling that came to mind was one of futility, that walls solve no problems between people, and that, in the end, it was just a big waste of money, time, and resources. I had often talked to my parents about the fall of the Wall, because it had been one of my earliest memories, and I asked them that since the Wall had been erected during their lifetime whether they had imagined that it would come down within their lifetime, and they told me they had thought the Wall would have been up for another 100 years, at least. It goes to show that truly amazing things can happen within a relatively short period of time. People have often called me an optimist, and I point to the fall of the Wall being one of my very first memories, and saying, “Sure, why not?”
After seeing all that there was to see in W. Berlin, it was time for me to move on “up” to the East side. East Berlin is still drastically different from West Berlin, in architecture, in economic development, in, well, pretty much everything. Communist-era buildings still litter the skyline, with their gray, uniform drabness. On the day we settled into our new hostel Germany was playing in the European Cup. Everyone was decked out in their German flags and German face paint and everyone was drinking German beer. What made this particularly notable was that Germans drink beer from bottles, not cans (for the obvious reason that aluminum cans suck the flavor out of any beverage they hold). It was also interesting to point out that there were flocks of German kids hanging out in front of television stores that were televising the game to the open street. It was here that I found the largest, rowdiest crowds, and surrounding them was a sea of broken glass. Luckily I was not wearing my sandals, or I was sure to have picked up a piece of glass in my foot. Germany went on to win that night, and there were mass celebrations in the street on par with what I experienced in Holland when they won. Good times were had by all, especially me, because I had bought a pony keg of beer at the store for a mere 8 Euro, and had polished it off by the end of the night at my hostel, celebrating with other guests.
What made the hostel in E. Berlin particularly cool was that I had arrived at the height of a open-air live concert festival. Apparently during this weekend that I was there the city encourages its artists to come out and perform live concerts for the people, providing all the proper venues, stages, speakers, etc. What a novel idea, I thought. One such venue happened to be in the courtyard of my hostel. Across the street was a market, and I went and bought 8 different types of beer, knowing that since they were all German, they would be superior to anything I had drank in the US. The one band that I really liked was a rock and blues group that featured a didgeridoo:
At this hostel Mike and I met a guy from Georgia (US state) that happened to be a really chill dude, so we drank with him for most of the night and watched Holland kick the pants off of a team they were playing in the European cup, all the while listening to live music being performed in the courtyard below.
On the final day in Berlin, I wanted to go to a tower in the middle of this section of town that was the highest point in all of Berlin. I personally believe everything looks better from an elevated standpoint, and felt this would be the case for Berlin as it had been for Paris.
In conclusion, while I did not experience any of the crazy nighlife in Berlin (and be rest assured, it is crazy and renowned throughout all of Europe) I still had the time of my life. The beer was great, the frau were friendly, and Germany won a game in the European cup. I think what really impressed me the most was their propensity for recycling: on all bottles you purchase, you pay a deposit that you can get back by inserting your bottle into a machine at the store you bought it from. At the end, it issues a ticket with the amount you receive back, and you redeem it at the checkout counter. It was a novel idea, but I expected nothing less from the Germans. They are incredibly good people with a fairly interesting view of the world, even now given their tumultuous past. They’ve come a long way, and despite their past misgivings, and they are leading Europe into the future.
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