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Informazioni su dove dormire, cosa visitare e come muoversi a Berlino.

Pochi giorni fa il mio amico Andrea Orsini mi ha chiesto informazioni su Berlino. Questo post è dedicato a lui e a tutte le altre persone che desiderano fare un bel viaggetto in questa città.

Dove dormire a Berlino:

Quando si decide di viaggiare uno dei primi quesiti che ci poniamo è: “Qual è il posto migliore in cui poter pernottare spendendo il giusto? Albergo o ostello?”. Per questo mi sono un po’ informata e ho scoperto che l’ostello Jetpak City Hostel di Berlino gode di un’ottima reputazione, sia per il suo rapporto qualità-prezzo, sia per la pulizia della sua struttura che per la sua doppia posizione, una nel centro della città e una più decentrata rispetto a Berlino.

Un altro albergo di Berlino recensito molto positivamente è l’Hotel Otto. Albergo a 4 stelle nel centro di Berlino, l’Hotel Otto offre camere standard, comfort, studio e suite. Per coloro che sono alla ricerca di soluzioni low-cost la camera standard è sicuramente quella più indicata (80 euro a notte).

Come muoversi a Berlino:

Per chi desidera muoversi per Berlino senza spendere una fortuna la soluzione migliore è quella di acquistare una Berlin WelcomeCard. Questa tessera consente di utilizzare tutti i mezzi pubblici della città e di usufruire di sconti fino al 50% su oltre 140 offerte per musei, attrazioni, spettacoli, club e ristoranti.

Cosa visitare a Berlino:

Dopo una non-breve documentazione ho raccolto un po’ di informazioni su cosa è consigliabile visitare quando si fa un viaggio a Berlino.

Uno dei primi posti da visitare sicuramente è la Porta di Brandeburgo, monumento simbolo della città. Sovrastata dalla Quadriga della Vittoria, la Porta di Brandeburgo era il punto dal quale iniziava il celebre Muro di Berlino.

La visita di Berlino può poi continuare percorrendo la storica strada della città, la Unter den Linden,  su cui si trovano numerosi luoghi di interesse tra cui il Museo della Fondazione Guggenheim, la Neue Wache, il Teatro dell’Opera e la famosa piazza di Bebelplatz nel quartiere Mitte, luogo in cui è esposto un pannello luminoso, dedicato al rogo di libri avvenuto per mano dei nazisti nel 1933.

La visita del quartiere Mitte si conclude nell’Alexander Platz, una delle piazze più celebri della parte orientale di Berlino. In questa piazza sorge il famoso Berliner Fernsehturm, la torre della televisione, uno di quei luoghi che, a detta di molti, non ci si può lasciar scappare se si visita Berlino. Il Fernsehturm, alto 368 metri, è facilmente visibile da tutti i distretti centrali di Berlino e, ad un’altezza di 207 metri, ospita un ristorante panoramico che ruota di 360° ogni mezz’ora.

Una tappa imperdibile durante una visita a Berlino è il Reichstag, il palazzo del Parlamento, e la sua cupola di vetro costruita dall’architetto Sir Norman Foster.

Per chi invece fosse interessato allo shopping, Friedrichstrasse, nei quartieri Mitte e Kreuzberg, è il centro nevralgico berlinese ideale per gli acquisti.

Sono inoltre numerosi i musei offerti dalla città di Berlino. Eccone alcuni:

Jüdisches Museum: è un museo di Berlino interamente dedicato alla storia degli ebrei. Il museo raccoglie duemila anni di storia e cultura ebraica.

Il suo creatore, Liebeskind, battezzò il progetto del museo “between the lines” (tra le linee) facendo riferimento al difficile percorso della storia ebraico-tedesca. La struttura del museo, infatti, occupa due edifici: uno già esistente, il barocco Berlin-Museum o Kollegienhaus, e uno contemporaneo, avanguardista, complesso e sorprendente quanto angosciante, costruito appositamente per ospitare il museo.

DDR Museum: è uno dei musei più interattivi d’Europa. Piccolo ma originale ed insolito, il DDR Museum permette ai suoi visitatori di toccare circa un migliaio gli oggetti allestiti al suo interno e raggruppati per temi come la famiglia, il tempo libero e la scuola

Bauhaus Archiv Museum für Gestaltung: è il museo del design di Berlino. Esso contiene la più grande raccolta al mondo di documenti sulla storia e sulla funzione svolta dal Bauhaus tra cui modelli, progetti e disegni architettonici, complementi d’arredo, stanze, mobili.

MauerMuseum (o “Museum am Checkpoint Charlie!”) è un museo ricco di documenti, foto, video e oggetti che ricordano le centinaia di persone che il 9 novembre 1989 (giorno della caduta del Muro di Berlino), a bordo delle proprie Trabant, attraversarono il famigerato posto di blocco “checkpoint Charlie” per raggiungere la zona ovest della città.

Inoltre, un luogo molto interessante da visitare ritengo sia la East Side Gallery, ovvero 1,3 km di tracciato del muro di Berlino completamente ricoperto da graffiti riguardanti il tema della pace e della libertà, realizzati da numerosi artisti.

Spero di avervi dato delle informazioni utili.

Visitate Berlino anche per me!

