Berlin - part 3!

The ruins of the Franziskaner Klosterkirche

I walked from the river up to the Alexanderplatz. On the way I passed a church which has not been rebuilt. It was in a very quiet setting and there were people sitting reading papers and enjoying a quiet Sunday afternoon. I later discovered that it was a Franciscan church which again had been badly bombed and is now being gradually reconstructed.

The Rotes Rathaus

I arrived at the Alexanderplatz. It had been a cattle and wool market and was then developed into a square with a colonnade and named after Tsar Alexander I who visited Berlin in 1805. Most of the orginal buildings were destroyed in the war and now has the famous TV tower. Around it is the Rathaus or town hall and the Mariankirche (St Mary's Church).

TV tower/ Telespargel/ Toothpick!

A colourful Berlin Bear

The TV tower or Fernsehturm stands at 365m. It was built in 1969. It has a revolving cafe which turns 360 degrees every half an hour.







The fountain in the square is of Neptune and was created in 1886 for the Castle and was moved to its present place in 1969. The figures surrounding Neptune represent Germany's greatest rivers - the Rhine, the Vistula, the Oder and the Elbe.

St Mary's church / Marienkirche

I wanted to go into the church but there was a service taking place. I then walked down towards the cathedral. Again I could not find a way in - the only place that seemed to be open was the cafe.

Marx-Engels Forum

When I came across the figures above I wasn't too sure who they were. There was a large party of Japanese tourists and they were taking it in turns to be photographed with the figures. Eventually it was clear and I quickly took my picture. It turned out they were statues of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Then I tried to walk to the Nikolaiviertel (St Nicholas Quarter). It was a convoluted route as they are constructing a new underground railway. However, it was worth the walk as it is a very lovely area with the church and lots of small shops. The church looked interesting but it was 5 euros to go in and I had been advised the tour lasted about an hour which I did not really want to spend.

Some of the shops

A Berlin Bear

Nikolaikirche

St George slaying the dragon

Back of St George!

The statue of St George and the dragon was originally in the Schloss palace grounds.I passed some of the places I had seen from the boat.

Looking across to the Dom and the Humboldt box

Looking back to the tower

I then rejoined the main street - the well known Unter den Linden which runs all the way down to the Brandenburg gate. It has many prestigious buildings which had to be restored after World War II.

The Altes Palais

Zueghaus - German hsitorical museum

One of the buildings is the Neue Wache - a war memorial. It was a royal guardhouse but in 1931 was made a monument to soldiers killed in the first world war. In 1960 it was renamed as the Memorial to the Victims of Fascism and Militarism and then in 1993 it was rededicated to the memory of all victims of war and dictatorship. Inside is an eternal flame and a granite slab over the ashes of an unknown soldier, a resistance fighter and a concentration camp prisoner. The roof has a circular opening under which is a sculpture - Mother with her dead son by Kathe Kollwitz, a Berliner who lost her own son in World War I.

Neue Wache

The Humboldt University has many buildings in the street. There were two Humboldt brothers and are seen as very distinguished Berliners and so the old Berlin university was renamed after them in 1949. There are statues of the two brothers at the entrance.

I passed the Berlin Story and decided to go in. I was given my headphones and informed it would take about an hour. I decided I had to limit my time to about 30 minutes and so found the areas I particularly wanted to focus on. I was most interested in the second world war years and then the division of Berlin and the building of the wall. Berlin had become famous just before the war in 1936 for the Olympic games at which the Aryan race won 33 gold medals but these were overshadowed by the achievements of the black American athlete Jesse Owen. The Nazi regime started their clearance of the Jews and many did leave the country along with many of the country's intellectual class. On 9-10 November 1938 thousands of synagogues, cemeteries, Jewish shops and homes were looted and burnt in the Kristallnacht (Night of the broken glass). Berlin suffered heavily during the war. In April 1945 over 1.5 million Soviet solders invaded Berlin, and on 30 April Hitler committed suicide and German were defeated. The Potsdam Conference of 1945 divided Berlin into four sectors which were occupied by Soviet, American, British and French troops. On 24th June 1948 the Soviet authorities blockaded the Western sectors. The Allies responded with the Berlin airlift. The blockade was lifted on 12 May 1949. This was the year that the Federal Republic of Germany was created with its capital in Bonn and the German Democratic Republic with its capital in East Berlin. West Berlin remained a separate island. 

On 13th August 1961 the wall was constructed. There was a short film sowing it being built. In initially people were chatting over it until it was too high and crossing was stopped. It literally ran down streets dividing families. 3 million people fled to the West after the war and this was to stop many doing this. Doors and windows overlooking the wall were boarded and bricked up and the border was sealed. The film showed people standing on ladders and waving to their friends and families on the other side of the wall. A bride was seen sending her bouquet up to her grandmother via a rope and pulley as the grandmother had not been allowed to attend the wedding. Checkpoint Charlie so named because of the NATO call signs A alpha, B bravo, C Charlie, was the only permitted crossing point between East and West Berlin.

The political changes in Eastern Europe led to the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. The Brandenburg gate was reopened as this had been on the dividing line of the wall and the wall war literally torn down.

My next stop was the Brandenburg tor (gate). It was built as one of the city gates for Potsdam when it was enclosed by a wall in 1722. It was rebuilt in 1770 to commemorate victory in the seven years war (1756-63, when Friedrich II invaded Silesia and Berlin was occupied by Austrian and Russian troops). The top has figures from Greek mythology such as Hercules and Mars.

I walked round the gate as it was blocked off due to the enormous screen you can see the back of in the picture above. When I came through there were lots of sirens and a whole fleet of police went past and there was a helicopter overhead. I had come across the bike race:

The back of the gate that used to be in East Germany

I then walked to the Holocaust Denkmal - the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe. It was built in 2003 as a memorial for the Jews killed by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945. It was designed by the architect Peter Eisenmann and covers an area of 19,000 square metres. It consists of a Field of Stelae with 2,711 blocks. There is an underground information centre and exhibition about the persecution of the Jews and diary entries, letters and biographies of Jews who died during this time. Both the stelae and the exhibition are incredibly moving. 

It was very hot and I was tired so I decided to have an ice cream. There was a small cafe overlooking the memorial so I sat outside. I chose and appelstreudel complete! I wasn't too sure about the blue cream but it was very nice:

I decided to catch the underground railway back to alexanderplatz. I was really tired now and at first couldn't find my tram stop. I passed a market but decided I had had enough and just wanted to go back to the hotel now.

A very welcome sight - my tram back

That evening I met up with Debbie (my colleague who is also being sponsored by East Midlands Leadership Academy). We both enjoyed speaking "normal" English without having to concentrate and translate what the other person was saying. We shared stories from Slovenia and Finland and then went back to the hotel ready to start the conference the next day. I went up to the Sky bar of the hotel and then went to bed.

A great panorama over Berlin