Monday 2/13
Today I started the day by going on a Hop On Hop Off bus tour because I wanted to get a better understanding of the city over all. I love doing this because they give you a birds-eye view and you get to learn about kind of where everything is in relation to everything else. So I did that for about 3 1/2 hours. Most of the places the bus went were in former East Berlin.
One of the things I explored during that time was the Kaiser Wilhelm Church. It got damaged during a bombing raid during WWII and they left it unfinished as a reminder to people of the devastation of the war. It’s called the hollow tooth by Berliners today because the top part of it looks like that since it was bombed. I also went into the side part that they built which is the actual place where church services happen now. It’s a beautiful structure with lots of stained glass.
Then I met up with Patrick and we went down to KaDeWe, which is one of the biggest department stores in Germany. On the top floor they have a food court type of area and we went to this really great coffee shop called Einstein Coffee and had a latte and a torte. And then we walked around to just see everything they have. So much chocolate, so much of everything! It was really something to behold.
After that we took an underground train. Here are some pics of the train and one particularly cool train station.
We went to the Topography of Terrors Museum which focuses on the role of the Gestapo and the SS and that part of the Nazi part before, during, and after World War II. It struck me that I really don’t know very much about what happened and how everything came to be, outside of reading the Diary of Anne Frank in high school. There are just so many aspects of how the Nazis got into power that are astounding. It was really informative to walk around with Patrick because, being a Nazi Germany historian, he was able to elaborate on a lot of the pictures and information that we saw.
At the Topography of Terrors Museum, there is also a small section of the Berlin wall that has been left up there. This is the thing I have wanted to see for so long. I learned so much about the construction of the Berlin Wall as well, and that it was not one wall but two, and that there was a huge thing called the death strip in between one side of it and the other. And they were lots of different obstacles that even if you got over the first wall, you had to go through all of these ridiculous things to get to West Berlin and it was pretty much impossible. So impossible that people mostly didn’t even try to attempt it because they knew they would be killed. Terrifying and unbelievable that a large group of people thought, “Yeah, this is a good way to run a society,” though it is still happening in places today.
After we did a lot of walking and learning, we went to this fast food type of restaurant that serves what is known as German döner kebab. The modern sandwich variant of döner kebab originated and was popularized in 1970s West Berlin by Turkish immigrants. It was quite good, but very filling. We got home around 9 or so – a long and full day of walking, exploring, and learning about the history of Berlin.
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