Le duo d’artistes Christo&Jeanne-Claude travaille ensemble depuis Novembre 1958, quand ils se sont rencontrés à Paris (il y a 51 ans). A partir de ce moment, ils ne se sont plus quittés et ont réalisé beaucoup de travaux dans le monde entier. Leurs installations temporelles sont très caractéristiques par leur grande taille et leur impact visuel.

Normalement, ils travaillent dans la planification de leurs projets avec des spécialistes de la construction et des ingénieurs. Avant de commencer la construction, ils font beaucoup d’esquisses et ils commercialisent et vendent les idées à des investisseurs privés et publics, et avec cet argent ils font de grandes installations. 

En 1979, ils ont commencé à travailler avec ‘The Gates’, une installation à Central Park New York. Ils ont trouvé l’investisseur et ont fixé les autorisations et les détails techniques pour la construction (toiles, structures etc.). En 2003, le maire de New-York a fait l’annonce officielle de la construction de l’installation. Deux ans après, en février 2005, elle a été inaugurée et après, toutes les toiles ont été recyclées.

La même chose s’est passée avant, avec le bâtiment du gouvernement en Allemagne (1971-1995). Ils ont fait ‘Wrapped  Reichstag’ avec l’aide de 90 professionnels de l’escalade et 120 installateurs. Cette installation a eu une grande signification politique et a été financée aussi par les artistes ; ils n’acceptent pas de donations économiques par leur travail.

            Christo and Jeanne-Claude ont travaillé ensemble, jusqu’à ce dernier mercredi 18  novembre, quand Jeanne-Claude est morte suite à des problèmes cérébraux.

Cet article est un petit hommage pour son travail, et pour la regrettable perte de Christo, son époux, collègue et artiste qui continuera à travailler en mémoire de Jeanne-Claude.

(Plus d’information sur http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/)

 Abril Sanchez Gzz., étudiante mexicaine, 4ème année art

I did a lot but I knew there were still a lot more to see. What a modern and old city at the same time! It is so culturally and historically rich with lots of arts and music going on here. The 2 days I spent there were definitely not enough to see everything.

Again, a few highlights:

The line at Reichstag building was long, but well worth the wait!

Jocelyn and I visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC in summer 2008, and it was solemn. I was really surprised with how different this Holocaust Memorial was in Berlin. Because of its unique architectural design, tourists (like me) were taking pictures everywhere. There were even kids running down the aisles playing hide-and-seek with their parents.

The East Side Gallery. How weird it is to be standing at a place where so much blood and tears were shed! I had seen similar pictures before, but I had some trouble looking up the information for it because there were just too many results when you searched for “Berlin Wall” on Google. (The truth is, there are many remaining Berlin Wall spots in Berlin).

“Eisbein” – have you guessed already? It is surly the pork knuckle (hock)! A Taiwanese friend told me, “As expected, German Eisbein really is good.” So I went home and looked up this “famous dish” that was no where to be found in American guidebooks. Lonelyplanet has one sentence talking about how German chefs use up all parts of the pork, including the hocks, like Chinese chefs. That was ALL. I then searched online for Chinese guidebooks and blogs, and voila, everybody was talking about the best restaurants for Eisbein in Germany.

Is this funny or what? Eisbien is a German specialty, but why is it not mentioned in American guidebooks? Here is my theory: It’s because it’s not really the type of meat that Americans eat. Still, wouldn’t people want to try something adventurous when they are traveling? I sure was glad to be bilingual and be able to compare guidebooks in two languages.

For your information, Eisbein is delicious! The pork hock is marinated before being stewed (roasted in the south). Most restaurants pair it with potatoes and pickled cabbage.

Berlin is one of my favorites cities in my travel. It’s a city that will always be a bit different when you return because there are so many things going on. I would consider living there – that’s how much I like it. (In Europe, Paris and Berlin are two cities I would consider living in).

I leave you with the remaining walls at Potsdamer Platz.

Le Jumelage à Berlin

Du 5 au 9 octobre dernier, le jumelage adulte a visité la capitale allemande lors d’un séjour programmé de longue date.
Après des retrouvailles chaleureuses à Meerbusch le samedi 3 octobre, départ le lundi 5 pour Berlin.
Le groupe séjournait Frankfurter Allee à l’est de Berlin.
Le mardi 6, le programme a commencé par une visite commentée de la ville en car : découverte des principaux centres d’intérêts de la capitale.
Parmi ceux-ci, le parlement où le groupe a visité la salle pleinière, la célèbre coupole de Norman Foster et assisté à une conférence sur le fonctionnement de l’assemblée.
Après une pause au Käfer Berlin sur la terrasse de la coupole, direction la Porte de Brandebourg et shopping dans les beaux quartiers.
Le mercredi, c’est le départ pour Potsdam et le château de Sans-Souci de Frédéric II.
Après un pique-nique, visite du Domaine de Krongut Bornstedt et dégustation dans les jardins de l’ancienne brasserie.
Pour la soirée, le groupe s’est retrouvé au Ratskeller de Köpenik pour assister au fameux Hauptmann von Köpenik, soirée typique de cabaret berlinois.
Le jeudi, la pluie contrarie un peu les projets et tout le monde se retrouve au self du Ka De We. Avec le retour du soleil, le groupe visite les curiosités de la ville : les reste du mur de Berlin, le Ku’Damm, l’église du souvenir Kaiser Wilhelm, Charlottenburg…
Vendredi, par un beau temps froid, embarquement pour une promenade fluviale sur la Spree : le groupe découvre un tout autre visage de Berlin.
De retour à Meerbusch le samedi, Roger Le Goff distribue les polos Fouesnant les Glénan à tous les participants.
Un grand merci à Kristel et Dieter Lass pour ce voyage et la remarquable organisation de cette semaine riche en découvertes et en échanges.
Guillaume LUCAS

Jeanne-Claude and Christo in 2007 (photo by Bryan Obrien)

Last Wednesday, the artist Jeanne-Claude, wife and creative partner of the artist Christo, passed away.  New Yorkers remember Jeanne-Claude and Christo’s ambitious 2005 piece, The Gates, a sweeping installation with 23 miles of saffron fabric fluttering throughout Central Park.

