Wind of Change

One of my pet guilty pleasures is the dreadful rock ballad “Wind of Change” by German heavy metal band The Scorpions. But the title’s sentiment rang particularly true today as we walked through Berlin, a city of dramatically changing landscapes, politics and identities. Our studio apartment is in former East Berlin, and we followed the contrasting architecture (bland utilitarian Eastern apartment Blocks opposite newly constructed shopping complexes) and the friendly Ampelmen on our walk to the Reichstag.

We love you, Ampelman!

Marthese & The Reichstag

For the last time this trip, we fired up Rick Steves’ Europe app and listened as he lectured on the Reichstag’s long history, a memorial to executed dissenting politicians from the Nazi era, and the division of post-war Berlin culminating in the construction of the Berlin Wall. We followed the trail of the now removed wall to the Brandenburg Gate, which Marthese says is much smaller than she remembered it 12 years ago. This 18th century triumphal construction has seen the rise of Prussia, the unification of Germany, 2 world wars, division from the west during the cold war, and the eventual blossoming of a renewed Berlin as the nation’s capital again.

Brandenburg Gate

At every step of the walk, we saw Berlin’s constantly evolving identity, and its bold attempts to create a new one. A huge memorial to holocaust victims sits solemnly in the middle of town, while Hitler’s bunker is filled with concrete and marked only with a simple sign in front of a residential block. The whole city feels like it is in a constant state of construction, with new buildings rising and old buildings being restored, all with equal fervour. The side streets show an arts scene of a whole new generation marking out their own Berlin identities.

Holocaust memorial

Site of Hitler’s bunker

We walked some of the major city streets, and popped into the Berlin City Museum for a brief look at the city from the 18th century to the fall of the wall. One of the most memorable parts of the walk was near here, in Bebelplatz, home to Humboldt University where Marx, Engels, Einstein, Bismarck, Hegel, the Brothers Grimm and many more all attended. This square was where the infamous book burnings of 1933 took place, and there is a touching artworks of empty shelves visible through a perspex floor in the centre of the square.

Beneath main strip Unter den Linden, in a train station with tiling unchanged since the 30’s thanks to its disuse during Cold War.

Marthese makes a fine East Berlin wife.

“Mein Gott! My wife will kill me!”

Bebelplatz

Memorial to victims of war

Museum Island took us back in time again, with Wilhelm I’s impressive Berlin Cathedral towering over the Altes Museum, where Hitler gave speeches and rallied troops and citizens in the large square. Heading further into Eastern Berlin territory, we followed the huge TV Tower, the closest thing the communists had to a religious steeple, and appropriately we bumped into Marx and Engels on the way.