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.