Log's favorite attraction in Berlin was the Brandenburg gate as he immediately recognized it as the view captured on the back of a 20 Euro cent piece. The gate is the only remaining city gate through which citizens passed using the two outermost columns while the central columns were reserved for royal personages.
The gate has become a German national symbol though the Nazis bastardized that meaning into one that symbolized the party for a time. It was here that Reagan admonished Gorbachev to tear down the wall and later large crowds gathered as the Iron Curtain fell.
The gate was badly damaged during the bombardment of Berlin, and only one horse ear remained of the original Quadriga, the statue atop the gate.
During the early 19th century, French troops acting on the orders of Napoleon removed the Quadriga from its perch and carried it back to Paris as a means of humiliating the defeated Prussians; the Quadriga depicts Victory brandishing a wreath of oak leaves which embody the prowess of the one-time Prussian military. After Napoleon's defeat in 1814, the Prussians, who were then occupying Paris, reclaimed the Quadriga and replaced the wreath with an iron cross, the new symbol of Prussian authority.
The Reichstag, the German parliament, is situated one block from the Brandenburg Gate. It is possible to climb up to the glass dome.
Also near to the Gate is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a monument whose design was approved in 1999 and is the largest such memorial (notwithstanding the camps) in Germany. The design is that of a New York based architect whose design was selected from among 500+ submissions and features a field of stelae meant to look like tombstones. Controversy plagued the construction when it was revealed that the company supplying the material used to protect the stelae from grafitti had also manufactured Zyklon B, the gas used in the camps' chambers, during the war. Despite protestations of outraged members of the Jewish community, the architect, Eisenman, argued for the continued use of the agent citing cost. One prominent member of the Jewish community likened the continued patronage of the dubious company to asking Jews to declare a pigsty kosher. Incidentally, the monument is located on the one-time site of Josef Goebbel's villa and private bunker.
Littlest walking through the stelae
Many city workers were busy shoveling, scooping and hauling away truckloads of snow from the memorial which was the only point in the city awarded such courtesy and consideration. To be honest, I was unmoved by the memorial and felt that its design was too abstract and did nothing to present historical information about the annihilation of the Jews.
Past the memorial was Wilhelmstrasse, a street that can be likened to Downing Street in London in that it was once lined with ministry buildings including those headed by Goebbels, Goering, and Hess alongside the Reich Chancellery. Today, those buildings have been replaced with prefabricated apartments erected by the Russians in the 1980s. Notes in hand, I proceeded down the street and was taken aback to find informational markers indicating where the ministries had once stood.
The only site without such a marker was the site of Hitler's bunker which was flooded and destroyed by the Russians in the 1970s when other attempts to bomb it failed due to the thickness of the concrete.
After walking the length of Wilhelmstrasse, we set out to Checkpoint Charlie. Below is a picture of the checkpoint as it would have appeared during its operation.
Today, a solitary guardshack remains.
Where the wall once stood, a double row of brick colored cobblestones now indicates the border between the former West and East Berlin.
One can also find pavement markers in the sidewalk indicating the wall's placement.
Bop was truly taken with the history of the wall and her questions reflected her bafflement that anyone could be denied personal freedoms. The exhibit near to Checkpoint Charlie was stellar in that it presented a pictorial history of the wall's erection alongside informational panels presented in both English and German.
Few sections of the wall remain, and those that were left as a memorial of sorts are guarded by fences to prevent people from removing chips of concrete.
After such heavy historical recountings, we went to the Sony Center where the kiddos were thrilled to visit the Lego Discovery Center.
The kiddos participated in a workshop where they built Lego replicas of the Reichstag.
Even Daddy had fun :)
Mama was more excited to visit KaDeWe, the largest store in Germany, which resembles Harrod's in scope and offerings. I lamented that I'd not brought an extra empty suitcase into which I could have stuffed myriad items that I coveted in the food hall! I was amused to find that amid gourmet vinegars and caviar there stood an aisle of 'gourmet' American food including Betty Crocker boxed cake mixes and Swiss Miss hot chocolate ($9 a box!).
I also discovered perfumes by Serge Lutens, a perfumer who is now one of my favorites!
Overall, our weekend in Berlin was enjoyable and offered a unique insight into our not so distant history.
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