Mar 092019
 


So, continuing with my week in Berlin, the next day when I had a long lunch I decided to venture even further out into the former East Berlin, and visit the main prison of the Stasi which is now a museum. The Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen is a museum on what was once the site of the Stati’s most notorious prison. Tours are relatively infrequent – at least public ones – and when I called I couldn’t get anyone who understood English…but based on my limited German there would be a tour today, so I made the long trek by tram out to Lichtenberg.

Fortunately, the tour happened right on schedule, but unfortunately, our guide would be a young Czech lady. While she was excellent, the majority of guides are former prisoners, and it would have been much more interesting to hear their perspective.

We started with a 25 minute movie which was a fantastic introduction to the complex, and then it was off to the original prison building, and its cells. At the time, like Robben Island or other former prisons, it was just another site, but looking back today it’s much easier for me to see the terror in the site…even decades later.

After touring the old cellblock, it was out into the main yard to walk to the “newer” building which was built once it was clear the DDR was going to be a thing, and the Cold War was going to split Germany for quite some time.

Inside the new cellblock, the door to a cell. Note the wire running over the top of the door? See how to the right of the door there is what looks like connectors? This is because guards were unarmed, and if shit went down they could loosely yank on the wire, which would pull the connectors apart, and set off an alarm. The entire complex was wired this way.

Inside of an interrogation room. Prisoners were never interrogated right away – they waited several days or weeks until they were sufficiently disoriented first and ready to talk.

Metal grates on the stairwells between floors.

Barbed wire on the ends of the complex.

Another day, I took the U-Bahn out to Friedrichshain, a now trendy and gentrifying part of former East Berlin, and decided to go for a long walk back to my hotel to appreciate how the city was laid out. With a subway, it’s often hard to appreciate how all the parts of a city fit together, so I figured this would be a great way to do it – plus – I love long urban walks. A very colourful street in Friedrichshain:

Funky mural – not entirely sure what it’s supposed to depict:

Even the Germans aren’t big fans of the Cheeto in Chief:

A short way through the walk, I was hungry and cold, so stopped into Ostbahnhof which for some reason I really like, and had my favourite German snack….a Bretzelsnack and caramel macchiato – perfect on a cold winter day.

Crossing the river and looking west towards Alexanderplatz:

St. Michael’s Church:

One of the best street names in the world – under water street! Wonder if Spongebob Squarepants is around…

…and after the long walk, nearly 12km, I rewarded myself with a currywürst and beer. I mean, when in Berlin…

One of the weirder parts of Berlinale, on top of all the fru fru people in my hotel in silk scarves, was the pop-up make-up booth in the middle of Potsdamer Platz. I very tempted to poke my head in and see if I could get my makeup did…

Another day, I went for a long walk through the Tiergarten. Seeing the Siegessäule brought back memories of U2, and I think I was humming “Stay – Faraway So Close” for the rest of the trip.

Just the bang…and the clatter…as an angel…hits the ground.

Another evening, walking back to my hotel, I stopped by the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Very moving, lots of slabs of concrete, and catching it at sunset made it extra-reflective.

Walking through the memorial. Unfortunately, lots of young people acting disrespectfully – I really hope the future holds better than a lot of these kids were displaying, or history will be doomed to repeat itself.

From there, I wandered back to the Brandenburger Tor, which looked awesome with the sun setting behind it:

Apparently, there were multiple protests/demonstrations going on….including this colourful character…the “Kaiser”

A short video of his…interesting…spiel…

One final walk on my last night in Berlin, and the L’Oreal people were still out in Potsdamer Platz doing makeup…incredibly odd.

Last morning, before heading to the airport, decided to go for one final long walk through the Tiergarten. Pond partially frozen over:

Statue of Albert Lortzing, a German composer:

I love how this picture captured the reflection of the trees on the partially-frozen pond:

One final stop by the Siegessäule. I was going to climb to the top, but was running short on time to get to the airport, so decided to skip it so I’d have an “excuse” to come back again.

…and with that, my week in Berlin was over. Definitely confirmed my feeling that it’s an amazing world-class city, and somewhere I’d love the opportunity to live. So if you know anyone there who’s looking to hire… 😉

Next up, off to Norway!

Mar 032019
 


Due to the way schedules worked out, and the fact it made no sense to go back to Washington for five nights and then turn around to head straight to Norway….combined with some client meetings in Germany I needed to take care of, I decided on spending six nights in Berlin. I can’t remember the last time I’ve spent six nights in one place that wasn’t for a work trip, so I was definitely looking forward to it!

