The Ghosts of Berlin

The Ghosts of Berlin is a biography of the history of Berlin that leads one through the city’s past and events. The book is broken up into lengthy chapters that follow a relative time line of Berlin’s past. There are two main time periods that we studied that fascinated me the most. These two time periods were Nazi Germany and the capital of New Germany.

Nazi Germany was easy to read about in textbooks and novels such as this one, but when I was in Berlin there was not near the level I expected when compared to the detail in these books. There is only a few remains/ruins of the Nazi Germany era that we toured in our study abroad. We found out when touring one of the buildings designed by Albert Speer at the Nazi rally grounds that it is one of the very few Nazi buildings left standing. One would understand why of course there are not many buildings/ structures left from the Nazi regime. Most of the building’s, which were destroyed, ruble was used to make memorials by other countries so that there is a lingering presence of what their country had to go through so Germany can be what it is today. But still today there are reminders of the war that were not built but where hiding. An example would be, at one point of their remodeling/rebuilding of Berlin an excavator hit a undetonated bomb and killed and injured several people and blew out the side of a building. Even though the people of Berlin have tried to wipe their minds clear of this nasty history there seems to still be ghosts from the war still lurking underground to haunt them. I have found in my studies that the Nazi era has been the most scaring of their history and most Germans want this part of their history to be wiped clean from their minds.

The war and the wall had a very large impact on how Berlin and most of the other German cities viewed themselves. After living in Berlin for a month there is definitely a new side of Germany that history books do not portray. A now unified Berlin is present; no longer does a wall stand between the east and the west. There has been new roots added to this old city; one of the larger roots was when they moved the Bundestag from Bonn to Berlin. This was a large step in this process to view the new and improved Germany. There are many memorials built around the city to honor the different races, religious backgrounds and even the war. Some of the war memorials where not even built by Germans but other countries to honor their lost men. Yet all of these building have been greatly preserved and maintained just showing how far the Berliners have come.

As I was touring this thriving city, especially during the World Cup 2010, I could defiantly see how far Germany has come over the years. I found it quite interesting how a team of eleven people can make forty-five thousand people join together as one and support them all the way to the semi-finals.

Last week in Berlin

The last week which consisted of Monday and Tuesday. In these last two days we finished up the last bit of German history and finished all of the scheduled architectural tours and then made up for a few that we missed. All in all this was a fantastic trip I will recommended anyone to study abroad for a summer. This was a life changing experience that I will never forget. I'm ready to be coming back to the states but also sad to leave. Below are a few pictures of the last few days:

Be looking for my final post after I get back to the states and after i get my first round of American food.

The Wall Jumper is a collection of short stories that allows the reader to take part in many people’s experiences of tackling the Berlin Wall. The narrator is an author who lives in West Berlin and he/she begins to collect stories of people attempting, and some actually, “jumping” over the wall. At this time, 1961 -1989, Berlin was a very different city than it is today.

The Wall Jumper, to me, was a little hard to read; it was a very choppy and disorganized collection of short stories/testimonies of the different characters, but towards the end of my read it all became clear of the writer's intentions. It became extremely obvious that many of the character's attempts to cross to the other side were a reflection of the physiological feeling that the wall had on people from the west and the east. Among many of their psychological issues, some of the characters do not learn from past attempts and continue to try to be the one to tear down the wall that is dividing their mind and reality.

Many people within the German culture today still distinguish themselves from either the east or the west. Today there is also somewhat of a difference in the buildings and infrastructure between the two sides but one really needs to look for it. There are still pieces of the wall that stand erected. In fact, there is a museum in Germany that holds artifacts, such as contraptions, that people used in order to cross the wall. The museum and the book really open your eyes to all the tough times people went through during this time period.

June 28th – July 1st

June 28^th

Monday was no different from the last few weekdays. We toured a Le Corbusier housing solution in 1958. This 17 storey building was constructed in 18 months and we actually got to see the inside of an apartment building that had not been changed since move in day back in 1958. This old lady was so neat and full of stories she was married to a screen writer so she knew English pretty good. All the furniture in her apartment was all form the 50s and it was like walking back in time and seeing what these apartments look like before they were remodeled.

