Geneva Semester: Spring 2011: Berlin

Berlin was one of the two places that I knew that I had to see before my time in Europe this semester runs out. Anybody who knows me knows that I am a huge WWII history nerd, so naturally, seeing the Capital of the former Third Reich was a must see. The other is Normandy, which I will be seeing in a few weeks over spring break. I was planning on going to Berlin the weekend after spring break, but Ellen and I started talking last Thursday and decided to hop on the overnight train the next day to spend the whole day there on Saturday and return later on that night. Our train left Geneva at about 5pm and arrived in Basil, Switzerland at around 7. We walked around Basil (which was gorgeous from what we saw) for about an hour then got on the overnight train to Berlin.

The train arrived in Berlin at around 730am and when we disembarked, we were greeted by the bitter-cold German morning. We bundled as much as we could and started walking and trying to make sense of where we were. Within 20 minutes, we came across a small memorial to the Berlin wall, containing a little garden and a few sections of the Wall, and then we realized that we were in the complex of the Bundestag, Germany's Parliament. We wandered through the very modern complex, only getting questioned by the police once, and finally came around the corner and were greeted by the Reichstag. This was the Parliamentary building that Hitler had burned by his supporters in 1933, only to blame the Communists in order to have the government enact its emergency clause and give him complete power of government. Later, he would give stirring speeches from the steps of the Reichstag, and much later it would be bombed half to the ground by the invading Allied troops. Around the corner from the Reichstag was the Brandenberger Tor (or Brandenburg Gate). Again, one of the greatest symbols of German/Prussian might, and some of the most stirring pictures the world has seen of it were taken in the 1930s and 40's, draped with National Socialist flags and surrounded by tight formations of Wehrmacht troops. Later on, it too was charred and riddled with bullets, and even later it served as a major landmark of the border between East and West Berlin. Now if you're staring at the front of it (on the East Berlin side) and you turn 90 degrees to your left, the American Embassy is staring you in the face. If you turn left again and look down about 1/2 mile, the Russian (former Soviet) Embassy stands as a giant, bruting reminder of divided times.

The rest of the day contained many of the same types of discoveries. There were beautiful new skyscrapers with unbelievable designs that dominate the main commercial downtown area, but when you look down, there is a row of bricks sunk into the concrete sidewalk that runs the extent of the former Berlin Wall through the city. We came to the beautiful Berlin Cathedral (the Berliner Dom), which was one of the most stunning buildings I've ever seen. It too, had to be partially reconstructed after the War, and the reminder of that is in the charred materials that they used to rebuild it. We came across the Memorial to the Murdered Jews in Europe, which extends about two or three square city blocks, and consists of over 2,000 concrete slabs of different sizes and placed on different levels in the ground. It is designed to disorientate and confuse those walking through and I can attest to its effectiveness, seeing as Ellen and I lost eachother for a good 10 minutes inside of it. Finally, we made our way about 2-3 miles out of the center of the city to what is called the East Side Gallery. This is the 1.2 kilometer section of the Berlin Wall that they left standing, and open to new artists every few years for redecoration. Even 1.2 creatively-painted kilometers of the Wall look terrifying.

Berlin was an absolutely beautiful city, with consistant and stark reminders of what humanity is capable of. The German people that we encountered were the friendliest of all the Europeans that we have encountered so far, especially to American-English speakers. The stigma for Germans is that they are very tightly-wound and proper, with rules and procedures for everything. This is more like the Swiss, more specifically, the French-Swiss. Berlin was very clean, so you can tell its people do take care to follow the rules - unlike say, the Italians, who spray-paint and litter everywhere. But the creativity in their new architechture shows more than just drab design of the stiff, rule-following people that we often picture Germans as. And the warmth in their people is backed by a stunning sense of humility, that perhaps only a country with such constant reminders of its mistakes can produce. I hope to make my way to Munich, Augsburg, or Frankfurt before I leave Europe in May, but if I am not able to, Berlin has certainly left a lasting mark on me.