Berlin - Part I

May 21 - Berlin

Arrival in the huge, shiny, spankingly new Hauptbahnhoff of Berlin. What an elegant and welcoming place with every known store and food emporium a traveler could hope for. And it was a sunny day, praise the lord.

We took a taxi to the Hotel Adlon, and noted at the front door that the official ‘greeters’ wore tall gray top-hats. We had just seen such a uniform at the train station where one of these gentlemen was picking up an elegant woman, taking her luggage and leading her, we now understood, to the hotel. Why hadn’t we thought to do that? Or was it something provided only to the very wealthy or ‘special’ people associated with the Adlon? In any case, we had arrived at another Kempinski Hotel – a sister to our lovely hotel in Dresden. We noted that like in Dresden, all the staff seemed open, friendly, helpful and truly trained to be service personnel. It is one thing to show a quick smile and then return to one’s grumpy state, but these people actually appear to enjoy their jobs and relish being helpful.

We were escorted to our room by a gentleman who described every button and switch (of which there are many), volunteered to help us with any little request, and as we were being introduced to our room, a maid came in with water and a display of fresh fruit, and another gentleman delivered our bags. While the room lacks that obscenely spacious feeling we had in Dresden, it certainly doesn’t lack in any other way…. Except they could provide a bit more storage for our clothes.

We learned that the original Adlon built in 1907, which Walter mentioned in the letters, was used as a bunker area and a hospital during the war. It was bombed out in 1945 and remained an empty hulk through the period of the GDR. In the early 90’s the Kempinski chain chose to rebuild the hotel in a model similar to the original, but with the incorporation of all modern luxuries and conveniences which are now expected. The result, like in Dresden is delightful.

We are in what was East Germany, next to the Brandenburg Gate which during the period of the GDR was a barren no-man’s land between the East and the West. The famous Blue sewage pipes we first noted in Dresden are prominent here in the old eastern sector, and we have yet to get somebody to accurately tell us why they exist. As we look out our window we see the new Berlin rising before our eyes. It is one huge construction site with cranes dotting the sky line in all directions. It appears that any vestige of the gray dull Communist-era construction is being torn down to make way for shiny glass tall modern buildings housing the new offices of the federal government which has moved from Bonn back to Berlin. Businesses choosing to set up headquarters in the new capital of Germany, and retailers here to take advantage of the rising economy are incented to help make this city a new and lively place. It would appear that if one is in the construction business there is no lack of opportunity, and I would think employment figures would be quite robust.

We had read a fairly bitter article in the Int’l Herald Tribune that could make the reader believe that Berlin is failing as a new capital. It implied that the incentive ‘packages’ aren’t working, and that there is a feeling of despair. We certainly aren’t seeing that and we wondered if there weren’t some sour grapes being expressed. Like in Dresden and Leipzig and other eastern cities, we are watching a work-in-progress and it will take years for us to see the end result. The Germans are working very hard to erase most of the history from 1933 – 1990, and replace it with the new Germany which is open, thriving and democratic.

For dinner we chose a concierge-recommended typical Bavarian restaurant called Maximillian, which was a bit of a hike but gave us a chance to become familiar with the neighborhood and to stretch our legs after a long day on trains. We noted plenty of Starbucks, and Dunkin Donuts along with Berlin’s direct competition to them – Einstein’s - which is trying to bring back the old coffee house atmosphere. Good luck to them.  We ended our busy day with drinks in our very elegant hotel lobby watching the world and being watched in return.

May 22 - Berlin To get our bearings, we chose, as we always do, to take an open-top bus tour starting at the Brandenburg Gate. With headsets glued to our ears, and sunshine streaming on our faces, we drove around the city for 2.5 hours while the ‘tour guide’ told us what we were seeing. There are still large open expanses where buildings either were torn down after the war, or after the GDR, there are on the back-streets the gloomy gray functional cubes which housed people and businesses But the speaker in our ear spoke to new roads, new buildings, new attitudes, a new ‘Athens’ rising to meet the 21st century. After a few grid-lock situations and a few detours around construction we headed back to the hotel to recoup.

Next, off to thee Opernpalais Restaurant, next to the StaatsOpera, on Unter Den Linden – a few blocks down from our hotel, past the Russian Embassy and Aeroflot Airlines – two reminders that this part of Berlin was definitely in the eastern zone. We sat outside under an awning, people-watching, sipping beer and enjoying the warm weather. The language range is rich – Italian, French, German, British, assorted eastern and Russian… and occasionally 'American'. I keep reminding myself that we are in the heart of the Nazi and Communist world, where street names still in existence conjure up a different time, when life was a lot less relaxed and pleasant.

 For Bob, Berlin holds a special interest since when he was here working in the 1980’s, most of this area was off limits except for very carefully structured bus tours which were extolling the wonders of the GDR. To be able to now stroll freely through the old eastern zone of Berlin as well as the former Nazi government district along the streets he’s read so much about brings a lot of the history alive.

Over the next days there will be a lot of sites to visit and we’ll earn our meals.

May 23 Awaking to a semi-sunny day, we hopped on the S-bahn train and headed to one of the Berlin Underground tours only to discover that we had been given incorrect information about the time of the English tour and we’d have to wait until tomorrow. To salve our unhappiness, we walked to Museum Island to see the Pergamon Museum. This is a museum which I’d heard about while studying Greek antiquity but which had been in the eastern sector and thus less available. The entire Museum Island is a construction site as the newly merged Germany is trying to bring the island back to its former glory. The Pergamon like all the museums had been seriously bombed during WW II, and not well maintained during the time of the GDR.