The Gates in Central Park, New York

The couple showcased their dramatic work all over the world, famously wrapping the Reichstag in Berlin and the Pont Neuf in Paris in fabric.

The Reichstag, Berlin

The Pont Neuf, Paris

But Jeanne-Claude and Christo aren’t just known for the grand scale of their work; they’re also known for their determination to get past all the red tape to bring their colossal visions to life.  Back in 2005, just before The Gates opened in New York, Studio 360’s Sarah Lilley talked with the couple about how they took “beauty into battle.”

- Erin Calabria

This is really breaking and shocking news.  Jeanne-Claude has died!  Doesn’t mean anything to you?  Don’t worry, up until literally a few days ago, that wouldn’t have meant anything to me either.  I just learned about her and her husband in my Contemporary Art class, and immediately became enthralled.  I went to their website, told my girlfriend all about them and generally became a fan!  Well Jean-Claude and her husband, Christo were an artistic duo that created huge monumental scale projects that would last for only two weeks.  They went by the moniker of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, both using only their first names for everything.  They dubbed themselves environmental artists, as no other description would really capture what they did.  For example, they actually wrapped the Reichstag (German Parliamentary building) in Berlin with over 1 million square feet of silver material.  And their most recent project was called “The Gates” and took place in New York’s Central Park.  The duo put up 7,503 gates, each standing 16 feet tall and placed at 12 foot intervals along all of the enormous park’s walkways.  For all of their projects, they paid for everything themselves, accepting no donations or sponsorship and no volunteers.  They paid all workers.  More than their work, they are very interesting people.  They met in Paris in 1958.  Christo, the artistic mind of the two, was working on  series of portraits for Jeanne-Claude’s mother.  The two met and quickly fell in love.  They’ve been together ever since.  They even share the exact same date of birth, even becoming a part of this world on the same hour!  Jeanne-Claude just passed away on Wednesday, the 18th of November, 2009 from complications of a ruptured brain aneurysm.  Click the picture of the wrapped Reichstag above to check out some more of their great work at their website.

Wie weit sich die Politiker vom Volk oder anders herum entfernt haben, deute ich aus folgender kleinen Episode am Rande eines Schülerzeitungsseminars. Schüler auf diesem Seminar machten den üblichen Verfassungsvergleich: 1848 und 1871. Auf einmal zog ein Schüler einen Kasten neben der Institutionen wie Bundestag/Reichstag auf und schrieb das Wort “Volksversammlung” hinein.

Auf meine Intervention, das Volk sei doch bereits durch die Abgeordneten in der entsprechenden Kammer vertreten, kam nur als Antwort: “Das ist nicht das Volk, das sind nur Politiker und die sind doch wohl nicht das Volk!” Für den Schüler war klar: Die Politiker vertreten das Volk nicht, sondern nur ihre Interessen. Soweit ist es schon gekommen.

Im Alter von 74 Jahren starb in einem New Yorker Krankenhaus die Künstlerin Jeanne-Claude. Sie war  die Ehefrau des Verhüllungskünstlers Christo. Gemeinsam mit ihrem Mann Christo verhüllte Jeanne-Claude 1995 den Reichstag in Berlin.

ZEIT ONLINE

“It is much easier to make war than peace” — Georges Clemenceau (French ambassador at the Paris Peace Conference) 

When the Great War, WWI, had ended, and the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28th, 1919 by the victorious Allied Powers and the defeated Germans, it set in motion a chain of events that ultimately led to the greatest catastrophe in world history, WWII. 

The Kaiser’s army had been quite different from that of the Nazi’s. Yes they had been ruthless, yes they had committed atrocities, but so did many other armies at the time. What made the Kaiser’s forces so much different from Hitler’s was ideology. The Kaiser viewed all Germans, including Jews, as his subjects. In fact, many German-Jews took up arms in the name of the Kaiser and had even served as officers in the war. This is not to say restrictions were not in place; Jews could not join the ranks of the nobility, which in German meant receiving the noble particle “von” before the surname, unless they renounced Judaism and converted to Christianity. This meant they could only rise so high within the ranks of the military, which was not uncommon throughout Europe, as many countries slighted minority groups during the age, be they religious or ethnic, but many Jews served in the Kaiser’s court, and had long established themselves as a well-assimilated, and appreciated community within German society. German-Jews, under the Kaiser, were, for the most part, very proud of their country, culture, and nationality, and thought of themselves as nothing but German. Ashkenazi Jews were actually very closely linked to Germany at the time, and adopted many aspects of German culture into Judaism. Yiddish, for example, was a dialect of German that was widely spoken by many Jews worldwide before the rise of Hitler. 

