Berlin is not an exciting city — but at the same time, you’d be hard stretched to find a city that’s nicer than Berlin — or indeed, a city with more modern history than fair Berlin. Berlin was completely leveled in World War 2 by the Allies, and for some 30 years after that it was split down the middle by ideological differences — and the Berlin Wall. Berlin was the front line of the Cold War, the Wall acting as the DMZ between the Commies and the Merkins; if the Cold War was ever going to ignite into World War 3, it would’ve been in Berlin, with the firing of a single stray tank shell across Checkpoint Charlie.
Today, Berlin is very new — there are very few buildings more than 50 years old, and even monuments like the Reichstag and the Brandenberg Gate have been massively re-built using new stone — and blanketed in wide open spaces. Apparently the city was originally meant to hold 7.5 million people, but after the War it was only re-built to house 4.5 million people; thus the big squares, broad roads, parks and memorials — lots and lots of memorials.
Germans are so guilty about the World Wars, so depressingly guilty. It’s in the past! Let it go! It wasn’t your fault. Imagine what America would be like if everyone footed the (psychological) bill for their ancestors’ misdeeds. If anything, the Nazis — and Hitler — showed us the incredible danger of populist politics and cults of personality, but beyond that we really should let it lie. Still, this guilt has resulted in some fantastic, museum-like memorials, so it’s not all bad.
The Holocaust Memorial (or the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, to give its proper, but oddly antisemitic name) is truly something to behold. It occupies 4.7 acres of prime, the-Reichstag-is-within-spitting-distance real estate. The memorial has no name plates, no dates, no numbers: it’s simply 2,711 grey concrete slabs of varying heights on an uneven, cobbled floor. The designer, Peter Eisenman, has never spoken about the significance or meaning of the memorial — and really, it’s better that way. Walking amongst the pillars you are invited to create your own meanings and experience your own emotions, rather than those dictated by some priggish plaque. Are the blocks tombstones? Or long lines of train carriages? The tall legs of adults, or perhaps skyscrapers? Who knows.
It’s worth visiting Berlin just to walk around the Holocaust Memorial.
The other main memorial that I visited was the Sachsenhousen concentration camp, one of the first camps of its kind, and built as an archetypal template for the thousands of other concentration camps that would plague Nazi Germany for more than a decade. What many people don’t realize is that the Nazis started really, really early. They didn’t begin with the Holocaust death camps — they worked they way up, starting with concentration camps in 1933! To cut a long story short, the Nazis blamed the burning of the Reichstag in 1933 on the Communists. They used this as an excuse to detain the Communists as enemies of the Nationalist-Socialist regime — and thus the first concentration camp, Dachau, designed to house some 5,000 prisoners, was born.
This is where it all started going wrong. The Nazis lied: it wasn’t only Communists that would be imprisoned at Dachau. Jews, criminals, gypsies, the mentally ill, and homosexuals were all incarcerated and turned into slave labor. More concentration camps continued to pop up over the following years — and looking back, we now know that this was mainly to fuel the creation of the massive Nazi wehrmact, but of course it must’ve massively helped the regime keep control, too. It wasn’t until the Nazi dictatorship enacted the Final Solution in 1942 that the extermination camps would be set up and millions of Jews systematically slaughtered.
Anyway… enough about that…
lizzy
Jul 3, 2011
berlin is definitely an interesting city. esp the pedestrian traffic light!
sebastian
Jul 4, 2011
Apparently… the weird red pedestrian light is only on the east side! You can tell whether you are on the east or west side by looking at the lights.
I guess that only applies to traffic lights that were installed pre-89, though.
Or perhaps all the NEW ones use the weird cruciform…
a!kO
Jul 6, 2011
What? what traffic light?? I have never been to Berlin or any other place in the world other that one state in the US
so you would have to tell me what is weird about that 
and it has been awhile mr seb!! 
