Leaving Berlin

Leaving Berlin

Last day in this city of monuments, old and new architecture, troubled history and full of vibrant young people.  For the first time, Susan and I split the tour. She goes to her mother’s old neighborhood. I explore a remnant of the cold war, the underground fallout shelters. Susan does not do underground, so I go alone. I do not do shopping, so she goes alone.

 A short cab ride from the hotel is the Unterwelten Underground tour. The Germans started the underground shelter system in 1943 when the US 8^th Army Air Corps was performing daily urban renewal on the city. The reinforced concrete rooms were built adjacent to the subway. While not perfect, they did provide some blast protection if not a direct hit. Unfortunately no photos allowed so I’ll describe it best I can.

When nuclear warfare became a possibility during the Cold War, the blast protection of the underground was nonexistent. But, the Germans figured Berlin was safe from nuclear blast because so many Allied troops were in West Berlin. However, if nukes hit to the east or west, winds would blow radioactive dust over the city. So, the underground shelters became fallout shelters.

The shelters are part of the subway tunnel system and are sealed by hydraulic doors. Each shelter has a person limit. They were to be filled on first come first served basis. All told, the shelters had room for 15,000 in a city of 3 million. They had an air filtration system, enough food and water for 2 weeks and no showers. Toilets were buckets with chemicals.  The theory was to stay underground for 2 weeks and come up and see what was left. Of course, they were never used, but look like they could be used today if needed.

The tour group seemed to enjoy my recount of nuclear defense in the US in the 50s when we were trained to “Duck and Cover”. We crawled under our desks and kneeled with our butts in the air, hands over the backs of our necks.  Our technique would have been equally as effective as the Germans, just a lot less expensive. In our school, we called “Duck and Cover” “Bend over and kiss your ass goodbye”.

German small talk

When I was paying at a cashier station I said, “How are you today?” The clerk gave me a startled look, muttered something while avoiding eye contact as she gave my change. Yoav, our guide, observed this and told Susan my friendliness was not normal German behavior. With that information, I made it my practice to ask every service person “How are you? How about this weather? I like your necklace” or other triviality. All this while smiling at them with direct eye contact. Some blushed, some tittered. I suspect a hives breakout in one case. This international travel is fun if you handle it correctly.

Final thoughts

This trip has been interesting. I was prepared to be patronized by our Austrian hosts. They did not. They were open, forthright and sincere. Well done Austria.

My first trip to Berlin. This complicated city is making the most of their recovery from their self inflicted wounds from WWII and the Cold War. The citizens are young, busy and seem to be happily pursuing the best life possible. Still, the city is not warm. It is sterile. Maybe that is the German way?

We have enjoyed our visit in Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Germany. However, we are extremely happy and lucky to be born in the best spot on the planet. Back to DFW tomorrow. Glad to be headed home.     

Another day in Berlin

Another day in Berlin

Yoav meets us early today because we are walking through the Jewish sector of Berlin’s Mitte.

The plaza in front of Humboldt University is the very spot that Hitler’s propaganda Minister Herman Goebbels staged the first book burning. He filmed the burning of nay books written by Jews or that might contain information contrary to the regimes’. The film was sent out all over Germany as a teaching tool for book burnings in every city. It is perhaps ironical that the building from where the books were thrown to be burned is now the offices of the faculty of the Humboldt Law School. I trust the faculty is teaching this subject to their young protégés.    

Past the University, we pass the museum district adjacent upon Museum Island. The island is formed when two channels of the Spey River split to create a spit of land. If you remember seeing a grainy newsreel on the history channel, you have seen this structure with massive steps in front and large Roman columns behind. Hitler addressed crowds of over 100,000 people from a podium on the steps. Large vertical flags with swastikas lined both sides of the audience looking up admiringly at Hitler.

To the East of the open area facing the steps and overlooking the crowd is a cathedral with spires taller than anything in the neighborhood. No comment from me is required to point out this travesty of human behavior under the shadow of a religious structure that should represent the good of mankind.

Only a few blocks from this scene of debacle, we enter the Jewish sector. Today it is a thriving neighborhood of shops, restaurants, galleries and apartments. Perhaps it was not much different in 1940’s? From these quiet streets Jews were rounded up and sent to camps.

A sculpture of a table and two chairs, with one chair turned on its back, symbolizes a family abruptly taken away. Their vacated apartments were given to others after they departed. What must the new inhabitants thought or felt about the situation? Fortunate, worthy, guilty, ashamed? I suppose it depended upon their viewpoint and opinion of Jews?