When Germany surrendered at the end of WWI, one must realize that the Allies didn’t even possess a single square-inch of German soil. For the most part, the British naval blockade, and the protracted nature of trench warfare, was what defeated the German army and the German people’s morale. At the time the armistice was signed, German troops actually occupied French and Belgian territory. Many of the German troops who were told they had to surrender, Pvt. Adolf Hitler included, could not understand why, since it was they, and not the Allies, who occupied their enemy’s countries. They had already technically won the war on the Eastern Front, after signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Russians in 1918, and had come close to winning the war in the West as well, on a number of occasions, even coming to within 30 miles of Paris at one point in the war. What these soldiers could not see, due to the fact it was intentionally being hidden from them by their government, was the fact that the German empire was running out of food, resources, and money, and morale had dwindled so low at home, and in some divisions, that the Kaiser had been deposed and many of his beloved divisions had begun to surrender their positions to the Allies wholesale. The German war machine had essentially been choked out, rather than smashed altogether, and German defeat was more of a matter of circumstance rather than fact. Most parties, such as the British, were simply happy to end the war, given the fact it had been the most costliest in human history up to that point. The French, however, having suffered German invasions for centuries, advocated a march on Berlin that would disable German war capabilities once and for all. The Allies undoubtedly had the upper hand at the time, but the Germans wouldn’t have stood by quietly had the Allies pursued such a strategy. It would’ve cost far more lives and could’ve extended the war for years on end… and, as is always the case in war, there was no guarantee of success either. 

Without being directly exposed to conditions on the home-front, bitter WWI vets, like Adolf Hitler, could not fathom how they had lost the war. From their bunkers and foxholes, all they could see were German boots on French and Belgian soil, yet they were being told that they had lost the war. Various conspiracy theories quickly started to spread amongst the soldier’s ranks, one of which was the Dolchstoßlegende, which translates in English as the “Stab-in-the-Back Legend”. The Dolchstoßlegende was a belief that gained widespread popularity in post-war Germany that claimed communist Jews, who were not believed to be “true Germans at heart”, had sabotaged the war effort both at home and in the field, causing the German war effort to fail. Only reinforcing the people’s belief in this conspiracy, two prominent German-Jewish bankers, Max Warburg and Carl Melchior, were sent to Paris as part of the delegation to negotiate the Treaty of Versailles and procure the “best possible financial terms” for Germany. When the Versailles Treaty turned out to be as harsh as it was, the two bankers were pointed to as evidence of a Jewish conspiracy that was trying to destroy Germany (Max Warburg’s role in financing the Bolshevik movement in Russia didn’t help things either). Jewish bankers and businessmen were accused of profiteering off of Germany’s defeat and the German-Jews as a people were viewed as an alien-element within Germany by much of the population from that point forward; making the people all the more susceptible to Hitler’s anti-Semitic message. The Weimar Republic was also thought to be responsible for the terms of the treaty, due to their ineptitude and corruption. This created a very hostile climate within the country against the government, which led to various coup attempts throughout the Weimar regime’s short reign. 

An astute statesmen, whose name I cannot recall (thought it was Woodrow Wilson but it doesn’t appear to be) said, “If you treat the Germans like enemies, they will not disappoint”. The exceedingly harsh conditions laid out in the Versailles Treaty, designed to break Germany for several generations, were obviously not very well received in the Fatherland. What really bothered many Germans, more so than the loss of territory/colonies, military reduction, or the reparations, was the forced admission of war guilt on the part of country. In the eyes of many, Germans and neutral parties alike, the Allies were at least partly to blame for backing Serbia after Serbian agents assassinated the crown prince of the Austrian Empire, the archduke Franz Ferdinand. The Allies believed that Kaiser Wilhelm simply used the archduke’s assassination as a pretext for war, and that he had been craving new territory for some time. There was no denying that Kaiser Wilhelm was a militarist-expansionist, and that he had a particular distaste for both France and Russia, but claiming that Germany would’ve declared war on the Allies even if Franz Ferdinand had not been shot is pure speculation. The German people begrudged this condition of the treaty so much because they felt it was the source of all the other terms, such as the territorial loss and reparations. Had Germany’s cause for war been declared legitimate, the Allies would’ve had no justification in sticking it to Germany in the fashion that they did. 

These perceived injustices, combined with the ineffectiveness of the democratically elected Weimar Republic, caused widespread resentment in Germany towards the West (i.e. France, Britain, USA, etc..). Democracy, capitalism, materialism, civil rights, etc… were disdained by many, and a rash of anti-Semitism spread like wildfire. Post-WWI, the German people essentially split into two camps, neither of which were democratic; Marxists and National Socialists. Various communist coup attempts took place throughout the reign of the Weimar Republic, which partly led to a rise in ultra-nationalism. In response to these Marxist agents, many of which were Jewish, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party began to make headway on the political scene. It wasn’t long after that that Marxists and Nazis were openly killing each other in the streets. Promising to save the wealthy businessmen in Germany from communism, Hitler gained the support of many capitalists, even though he had no more love for capitalism than the communists did. 