June 29th

Was the day for our southern trip into the city of Dresden. This was also the day I left my backpack on the train on the way back so I’m sorry for the lack of pictures because my camera was in my backpack. I hope to get it back sometime in the near future. Well besides the point our group saw the following building in Dresden: UFA Cinema Center, Volkswagen Transparent factory, Jewish Synagogue, and many of the buildings in the Theater Platz area. If I was to pick my favorite it would be the VW Transparent Factory. The layout of the Building and the Lobby were very easy to maneuver around and see all the cars being made.

June 30^th – July 1^st

These days where back in the heart of Berlin. These days have also been my favorite history part of our trip. We began the history lessons of the Cold War and on July 1^st was the History of the Wall. The Walls History was very interesting to learn things I formally didn’t know. It was also neat to see Checkpoint Charlie. There is a museum on the same block as Checkpoint Charlie. This museum was dedicated to the history of Checkpoint Charlie and also methods and ways that people were smuggled through the checkpoint.

June 25th - June 27th

June 25 - June 27th
Was a Friday through a Sunday and these were days for exploring more of the heart of Berlin. This was such a fun weekend it consisted of a lot of rest and watching almost every game of soccer that was scheduled. When the U.S. played Ghana (Saturday) I went to a American style Bar & Grill by the name of Route 66. The menu of course had American foods well i think so. There was a choice of a so called "Cajun Chicken" but I didn't have the nerve to try Cajun Chicken in Germany but I did have the chili cheese fries and they where amazing. To bad the U.S. lost but I still had a great time. Later that weekend Germany played England (Sunday) and I believe the entire city of Berlin was in the Tiergarten watching the amazing game that the Germans put on 4 - 1 Germany. After this defeat the entire city was filled with noises of celebration. Such as cars honking, fireworks going off, people yelling / chanting. All in all the city did not go to bed early that night. It was a new experience for me and i will probably never forget it. Well that was my weekend in a nut shell hope you enjoyed it.

June 23 - June 24

June 23 was a day on the Bus. We traveled from Stuttgart back to Berlin ( about a 10 hour bus ride). But no means did we just sit on the bus we had many stops all in the town of Wolfsburg. One of the three stops we made was to the Phaeno Museum. Which to most of use was a flash back to our childhood because this building's interior was a child science center.Even though we were there see the architecture we had some fun while we were there too. This building was a concrete building designed by Zaha Hadid. This building was one of a kind for sure. Every lrg to this structure was one of a kind and that also means that all the form work was also one of a kind. Since this building is made solely out of concrete one would think it would have expansion joints right. Well you would be wrong this building had non.

Phaeno Museum

Also along our stop was a Library done by Aalto and also the Heiling-Greist kiche (a church). The church had a really interesting way of doing a corner on a brink building (shown below) and the chapel had this really interesting ribbon like form running on the ceiling.


June 24th was mostly a history driven day with our class starting at the Topographies of Terror exhibit a few blocks from our apartments. Our afternoon began with a very infomative lecture by Dr. Etheridge. Manly talked about Hitler's personal history, pre WWII, and the SS along with the Gestapos and how much of a thriving power they where when Hilter was coming into power. Soon after the lecture and a quick tour of the Topographies site and we ended our day at the Jewish Museum by D. Libeskind.

model of museum

Garden of exile with the museum

Museums exterior

June 22nd

June 22nd Was the day of days or just every teenagers dream. We toured the Porsche museum and the Mercedes-Benz museum in the morning. Talk about a wake up call. Of these two I enjoyed the Porsche's layout better than the Mercedes museum. The Porsche museum had more of a linear time line describing the history of the company. As the Mercedes museum just had too much. Their set up was a clover leaf style of ramping. That had the history on one leaf and the other leaf was just to show case all that Mercedes-Benz has done from the beginning. From the outside Mercedes bets the Porsche Museum hands down and in my preservative if the Mercedes museum's exhibits where laid out better it probably would have taken the cake.

Porsche Museum

Mercedes -Benz Museum

June 18th - June 21st

I have a feeling my followers are wondering where I have gone. We have gone on a southern excursion through the beautiful country side of Germany. Our southern stops consist of Dessau, Leipzig, Nurnberg, Munich and Stuttgart. There has been a lot covered since the last time I wrote. So here is a little taste of my adventures.