Yoav leads us up a flight of stairs into the Blind Person’s Broom Company. In this small factory, blind people made brooms and brushes. The owner also hid Jews, some sighted, some blind from the Nazis. Only five people survived. One young woman is still alive at age 94 and lives in Israel. She wrote a book about their ordeal. On display are Nazi documents detailing orders, inventories and passenger manifests for those being shipped to camps. One document catches Susan’s eye and we hear a catch in her breath.  It orders the Jews about to be captured to kill their pets in preparation.   

The Jewish cemetery was established in the 1650 by a wealthy family. It was bombed in 1943 and most of the grave markers were destroyed. No records remain of who was buried there except the larger gravestones that were too large to haul are still there, but probably not in place. Another of the war’s ironies, during the final battle for Berlin in 1945, 150,000 German soldiers and 80,000 Russian soldiers were killed. The need to quickly bury the bodies resulted in three mass graves dug in the Jewish Cemetery. So, it is very likely that some fervent Nazi soldiers found themselves buried in a Jewish Cemetery.

Last stop is the remains of the Synagogue.  This building was bombed in the war and has been partially restored. The 3,200 seat sanctuary did not survive, but the exterior of the front side has been restored. It is a Moorish styled building with ornate gold domes and a gold Star of David on the peak dome.  It is no longer an operating synagogue, but is used for small meetings and other ceremonies.

We had a goodbye lunch with Yoav, our guide, and learned more about his life in Israel, Vienna and Berlin.

On the way back to or hotel, we made the expedited tour of the Berlin Museum, which is housed in the old armory building. It was worth 30 minutes, but not much more unless you are into suits of armor. Their history stops in 1918. Hmmm.

                    

"Ich Bin Ein Berliner"

“Ich Bin Ein Berliner”

Said President John F Kennedy in 1963, “I am a Berliner” (some linguists say it also means “I am a sausage”, but since my German is sparse, I’ll go with Kennedy’s version) I have always been curious to see the city where the European theater of WWII ended and where Hitler won his final reward. My first visit to Berlin. Susan was here with her mother about 15 years ago.  Ann was born in Berlin.

Our first day utilizes our guide Yoav, an Israeli born, Austrian and German educated historian. We walked over 8 miles, all in the Mitte or middle of Berlin. Most of Mitte is in the former East Germany (DDR). The West German part of Mitte was an island of streets and buildings surrounded by the infamous wall and dead zone established by the Soviet sponsored East German government.

When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1989, the wall was no longer needed to keep the residents of East Berlin from escaping to the west.  The only remnants are one small section in its original location and several pieces displayed around the city.  The wall was a last ditch attempt to prevent East German citizens from leaving a city that was under harsh living conditions and equally harsh regulatory supervision. Anyone who attempted to leave was charged with stealing from the country, i.e. stealing themselves from the service of their country. Anyone old enough to be retired was welcome to leave so the DDR wouldn’t need to supply support services to them. Heck of a system, right?

Our walking tour first took us by the two cathedrals (one Catholic, one Protestant) restored to original condition by the DDR in order to attract tourist dollars. Both are magnificent, proving that the DDR can build elegant structures when they choose to do it. The nearby Hilton was built by the Communists and looks as good as the Hilton in Kansas City, although that is not high praise.  

Next to Check Point Charley, the iconic gate, often seen in films and portrayed in spy novels, is a guard post is manned by uniformed US and Russian soldiers. This is a tourist attraction not the real thing. Two pot bellied middle aged men wear US and Russian uniforms for picture taking. Fake sandbags surround the little hut hoping to add to its authenticity and failing to help miserably.

Before the wall came down, Check Point Charley was a ten lane facility like the border booths in El Paso or Tijuana.  Now it is on the island of four lane boulevard surrounded by high rise modern buildings. We take a photo anyhow, doing our part as good tourists to further the fiction of Check Point Charley.

Our guide walked us along a winding double line of bricks that mark where the Berlin Wall stood. A lone guard tower has been left and it was purchased by an entrepreneur who charges visitors to climb up into it. The DDR guards in those towers shot any East Germans who dared to enter the “dead zone”.

Mike walks the line

The Wall

I can criticize other things they have done but, I give accolades to the DDR and East Berliners for how they treated Nazi artifacts. The Nazi Shutzstaffel  (SS) headquarters building is now a city block of stone rubble. .. a fitting tribute to these thugs.

The SS started out as Hitler’s private guards. As the war evolved, the SS became part of the Army, Intelligence Service and a political faction loyal to Hitler. The SS carried out dirty work against Jews in the beginning, but as Germany’s fortunes waned, the SS performed dirty work against other German civilians and even German military not thought to be loyal to Hitler.  When the war ended the SS Headquarters was bombed or shelled (or both).  After gathering all the incriminating evidence from the building, the DDR reduced it to rubble… and kept it that way. A modern museum at the far end of the property displays artifacts and tells the story of the SS.

