Berlin Part 3

    After we were shoo-ed out of the German History Museum we headed down the road that used to be one of Europe's grand boulevards, the Unter den Linden. In the 15th century it was a carriageway that led from the palace to the hunting grounds - now Tiergarten (Berlin's Central Park). In the 17th century princes and princesses built their palaces along it to be near the Prussian emperor. It was named centuries ago for the linden trees that lined both sides of the road. Hitler replaced the trees (some 250 years old) with Nazi flags. The people were so unhappy about this that he replant linden trees. During the Cold War it was a depressing cul-de-sac ending with the Brandenburg Gate with the wall on the other side of it.
     We stopped in the Bebelplatz, the sight of the notorious Nazi book burning. There is a glass window in the center of the square. Through the glass you can see a room of empty bookshelves as a memorial to that day in 1933 when staff and students of the university threw 20,000 forbidden books into a huge bonfire on the orders of the Nazi propaganda minister. There is a plaque nearby with the quote from German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine. In 1820, more than a hundred years before the Holocaust, he wrote, "When you start by burning books, you'll end by burning people." What an accurate prophesy! (His were some of the books burnt that day.)

Memorial at Bebelplatz

     Across the street is the Humboldt University. Among it's alumni are Marx and Lenin, the Grimm brothers, and more than two dozen Nobel Prize winners. Einstein taught there until 1932 when he transferred to Princeton. In the middle of the street was a statue of Frederick the Great on his horse. He sits among the cranes and scaffolding that were all over Berlin. The rebuilding of Berlin as one of the world's top cities is still going on.

Frederick the Great

     Along the way we enjoyed the cute little pedestrian lights in the DDR-style. They are called Ampelmannchen - literally translated it's traffic light figure. I like the German better. = ) The communists at least had great pedestrian lights despite their other faults.

Walk

Don't walk

    These little guys are all over. They are the unofficial mascot of the east side of Berlin. We found a whole souvenir shop devoted to them - everything from earrings and T-shirts to noodles and gummies.

     We stopped in one gift shop called Berlin Story. It had many fun souvenir options and books - in English. We browsed for a while then headed on.

In Berlin Story - model of the TV tower

Bear in front of shop - there were many of these painted differently all over Berlin.

   At the end of Unter den Linden is Pariser Platz named after the defeat of Napoleon by the Prussians in 1813. It once had important government buildings built around it but they were bombed flat during World War II. Now it is the home to many of the embassies including the US, French, British, and Russian. It is also home to one of Berlin's ghost subway station. Most of the underground train tunnels were blocked during the Cold War. But a few Western lines looped through the East. The Eastern government rented the use of the tracks to the West but the stations in East Berlin were strictly off-limits. The stations were unused for 28 years. When the wall fell, the stations were reopened. The stations still look like they did when they were built in 1931 - same old green tiles and signs. There was an interesting display detailing the rise and fall of Nazi power in Germany.

Ghost subway station

American Embassy

     At the end of the Pariser Platz is the Brandenburg Gate. It was built in from 1788 to1791 as a symbol of peace. It is the last surviving of 14 gates in Berlin's old city wall. It is based off a gateway in Athens. The gate is divided into 6 passageways. The center passage was only for royalty from 1814 - 1919. On the top is the Quadriga, a chariot drawn by four horses driven originally by Eirene, the Roman goddess of peace. When Napoleon defeated the Prussians in 1806 he used the Brandenburg Gate for his victory parade. Then he took the Quadriga with him to Paris and put it in the Louvre. When the Prussians defeated him in 1813 they took it back. They renamed Eirene Victoria, the Roman goddess of victory. = ) They also added the symbol of Prussian power to her oak leaf wreath, the Iron Cross.

     During the Cold War the gate went unused. The Wall was right on the other side of it. When the wall fell on November 9, 1989 the gate was featured all over the world on TV as thousands of people came there to celebrate. It has become a symbol of freedom.

There's Eirene - I mean, Victoria! = )

Reliefs in the gate's passageways

Other side of the gate.

