Razing of Walls and Parties
Today was our first full day in Berlin. In the morning we arrived at the Brandanburg Gate in the center of town where we would begin a walking tour. Our guide was very energetic, and not necessarily in the good way. We briefly saw the Reichstag, but I'll save that information for another day (when we go there for real). Next was the Jewish part of Berlin's Holocaust Memorial. This consisted of hundreds of cement blocks spread out in a grid and taking up an entire city block. The blocks on the edges are short enough to sit on, but as you walk further in the blocks grow in size until they are towering above you. We learned that many people do not like it because the artist had no meaning in mind when he created it. His excuse is that the meaning is for each person to come up with for themselves. I personally liked it.
Next we were taken to a half paved parking lot with a large open grass area next to it. Nothing spectacular. And that is basically the point. Because this location is where Hitler took his own life, and everybody wanted to make sure that no kind of memorial or even grave would be created in his honor. To this day, there is no burial site for Hitler, only a parking lot for an apartment building, not even fully paved, and some grass where the tenants walk their dogs (and we all know what gets left behind in areas where dogs are walked).
We visited Checkpoint Charlie. While this place obviously had historical significance, it was extremely underwhelming. The locals call it Checkpoint Disneyland because the entire area is filled with stands, food vendors, and fake US soldiers you can pay to take pictures of. Even the checkpoint building itself is a brand new picturesque rehash of what used to be. After the tour ended we grabbed lunch and headed to the Tier Gartens, where we spent much of the afternoon
Before heading home, we stopped by the Topography of Terror, an indoor and outdoor museum of the history of Berlin. We only visiting the outdoor part today. This consisted of the longest remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall with dozens of pictures, information, and stories to see as you walked down the stretch. This took us from the beginnings of the Nazi party when Hitler was not yet even a citizen of Germany all the way to the fall of the party and the rise of communism and the Berlin Wall (and their fall as well). Tomorrow we will most likely return to see more as we got to a little less than half of the available exibits