Friday June 18th

Dessau was our first stop on the excursion. The first part of the day consisted of a tour of the grounds of the all famous Bauhaus. Bauhaus is German for "Building house" or "Building school". The Bauhaus was established by a famous architect Walter Gropius.

After leaving Dessau we drove to Leipzig and had a tour of the BMW Plant where the 1 series BMWs are made and also the New X1 line. It was every 20 year old man's dream watching these amazing pieces of machinery come to life. This BMW plant is also the home of a famous architectural designers work Zaha Hadid.

Saturday June 19^th

Our morning started at 7:30 and we hopped on the bus and headed to Nurnberg to see the Nurnberg Frauenkiche. Which is giant coo coo clock that sits within the steeple of a church. This church and clock were built in 1509 which was amazing.

Shortly after 1 we hopped back on the bus and traveled to the Nazi Party Rally grounds. Which to me was a little eerie just knowing what all went on at these grounds.

The photo above is just one of the many building that Hilter was having built at the time but this was the only one of two that survived post war. If you cant tell Hitler was obsessed with the Roman style architecture. This building you see above was massive.

Sunday June 20^th

We left this morning to head to our next stop on the tour of southern Germany. The Next stop was Dachau. We traveled here to get a tour of the Dachau concentration camp which was one of the first concentration camps under the Nazi party. This concentration camp was open on the 22^nd of March 1933.

Later that day we toured the BMW Welt.

Monday June 21^st

We started our journey to Stuttgart but before we got there we stopped off in Wiel – am- Rhien and toured the Vitra Campus. This Campus was filled with amazing architecture and amazing furniture.

Zaha Hadid - Fire Station

Next stop before we got to Stuttgart was at the Hohenzollern Castle. I’ll just let the pictures do the talking.

Wednesday 16th - Thursday 17th

Wednesday was the day through the Tiergarten. Our day started at the Brandenburg gate and then we walked west to the Victory Column which was sad to say, was under repair work. Soon after eating lunch we took a tour of Schloss Charlottenberg.

Brandenberg Gate

Victory Column

Today being Thursday the 17th was another thrilling day in the heart of the city. We started our day looking at several of the Embassies that are in close range of one another. We also went through the Bauhaus Archives which I might add where very neat I enjoined the light exhibit the most(no pictures inside though sorry). Later on in the morning we got a tour of the Nordic Embassies. One of the awesome things about the Nordic Embassies here in Berlin, is all of them ( Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, and the Finnish) are all within the same complex. Berlin is the only place this happens.

After lunch we went to the Berlin Dome which to me will probably be one of the many places ill remember from this trip. I felt extremely small within the interior of this cathedral. Just to give you some perspective form the floor to the top of the main dome is 72 meters. This height will allow the Victory Column to fit inside the cathedral.

Nordic Complex outer facade

Norwegian Embassy

Berlin Dome

Berlin Dome interior

View from top of Berlin Dome

Monday June 14 - Tuesday June 15

Monday was the beginning of our history lessons with Dr. Etheridge. We started our morning with a walk through Alexanderplatz to the oldest church in Berlin, Nicholaikirche which has now been turned into a museum. Soon after this we traveled along the Spree until we and Dr. Etheridge came upon a very narrow area of the Spree. We all sat down at this location and had our first History lesson. This lesson was about how this location (by the spree) had become birth place of Berlin and why. As the lesson conclude we began our walk in search of many more churches and other buildings which we had just discussed in our lesson. Below are just a few of the Jewels this city has to offer.

Nikolaikirche - Started in 1230

Interior of Nikolaikirche

Marienkirche - Karl-Liebknecht-Straße

The St. Hedwig's Cathedral was after lunch and this Cathedral had the WOW factor for me when I entered the heart of the building.

Tuesday was our day out of Berlin we went Potsdam which is a city just south-west of Berlin. This day trip has to be my favorite trip so far. We went to the Nicholaikirche church in Potsdam not to be confused with the earlier Nicholaikirche. Our group also visited the other Brandenburg Gate.
After Lunch we entered my favorite part of the day. We walked through the Sanssouci Park/Gardens.

Nicholaikirche

Nicholaikirche - Interior

Brandenburg Gate




Sanssouci Gardens
Here are only a few photos of the many I took.