    We nexted headed to Reichstag, the German Parliament Building. On the way we passed a small memorial to some of the East Berliners who had died trying to cross the wall. Right in front of the Reichstag is the Memorial to Politicians Who Opposed Hitler. It is a row of slate slabs that looks like a fancy bike rack. It memorializes 96 politicians, part of the weak post-WWI democracy in Germany, that were murdered or persecuted because they didn't agree with Hitler's politics. Each slab has one man's name, party, and location of death - mostly in concentration camps.

Can't see the names - but you probably won't know who they were anyway.

      We got to the Reichstag at a little before 8 pm. My handy guide book said that the it was open for visitors until midnight but it didn't tell me that you have to reserve a time to go in. And the place that made the reservations closed at 8 pm. By the time we figured this out it was too late so we decided to take a walk through the Tiergarten and get a better look at the Victory Column which stands in the middle of the park. 

     We passed the Carillon on the way. It is a bell tower with 68 bells. It is connected to a keyboard with 5 1/2 octaves. The carillonneur plays it in a little playing cabin in the middle of the bells using his fists and feet. It is one of the largest instruments of it's kind in Europe and the fourth largest instrument in the world. We didn't get to hear it played unfortunately.

Carillon in Tiergarten

     The park was really lovely to walk through. The sun was setting slowly and it lit everything with a soft light. The Tiergarten was once the hunting grounds for the Prussian royalty. During WWII much of it was destroyed in bombing attacks. The remaining trees were cut down after the war to be used as firewood for the devastated city. But, happily, it has been re-treed and has many walking/biking trails and - on hot days - nude sunbathers. (Luckily we didn't come across any on our walk. It was getting chilly by then.)

So pretty!

Beauty and peace right in the middle of Berlin

     In the middle of the Tiergarten, sitting in a large roundabout, is the Victory Column. It was started in 1864 to commemorate the Prussian victory in the Danish-Prussian War but, by the time it was finished, the Prussians had won two more wars - the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War. So the column had new significance. These new victories inspired the addition of a bronze sculpture of Victoria to be added to the top. The column stands on a red granite base decorated with reliefs showing the German's victorious return to Berlin after the three wars. The original column had 3 three tiers decorated with the cannon barrels captured from the enemies of the the three wars. It stood one Roman mile from the front of the Reichstag building until 1938 when the Nazis moved it to it's current location. (This move saved it from being destroyed in WWII bombings.) It was suppose to complement Hitler's expected victories. Hitler added the fourth tier in the column after the Battle of France, Germany's successful invasion of France.  After WWII the reliefs were removed at France's request - they didn't want Germany reminded of her former victories. They wanted to dynamite the whole column but the U.S. said no. (They did return much of the relief pieces in 1987 for Berlin's 750th birthday - but not all of them.) To get to the tower, we went through a tunnel under the street. Up close we could see damage where WWII bullets had chipped the granite.

In the tunnel - an interactive light display

At the base looking up at the column

Gorgeous mosaic inside columns

    Around the Victory Column are statues of the great Prussian generals. There is also the Bismarck Memorial on one side. This memorial is dedicated to Otto von Bismarck, the first Chancellor of the German Empire. He stands in his chancellor garb above Atlas holding the world (symbolizes Germany's world power), Germania stepping on a panther (symbolizing the suppression of rebellion and discord), and a prophetess reading a book of history. This memorial was also located in front of the Reichstag building until it was moved by Hitler in 1938.

Andrew and the kids add their own figures
I think Piper is representing the peace of unified Germany.
Andrew and Taran are demonstrating what happens if you mess with Germany.

     By this time it was very late and we were very tired and hungry - too busy site-seeing to eat! So we caught the bus to where we'd started that afternoon and went to San Marino's (recommended to us by Uwe) for dinner. I wanted to eat German food but the kids wanted Italian so, since I had dragged them all over town, we had Italian.

Waiting for food at San Marino's

    We sat outside because they had such nice seating out front where we could watch the passersby. Unfortunately the evening grew a bit cold and by the time we left we were all shivering - even Taran.  = ) We got to bed quickly but it was still almost midnight before we all got settled. But the sleep was wonderful. It was the best night's sleep outside of Bruchsal so far.

    Okay, I have to leave off here. I still haven't got everything planned for this weekend so I have to get to that now. Unless plans change we are off to see the Neueschwanstein Castle - that's the one that Disney's Cinderella castle is based on. We'll have seen the Disney version and the real one in the same year! Amazing!