I love that 2nd pic of you, it’s a sentimental picture tho. 
x0x0
lizzy
Jul 6, 2011
for some weird reason i became so obsessed with the traffic light!
the memorial is something else, alright. thought of you straight away when i got there. i even bought a postcard but didn’t post it to ye. was told by the British tour guide there that some Jews find the memorial offensive.
sebastian
Jul 7, 2011
Aiko — East Berlin has a very odd ‘stop walking’ traffic light. Google it! It’s kind of become the ‘symbol’ of Berlin.
Lizzy — yeah, a lot of Jews think it’s a bit over the top, and the name is slightly antisemitic. It was also partly built/manufactured by some company that had used concentration camp labour back during the War (but a lot of Germany companies did…)
Either way, it’s a beautiful creation. Like churches, it doesn’t really matter what they’re for, or what religion they symbolise — they’re simply beautiful places that inspire awe, worship, prayer.
You could still send the post card!
a!kO
Jul 8, 2011
Ahhh I Google-d it, it is a lil weird…it is one of a kind!! Thank you, I have learned something new…
x0x0
Eleni
Jul 24, 2011
Why pick on America? Britain has a much longer history, after all
I found the modernity of the history of Berlin disconcerting, particularly the stuff pertaining to the Berlin Wall. It feels like it should all be in the distant past, but the wall fell in our life time! I was also struck by how few really old buildings there were, compared to other European cities I’ve been to. It’s too bad, but I guess that’s history, too.
I hadn’t realized that was the “proper” name of the Holocaust Memorial. That’s a shame. But it was a very nice memorial to wander around in.
Regarding the Walk/Don’t Walk signals: My understanding from our tour guide was that the GDR had done a study that found people responded better to signs with appealing images, or something like that, so developed the cute Walk/Don’t Walk images (the “Walk” man is a little different from other “Walk” images). When Berlin was reunited, they were going to change all the signs to the West Berlin style but the people protested, as they’d become quite fond of the Ampelmann images. I loved how they had whole souvenir shops dedicated to the “Ampelmann”. I bought a pair of magnets for my fridge.
sebastian
Jul 25, 2011
Ha… yes, a much longer history…
I was actually referring to slavery! I’m sure Brits have perpetrated lots of bad things, but the whole Black Slavery thing was something else entirely I think (I’m hardly a scholar on the topic tho’!) Unless, of course, you blame the Brits for settling the US, and thus creating the US slave trade… hmm…
The Berlin Wall stuff freaked me out too! I remember the Wall coming down — I remember it being reported on the BBC… I remember watching footage. I remember it being a big thing, but obviously not appreciating it at the time. It’s crazy that that all happened in our lifetime.
I rarely buy touristy bits, but I was very tempted to get one of those traffic light men
Eleni
Jul 25, 2011
Hmm, I suppose Brits owned slaves in the Americas for well over a hundred years before declaring independence. And slavery was abolished less than 90 years after that. (I’ve unfairly used number of years here, when the more relevant number is number of slaves, and I’m sure there were far more after the U.S. became an independent power.) Still, the whole “Triangular Trade” thing made certain Europe couldn’t claim complete innocence in the matter. But yes, slavery was terrible, though once you pass a certain level of terribleness, it’s hard to say which things are more terrible than others. Anyway…
Photos are the best souvenirs, after all, and the magnets were way overpriced. But they do look cute on my fridge
sebastian
Jul 26, 2011
Yeah, there was a ton of slaving going on within the British Empire — and Triangular Trade, as you say, was pretty terrible.
I wish I took more photos when I travel. I generally only take ‘proper’ photos, rather than snaps (I have an irrational fear/loathing for snaps :(), which means my photos don’t really tell the whole story. Fortunately, my memory is quite good…
Having said that, I regularly find myself wishing for photos from my years at university. There are almost none — mainly because digital cameras didn’t really take off until I left, and also because I’m not really in touch with friends who might have actual printed photos of me…
Eleni
Jul 26, 2011
I know what you mean. I got my first camera halfway through college, and I definitely wish I had more photos from my first two years. I have a few from friends, but never enough. It’s one of the lines in the song “I Wish I Could Go Back To College”: “I wish I had taken more pictures.”