A few blocks away is the site of Hitler’s bunker. Hitler and his wife Eva committed suicide in the underground offices and living quarters known as the bunker. I call it “the site” because nothing is there.  It is a parking lot. The DDR did not want it to become a point of interest, so they filled it with cement and paved it over. A small signpost is all the recognition of the location. Congratulations DDR! The sign is more notice than the miserable bastard deserves.  No memorial for you Adolf!

Less than a quarter mile from the bunker site is the Memorial to the Jewish Dead. A huge open lot has been filled with grey rectangular cubes of cement in varying sizes. No signage explains the memorial. The artist leaves it up to each person to decide what it means. It looks like a New Orleans cemetery to me, with all the tombs above ground. Others might see the plain stones as markers for anonymous dead. The display is prominent, but not easily identified as to its purpose.  Maybe the Germans meant it to be so?

The line of bricks defining the former wall passes alongside the Brandenburg Gate.  Before the reunification of East and West Germany in 1989, this historic archway was blocked because it was too close to the wall. Reagan gave his “Tear down this wall” speech just across from the gate. Now it has returned to its former glory. The plaza beneath is busy with people and souvenir vendors.  Our guide explained that the statue on top of four horse drawn chariots was stolen by Napoleon and taken to Paris. Later the Germans marched into Paris and took it back. That statue has some miles on it. So do we, so back to the hotel.

Brandenburg Gate

After a short break, we taxied to the Reichstag for dinner, except the Germans do not like you to call it that now. They prefer Bundestag now. It is the big building that was Hitler’s headquarters. Now it is a government building, museum and restaurant. Good dinner. Great views.  Ugly history. My opinion… deserves to be rubble.

Dinner View Reichstag

More Berlin tomorrow.

A world without "U"

A world without “U”

Before we begin today’s blog; a rant about flawed technology. My Dell notebook’s keyboard is intermittently failing to print the letter “u” as I type. So if I have failed to correctly proofread, the text may read “yo” instead of “you” and “or” instead of “our”. Auto spelling does not catch those two mistakes. (I just fixed “ato” to correct “auto”, the first word in this sentence.)  If that is not problematic enough, imagine how many times I had to repair “Astria”?

I sense yo laghing at me.

Now on to Bratislava:

The entire Jacobson clan hops the bus to Bratislava, Slovakia this morning. Only an hour from Vienna, this medieval village has retained all its charm in the old town inside the wall. Outside the wall, Soviet style pre-fabricated buildings, totally devoid of style, surround the town.

Richard and Ria Belohoubek drove down to meet us at the bus stop. The plan was a walking tour of the village to see the castle and the old Jewish district. Since it is cold and raining, Richard and Ria have developed plan B. Just under the bridge near the bus stop is an underground cellar that houses a coffee shop and antiques store. We pop in out of the rain and have a coffee before heading into the village.

First stop is a museum (two “u”s to fix in that word) that was the original city hall from the 14^th century. It is filled with artifacts and documents that chronicle Bratislava’s long and rich history as the center of the region’s government. Oddly enough, an exhibit of torture equipment and instruments is on display in the basement.

Nest stop a wine tasting to sample Slovakian vino. We fortify ourselves with several bottles to bring home in our luggage. Ria has brought the forgotten pastry we left in her car on Wednesday.  I’ll figure out how to pack the wine and roll in my bag on the trip to Berlin and back to the US.

When we ate the roast goose feast in Skalica on Wednesday, Ria put the leftovers in her new Audi SUV. Goose drippings slopped out on the carpet. Now she has named her new aromatic automobile “Goose”.

Richard reserved a restaurant for lunch and we enjoyed a typical Slovakian home cooked meal. This simple food is delicious, filling and rich. Richard regaled us with stories of his service in the Czechoslovakian Army during the time the Soviet Union collapsed and the Czech Republic gained its freedom.  The after lunch walk took us under Michael’s Gate, so I had my photo under my gate.

A wedding is just beginning as we entered the 1300s cathedral. The couple’s wedding car was a 60’s vintage Skoda, the Czech car of choice back then.

Then a stroll through the rain back to the bus to Vienna. A dreary day in Bratislava, but Richard and Ria are coming to Colorado in June! Hooray!

A poignant moment: On the cab ride back to the Viennese hotel from the bus station, we drive past the apartment where the Jacobson children’s mother lived in 1938. Goodbye to Vienna and Ann’s old home.

On to Berlin in the morning.