Most of the rest of the stuff is in East Berlin like one of the most famous streets in all of Germany, Unter den Linden. This street is hugely historical as it is where Hilter had his grand military marches, as well as is home to many museums, embassies, and historical landmarks. Here is a view of the street.
At one end is a place called museum island. It is home to a bunch of different museums and churchs...so many I have forgotten a lot of their names, however this one I found to be most interesting is it is full of bullet holes all the way around the exterior.
And next to that museum is the very old protestant church that was built by one of the royal families that ruled here.
As you enter Unter den Linden, a memorial statue of Fredrick the Great is displayed as he was one of Germany's most beloved rulers of what was then Prussia in the mid-late 1700's. He was well loved because he was tolerant of all communities. For example, Prussia was considered a protestant state, but he allowed for the building of catholic churches, jewish temples, etc.
Humboldt University is one of the area's most prestigious Universities. The universities faculty and students included Albert Einstein among others like Otto von Bismark, Karl Marx, and Heinrich Heine. Unfortunately in the 30's is became a Nazi Education Institution, but now after the reunification has been reinstated as a state university.
Across the street is a large square with an opera, library, and catholic church. And there is also a memorial...the Nazi's staged a large book burning of books written by independent and jewish authors, and then the reading and possession of these books was outlawed. Here is the giant square.
At the end of the street is the famous Brandenburg Gate. This gate is hugely important to the history of Germany in so many ways. From the time the wall went up in 1961, and until it came down in 1989, no one passed under this gate as it was in the death strip...the no-man's land area between the two walls guarded with machine gun to kill anyone that tried to escape to West Berlin. Now thousands pass under it each day. Here we are on the east side (the US Embassy building is directly to its left.
And a look from the west side where Reagan gave his famous speech on this side of the Berlin Wall.
Notice there is a beautiful statue on top of the gate.
It originally was without the eagle and sign of victory. The story goes the Napoleon came and fell in love with the statue and took it back to Paris (which pissed the German's off). FYI, for those of you who don't know, German and French people do not speak highly of one another. Any way, when it returned to Germany the German's added a sign of victory to the statue and then named the square Pariser Platz to make fun of them. It gets better...when the French went to build their embassy after he reunification they wanted to build it on this square not knowing the square was mocking them. Further, the woman in the statue now looks right at it! Haha, the German's think it is so great and she might as well be flipping them off.
Better yet, one of the most famous landmarks on the square is this hotel....
You know, the one where Michael Jackson hung his baby over the balcony! I swear no one took a picture of it until the guide told us about it and then everyone took one.
Moving on...one of my favorite memorials that is located on the other side of the US embassy is the Holocaust Memorial.
It is meant to be completely abstract as it is not marked and has no description, but is huge and takes up and entire city square. There are 2711 of these...some call them head stones and some think they represent other things. They are all different shapes and sizes and you are meant to walk through them and remember the jewish victims. It is really amazing and very memorable.
What is sort of odd is that Hilter's bunker site can be seen from the memorial, although I don't think that was planned as it was only marked in 2006. The bunker still exists, but no one can go in it as it is underground and filled with rocks. The German's were hesitant to identify it because they were concerned that neo-nazi's would use it as a shrine, although nothing like that has happened. Hilter killed himself and his wife Eva here and were then buried here. They were shortly there after dug up and identified. Later on the Soviets further burned the bodies and dumped them in the sewers. Apparently their graves were near initially buried near that parked red car.
Not far from there exists the original Nazi Air Force Ministry, which then became a Soviet Ministry as it was virtually untouched. It is HUGE and sits across the street from what was the SS and Gestapo headquarters.
This piece of art runs along the side of the building was created by the East German communist government to depict life there after the war. Notice everyone was happy in this work which was not the case in reality.
The remains of the Berlin wall exist on the other side of this building. Here is a view from the east.
This portion is now protected and will be memorialized when the museum on the other side is finished. They had to put a fence around it so the people would not chip away at it for souvenirs.
From the West side it looks like this with the ministry behind it.
The wall came right up to both the Gestapo headquarters as well as the SS front doors. What was not destroyed in the war was then later destroyed by the government. But you can see that some students have dug up the basements of these buildings to include in the exhibit, Topography of Terror.
