Berlin 1 of 6

Sadly, Joy has caught a virus and is unable to leave the ship to visit Berlin and several other ports in the next few days.

Our ship arrived at the port of Warnemunde which is about a two and a half hour bus trip into Berlin through what was the old East Germany.  The locals used to say that there was a Russian behind every tree watching them. I did not realise that there were a number of beautiful canals in Berlin – an idea that the Prussians borrowed from Amsterdam. 

We first visited the Charlottenburg Palace which was the palace of the Prussian Royal family. The Prussian kings (or Kaisers) all had the name Wilhelm or Frederik or Wilhelm-Frederik (or the other way around).  Eventually the German states were united under the Prussian royal family. One year that locals learn in their history lessons is 1888 – the year of three Kaisers. The old Kaiser died in that year then his son became Kaiser and this man was a great friend of England and had married Queen Victoria's daughter. However, he was a heavy smoker and died of lung cancer in that year and his son became Kaiser – Wilhelm the second – not a great friend of England. If his father had not been a heavy smoker then I wonder how this might have affected the first world war?

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We then drove past perhaps the only building that was not restored after the bombing of Berlin during the second world war – and that was the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. After that we came to the German parliament, called the Reichstag. This building was bombed not long after Hitler's Nazi party was elected to govern. Hitler used this incident to proclaim martial law and to give himself supreme power over the country. It is strongly suspected that he organised the bombing so that he would obtain this power for himself. Opposite the Reichstag, we stopped to have a delicious lunch in a park.

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Nearby were brick tiles still inlaid in the roadway surface. They showed where the Berlin wall was once erected. Beside the roadside stood a number of crosses listing the names of those who died while attempting to escape over the wall from East Berlin. 

However, a part of the wall has been left standing and this area has been turned into a museum. Of course during the years that the wall divided the city, the wall was not just a single wall but a double wall with a treacherous 'no man's land' in between the two walls.

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A tribute to the country of Germany for openly recognising the terrible and horrific past that occurred during a previous German government – that of the Nazi party under Hitler. The Nazi party gradually implemented various laws that restricted minorities – not much at first, but people did not generally object. Then the laws gradually became stricter and stricter resulting in the concentration/death camps. A warning to us to be vigilant in our own countries and a personal concern that I have in my own country of Australia with the increasing opposition to Christian traditions and to Christians whose life and culture is based on the Bible. Not that it would get to the extreme of Nazi Germany but that personal liberties would become more restrictive.

Not far from the Brandenburg gate is the Holocaust memorial featuring 2711 concrete slabs that have been described as a forest of pillars – some are not very high and some are much higher than a person perhaps symbolising the gradual increase of the restriction of personal liberties.

And nearby, where there is no memorial or plaque or anything acknowledgement of the area, beside a car park, is where the entrance to Hitler's bunker was and where his body was reportedly burned.

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This brings us back to another authoritarian regime that split Germany into East and West with East Germany being called the German Democratic Republic – such irony with the word democratic! It was democratic so long as you agreed with the state. Similar pictures of these happy people from the time of East Germany also appear in the Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea) and in Vietnam, today.

Brandenburg Gate and Checkpoint Charlie show examples of the division that used to be in Berlin. By the way, there was no-one called Charlie but there used to be checkpoints called Abel Checkpoint and Baker Checkpoint and Charlie Checkpoint- ie ABC

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And finally to the square where the Nazi party famously burnt books on subjects that they did not agree with. This square was surrounded by churches and museums. And nearby was parked on old Trabi car - it is a wonder it is still going.