The chaotic political conditions mixed with the miserable economic conditions in Germany set the stage for a demagogic, savior-like figure to rise to the forefront of the political scene. The Germans believed they had been unfairly treated by the Allied powers and believed communist Russia was covertly attacking them, in an effort to dismantle their sovereignty and subjugate them to Soviet rule. When Adolf Hitler promised to put the people back to work, rearm the nation, recover lost territory, and rid the country of foreign/communist/Jewish influence, it resonated with many of the people. Although the Nazi Party never gained a majority in the Reichstag by the vote of the people, they did become the most powerful political party in the country by the late ’20s, and their popularity only grew when Hitler started delivering on his promises (i.e. economic revival, rearmament, territorial reclamation, etc..). 

Had the Allied Powers not alienated, punished, and isolated Germany at the end of the war like they did, they would not have fanned the flames of ultra-nationalism within the country and soured the German people’s taste for democracy. On the other hand, had the Allies not totally destroyed the Kaiser’s system and replaced it with a corrupt faux-democracy, there would’ve been no need for a demagogue to create a new system of his own. On the other side of the spectrum, had the Allies, at the very least, driven the Germans out of France and Belgium, there would’ve been no need on the part of the German soldier to reach for conspiracy theories as to why their government had told them to surrender. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but one can make a pretty good case that the Versailles Treaty was to Hitler as Dr. Frankenstein was to the Frankenstein monster.

In the opinion of most all historians, the first turning point of WWII came decades before Hitler came to power; decades before the second worldwide conflagration was ignited. Had the Allies either dealt with Germany more leniently, or pressed their advantage all the way to Berlin, the course of world history would’ve unquestionably played out much, much differently. 

“I don’t know whether war is an interlude during peace, or peace an interlude during war” — Georges Clemenceau 

The signing of the Treaty of Versailles may have been WWII’s first turning point, but it was by no means its last. I will further elaborate on WWII turning points in upcoming posts.

Things that were lost since November 1989. Dass war damals und ist jetzt vorbei.

Berlin November 1989 - Brandenburger Tor

Berlin November 1989 - Reichstag

Berlin November 1989 - Potsdammer Platz

Berlin November 1989 - Brandenburger Tor

Berlin November 1989 - Brandenburger Tor

]]> http://jimgrey.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/it-happened-at-the-wall/ Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:20:54 +0000 Jim http://jimgrey.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/it-happened-at-the-wall/

I spent the summer of 1984 in Germany on an Indiana University exchange program with 29 other Indiana high-school German students. I lived with a kind and patient family in Krefeld for six of the seven weeks I was there; we young Hoosiers spent the seventh week in Berlin.

Germany was still divided in 1984. We could not know that in five years the Cold War would end, marked dramatically on our televisions by video of East Germans spilling over the Wall and through its checkpoints. We had all seen photos of it in our history books, of course, and maybe even in our German texts. We had heard the story of how the Wall went up “virtually overnight” to keep East Germans from escaping to the West. The whole concept of keeping the East Germans in seemed sad and silly, yet it happened half a world away and seemed remote. So I was unprepared for the Wall when I saw it.

The Wall was at least twice my height, effectively blocking the view into the East except for tall structures near the border. Its rounded top made it hard to scale.

It stood several feet behind a railing, which marked the actual border between east and west. Step over the railing and you were on shaky ground. The sign says, “Attention, you are now leaving West Berlin.”

The railing made a wide strip around West Berlin into a no-man’s land. These shots are of the Brandenburg Gate, finished in 1791. It teemed with people until 1962, when the Wall was built.

We crossed into East Berlin at Checkpoint Charlie and saw the Gate’s other side from behind a fence. Nobody could get close to this grand symbol of Berlin from either side.

Back in West Berlin, the wall stopped next to the Reichstag where the Spree River flowed by.

It was a popular place for East Berliners to try to swim to freedom, at least until the East German government lined the river with barbed wire. These eight people were either caught up in it or were shot by border guards as they tried to cross. Here we were told that the no-man’s land behind the Wall was heavily mined and, in some places, lined with weapons that fired automatically.

This is where I fully grasped the Wall’s reality. At first, I had felt frustrated by it, as the roaming American in me was not used to being prevented from going where I pleased. Then I felt saddened that it kept historic sites off limits to everybody. But when I saw these crosses, and the watchtower that loomed near them, I finally understood the real power and control being exerted over an entire people.

I spent but a few hours in East Berlin. Every building was old, gray, and dilapidated, compared with the many gleaming new structures in the West. I saw few cars on the roads in East Berlin, but most of the ones I did see were tiny, noisy, smoke-belching, plastic-resin-bodied Trabants as in the photo at left; the roads in West Berlin were choked with traffic, with cars of every make and model produced across Europe and Japan. I stood in the Alexanderplatz watching people going about their business, noticing the downcast silence with the average East German went about his business, especially compared with the exuberance I had experienced in the nightlife on the hot Ku’damm in West Berlin the night before. And then, as my group passed by the Neue Wache building, a military procession began. Everybody stopped to watch the goose-stepping soldiers in their show of miltary strength; the onlookers’ faces showed dull acceptance.

Nature called while I stood on the Alexanderplatz. A sign pointed to a public toilet; it turned out to be a fetid underground pit into which men peed in plain view of each other. Unable to abide the stench, I sought out a restaurant, hoping to find facilities. A hunched-over old man was stationed in the tiny restroom, requiring a 10-pfennig coin to access the stalls and doling out short strips of toilet paper. Such is the nature of communism’s promise of full employment. I lacked coins, and the man would not change a bill, and so I held it until I returned to the West.

