Berlin, Germany: A War History in Places

The first item on the agenda for today was to go and do laundry, as our clothing situation was not pretty.  So, Grandpa and I walked down to the Waschwelt in our pajamas, and spent an hour playing cribbage whilst waiting for the clothes.  This is Grandpa in front of the dryers--it was his first time ever in a laundromat!

After donning our clean clothes, we headed to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, which was very well done and had lots of information about Berlin and the Berlin Wall from 1945-1990.  It also included part of the original cement border, as well as the original "You are leaving the American Sector" sign, pictured with Grandpa above.  The guard shack outside is a reconstruction, but it was still very moving to see.

After the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, we ate some lunch, then took a four and a half hour walking tour of the city center of Berlin.  The building above, which was saw on our tour, is part of the once-prestigious Humboldt University, where Einstein taught before he left Germany in the early 1930s for fear of persecution (he was Jewish).  This particular square is remarkable because it was the site of one of the first book-burnings carried out by Hitler's regime--over 20,000 books were burned here because they contained 'dangerous ideas' such as pacifism and tolerance, among many others.

On our tour, we got some great history, and saw many of the remaining or reconstructed buildings and new monumentsa in the city center (the center of the current city, which was the part of East Berlin that was closest to the wall).  The picture above is of us in Parisplatz, and behind us is the infamous Brandenburg Gate, which was never destroyed, but was left in the so-called 'death strip' between East and West Berlin.

After our tour, we took the train to the longest remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall, a 1.3 km section that has been covered with murals and turned into the East Side Gallery.  We walked the whole length, despite our tired feet.

Along this stretch is the famous mural based on the real picture of USSR-leader Brezhnev kissing East German-leader Honecher, a picture that came to be known as the Kiss of Death.  While this day was long, the history we learned and refreshed was absolutely fascinating, and well-worth the time on our feet.