Berlin and Potsdam

Things have been getting crazy around here now that PKP is coming to an end. I have an exam on Friday and two papers and an exam next Thursday. I also had a paper due Monday so I've been very busy, but I finally have a little bit of time to write what promises to be another long update about Berlin so here goes. On Friday morning at 2:30 am I got a cab to Parker's Piece to catch my 3 am bus to Luton Airport. After a 90 minute flight, I landed at Berlin Schonfeld Airport. The first thing I noticed was the lack of signs posted in English (even less so than Prague which surprised me). The theme of no English continued as I walked into the Shonfeld S-Bahn station and found that even the people at the information desk didn't speak English. After pointing out where I wanted to go, I got the very unhelpful response of "Ja! This train and change." I could not get an answer to where I was supposed to change so I got on the train assuming I could look at the map and figure it out. Unfortunately, that idea didn't work out so well because the public transportation maps are impossible to understand. The Berlin public transport system is similar to Prague's in the sense that it works on the honor system (until transport police actually check your ticket, but that never happened in either Prague or Berlin). Unlike Praha's three clearly marked and colorcoded subway lines, however, Berlin's system is impossible. In Berlin you buy one ticket that works for everything- trams, regional express trains, buses, U-bahn and S-bahn. There are absolutely no signs in English anywhere in train stations. Anyway, I miraculously found some people from London who also had no clue what was going on and we found a German guy who told us where we had to change. So we got off the train and waited for what we thought was the right train until another German guy told us that we actually had to go downstairs to get the train we wanted. So we finally got on the right train and got off at Friedrichstraße. That's where I left my new English friends as we headed in opposite directions. With my map in hand I assumed I could easily navigate my way to the Brandenburg Gate. My assumption was dead wrong. Luckily, I found an STA Travel office and got directions. Slightly late for my prebooked tour and furious that I couldn't navigate my way around the city, I booked it to the Brandenburg Gate and joined the New Europe Potsdam Tour.

The Potsdam Tour was a six hour tour and it was definitely not the best tour I've ever been on. It had a few interesting moments (including a stop at a nude beach because that was the best place from which to view the Marble Palace), but overall it wasn't that great. I'll give you some of the highlight. We went to the Bridge of Spies which is where the US and USSR exchanged spies during the Cold War. The bridge actually belongs to both Potsdam and Berlin so half of the bridge is painted by Postdam (light green) and the other half is painted by Berlin (dark green). Also, from the bridge you can see the former summer palace of the kaisers and right behind the palace is the movie production studio that produced several great films like The Reader and Nine as well as some terrible films like Inglorious Bastards.

After that we headed to Cecilienhof which is where the Potsdam Conference took place. One of the reasons they chose Cecilienhof (other than because Berlin was in ruins) was because it had enough entrances so that each of the Big Three (Stalin, Truman and Churchill/Atlee) could have their own entrance and wouldn't fight over who went first.

We also saw the original Brandenburg Gate (Potsdam is the capital of the State of Brandenburg) which is a whopping 21 years older than the more famous gate of the same name in Berlin. The last thing we saw was Sanssouci which is the former summer palace of Frederick the Great. Fred was quite the eccentric, but his palace was incredible. Voltaire lived in the palace for two years. Fred is also the man who introduced the potato into the German cuisine. He is buried at Sansoucci and at the end of the tour our guide gave each of us a small potato to place on his grave.

After the tour I was absolutely exhausted. I finally headed to my hostel, got some food and relaxed for the rest of the night. After a good nights sleep, I headed downstairs for free breakfast and then to the Starbucks near the Brandenburg Gate for the Third Reich tour.

Having easily navigated my way from the hostel to the Brandenburg Gate, I was in a much better mood than the day before and I really enjoyed the tour. The tour began at the Brandenburg Gate where our guide told us about Hitler's recorded entrance into Berlin. He entered at night carrying a torch and this was recorded, but the film was too dark to be used so they restaged the whole thing and rerecorded it two days later and then released this footage to the press.