…looking forward, that is, until I got to my hotel. Now, I’m not really a movie person, and I can probably count the number of movies I’ve seen in the last ten years on one hand, but I was about to very quickly get an introduction to the world of “movie people.” It seems I had arrived right in the middle of Berlinale, one of the biggest film festivals in the world. To make matters worse, apparently my hotel was one of the host hotels, and a huge chunk of the rooms were taken over as makeshift offices by various film studios:

I will give the hotel high marks for how they managed the huge crowds. Other than the lobby being a teeming mass of people from sunrise until midnight, the floors themselves were actually reasonably quiet. Despite half the rooms on my floor having their doors open all day to entertain visitors, the hotel had security posted at the elevator so the only people who could come to the rooms were those who were authorized. Given how big the event was, I was impressed how little impact it had on my stay. Except all the silk scarves in the executive lounge, it was fascinating listening to the conversations.

Right, so most days were filled with nonstop work, partly from my room and partly going on to meet with clients. However, I still had a lot of work to take care of back in the US, which meant working long hours into the evening. That did mean, however, sneaking out for long lunches to see things was totally possible. I’ll post the first couple here, then follow up with another post covering the next couple of days.

Having arrived on a weekend, I had a full day, and after several failures on previous trips I finally managed to book on the Tempelhof Airport tour. One pro tip: despite being sold out online for a couple of weeks, I witnessed several people arrive without tickets, and they were all accommodated. So even if it shows up not available online you might want to chance showing up well in advance and seeing about tickets. Standing at the meeting point outside the old general aviation terminal:

First stop was out on the apron, the first in the world where planes pulled up to the terminal under a covered roof so that passengers could board/deplane regardless of rain:

Main check-in and baggage hall. Supposedly the roof used to be twice as high, but after World War Two the victorious powered had it lowered. Why? Because, and I roughly quote our tour guide, “walking into such a grand hall with high ceilings would invoke visions of German might and power, and arms might inadvertently snap up into a Nazi salute.” Thus, it was lowered, to make it less grand after the war…

You just knew I’d find the VIP waiting room…

Under the checkin hall, a couple stories down, were lots of bomb shelter rooms. This one, apparently, after the war was re-purposed by Lufthansa as a storage room.

Inside many of the bomb shelters, painted on the wall, were passages from common German fairy tales. According to our guide, this was because people would often be sheltered here with complete strangers, and this would give them something common to talk about until the all clear signal was given.

Top floor of the airport was…a basketball court?! After the war, the airport was in the American Sector of Berlin, and the airport was split 50-50 between civilian use and US military base. The two sides were strictly separated, but the American side had a basketball court and other rec facilities added.

From there, we climbed more stairs to the roof of the building, looking down on the apron. Great view, although I could have down without the howling wind and the stinging rain:

Outside the airport, the Berlin Airlift Memorial:

Apparently, not everyone is a big fan of capitalism.  …and, no thanks, too high in fat.

The next day, I made the trek way out to Lichtenberg deep in eastern Berlin to see the Stasi Museum, located in the former Stasi (secret police) headquarters building:

The main building in the complex is where the museum is housed. The whole complex was several dozen buildings, many of which have now been leased out to various companies and businesses.

In the entranceway of the museum was a statue of (I believe) Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Checka, predecessor to the KGB and FSB in Russia.

Behind the office of Eric Mielke (head of the Statsi’s) was a room where he could retire for small private meetings, or as you can see from the bed in the corner, a nap. Rumour was that he would often sleep here at night in the final days, fearing assassination attempts if he left the building.

Waiting room in the executive area of the Stasi headquarters building.

Boardroom where high ranking members of the Stasi held many of their meetings:

Interesting exhibit on “the use of scent differentiation to fight crime” – supposedly when they arrested people, they would place this cloth under the chair of the person being interrogated. Idea was that it would collect their “scent” and that when they had enough of these collected they might be able to predict future criminals. I kid you not…

The “red suitcase” where Mielke kept secret documents that reportedly could bring down Erich Honecker, the President of the GDR. The suitcase allegedly contained evidence of Honecker’s cooperation with the Nazis, although to this day German authorities deny that. Even in East Germany, the head of the secret police keeping a blackmail file on the President would have been….sketchy at best.

The receptionist’s telephone outside Mielke’s office.

Panoramic view of Mielke’s office, with his desk on the far side, a large table for meetings, and chairs around a table for what I assume were smaller meetings?

Transit bear in the U-Bahn station at Alexanderplatz. DC did donkeys and elephants several years back, and Berlin did bears. What other cities have done a collection of statues around the city?

World Clock outside at Alexanderplatz with the Berliner Fernsehturm in the background. I’ve never been up to the viewing gallery at the top, but it’s supposed to have amazing views of Berlin.

Loved this shot of the station at Alexanderplatz.

With that, the first couple of days were over. Many more things to see, which I’ll detail in the next blog!