You know you are getting old when you spend time focusing on history that happened in your own lifetime. The Berlin wall falls into this category for Rachel and me. Erected in 1961, it stood throughout our young lives as a physical symbol of the Cold War. It was also a physical symbol of the complete failure of Communism as it was erected to stop the flow of people (especially intellectuals) from the dictators of the east to the free democracies of the west. 3.5 million people left East Germany for West Germany representing 20% of East Germany's population.
Today very little remains of the 96 mile wall. However, Germany has creatively marked where the wall was as a memorial and reminder. In some places they have erected pink or blue pipes like this. I'm not sure what is carried in those pipes (water? telecommunication lines?) but we saw them in a number of places around town. The picture below is from Potsdamer Platz which once was like the Times Square of Berlin until the wall ran directly through the square.
In other places, the wall is marked with inlaid bricks as on the road below. This picture is just in front and to the right of the Brandenburg Gate (near the place where Reagan and Kennedy gave their famous speeches in front of the the Wall and the Brandenburg Gate)....
We started our tour of Berlin at one of the Ghost Stations on the public transportation system. I had never thought about the subway system running through both East and West Berlin....but it did! When the Wall went up, the East Berlin stations were shut down with walls erected to block entry and guards being posted. But the trains continued to run! Imagine how odd it would have been back then to get on a subway train in West Berlin and then travel through these ghost stations before being allowed to get off at another station once the train got to another West Berlin station. But that is how the subway system worked for over 28 years...
The museum-like display I'm showing is actually IN the S-Bahn Nordbahnhof station which is the station nearest the Berlin Wall Memorial
As the Berlin Wall was increasingly enlarged and the above ground border barriers more effectively prevented escapes to the West, people began searching for other ways to get out. Some tried fleeing through the sewers; others dug tunnels beneath the boarder grounds. The U-Bahn and S-Bahn lines that ran to the West were also considered as potential escape routes. The walls and border fortifications that the East German government had installed to block these passageways gradually developed into a complex underground system of barricades, walls, and signal devices developed to make any escape through the underground tunnels nearly impossible. The East German government spared neither expense nor effort in building obstacles and maintaining surveillance to prevent escapes.
S sitting where the wall used to be blocking the entrance to Nordbahnhof station....
Outside the S-Bahn station is a section of the Wall and the complex around the Wall that now serves as a museum. Across the street is a welcome center which includes several short films that we watched explaining the Wall, how it was erected, how it was guarded, how it evolved from simple barb wire to a very complex security area.
One of the things that really struck me was how this area of fear and terror has been transformed into basically a park. There were people lounging under trees, having picnics, and kicking soccer balls etc.
Throughout the 'park' there are monuments and explanations of various aspects of the Wall complex. For example, the road V is walking on was the security road used by East German troops inside the Wall complex.
Memorial for those who died trying to escape...
And their pictures...
I think this portion of the wall was chosen to remain because a church used to stand here and its cemetery still exists. You really can't 'develop' on a cemetery so it makes sense to make this the part of the Wall that remains. The Wall was actually built around the church but East Germany destroyed it in the 1980s because it interfered with lines of site. After the Wall fell, members of the church rebuilt the old church wall and created this path to the church cemetery on the other side of the Wall complex.
After grabbing some lunch at a little cafe across from the Wall Memorial, we headed to the Reichstag.
The Reichstag
As noted in previous posts, the girls have taken a great interest in the Holocaust and thus World War II and Hitler's rise to power. The Reichstag was the seat of government in Germany in 1933. In 1932 an 84 year old Hindenburg who had planned to serve as President for only 1 seven year term, ran again for the Presidency to keep Hitler from winning. Hindenburg won that election and the powerful position of President in the Weimar Republic remained outside Hitler's grasp. He was assigned the much weaker role of Chancellor in January 1933.
We had a little history lesson while we stood in front of the Reichstag. Until 1933, the Nazis had never gained more than 37% of the votes in Parliamentary elections. In fact, there were two elections in 1932....in the first they got the 37% but couldn't form a government with other parties. In the second, they only got 33% and that could have marked the high water mark of the Nazi party if the other parties could have formed a government. But they didn't.
Since the Nazis had received the most votes in those 2 elections, Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor of Germany and Hitler was able to dissolve Parliament and call for new elections. They were set for March 5, 1933.
Perhaps the most important fire in history happened at the Reichstag on February 27, 1933. No one knows for sure if this fire was a Nazi conspiracy to stir up fear of Communists or if it really was a lone wolf arsonist who was a Communist....regardless, this fire set in motion a series of events that within a month would allow Hitler to 'legally' (as defined by the Weimar Constitution) become dictator of German.
Hitler came to the Reichstag that night to see it burning. He may have stood right where we were standing and perhaps this is the place where his evil mind saw the path to absolute power. He immediately whipped up fear in the populace tying the fire to the beginning of Communists attempting to seize control and cause a civil war. Hitler was able to convince Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Fire Decree.