We then headed to the Reichstag which was very impressive. By this time I was becoming more impressed with Berlin mainly because of the architecture of the few sites I had seen so far. Next we saw many WWII related monuments including the memorials to the murdered politicians, murdered Soviet soldiers, murdered homosexuals and, of course, the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe. We also saw the planned location for the memorial to the murdered Roma, but that has yet to be completed. The stories behind the memorials were very interesting. The memorial to the murdered Roma is being kept very secret, but it is rumored that the design will incorporate black triangles because that is what the Roma had to wear on their clothing to signify that they were Roma. The memorial to the Soviet soldiers was the most impressive architecturally speaking. It is also the oldest of the memorials as it was built right after WWII ended and was completed before more other post war construction even began. Knowing perfectly well that the location of the memorial would be in the British sector when Berlin was divided, Stalin purposely had it built there so the British would never forget that it was the Soviets who first entered Berlin and liberated it from the Nazis. Revenge was had, however, when the street on which the memorial is located was renamed as "The 17th of June Street" so that the Soviets would never forget the day that the Soviet government directly ordered the murder of 250 citizens. The memorial to the murdered homosexuals was very interesting. It appeared to be just a large concrete block. When you move to the other side of it, however, there is a viewing window that looks into the block onto a film which shows two guys kissing. Also, the memorial was originally going to be in the same area as the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe which is right across the street, but it was decided that it should be in its present location to symbolize the isolation felt by homosexuals. Homosexuals were the most persecuted group after the Jews and in addition to suffering from Nazi persecution, they were also persecuted by homophobic prisoners in concentration camps. The memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe is a very modern looking memorial that is often thought to represent a mass grave. I was a bit upset to see people climbing on the blocks and jumping from one to another. I really didn't think it was appropriate behavior and the German government doesn't think so either as there is a list of rules governing behavior at the memorial. The Jewish-American architect of the memorial, however, disagrees with both me and the German government. He believes that if you don't allow people to act freely then the memorial will come to be the place where they go to think about the Holocaust, but it will leave their minds as soon as they leave the memorial. If, however, you allow people to act normally then the memorial will become ingrained in their lives and they will never forget. It's an interesting theory. The government has done away with two former rules governing behavior- no barbeques and no sunbathing (if you need to tell people not to do this at a memorial then something is seriously wrong).

After this we went to the site of Hitler's bunker. Being that the bunker is underground, you obviously can't see it, but we stood on the unmanicured plot of grass above it. It made me very unhappy to hear that most of the bunker has been destroyed. The bunker has been destroyed and the land above it unmaintained because of the fear that the site would become some sort of Neo-Nazi shrine to Hitler. This is understandable, but the fact that so much history has been purposely destroyed slightly sickens me. I also learned that Pink Floyd was once going to put on a concert at a nearby site and when security was looking for anything that could be hazardous, they found an old SS bunker with SS porcelain, portraits and weapons all totally intact. Once again, fear overpowered rationality and everything was destroyed because the German museum that was going to take the artifacts backed down because of the controversy surrounding them. On another note, I also learned that it is still illegal in Germany to give the Heil Hitler salute or to display a swastika anywhere. We then saw the former sites of Hitler's Chancellery and Propaganda Ministry. We also saw the former site of the SS and Gestapo Headquarters which were right next to a portion of the Berlin Wall that's still standing. When the Soviets came into Berlin and the process of denazification began, the SS and Gestapo headquarters were examined to determine if there was any danger in keeping them standing. Of course the Soviets determined that the buildings were unsafe and needed to be destroyed. The demolition team did not fully follow orders, however, and the foundations were left standing and simply covered over. The foundations were found years later and now there is an exhibition that goes along the foundations of the buildings.

Next we saw the Neue (New) Synagogue. During Kristallnacht, this building was set on fire, but one brave man ran over with a paper in one hand and a pistol in another claiming that he had direct orders that this building was to be spared. Of course, he had no such orders, but the fire was put out and the building was spared. Unfortunately, it didn't survive Allied bombing during the war and the only original piece of the building is the left tower. We concluded the tour at the memorial found at the Old Synagogue. The synagogue escaped Nazi destruction (but not WWII bombing) because it was attached to a post office, but it was turned into a prison. The Nazis liked to classify people and the Jews were put into two different groups. Those with 3 or 4 Jewish grandparents were Jews while those with 1 or 2 Jewish grandparents were "mixed race" or "mongrels". If these mixed raced Jews were married to an Aryan, Christian then they were sometimes spared. Many, however, were take to the Old Synagogue prison. Somehow, a group of women found out that their husbands were being kept there and went and started to protest. More and more Aryan, Christian women came with their children and parents to protest. Machine guns were aimed at them but they simply shouted "Murderers!" and the guns were taken away. Eventually, Himmler actually backed down and released the men. Later that night, I met some really cool people in my dorm from Australia, New Zealand, London, China and Japan. After dinner I headed down to the bar and grabbed drinks with a few of them. The Australian girl seemed so familiar. She graduated from Uni last year and is spending 8 months traveling and has been to Southeast Asia and is heading to South American after finishing up in Europe. She kept talking about taking things as they come even in regards to post grad work and career plans! Nick would have freaked out. It must be that laid back, no worries Australian mentality.

