Back From Berlin
As I already wrote earlier, Bernhard and I have been to Berlin at the beginning of July. Overall, it was a very pleasant trip, even thought the weather was a bit too rainy. There’s no point in writing a detailed account of everything we did, so instead I’d like to mention just a few highlights and interesting topics. As my website is now up, there’s also a gallery with some pictures.
Getting and Staying There
As we only had about a week for our trip, we decided to take a flight instead of a train ride. Much to our surprise, the national airline of Switzerland, Swiss, offered the best fare, even beating the likes of Easyjet et al. Appropriately enough, Swiss is actually owned by the German air carrier Lufthansa. Both flights went without any trouble, and being able to assign and change our seats online was a nice plus, as was the good online food. This was also the first time we additionally bought corresponding tickets from MyClimate.org to offset the carbon output of the flight. While some may argue these tickets are a modern selling indulgences which don’t help reducing the overall emission, I’d say that it indeed does increase the cost of a flight, thus rendering alternative means of transport like trains and buses more competitive and shows a somewhat fairer price. Also, offsetting of carbon emissions is preferable to no doing anything at all, and projects like MyClimate.org certainly raise the overall awareness of the topic.
For finding a good accommodation, I trusted Virtual Tourist and hostelz.com - which led us to the nice Sunflower Hostel. And yes, the place really looks like in the pictures on their site. Their location was excellent, too, and the staff was friendly and helpful. The only downside was a very soft mattress which led to me having a sore back for most of the week. And then there was our ceiling lamp which was so high the staff probably wasn’t able to reach it, so a massive amount of dust had settled there. But these are only minor points, and apart from them, I can wholeheartily recommend the Sunflower Hostel.
Berlin’s Rich but Not Always Easy Past
As a city, Berlin has seen a lot, both on the positive side and the negative one. Visitors come into contact with this fact rather soon, as the holocaust memorial site is close to the city centre. There have been some disputes over the site, both before and after the realisation of the project. The memorial, fully named Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, consists of a grid pattern of concrete slabs, which all have different hights. In addition, the many pathways between the grid are no flat but differently sloped. This should, to quote Wikipedia: "(…) produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and the whole sculpture aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason.". While the idea of this can be clearly seen, it didn’t really work for me. Yet despite this, the site definitely should be where it is, as it serves as a reminder in the heart of the city.
We also visited the remainings of the concentration camp in Sachsenhausen on another day. Most of the buildings had been destroyed, and only the walls of the camp and stones on the grass marked its layout and size. One long part of the inner wall is used as a documentation of the crimes committed in Sachsenhausen. It was both an interesting and disgusting read. Every part was based on the same concept, first describing the crime, then providing a profile of some of the victims, and lastly doing the same for the perpetrators, sometimes using additional documents such as letters to show more details.
While it almost seems like common knowledge, it struck me nevertheless how fruitless it was trying to guess from the profiles whether someone would end up as victim or perpetrator. As said, this actually wasn’t surprising, yet it was an uneasy finding nevertheless. Thus my mind began searching for some other, easy to detect indicators, and examined the faces on the photographs. It seemed to work for the first two or three persons, until some likeable and charming faces turned out to be mass murderers. So one’s appearance offers no clue, either. In the end, one’s actions under such conditions (as in all situations) probably depends on a complex mix of character traits (compassion, ambition, control), moral steadiness and personal experiences, but also at external events, chances and opportunities. Which is a comforting and frightening at the same time. Comforting as it means no one is fated to bad deeds. Frightening as it means no one is save or above them.
Another part of the concentration camp showed the buildings where the people got gassed and their corpses burned. My mind was expecting to see a large complex of buildings, expected all these outragous crimes needed large space accordingly. So I was surprised and shocked at the smallness of the place, it’s terrible to realise how much wrong can be done within such limited space. The effective killing which took place, the thorough utilisation of available space, all showed the term ‘industrial killing’ to be painfully accurate.
One of the old watchtowers hosted a small exhibition. A few video sequences of about three to seven minutes each explored the connection between the residents of the nearby town and the prisoners; asking how much the people of the town knew, and if and how the citizens of the town and the people in the camp interacted and perceived each other.