Next to this dig is the Museum for the Arts. Notice the exterior...full of bullet holes.
Just down the street is the American and international checkpoint...Checkpoint Charlie. It is the tiny white building in the middle of the street.
Near both of these sites are the remains of a famous railstation. Hilter often used this and this is where he walked to met Mussolini when he came to Berlin. Because of this history the West German goverment destroyed most of it. It is called Anhalter Bahnhof.
After TJ and I were finished with our tours that day we headed to Potsdamer Platz to get some food and drinks and then meandored about the city some more on our own. We went to the Sony Center which was very cool. We missed the Transformers premiere by one day, but they were setting up for it.
From we went back toward the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate where I ran into the street and straddled where wall used to be...one foot in the west and one in no man's land. The goverment has placed cobblestones outlining where the wall used to be. FYI, I look a mess because the wind was ridiculous all day!
Then we went to the Reichstag, or German Parliment building. It has been there a very long time, but was not used by the Nazi's or anyone until after the Reunification when the German government moved from Bonn to Berlin.
The line to go up into the glass dome was over two hours long so we decided to skip it. Of course there are many more pictures of the city, but you will have to visit TJ''s flickr to see them. Tomorrow I will post about our tour of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.
It is meant to be completely abstract as it is not marked and has no description, but is huge and takes up and entire city square. There are 2711 of these...some call them head stones and some think they represent other things. They are all different shapes and sizes and you are meant to walk through them and remember the jewish victims. It is really amazing and very memorable.
What is sort of odd is that Hilter's bunker site can be seen from the memorial, although I don't think that was planned as it was only marked in 2006. The bunker still exists, but no one can go in it as it is underground and filled with rocks. The German's were hesitant to identify it because they were concerned that neo-nazi's would use it as a shrine, although nothing like that has happened. Hilter killed himself and his wife Eva here and were then buried here. They were shortly there after dug up and identified. Later on the Soviets further burned the bodies and dumped them in the sewers. Apparently their graves were near initially buried near that parked red car.
Not far from there exists the original Nazi Air Force Ministry, which then became a Soviet Ministry as it was virtually untouched. It is HUGE and sits across the street from what was the SS and Gestapo headquarters.
This piece of art runs along the side of the building was created by the East German communist government to depict life there after the war. Notice everyone was happy in this work which was not the case in reality. 
The remains of the Berlin wall exist on the other side of this building. Here is a view from the east.
This portion is now protected and will be memorialized when the museum on the other side is finished. They had to put a fence around it so the people would not chip away at it for souvenirs.
From the West side it looks like this with the ministry behind it.
The wall came right up to both the Gestapo headquarters as well as the SS front doors. What was not destroyed in the war was then later destroyed by the government. But you can see that some students have dug up the basements of these buildings to include in the exhibit, Topography of Terror.Next to this dig is the Museum for the Arts. Notice the exterior...full of bullet holes.
Just down the street is the American and international checkpoint...Checkpoint Charlie. It is the tiny white building in the middle of the street.
Near both of these sites are the remains of a famous railstation. Hilter often used this and this is where he walked to met Mussolini when he came to Berlin. Because of this history the West German goverment destroyed most of it. It is called Anhalter Bahnhof. 
After TJ and I were finished with our tours that day we headed to Potsdamer Platz to get some food and drinks and then meandored about the city some more on our own. We went to the Sony Center which was very cool. We missed the Transformers premiere by one day, but they were setting up for it.
From we went back toward the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate where I ran into the street and straddled where wall used to be...one foot in the west and one in no man's land. The goverment has placed cobblestones outlining where the wall used to be. FYI, I look a mess because the wind was ridiculous all day!
Then we went to the Reichstag, or German Parliment building. It has been there a very long time, but was not used by the Nazi's or anyone until after the Reunification when the German government moved from Bonn to Berlin.
The line to go up into the glass dome was over two hours long so we decided to skip it. Of course there are many more pictures of the city, but you will have to visit TJ''s flickr to see them. Tomorrow I will post about our tour of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.Auf Wiedersehen!
1 comment:
I'm only 1/2-way through the post--but you had me at Blanket :)
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