It was in experiencing the Wall, and spending those few hours in the East, that I first appreciated the great gifts of freedom I had always enjoyed.

One November morning five years later, I had just started to make my breakfast before dressing and going to work when the radio told me the news of the Wall’s end. I sat at my kitchen table and cried, simultaneously recalling my feelings of shock and sadness from my brief glimpses into East German life, and feeling joy for those people and the hope of better lives for them all.

I’ve touched on my trip to Germany twice before, about the joys of it, and about how I thought it put me in hot water with the FBI.

Today 20 years ago the Berlin Wall opened: East-Germans were able to visit West-Berlin.  In November 1989 Berlin was a city of freedom and hope. One of the first crossings was the Potzdammerplatz. After the fall of the wall this open space turned into one of the biggest building pits of Europe.

Berlin November 1989 - Reichstag

Berlin November 1989 - Potzdammerplatz

Berlin November 1989 - Potzdammerplatz Berlin November 1989 - Brandenburger Tor

Berlin November 1989 - Brandenburger Tor

Reichstag – - klik

Berlin  Wall Being Built 1961

For those that did not get to experience the “other” side of the Iron Curtain and only know the Berlin Wall from history the 9^th of November may not mean a lot.  However as someone who spent three years commanding troops preparing for the day that the Soviet Union would strike across the Fulda Gap and across the North German Plain the fall of the Berlin Wall was an amazing event.  The wall had been built in 1961 and in the succeeding years increased in complexity and many East Berliners lost their lives trying to escape at the hands of the East German Grenzschützen and Stasi agents.

Berlin Wall Death Zone

For those of us who grew up during the Cold War under the threat of “Mutual Assured Destruction” proxy wars in the Middle East, Asia and Africa and tense confrontations between U.S., NATO and Soviet forces at sea, in the air and at various flash points the Wall seemed like it would be there for the rest of our lives.

The initial cracks in the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe began in Poland as an obscure shipyard worker named Lech Walesa along with others who had been active in strike movements in the 1970s which were legalized in 1980 as Solidarity.  This movement would help encourage those in other Eastern European, or Warsaw Pact nations to begin their own resistance movements.  This in every case was a risky undertaking.  Anti-Soviet movements in Hungary and Czechoslovakia and been crushed by Soviet and other Warsaw Pact nations in 1956 and 1968.  Encouraged by support from U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II these movements in Poland and elsewhere continued to grow.

President Reagan at the Wall 1987

When Reagan gave his “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” speech on June 27^th 1987 it was greeted with derision by many but in less than three years would become a reality as the Soviet system suddenly and unexpectedly came apart in September and October of 1989.  That speech contained these immortal words:

“We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

Padre Steve at Berlin Wall in November 1986

At the time President Reagan made that speech I was an Army Captain at Fort Sam Houston Texas in San Antonio.  The Abbess and I had just returned from a three year assignment in Germany.  My unit, the 557th Medical Company (Ambulance)  where I served as a platoon leader, executive officer and later company commander was part of the 68^th Medical Group. Our mission in the event of a war with the Soviet Union was to provide casualty evacuation in V Corps area of operations and assist in the reconstitution of the 11^th Armored Cavalry Regiment which was expected if war occurred to have a 90% casualty rate.  Our preparations went on every day, site visits to locations we would occupy, REFORGER exercises and several alerts a month where we were expected to be ready to move to our GDP (General Deployment Positions) locations in 4 hours or less.  This meant ready to go to war.  Additionally there was the very real threat of terrorist directed at U.S. and German soldiers, officials and public locations such as the Frankfurt International Airport and the U.S. PX at Frankfurt which were both bombed by the Red Brigades.  In fact the Abbess and I were on the road to the Frankfurt PX when she told me to turn around because she was not feeling well.  Had we continued on there is a good chance that we would have been at or near where the blast occurred.

We visited Berlin in November of 1986 driving my 1985 bright red Opel Kadett through the Helmstedt-Berlin corridor to Berlin.  That was an interesting trip.  Paperwork had to be completed well in advance and approved before the trip.  Because the trip involved going through East Germany it was required that we first stop at the NATO border checkpoint followed by the Soviet Checkpoint.  The trip was 110 miles to Berlin and we had to repeat the process first with the Soviets then at NATO.  There was to be no deviation from the route and the trip had to be made in a certain amount of time.  Too fast, you got a ticket, too slow, you got investigated.  Since we did not recognize the authority of the East German government all dealings were to be with the Soviets.

The trip was interesting, Soviet and East German troop convoys on the road with us, East German Polizei monitoring our progress and the dreariness of the East German towns and cities that we passed.  It was like driving through a time warp back to the 1950s.  It was a radical difference from what we knew in West Germany.

Cars were different; they were Soviet built Ladas, actually Fiats made under license in the Soviet Union, East German Traubis, and Czech build Skoda automobiles.  All were antiquated by western standards and at best were products of 1950s and 1960s technology.  My Opel was an economy car in the west but as the European Car of the Year in 1985 was a masterpiece of technology in comparison to anything built in the Eastern bloc.

