Berlin – Day 2

West Berlin was a 185 square mile island of capitalism surrounded by East Germany. Between establishment of East Germany in 1949 and construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, an estimated three million East Germans fled to freedom. To staunch their population loss, East Germany erected the 96 mile long Berlin Wall (they called it the “Anti-Fascist Protective Rampart”) almost overnight on August 13, 1961. But the Berlin Wall was actually two walls. The Outer was a 12 foot high concrete barrier topped with a rounded, pipe like surface to discourage grappling hooks (Pic 7). The inner Wall was lower profile. Sandwiched between them was a no-man’s-land (“death strip”) between 30 and 160 feet wide. There were eight points you could legally cross between, the most famous being CheckPoint Charlie (Pic 6). In general, Westerners could temporarily enter the East, but not vice versa.

Even after the Wall went up, people didn’t stop trying to escape. During the Wall’s 28 years, there were about 5,000 documented successful escapes – and 565 of those were East German guards! The Berlin Wall came to symbolize the larger Cold War. President John F Kennedy gave a speech of solidarity in West Berlin declaring “Ich bin ein Berliner” – I am a Berliner. A generation later, President Ronald Reagan stood directly in front of the Brandenburg Gate and demanded of his Soviet counterpart, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”. Finally, one November night in 1989, the Berlin Wall came down as suddenly as it went up.

So here’s a quick run down on the pics.

The first one is the towering, green domed, Berlin Cathedral built during the reign of the Prussian Kaiser Wilhelm II. The tall TV Tower you see behind it was built in 1969 by communist East Germany and was meant to show the power of the atheistic state at the very time they were removing the crosses from the church domes and spires. But if you zoom in a little on the tower, you see that when the sun hits it, it creates a huge cross on the mirrored ball. Cynic’s call it “God’s revenge”.

Next is Humboldt University, one of the best in Europe. But on this square in 1933, staff and students built a bonfire and burned 20,000 newly forbidden books authorized by the likes of Einstein, Hemingway, Freud, and T.S. Eliot. Overseeing it all was the Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels.

Next is the green domed St Hedwig’s Church (nicknamed the “Upside-Down Teacup”). It stands as a symbol of Frederick the Great’s religious and cultural tolerance. The pragmatic king wanted to encourage the integration of the Catholic Silesians into Protestant Prussia. But his progressivism had its limits: St Hedwig’s is set back from the street, suggesting inferiority to the Protestant churches.

Next is the German Cathedral which was totally bombed in the war and rebuilt in the 1980’s.

Next up is the Konzerthaus (Concert Hall) Berlin and houses the German orchestra. Built as a theater from 1818 to 1821 under the name of the Schauspielhaus Berlin, its usage changed to a concert hall after World War II and  its name changed to its present one in 1994.