BERLIN A CITY WHICH HAD A WALL

BRANDENBURG GATE

I am a wanderer who wants to travel and see the world. I like to go to those places where History was created. My travels have taken me to many places, of which I am particularly fascinated with Greece, where I found every thing pleasant. Life seemed tranquil and peaceful, the place was beautiful with plenty of fruits and olive trees. The sea around was calm.  The ruins  speak of Art, Theatre, Music, Medicine, democracy, Olympics, Maths, Alphabets, Education, Philosophy and everything else which was meant for the development of the people, and all this happened before the birth of Christ!

I recently chose to visit Berlin. This was  a city which saw a lot of turmoil. It saw History being created for the destruction of humankind. It brought about a lot of pain, suffering, discrimination and dehumanizing people on the basis of their religion or physical impairment  It was the pursuit of a particular person to create a superior race. The woes of considering oneself superior and eliminating those whom they consider inferior  surely speaks volumes about the society then. Jungle law says Survival of the Fittest, but then are we are not human beings who are supposed to be civilized, thinking people, social people who want to take everyone with us?

AN OLD BUILDING

Well to come back to my travels, as I landed in Berlin the airport seemed quite functional and unattractive as compared to the very beautiful, spacious modern airports of a lot of cities that I have seen. Delhi airport is comparatively LUXURIOUS, lovely and comfortable.  There were no escalators, elevators and no walkways too, so one had to lug ones hand baggage up the stairs. The travel Information desk was very helpful though and we were quickly issued 5 days passes for about 37 Euros each, so that we could travel on any mode of transport and explore the city at quite a concessional rate.The bus, tram, overground and underground trains are very many, very comfortable and easy to catch. There is Bus No. 100 and 200 which takes one around all the different tourist spots of the city. It is like a Hop on Hop off Bus, but very reasonably priced. One only has to validate the ticket the first time that one uses a public transport and after that for five days one can use the public transport without a worry. I found the city very clean, neat and beautiful, where traffic is almost non existent by my Delhi standard, the air is fresh, the gardens are lovely and green, the people are helpful. The roads are wide and the city looks very neat and tidy.

After the Second World war Berlin was divided into two parts the Western part was occupied by USA and the eastern portion was controlled by USSR. Therefore it has two airports and two main Railway stations. 

WIDE ROADS

The roads are very wide, cyclists are encouraged as their are cycle paths, and traffic of cars was very scant. All that one could see were Mercs, BMW's, Audis, VW's. There were very few Japanese cars on the roads.

I loved the area where my hotel was located.

Wilhelmstrasse is the road where History happened. This was the road on which all the Ministries, the Gestapo, Hitler's House and the British Embassy were located. Walking down Wilhelmstrasse is a great experience. It is a very wide road and I could visualize the huge flags of the Third Reich, the might of Hitler, the massive military strength that was displayed on these buildings and the road where the marching troops went by.  It all looks very professional, majestic, and mighty.  I was particularly interested to see the building where Hitler lived. I learnt that in 1938-39 a new Reich Chancellery was built for Adolf Hitler by Albert Speer on this street. This building stood immediately south of the old Chancellery, on the corner of the Wilhelmstraße and the Voss Strasse, and its official address was Voßstraße 4, but the balcony from which Hitler addressed crowds faced the Wilhelmstraße. I walked up and down this road for three days trying to locate the exact spot without success. On the third day I found a small board stating that 77  Wilhelmstraße was located here. It did not state that Hitler lived here. Presently there is a residential car parking at that place. 

 

WHERE HITLER'S BUNKER WAS

After the occupation of the City by the Russians,  construction of  new buildings in the area around the Führerbunker( Hitler's Underground bunker) began. It was a strategy employed for ensuring that the surrounding place remained anonymous and unidentifiable. As it is  during the War all the old buildings had been fully destroyed. Now the new rulers had tried to wipe out all trace of this place. As it is said in Urdu, "is jagah ko naist nabood kar diya", this place was totally destroyed. One may destroy buildings but can one erase memory and the sad history of the place?

During the Nazi rule the German Foreign office headed by Joachim von Ribbentrop stood at Wilhelmstrasse 73. The Finance Ministry stood at Number 61.The Propoganda Ministry of Joseph Goebbel's was at 8-9 . The British Embassy was at number 70.The only major building that survived the bombing was Reich Air Ministry at Wilhelmstrasse 81-85. The Berlin Wall was broken on the  9th November 1989 but there are two portions of the wall maintained as tourist attractions. One portion is near the Topography of Terror and the other portion is near the river. The portion near the river is filled with graffiti.

GRAFFITI ON BERLIN WALL

Berlin was and still is a very beautiful city. The trauma that the people of this city underwent can only be felt, words cannot express the agony and uncertainty that the Berliners may have had to face. Those who were friends suddenly became foes if they were Jews or had physical deformity or had a different ideology or belief. It is rather strange how one person could create so much havoc, destruction and misery. Ribbentrop, Eichmann  Goebbels  they had so much power and they wielded it for creating terror.The beauty of Alexander Platz, the magnificent Reichstag, The Brandenburg gate, Potsdamer Platz, pales when one thinks of the horrors that went on in this City.

MEMORIAL

 The memorial to the murdered Jews  is stark, grey, poignant. They comprise of simple blocks of granite in different sizes laid out in rows. They symbolize the massive graves of people who died and were cremated unidentified, unknown and unsung. The magnitude of misery stares one in the face. This place is very close to the Brandenburg gate and the Reichstag. I sat there for a long time looking at the grave like structures, I felt quite devoid of feeling, I felt numb and time seemed to stand still. This memorial is one of the best that I have seen. It tells of a time not so long ago when innocent people were killed in cold blood, in the most barbaric manner. 

We went to see the Topography of terror, which is located at exactly the same spot  where between 1933 and 1945, the central institutions of Nazi persecution and terror– the Secret State Police Office with its own “house prison,” the leadership of the SS and, during the Second World War, the Reich Security Main Office – were located. It was the office of the "Gestapo." This is now a museum with a lot of pictures.

THE ONLY BUILDING THAT SURVIVED THE BOMBINGS

I saw the building from where Goebbles worked. He was the Minister of Propoganda and he was the one who said,“It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.” 

CHECK POINT CHARLIE

I went with great expectations to Checkpoint Charlie which was a gate between East and West Berlin. It was a bit of a disappointment. Today there is a portrait of an American soldier on the side which belonged to USA and on the reverse is the portrait of a Russian soldier. There is a Museum located at this place. It houses amongst other things a Volkswagon car which had been used to stow away people wanting to travel to freedom on the Western side. There are a lot of photographs showing the different apparatus and equipment used by people to cross the border stealthily. Many lost their lives but a number of them succeeded. GRAFFITI ON A WALL AS SEEN FROM TRAIN

Berlin has a huge underground city which had been built for shelter during air raids during the IInd World War. We took a guided tour of an underground bunker. It a very big planned shelter, with rooms, benches and toilets too. There were rooms for women with small kids too. It was expected that the shelters would be for short durations. They are well ventilated and not claustrophobic. It just goes to show how well prepared the regime was to take care of its people.

THE OLD & THE NEW

Berlin needs to be seen slowly. One thing at a time. The Olympic Stadium, The Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, Charlottenburg Palace, need to be spoken of in detail, and I shall write of them separately.