We hit the U6 subway by our hotel and quickly determined that it wasn't running, doh! Not cuz it was obvious in all the English being spoken around us, it was simply the fact that all the Germans were leaving the platform with frowns on their faces. Now what??? Once again, google maps to the rescue. Plugged in the meeting place for the tour and Google maps told us exactly how to use public transportation via bus instead of subway. It was awesome. We went from, oh crap, we'll never make the tour, to calm cool and collected. We only wait a few mins for the bus which was around the corner and got off a few stops later. It was actually one stop too early but we got to another street car stop that was headed to the same place and hopped on it for one stop. Took us right there with almost 15 minutes to spare, we are getting good at this!
The tour started at Hackesher Market and lasted for over 4 hours. It was jammed packed of great info from a REAlly awesome tour guide. Ryan was from Scottland but had lived in Germany for 6 years and was a huge German history buff, he really knew his stuff and he did a fantastic job recounting it!
We started over at a park across from Museum island where the first settlement of Berlin actually occurred back in the 1100s. Ryan went over a ton of history about Germany from approx the 1600s with the 30 years war up through present day. I'm not even going to begin to recount any of that...way too much detail and there's no way I would do it justice.
We then moved over to the water and got a great view of the Luthern churn next to Museum Island. For a protestant church it was MAGNIFICENT from the outside and was as beautiful as any across Europe. It's important to note that Berlin doesn't have a whole lot of original, classical architecture left. So much of it was destroyed during WWII and WWI that the vast majority of things you see are relatively new, within the last 50 years or newer. Still, what was left intact was beautiful like the rest of Europe.
We spent a little bit of time on Museum Island which is made of up 5 world class Museums all in classic greek architectural style. Some were completely restored after the war and had no signs of anything bad happening, others were intentionally left with bullet holes and mortor damage so as to not forget the past and how tumultuous it was. This was a running theme. In wars past the Germans had always wiped away any signs of unrest but modern Germans don't want to forget, they want to remember. They want to be reminded of how painful the past was so they don't do it again!
From there we headed over to a small but meaningful monument. A small open building with with a single hole on the roof over a woman holding her dead son. Very moving yet another reminder of the atrocities of war. Across the street was Humboldt University, the site of the first book burnings by the Nazi's. Yet another poignant stop on the tour and a reminder of how precious our freedoms really are. We then headed down to the end of Unter den Linden which is where the Brandenburg Gate is. This is a very famous landmark in Berlin which has stood the test of time and has always functioned as a starting point for many miltary victory parades over the centuries. It doesn't block anything, just serves as a grand passageway into Berlin.
We passed through the Brandenburg gate, and had a quick look at the Reichstart (totally spelled that wrong I'm sure) but this is the current German Gov't building, our version of the Capitol Bldg. Rebuilt over the years but very unique with classic architecture but a modern glass dome room, mean to symbolize the transparency of Gov't complete with walkways through the dome to allow the people (mainly tourists) to keep watch over gov't! :)
After that we headed to a really incredible monument to commemorate the millions of Jews who lost their lives during Hitler's reign. It's a collection of large concrete rectangular blocks that are all neatly spaced but vary in height from as low as a foot on the outer edges, to over 15 feet tall in the middle of this vast array of thousands of columns. Truly nothing like I've ever seen and it simply can't be described. When you look out upon it, you don't realize how big it is, or how deep/tall the columns go. It likely represents the journey the jews went through. In the beginning of Hitler's rule, the perspecution of the Jews was minimal, only some minor things taken away, then as time progressed more and more was taken away, eventually their lives in many cases. When you've walked into the middle you get a sense for how they must felt being completely cut off with no idea where to go next and everything looking the same around every corner. Yet when you entered the monument, you had no idea it was going to end up that way. Brilliant! It was expensive though, I think it cost $29M Euros in 2005, not cheap. But worth every penny in my opinion.
After that we headed to a parking lot, this was directly above where hitler committed suicide in his underground bunker. There are virtually no markings other that a plain sing to denote the location. This was done intentionally. Pretty startling to be in this location but also very unique to have been there.
From there we hit a cool new monument in the shape of a man's silhouette. It was the man who attempted to assassinate Hitler in 1939. He planted a bomb in the place where Hitler gave a speech every year at the same time during his reign. The bomb was set to go off half way through hitler's speech but becuase of bad weather the speech had to be cut short and Hitler left. The bomb did go off as expected and killed the speaker and 5 others who had been in that location. If only....
From there we went to a popular landmark commemorating a populist uprising in 1953 that was squashed by the Soviets brutally. Just down the street we then visited the last remaining portion of the Berlin Wall. This is the only location where the wall still stands in it's original location. It's about a block long and amazing to see in real life. It's so hard to imagine all of West Berlin being encircled in this thing...hundreds of miles! The live lost trying to get over/through it...just breathtaking. Just down the block we hit checkpoint Charlie, one of the few gates between east and west Berlin. This was where a 16 hour standoff between the US Army and the Soviets in 1961 almost caused WWIII. It's also right around the corner from our hotel, pretty cool location.
We finally ended up in a grand square a couple blocks away where two nearly identical cathedrals and the national concert hall are located. Which was also next to a restaurant named "Mark Brandenburg"...one of my teammate is named "Marc Brandenburg"! Too funny.
We then snuck in a little break at the hotel and went back out to the Topography of Terror museum. This was at the same location as the Berlin wall strip we visited and was all about the SS. We spent a few hours there and it was all pictures and descriptions yet we didn't get through it all before they closed at 8pm. Pretty amazing overall what Hitler and his accomplices were able to do. So horribly sad that anything like this could happen in modern times. Very much worth the visit and we may sneak back to finish it off tomorrow of Saturday.
I powered through this and put a lot down, but there's still so much I couldn't convey about our day. Berlin is such a unique place with it being the center of the most prolifict conflict in recent times. While it's been 25 years since the wall came down, Germans are still very much in the reunification process and will be for a while. It's safe to say, Mo and I have a very unique appreciation for what Berlin and Germany are all about!
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