The decree invoked the President's power under
Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, which allowed the government to take any
appropriate measure to remedy dangers to public safety without the prior
consent of the Reichstag. It consisted of six articles. Article 1 indefinitely
suspended most of the civil liberties set forth in the Weimar Constitution,
including habeas corpus, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the right
of free association and public assembly, the secrecy of mail and telephone not
to mention the protection of property and the home. Articles 2 and 3 allowed
the Reich government to assume powers normally reserved for the federal states.
Articles 4 and 5 established draconian penalties for certain offenses,
including the death penalty for arson to public buildings. Article 6
simply stated that the decree took effect on the day of its proclamation.
With that decree, Hitler arrested all of his primary opponents, suppressed journalists unfriendly to the Nazis, and had those friendly to the Nazis foment as much fear as possible in the days leading up to the election. Even with all that going on, the Nazis still only got 44% of the vote. They formed a government with another party representing 8% of the vote. The problem for Hitler? He wanted to pass what the Weimar Constitution called the Enabling Act which basically would allow to do whatever he wanted....but he needed 67% of the parliament to vote for it.
Using the Reichstag Fire Decree, he pressured political opponents, arrested them, threatened their lives, prevented some from even showing up for the vote, and had his SA men swarming the building intimidating people on the day of the vote. The Enabling Act therefore passed with 83% of those present voting for it....and the rest is history.
While one can debate whether Hitler would have figured out a way to seize total power even without the Reichtag fire, the fact of history is that this event was the catalyst which allowed him to seize control. We spoke as a family of all the lives that were impacted due to the events of that one night.
On that night, processes were set in motion that would take my uncle from our family in World War II. Anne Frank wasn't even 3 years old when this happened....but she and 6 million other Jews would die as a result of Hitler coming to power. Corrie Ten Boom was a 40 year old watch maker at the time and probably had little interest in German politics....but her life and her family would be forever changed by Hitler coming to power. We talked in those moments of all the places we had been on this journey touched by this event....from the Holocaust memorials in Israel and Paris to places like the Jewish community in Berea, Greece which was basically wiped out when the Nazis took control.
It was a sobering moment. History matters and will repeat itself when we forget it. Let us not forget!
Brandenburg Gate
Built in the late 1700s, the Brandenburg Gate has been a symbol of Berlin ever since. Napoleon marched through this gate in 1806 and, of course, the Nazis used it as a political symbol throughout their reign. The Berlin Wall ran directly in front of the Brandenburg Gate (it was in East Berlin) and it was in front of the Brandenburg Gate where Reagan spoke his famous words "Tear down this wall!" and Kennedy made his famous statement "Ich bin ein Berliner"
It is also where the most famous pictures were taken in 1989 when the Wall came down. I can still remember the young people dancing on top of the Wall that cold night....and Leonard Bernstein about a month later conducting Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy' at this place.
Just around the corner from the Brandenburg gate is where Germany has built a memorial to the 6 million Jews and other 'undesirables' murdered during Hitler's reign. It is a very odd memorial and we weren't quite sure what to make of it. On the one hand given the massive scale of the evil perpetrated, it seems inadequate....and yet I don't see any huge memorials to horrible parts of American history (treatment of Indians or slaves), so in that regard at least they have done something.
The memorial slopes downward and swallows you. I think they meant it as an image of what happened to the Jews and the whole of Europe during the Nazi's reign....they were just swallowed willingly or unwillingly....swallowed in a system of persecution and terror that was very confusing and confining.
Tranenplast - The Palace of Tears
This FREE museum with FREE audio guides was a great way to end our tour of Berlin. Tranenplast was the passport control point from East Berlin into West Berlin or West Germany. It was called the Palace of Tears due to all the tears that happened in this place. This building was the entry way into the train station (lower right corner of model below)...everyone was monitored by the secret police from the passengers to the people who came with them to the station.
The museum has effective videos and displays outlining life in East Germany, showcasing some of the escape attempts, highlighting the difficulty of split families, walking you through the process of legally getting over the border, and ending with scenes from the Wall coming down.
In the passport control room, you would enter and they would close the door. The mirror above you and the tight quarters gave the police a huge psychological edge (plus they were elevated over you). They could question you as long as they wanted and could deny your passage for any reason they felt like. Hard to capture in a picture, but I could imagine being very uncomfortable in this place when it really was under tyranny.
....but now it is just a museum.
We left Berlin on the July 24 for Poland and a tour of Auschwitz. What a powerful, powerful day that was....details in the next post.
Til then, God bless
Incredible how much history you have packed into each post! I remember the Berlin Wall coming down - we read about it Newsweek sitting in our living room in Murree, Pakistan, probably a couple of weeks after it happened and it felt momentous then!
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff as always. As stated above, you pack a lot of history into your posts. It is fascinating as you mention that The Wall coming down is history we have lived through.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing how Hitler worked himself into power. He worked within the system to gain some power and then abolished the system to gain total power. Dictators are never a good thing.
Blessings,
Ron