Back in Berlin, we also visited an exhibition about the East German secret police, the Stasi. The exhibition documented some techniques of the Stasi, its motives and goals, and also showed how deeply affected almost every part of public and private life got by their doings. Also displayed were a few anonymised sample files from citizens of East Germany. The Stasi stored every available information, from a simple CV to assessment by former teachers, employers and neighbours, and other stuff such as a list of favourite hobbies, activites such as borrowing books from the local library or one’s usual jogging route. It really was astonishing how much information they were collecting.
Concerning the famous Berlin Wall, there’s hardly anything left of it.
Still, what remains and what can be read about it demonstrates the masive oppression
the citizens of the GDR (the German Democratic Republic) had to face.
And Its Somewhat Glorious Present
Because of its important state, Berlin features many new buildings, from the headquarters of government agencies to shopping centres and offices. The contemporary style of architecture is Berlin goes unquestioned: Glas, lots of glas. Some examples of this are the Potsdamer Platz - which used to be called Berlin’s biggest construction site, but which is now completely enclosed by new buildings - and the main station. The most prominent and best known example is the Reichstag. Its large glas dome, designed already in 1992 by Norman Forster, precedents this best. The insde of the dome looks inspiring, and it’s one of the finest spots in Berlin for overlooking much of the centre of the city. Yet I must admit that the overall impression, memorable as it may be, isn’t as good - the strong break with the traditional design of the building renders the whole sight a bit odd.
The Berlin Main Station - Glas For The People!
A recent attraction of Berlin is Knut, the young polar bear currently growing up in the Berlin Zoo. As we needed some break from other activites, we followed the hype and visited the zoo. To be honest, I wasn’t impressed, almost all cages seemed way too small; so small in fact that we made jokingly tried to guess with how many (or how few) square metres humans would be displayed in a zoo. As for Knut, he certainly looks cute… but, he also seemed a bit depressed when we saw him. Or maybe that was just because of us?
Random Thoughts
A random observation while walking down the Karl-Marx-Allee - which was used for holding parades in East Germany - were the oddly differently shaped steet lights. Some are looking rather ancient, and by looking at old photographs, they seem to be an authentic GDR production. Then, there are some new ones, which wouldn’t be that surprising were there not some badly repaired in-betweens. Either they only added the modern ones recently, or they planned on replacing all defunct lamps and run out of money…
All three kind of lamps are visible on this picture
Clicking on it will open a larger version
Speaking of alleys, the way to go round is definitely by foot or by using the well-connected S-Bahn network. Subways are usually too crowded, and also take longer, as they make more stops on their way. A handy seven day pass for all public transport in Berlin is available. Just one thing to add, though - the S-Bahn coaches look dull.
Some other kind of highlight was the great food. I was really surprised at the large and even exotic selection. Thus we ate meals fom African and Asian cuisines, and always got really tastey food, which even was quite cheap. In the end, we rarely made use of the typical German food - so no sausages and no kebabs for us this time ;-)
Politically, Berlin seems to lean heavily to the left, as can be seen by the many posters on the street. Most of them were actually quite well-designed, and it was always funny to read them - some were protesting against globalisation, others were calling for action against the so called fascist government, while others had more local issues at heart. We also got talked to by some activists of a political organisation called BüSo (a name which is too cute for a political movement which wants to be taken seriously, according to Bernhard). They handed out free newsletters, and shortly discussed the political situation with me - did you, for example, know that Dick Cheney will be impeached and removed from office shortly, only to be replaced by Colin Powell? Haha, me neither. Anway, we even read some of their articles, and it’s difficult to place them in the traditional political spectrum of left and right. If the above example isn’t enough, here are some more: The international monetary system will collapse shortly, therefore national currencies have to be reinstated (hu?); humanity needs to build an intercontinental system of monorails (sounds cool!); also, everything is a conspiracy by the British government - Global Warming, for example, which gets advocated by Al Gore, who is a British agent. So is Henry Kissinger, by the way. Believe me, at home I had a good time reading their wikipedia entry (German)..
We also took the opportunity to see the Blue Man Group, an experience I can only recommend.