On Sunday I headed to the Brandenburg Gate once again and found a large group of people meditating in front of it. I also saw Free Hugs people and thought of Haley because she often does Free Hugs. I went on the Free Tour and our guide, Tim, was absolutely incredible. He is from England so we had a nice conversation about what I'm studying and why Cambridge is better than Oxford. The tour covered alot of things I had already seen in the Third Reich Tour, but there were plenty of other things I hadn't seen yet. One of the first things Tim mentioned was Hotel Adlon which is in Pariser Platz right across from the Brandeburg Gate. Apart from being the most expensive hotel in Berlin (8,500 Euro per night for the Presidential Suite), Hotel Adlon is where Michael Jackson hung his son out the window! I had no idea that happened there and was pretty excited to hear about it.

Tim also told us a square in the middle of Berlin came to be known as Pariser Platz (Paris Square). The square was renamed Pariser Platz after the Prussians overthrew Napoleon and captured Paris. Also, as another blow to French pride, the goddess Victoria, goddess of victory, is driving the Quadriga on top of the Brandenburg Gate and appears to be looking in the direction of the French Embassy. So, when you put it all together, you get Victory looking over Pariser Platz and the French Embassy=Victory Over Paris/France. Very clever. On this tour we also saw the former Luftwaffe (Air Force) Headquarters (today it's the tax office) and a memorial to the victims of the Massacre of the 17th of June. We briefly stopped at Checkpoint Charlie and then headed to Gendarmarkt which is the site of the Deutscher Dom (German Cathedral) and the Franzosischer Dom (French Cathedral) as well as the Konzerthaus (concerthouse) all of which are absolutely stunning buildings. The two cathedrals are essentially exactly the same, but it is often said that the German one is slightly taller just so the French knew who was really in charge. Next we saw St. Hedwig's Cathedral and Humboldt University. I had no idea how prestigious Humboldt University was, but some of my favorite historical people went there or taught there including Otto Von Bismarck, Bonhoeffer, Du Bois, Friedrich Engles, the Brothers Grimm, Haber, Hegel, Heisenberg, Helmholtz, Hertz, Kirchoff, Koch, Marx, Planck, Schleiermacher, Bernard Schlink, Schrodinger, Virchow and Einstein!! We also saw the Nazi Book Burning Memorial. There is a plaque on site with the following quote by Heinrich Heine- "Where books are burned, in the end people will burn." What's remarkable is that this quote is from 100 years before the book burnings. The memorial also features a window that looks underground through which viewers see empty bookcases. This underground room was built to be completely inaccessible in order to symbolize the knowledge and information lost because of the book burnings. Next we went to the Neue Wache (New Guardhouse) which is now a memorial for all victims of war and tyranny. The building houses just one sculpture- "Mother with Her Dead Son" and an oculus that exposes the sculpture to the elements so that when it rains it looks like the sculpture is crying. We finished up the tour at the Berliner Dom where Tim told us the incredible story of how the Berlin Wall fell.

After the tour ended, I headed to the airport. Of course my flight got slightly delayed so when I arrived back in London I ran up to the bus stop just in time to see my bus pulling away. Great. It was after midnight and I still hadn't finished writing my paper that was due at 9 am. So I went to the train station where I was told that if I wanted to get back to Cambridge before morning I would need to take a taxi to another train station and catch a train from there. So I did this and I got back to Cambridge around 2 am. I decided I would rest for 10 minutes before writing the rest of my paper and typing it up. Not a good idea. I fell asleep until 6 am! So I had less than three hours to finish wiritng more than half of my paper and type it up. I rushed through it and sent it in at about 8:40 thinking that it was absolutely terrible. This is the response I received from my professor today...

"Dear Nicole
This is a well-written interpretation/analysis of Hughes's novel, demonstrating a real engagement with the text (and its moral and political messages). You write very well and reference rigorously, and if formally graded at this point this would be a straight A.
It struck me that you might make some adventurous comparisons (in concluding discussions) as you develop the piece for the full term paper - with sport in your own university for instance, with the Providence blend of Catholic admin, high-profile sports, and the study of Western Civilization ...
Sincerely
Alan"

Apparently every paper that I write at the last minute turns out to be fantastic despite the fact that I usually think they are awful. I was also quite shocked by his knowledge of PC and Civ and I must be sure to find out how he knows about it. He's from England so I'm not sure why or how he would know about PC's Western Civ program. I just thought it was pretty funny since many people from America that I've met have never heard of PC.

I went to Formal Hall last night and it was quite good, but it was even better because we played Rock Band afterwards. Today in my history class Dr. Steinberg told us about the two times he has met Gorbachev. So cool. I'm starting to get really sad that PKP is coming to an end. I'm definitely not ready to leave Cambridge and all the incredible people I have met here.