We remained in West Berlin our first night and in the morning made the trip into the East.  Going through Checkpoint Charlie was a surreal experience as we watched East German Border Police take our photos from their control point.   We eventually found some parking in the Alexanderplatz, did some shopping, sightseeing, had a small bite to eat and a beer, the beer being quite bad, obviously the product of the Communist system, you could not believe that it had been brewed in Germany it was so bad.  It was so bad it made any cheap American beer taste good by comparison.  We went to the East Side of the Brandenburg Gate, visited a number of other sites, including the East German War memorial where as I lined up a photo was nearly kicked in the balls by an East German soldier as he goose stepped during the changing of the guard ceremony.  So members of a Scottish Regiment of the British Army got a “kick” out of this and I had no idea how close to disaster I had come until Judy told me later.  That would have been worth the price of admission for all who saw it had the boot landed.  When we finished in the east we went over to the Reichstag and the western side of the wall.   When we returned to our hotel I discovered that I had no film in the camera and so the next morning we made the trek to East Berlin once again.  This time I was able to get photos.

The Wall Falls November

The Soviet System began to come apart in the summer of 1989.  Strikes, riots and refugee crisis enveloped much of the Warsaw Pact.  Hungary opened its border with Austria in August allowing thousands of East Germans into the west followed by Czechoslovakia.  Gorbachev had decided as early as 1986 that he would not use force to quell trouble in the Warsaw pact nations.  As the turmoil built throughout the Warsaw Pact the situation in East Germany became critical as thousands of East Germans gathered at border crossing points on the night of November 9^th.  Later in the evening the wall would be breached.  It was the beginning of the end for the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.  In country after county Communist governments fell, most peacefully but in cases like Romania in a violent manner.  On December 31^st 1990 the Hammer and Sickle was taken down from Red Square in Moscow signaling the end of the Soviet Union as on Republic after another declared their independence ushering in a period of uncertainty, change and confusion in the former Soviet Union.

Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan in 1987, in 1986 Gorbachev Decided that He would Not Use Force to put down Revolts in Eastern Europe

Gorbachev’s foreign affairs adviser, Anatoly Chernyaev, recorded the moment of the collapse of the Berlin Wall in his diary.

“The Berlin Wall has collapsed. This entire era in the history of the socialist system is over,” he wrote. “Today we received messages about the retirement of [China's] Deng Xiaopeng and [Bulgaria's] Todor Zhivkov. Only our ‘best friends’ Castro, [Romania's Nicolae] Ceausescu, and [North Korea's] Kim Il Sung are still around — people who hate our guts.”

Looking back 20 years it is still hard to believe that the event occurred. As a former Cold Warrior I pray that the West and the Russian Republic will not return to a Cold War mentality and begin to cooperate in ways that are beneficial to peace, security and economic stability.  In the current world situation we have more shared concerns, especially in relationship to radical Islam and terrorism which affect both the West and the Russians in a similar manner.  Economic, military and diplomatic cooperation between the West and the Russians is more important than ever.

The rest is history and the future is yet to be written.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

David Frum has a great piece in Commentary Magazine on “What the Tories Have to Teach Us” – sorry, you have to buy the full article.  But here’s a short selection that those of us interested in politics should keep in mind:

“What you talk about matters perhaps as much as what you say.” … While upholding your principles, align your priorities with the priorities of the country at large.
People who care intensely about politics often do not care about the same things as those people who care less intensely about politics. This enthusiasm gap opens a trap for a political movement.
The politically committed rummage through polls and see professed support for their position. They seize on these numbers as an opportunity to mobilize the public. And more often than not, they end up looking odd, obsessive, marginal.

The passage made me think of a documentary I saw on TV last night that was looking at how Berlin has been rebuilt in the 20 years since the fall of the Wall.  In particular, the Reichstag was fully restored after German reunification, and includes quite a modern dome designed by a British architect.

Through a system of mirrors, visitors inside the dome can see the elected officials at work on the floor below and, in turn, the parliamentarians can see the shadows of the people above.  Apparently, the idea is to remind the parliamentarians that they serve the people and that the people are always watching over their work.

Der Herbst ist zwar bunt hier, aber auch irgendwie trostlos. Und was hilft gegen triste Stimmung? Radl und Einkaufen in Lieblingsgeschäften. Nachdem ich Marie’s wunderschöne Bilder bewundert hatte, lockte mich sofort wieder das Fernweh – und weil das alles nicht schnell genug zu verwirklichen ist, bleibt wenigstens ein Ausflug in die Friedrichsstrasse zum französischen Kaufhaus. Alle Zutaten für den Quiche inklusive frisches Baguette halfen sofort die Stimmung aufzuhellen

Auf dem Weg dorthin nur Remmidemmi. Hinter dem Bundestag war kein Durchradeln, da der Politadel dabei war, sich zur konstituierenden Sitzung zu versammeln. Also doch wieder Kopfsteinpflasterradln für’s Volk …   Auf dem Rückweg wollte ich deshalb Vorne herum, aber denkste … die Reichstags-Kuppel-Schlange machte keinen Platz. Noch nicht einmal Klingeln hilft da, als wenn ich mich inklusive Radl vordrängeln wollte. *kopfschüttel*

Tja, alles nicht so einfach wenn man auf dem Weg nach ‘Frankreich’ erst an den deutschen Polit-Weihestätten vorbei muß.

Der Quiche ist gebacken, es riecht gut, es ist warm zuhause und wir freuen uns auf den Besuch aus Stuggitown, denen gerade der Landesvater nach Europa weggelaufen ist …

Proving that Rome rebuilt the middle wall of partition between the Jews and the Church, which were made one by Christ!  Rome realized it was fighting a losing battle with the original Jewish followers of Christ, who accepted and believed Jesus was their Messiah 2,000 years ago, which was original Christianity.

