Virtual Walking tour of Eastern Berlin

Some would say Berlin is really only 19 years old.. well, since the wall came down Berlin has gone through 'extreme makeover' and has identity issues. With fresh places, comes fresh ideas - and one you have to take up if you are in Berlin is a free walking tour. It's a really cool idea - you just meet up in the morning and spend 3-4 hours walking around the city in a group with a guide telling you the ins and outs, which is a great way to get some basic knowledge/background info about some incredible history. If you are anything like me when it comes to reading ie. Switch off into a strange fantasy about building your next car, then this may hold your attention a bit further.

So - I'm not going to try and give you the facts and figures like our energetic Irishman.. but I will head the photos and you will notice links on some words that you can click on to get further information if you so require/crave.

This is our guide, I have the feeling he may have been on a pub crawl for the last 3 days, but that only fueled some great stories, facts and figures for us to ponder.


Just as a note before we go further - this post will be in black and white as Berlin seems to deserve some sort of nostalgic integrity when it comes to history.. even our Irish guide Jack.
If you want to see larger images, just click on them.

The Brandenburg Gate.
A main symbol for Berlin. It was once part of a series of gates entering Berlin. You will notice the statue at the top of the gate. In 1806 Napoleon entered the gate and took an immediate likening to it.. it was then stolen by the French and moved to the Louvre where it was to stay until 1814 when taken back by Germany. The square where the gate sits is called Paris square now, and the French embassy is also located here. To show the world that Germans have a good sense of humour, they turned the statues searching head to look straight to the French embassy, instead of the sunset where it once searched.

Hotel Adlon.
At 12,000Euros for a nights stay, it ain't all that bad value when your presidential suite comes with bomb protection and even a continental breakfast. You may remember a certain late king of pop dangling a baby a few years back - this is the same Hotel!


The Reichstag building.

Famous for being the house of parliament. This is where Hitler came into power in 1933 on the stairs out front. It was burned down in the late 30s by a vandal, and Hitler refused to rebuild it as he despised the place so much. . and preferred it stay as a charred mess as a monument to it's ugliness. It was eventually rebuilt in the 1960s to it's former glory.


This next shot is pretty interesting. Only about 1km of the wall actually exists now in small scattered pieces.. but what you do get to see is a bread crumb trail anywhere that the wall once stood. As I mentioned in a previous post, the government puts a lot of its broke pocket into clever ways to represent the past.. this is a good one in my opinion. So in this shot the square line represents the wall turning the corner on 90degrees.


The Holocaust memorial.

Designed by architect Peter Eisenman it displays 2,711 rectangular stones of various heights. It has been designed to be left open to your interpretation.. some examples are;
* Graves
* Soldiers lined up
* Bar graph of the killings

It really is quite incredible to walk through - as in the middle the stones get longer and the space suddenly gets claustrophobic, dark and cold.. this may have been his intention..
Incredible way to represent 6,000,000 deaths.



Hitlers bunker - Führerbunker

So we end up in this little car park.. no signs and no apparent significance until our Jack blurts out that we are standing on what was Hitlers bunker! Yes, the Berliners aren't proud of him at all and have left his suicide lair unmarked apart from a small sign (for 2006 games). Now he gets a rough gravel layer and some cheap parking rates, and a small park for dogs to do their Doo on as a last laugh from the people.
His suicide is actually a pretty interesting story.. as the Soviets stole his body after the Nazis tried to burn it in a bin on the street and then buried it in a shallow grave. The Soviets recognised his bad teeth and hid the body for years so they could remain in Berlin with no proof that Hitler was actually dead. Here's a good link.

Here's a building that survived the war.. but you will notice that it is covered with bullet holes and some parts are bomb damaged. It is vacant now, but squatters lived here in 2005.


The Luftwaffe building is a pretty long story so here is a super summary.
It was once the air force building in 1933.. then taken over by the Soviets during the war.. and now guess what - it is the Federal Tax building.. ha ha.
In the 1950s Russia was forcing the sweet socialist lifestyle upon Berlin. The workers were working hard and long.. and then in 1953 Stalin died. Well, the USA decided it was time to rest and take it easy.. but Berlin was told to increase production and working hours by 10%. The workers didn't respond well and protests would take place every Monday increasing in numbers until 600,000 would gather to fight for their rights. Well.. it toppled over and the Government reacted by opening fire on the streets killing many of the people in the following photo - which is a tribute to those people - some were definitely killed being in the front row of the mob.
Some were arrested and given life imprisonment and some were ordered to be executed!


Kids looking into the bright future with Communism.


A strip of remaining wall. Note the piping on the top. It is sewer piping to stop people from climbing over. If you made it over there was a gap between that wall and the West wall.. in between was a bed of nails and trip wires, once tapped you would be shot and killed on the spot.

The Eastern Germany Car. If you wanted once of these beauties you had to go on a waiting list for 15 years! It is called the Trabant and almost became a motorcycle.. so it has a car shell but is powered by a noisy 2 stroke motorcycle engine.

Checkpoint Charlie. The main border crossing point between East and West Germany. Many Easterners tried many ways to cross here smuggling people in cars etc. One famous story is a guy who cut his roof off on his car.. he crawled to the barrier, ducked and floored it - as the barrier hit the roof of his car it fell off leaving hi to speed to the West.

Nothing genuine exists here anymore.. so the photo just represents where the checkpoint once was. Instead you can buy overpriced gas masks and get your passport stamped by a couple of actors dressed like Soldiers.. Neato.

The Concert House.

Bebel Platz. In this square the Nazis took 20,000 books from The Humboldt university and burnt them. A underground book cellar is in the middle of the square to represent the books that were. Called the 'presence of absence'.. deep.

The Humboldt is pretty extraordinary really. Albert Einstein taught here.. and it can claim home to 29 Nobel prize winners.. what's in the water here? I think I need some.

Excuse the bad photo.

The Neue Wache.

A tribute to the artist Kathe Kollitz who sent her 16 year old son off to WW1 after he pleaded her to let him go. He died 2 weeks later. She then lost her husband and grandson to WWII. This is a statue called 'Mother with dead son' by Kathe Kollitz. In this chamber is buried the remains of an unknown German soldier and unknown Jewish chamber victim. They are covered with various soils from many WWII battle grounds.

Museum Island.

Literally a ground with museums. Could spend days here going through them.. apparently they are incredible museums with very eclectic collections.