We arrived around 10AM and got to our hostel easily! The best directions yet! They have Starbucks everywhere here! and Dunkin Donuts, KFC, Subway, McDonalds, Burger King, etc...and they are sooooo much more organized than the Greeks, Italians and French! Such a relief! Everything was open like people actually work here!
Trying to decide what to conquer a girl from Canada suggested a "free" walking tour where you pay what you want at the end. GREAT suggestion! We started at the Brandenburg Gate. It is one of the few buildings salvaged from WWII. At the top is a lady with a chariot. When Napolean took over Prussia he took this sculpture and put it in the Louvre in Paris 1806. When Prussia took it back the city 1813 they took the statue and put her back naming her Victoria and placed her in Paris Square (essentially thumbing their nose at the French). Saw the Reichstag Building which is now where the politicians meet. When the politicians refused to give Hitler power as chancellor a mysterious fire broke out in the building. Hitler blamed the communists and found someone to take the fall which allowed them to lift Hapeus Corpus. All opposing politicians disappeared shortly there after.
Walked to the Jewish memorial, cannot put into words what this looks like but the architect was Peter Eisenman, a Jewish American.
Stood atop the supposed bunker for Hitler where he killed himself instead of surrendering. It's just a nasty parking lot where it was told the locals take their dogs there to do their business as a symbol of "remembrance."
Then to Unter den Liden street. Here we could see the TV towers the Russians placed there during their occupation. We learned that after Hitler, Stalin took control of Berlin and since there were mostly women left after WWII he said "the women of Berlin are yours," allowing thousands upon thousands of rapes and killings! The Russians didn't like the Palace on that street so they bulldozed it down!
The now tax office building was originally built by the Nazis for their Air Force base essentially. Then Stalin took it and painted a socialist idealist painting on the front in 1951 showing what life is like, ideally! Then in 1952 workers stormed the plaza in front of the building in protest of poor wages and working conditions. Stalin sent in tanks and opened fire without warning on thousands of unarmed citizens! The soldiers that didn't open fire because the people were unarmed were executed shortly there after. Then off to Checkpoint Charlie...
During the Russian occupation this is where the main checkpoint was for the allies, the Americans. Right near here is a remaining sector of the wall! You can see the wall as well as there are markers all over Berlin on the roads and sidewalks to show where the wall used to be. The story goes that Stalin left East Berlin and other occupancies and left the countries to fend for themselves. The "government" of East Berlin met secretly to try and decide what to do. They were going to make it impossible to get visas for West Berlin, etc. The next morning there was a press conference. Their main spokesman hadn't been to the meeting the night before but received meeting minutes, although he didn't read them. During the conference he got stumped on a question looked the notes and read out loud that they were releasing restrictions of travel to West Berlin. After a log series of questions and answers he told people on live TV that it was effective immediately so people packed their bags and ran to the border. The police weren't expecting this so they had no other choice. People chipped away at the wall an ran tractors into it etc.
History of the wall...during the occupation of the Red Army there was one night when the army went around the city and put up the first wall with barb wire. Realizing it wouldn't stop most people the walls "improved". Eventually there were two walls. In between the walls was called no man land and if you were there you were a free target to be shot. If not shot there were spikes in the sand to pierce your feet and THAT didn't work there were trip wires that would literally make you explode.
Crazy to think the wall hasn't been down really all that long!
There's Humbolt University and it was outside of the library the Nazis did the big book burning.
Before chancellors (like 17 and 18th centuries) there were Kings and Queens. Frederick wanted peace for the nation. Even after defeating nations just to stay afloat as a county built them a cathedral in a purely Protestant area of Europe. Th French also had one but the Germans were annoyed the French did but they didn't so they built the same church directly across the square but made the dome one meter taller.
Outside the old museum is "an old cathedral." I think it was Frederick again that visited a lot of Europe and realized it was missing something...an old possibly gothic aged cathedral to be a power house so he built a fake one. He specifically designed it to look older than it is...
Dinner...well we really are both German but were in heaven! I had schnitzel and a potato soup with a heff. Randy had bratwurst and a salad with a heff.
Our dormmates are from the Ukraine where one is a physicist, which he was sawing is not very respected in their country. Which is crazy because he's been researching you know things like alternative CANCER treatments!!!
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