Transition of East Berlin.

"Sorry everyone for the late blogging of this report I've been sick for the past week."

Berlin throughout its history has been a center of conflict. May it be the city of a beginning empire and the rise of a republic only to fall to the rise of one of the evilest empires on Earth that led to the largest war in human history ending in the division of Berlin. During this division Berlin played a key role in showing the better of two extremes of an economical and governmental spectrum. Communism vs. Capitalism the two C’s of the Cold War.

After the end of World War II Berlin was soon thrown into a massive power struggle that divided the city among the “winners” of the war between East and West. The architecture was among the many changes that occurred between the two extremes. For example with in the East a decision had to be made on how exactly to handle the newly occupied territory. At first the Soviet Union wanted to punish Germany for all it did to Russia during the war. This could be seen with massive monument style buildings, monuments themselves, and massive memorials such as the Soviet War Memorial which cast a large Soviet Soldier caring a sword and a child while stepping on swastika. In this memorial thousands of soldiers were buried and grim stone sculptures show the Soviet and German conflict during the war. Whole entire city squares were dedicated to the success of socialism, one such square was Stalinalle, a street built with massive monument buildings which housed the best of East Germany.

However, after Stalin died some architects in the East soon downplaying the monumental style buildings as unnecessary for the socialist cause. Soon prefabricated material was used in the construction of buildings and square style outlines were seen across the city. However, the East didn’t want to show just housing buildings. Soon the town center, Alexander Platz, became the center of Socialist in a showdown in which the West and East used Berlin as the center for the best of the best in Socialist and Capitalist worlds. With Alexander Platz, the Socialist continued their monumental style of building. An example of this is the Fernsehturm or Television Tower is the tallest point in Germany. It was styled with a space age style build and was built to tower over not only the Eastern side of the city but over the entire city. A clear example of Socialist ingenuity.

In 1989 the wall fell and in 1990 a question of what to do with the East, and how could the Western democracy take advantage of a win against a land that once was ruled by Eastern Socialist? Soon, political power was being used to influence the demolition of Eastern Soviet memorials to changing the name of streets. For example the Lenin Memorial was such a controversial statue to be gotten rid of. A split grew within the Berlin itself. Soon, controversy began to sweep across nearly every monument, street, and city square built and renamed during the split of Germany which was now being split among. Even the Television Tower was subject to deconstruction. It was decide that an independent committee would be developed to decide the fate of roads names and socialist built monuments after a split between left and right German politics couldn’t reach a consensus.

It seems like Germany may always be split. However, with the move of business into both areas of Berlin, it doesn’t seem like Germany was ever really split. Isn’t that thought the spirit of Germany if not humanity? Despite division and struggle Berlin still rebuilt and made the best of a hand dealt. Instead of being used to show the extremes of two political factions lets use it as an example of Human ingenuity.

The Wall Jumper in Today's Society

In the book The Wall Jumper the day to day struggles of an unnamed character living in Cold War torn Berlin, Germany are given in firsthand accounts in the form of a diary. One could subject that the governments between Nazi Germany, Wall Torn Germany, and Today’s Germany are different, however, I say nein! You can still see the governmental control over history between the three especially in Berlin today, given the fact that no mass organized genocide is occurring today or has occurred since World War II.

Real quickly for recap, when the Nazis took power during the 1930s they also took siege to press in an effort to control how people perceived history by making everything have to be approved by the government. With this change a new wave of publishing which included anti-Semitism and propaganda. Propaganda which showed the Germans as a powerful race and with the ability to have a powerful empire. Not only did Germans control the press, they controlled political oppositions by sending all opponents to concentration camps.

In the Wall Jumper both sides, Soviet East, and “democratic” West should have been allied with the common traits of controlling history. For example the news broadcast that was being transmitted claimed that both had false information and the opposing sides pointed at each other for who were wrong in the Afghan Invasion via the Soviets. The East kept people from leaving, and enforced strict time limits on visitors, for example the narrator’s girlfriend who visited her family, had to leave by 12. Maybe to keep her from seeing too much? In the east a protestor would be arrested for even beginning to spray paint anti-communist statements or even writing a letter to the government as a complaint according to the book. The West didn’t recognize the East, so the East never existed to the Federal Republic of Germany. So the questions relies on how different was it for the Nazi to the Cold War era of Berlin. A war?

Today, the Nazi regime is being criticized by Germans as never really being good for Germany, however, millions of Germans served in the war the Nazi Army, and at one point in time it was widely accepted by the Germans. Also, when you try to search for YouTube videos, half are blocked by the country, especially when it involves WWII or Hitler jokes, yet Germany is ready to user in a new wave of unification.

Germany may have different flags along with different struggles, but it seems that the people in control have always been united in their approach to trying to “write” history.