Many galleries and sites were therefore under scaffolding and plastic, but the two large and impressive exhibits were available for viewing. The altar from Pergamon (in Turkey) is one of the largest constructions I’ve ever seen under the roof of any museum. The frieze sculptures which went around the entire base of the original altar represent the battle between the gods and the titans with Athena and Zeus leading the charge. When standing at the base of the long steep flight of marble stairs leading up to the sacrificial altar one feels a little of the awe which must have been felt by the inhabitants as they came forward to present their sacrificial animals. With our audio tour we were told about the entire altar, the frieze and the associated sculptures. In addition there was a very well made model of what Pergamon must have looked like in 160 b.c., so one saw how the altar fit amidst all the other important libraries, shopping arcades, and temples. While one of the other large monuments – the Militas Gate - was behind plastic and scaffolding we were able to enjoy the other impressive display, almost as massive – the Ishtar temple and processional walkway from the time of Nebuchadnezzar, in Babylon (now Iraq).

The entire structure is made of beautiful enameled tiles of brilliant blue, yellow and green with enamel lions and dragons in bas relief against the tile. The enamel colors were so primary that they reminded me in a simple way of Mexican tile work – just a few centuries earlier. These two massive structures the Pergamon Altar and walls of Ishtar were all that was truly available to be seen at this museum. I keep remembering Eckhart telling me that the Germans never just stole and plundered sites of antiquity, but rather they purchased them. Hmmmm, thought I, that must have been one heck of a price tag paid to Turkey and Iraq to make these acquisitions. The bigger question is: had they not been acquired would they remain to this day to be seen in their original locations, or would they have been plundered and sold in pieces such that one would never get a sense of their massive splendor?

Our next museum stop closer to our hotel, which Bob wanted to see, is called Mythos Germania. It is a very small, private museum which is trying to keep alive the ‘shadows and traces of the ‘Imperial Capital’ imagined by Hitler and Speer during the time of the Third Reich. The museum which is a rough-built structure sits very close to the bunker where Hitler died, and kitty-corner to the Holocaust Memorial which lies on top of the remains of Goebbels quarters, and personal bunker. A most pleasant neighborhood. The main exhibits show the plans which Hitler had to build a city that would surpass Paris in its grandeur. The buildings were all to be huge; the roads which were to be built were to be wide, massive and impressive. Everything was to be of a size to inspire awe and fear.

Unfortunately for the Nazis, the war reduced their plans to nothing, and what was a grand plan remained exactly that. Entire neighborhoods were to be flattened for this grand scheme and 60000 Jews were to be ‘un-tenanted’. Berlin was ultimately flattened – but by allied bombs. The gruesome part was that to build these sites would require more cement, steel and brick than was able to be produced by any manufacturing site, so Speer arranged to create additional manufacturing factories which depended on slave prisoners for its labor. In addition to the displays there were videos - all in German - from both the newsreels, and from propaganda films, extolling the Nazi regime. The original  project was planned to be completed by 1950…as soon as the ‘current unpleasantness’ was concluded, and Germany was victorious.

Having taken in that cheerful site, we then walked over to the Holocaust Memorial which covers a few acres of land. This entire memorial has been a source of discussion as to its purpose and place. It is made up of 2711 gray stelae cubes each about a metre by 3 metres. They are of different heights (the tallest being 15 feet in height), and on undulating land so that one sees a person walking in to this area and as they progress towards the center their head disappears as the stelae get taller and the land slopes downward. In addition to this memorial above ground there is a museum underground with an excellent walking tour that gives you the history of the holocaust, provides statistics as to how many people from each country were exterminated (Poland the most, Belgium the least) as well as written testimonials of people writing to their families. Perhaps the most compelling exhibits were the individual stories of fifteen Jewish families from different parts of the world. For each family there was a large family photograph taken when the world was more sane. Then they displayed documents and photographs that followed the individual members of the family to their fate. For each person they showed their birth, death and location of death.

Some lived and went to Israel, America or Latin America. More of them died in one camp or another. In all cases it made a very personal statement about very real people which made the large numbers of dead become more intimate and concrete. This for me was the most emotional of all the exhibits because it was so personal. While the museum was small, it was powerful and we would have stayed longer but it was closing hour. So having spent a day amidst war, we went off for a beer and some food along the lively bustling streets of Berlin on a Friday evening. What incongruity!! One has to remember that not too long ago this was the heart of the Nazi world. Every street name carries an ominous overtone of death and insanity. For Bob who has read so much of this period, every address carried a meaning. Since 1945 much of these physical sites have been destroyed either by the bombings of the war or by the victors of the war who wanted all sites associated with this atrocity to be obliterated. Now when one walks these streets there are lovely open parks, tall apartment complexes, or new roads filled with cafes and ice cream stands. War? What war? Someone born after 1975 would be hard pressed to see any remnant of the war except in small plaques which tell what stood in a particular spot… or memorials such as the ones we visited.

In one sense the Germans want to give full remembrance to this period, such that it won’t happen again, and yet on the other they don’t want to wallow in the past. For example the site of the bunker where Hitler died was totally destroyed by the Russians and until recently the German government wanted no indication of the site for fear that neo-Nazis might make this a memorial to their dead Fuhrer. But others wanted to at least have a marker to note the spot since it has an historical significance. And that’s what there is – a small marker. When we walked Wilhelmstrasse, the street with all the famously ghoulish addresses, there was almost no one there. It is not part of any bus tour, and only those with knowledge of the history would know where to look for these small indications of a very large disaster.