The Romans first attempt to stamp out Jesus’ new movement of Judaism was hunting down and killing the Apostles. When that did not stop the Jewish followers of Christ, the Romans turned their attention toward the common Jewish people, their converted Gentiles who became Jews by following Jesus, their land, their beloved city Jerusalem, and the Jewish Temple.

The execution of the Jewish leaders (the Apostles) proved fruitless in the effort to halt original Christianity; which was really unperverted Judaism.  In fact, every time a Jewish Apostle was executed, it gave birth to more Christians from the Jewish and Gentile ranks; who had not yet made a decision to believe Jesus was the Messiah promised to Israel thousands of years before Jesus was born.

In 67 A.D. when Nero was Emperor of Rome, he had the Apostle Paul executed, and hatched a plan to utterly destroy the Jewish people, who were now called the Christians.  Nero decided, after hundreds of Christians were executed, it was impossible to stop Christianity by arresting and killing individuals, as well as the Christian Leaders.  Rome had failed their first attempt to stop the thickheaded Jewish followers of Jesus.

It was the entire horde of Jewish followers who had to be destroyed; but that job would be too immense, since there were millions of followers; and the Jews were lightly salted all over the vast Roman Empire.  Nero’s sick plan was to accomplish the destruction of the Jewish people by using the Gentile Roman citizens throughout the Roman Empire.  The stubborn Jews were nestled in every corner of the far-reaching Roman Empire.

Therefore, the Roman Emperor Nero hatched his diabolical scheme.  If Nero were to destroy the one thing cherished by all Roman citizens, and blame the Jews, he could get the angry Roman citizens to kill the Jews.  So, Nero burned Rome.

When Nero attempted to blame the followers of Jesus for burning Rome, he believed this would enrage the Gentile citizens of the Roman Empire.  Hoping the general public in every Roman nation, who personally knew their Jewish neighbors and where they lived, would rise up, drag the Jews from their homes, and beat them to death!

After Nero burnt down Rome, he told the Roman Senators what he had done.  They were so enraged by Nero burning their beloved city, they assassinated him.  Although Nero’s planned backfired and cost him his life, Adolph Hitler used the same scheme to get rid of the Jews in Germany.

Hitler duplicated Nero’s plan in 1938 by burning the German Reichstag in Berlin, which was the German Parliamentary building, similar to the Capital Building in Washington D.C.  Then Hitler blamed the evil deed upon the Bolechecvics, a name describing the Jews from Russia.

Unlike Nero, the German people believed Hitler, who succeeded in causing the citizens of Germany to rise up and literally drag Jews from their homes and beat them to death!  It was known as the Night of Broken Glass.  This lie resulted in over six million Jews being murdered and countless Jews maimed, crippled, and mentally destroyed; not to mention the hordes of Jewish people who lost their families, belongings, lifestyles, and country.

To be continued…

Le Jumelage à Berlin

Vom 5. bis 9. Oktober, besichtigte der Erwachsenenaustausch die deutsche Hauptstadt. Der Termin war schon längst geplant.
Nach ein fröhliches Wiedersehen in Meerbusch am 3. Oktober, ging’s los nach Berlin am Montag 5. Okt.
Die Gruppe war im Hotel auf der Frankfurter Allee – damals Ost-Berlin – untergebracht.
Am Dienstag 6. Okt. fing das Programm mit einer Stadtrundfahrt an : die Gruppe entdeckte dann die meisten Sehenswürdigkeiten der Hauptstadt.
Als Höhepunkt des Tages, war die Besichtigung des Bundestags geplant mit Plenar-Saal und der berümten Norman Fosters Kuppel. Anschliessend gab es eine sehr interessante Konferenz über Parlamentstätigkeiten.
Nach einer Pause zum Käfer Berlin auf der Kuppelsterrasse ging es Richtung Brandenburger Tor und Stadtbummel auf der schönen Einkaufsstrassen Berlins.
Am Mittwoch besichtigte die Gruppe Schloss Sans-Souci in Potsdam.
Nach dem Picknick, wurden alle zum Kringut Bornstedt willkommen, mit einer Verkostung in den alten Bräuereigärten. Der Abend war dem berliner Kabarett gewidmet mit einer Aufführung des Hauptmanns von Köpenik im Köpeniker Ratskeller.
Am Donnerstag schützete sich die Gruppe vom Regen im Ka De We. Im Laufe des Tages konnten doch alle weitere Sehenswürdigkeiten der Stadt mit sonnigem Wetter besichtigen : Berliner Mauerresten, Ku’Damm, Gedächtniskirche, Charlottenburg…
Am Freitag entdeckte die Gruppe ein ganz anderes Bild von Berlin mit einem Bootausflug auf der Spree.
Alle trafen sich wieder in Meerbusch am Samstag für eine Shirtsverteilung “Fouesnant Les Glénan” durch Bürgermeister Roger Le Goff.
Die französiche Gruppe dankt Kristel und Dieter Lass für diese schöne Reise und tadellose Organisation sehr herzlich.
Es war eine erlebnisvolle Woche mit viel Freude und Spass.

Ein Bericht von Guillaume LUCAS