In the city by 9.30am and passing the expensive fashion
shops on Friedrichstrasse we headed down to the Mauermuseum at Checkpoint
Charlie, dodging Japanese tourists queuing to have the pictures taken with
young German men dressed up as American, Russian and GDR soldiers. A bit tacky!
 |
| Checkpoint Charlie in 2013 |
Mauermuseum detailed in extensive description the lives
of the residents of the GDR and the desperate attempts that many of them made
to cross the wall to the West. It housed the fragile and eye-wateringly daring
escape means of those who survived the crossing which included the hot air
balloon we both remembered from TV news reports in the 1980’s on which two
families flew over the Wall. Other items included home-made zip wire harnesses,
converted canoes and a cement-filled panelled car (to make it bullet proof).
 |
| Former chunks of wall with protest art at 'Charlie' |
Our next stop was Stasi, a free exhibition which presents
the concept of a surveillance state and the ways and means in which it
infiltrates everyday life. Millions of documents with innocuous details of
every day life were ‘rescued’ by Berliners on the peaceful dissolution of the
Stasi in 1989. The records also provide clues as to the fate of the many
thousands of missing East Germans.
Trabiworld next door was a light-hearted display of many
coloured Trabants, the car we had enjoyed seeing very much alive on the streets
of Budapest two years ago. In Berlin they form a colourful convoy of tourists
paying to drive a few blocks for the fun of it.
The free and informative Typography of Terrors exhibition
is housed on the site of the flattened Gestapo headquarters on Willhelmstrasse,
which is chillingly also home to a standing section of the Wall built on top of
the Gestapo’s previous torture cellars. The exhibition detailed with
extraordinary archive photography the rise of the Nazis and featured as its
central character not Hitler, but Himmler. The archive showed his creation and control
of the terrors of the Reich – Gestapo, SS and Waaffen SS. Sinister, chilling
and disturbing it boldly confronted us with the realities of the worst of all
possible nightmares.
 |
| A view east and west of the wall at Willhelmstrasse |
After a stroll around the futuristic Potsdamer Platz, a
heart-warming Kartoffelsuppe set us up for the afternoon and a walk through the
iconic Brandenburg Gate. A carnival of
dressed up characters posed for pictures in the noisy throng of coach parties
and street artists.
 |
| The top of the Brandenburg Gate |
We walked on to the Reichstag seeing the same steps that
jack-booted Hitler and his henchman strode up eighty years ago, and almost got
ourselves waved through to the Bundestag. A genuine mistake which demonstrated
the surprisingly relaxed security.
 |
| Reichstag in the snow |
A Saturday early evening beer beckoned in Berlin’s oldest
quarter, Nikolaiveirtel. Selecting a chandelier and candle-lit bar just behind
the Spree we admired the tall merchant houses and elegant street lights
illuminating the falling snow before heading wearily back on the u-bahn.
 |
| Nikolaiveirtel Platz |
