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.

New Week and a Long Trip!

I've been off of here for about a week. I've been gone for the past 6 days roaming southern Germany with the class. So, I'll have to summarize real quick to tell you where we are in my blog.

Wednesday the 16th we went to the TierGarten it was quite nice. In our history lesson we found out that this was the actual direction that Napoleon took when he invaded Berlin. Shortly after that we went across the street to a Soviet War Memorial. Interesting thing about this is that it was build on the west side of the gate. Why? Because it was built when Russia "liberated" Berlin during WWII. It was built out of Hitler's mansion or a house at a level there of. Then we went to the Victory Column, however it was being renovated or something of that sort. so we got to see the top part of it. Thursday we went to a Bauhaus museum. It talked about his works as a architect and his works on chairs and modern designs. I believe he got popular because the designs that were present became popular about the time in America when people had less room to build houses during suburban development thus causing need for efficiency, some disagree, but who knows. Then we went past the Mexican Embassy, uh, it had slanted concrete next to each window, could have done better. Then we went to the Nordic Embassy, yeah, a little different. The Nordic Embassy is actually five embassies in one, each representing the different countries in the Nordic. I enjoyed how they symbolized each country that they represented by the material they used. However, it did take up a whole bunch of space, and some of the material was just way over the top to not be showed off. For example a slab of stone was brought and it's view was blocked the main embassy's wall. Also I believe in function over form so, ja. Had lunch in the public Café of the Embassy. It was quite nice. I sat down with a local Berliner, she talked about how she was retired, and she came to eat there for lunch about twice a week, because it was so economical. She said that she had worked in Berlin before she retired since 2002 after the wall fell, and showed up before in the 90's and said that was where she was going to retire. She planned to go to the Southern part of the US as soon, as the economy recovered. Later the class left to go to the Berlin Dome. It was amazing. It was a protestant church built to counteract the Vatican in Rome. However, sadly it was partly destroyed during the war. I am however amazed that it was rebuilt so nicely. Friday began our trip to southern Germany. We first went to Dassau and then to Bauhaus which was originally a school before the Nazi Regime. It was built to give students the chance to express modern art, in an environment that suggested work. The school was constructed on a basis of modernism by Bauhaus. I didn't really like the work all that well. I noticed the building for what it is, but over all the building seemed inefficient. Later we went to the BMW Plant in Leipzig. I loved how in this building form did meet with function because there was a conveyor belt built across the plant, and a lot of the space inside the building was being used. I didn't, however, like how there the people in the café were forced to view the cars go by or how they were pretty much told what to eat based on a color code system red bad green good kind of thing. I think they should be able to escape work sometime during their working hours. More Later. I'm not even done with week two and we're starting on week three right now.

Week on faster than the BVG!

We are now the picking up on the history part of. the trip is starting to push forward. Monday we had our beginning history lecture for the German History. From the looks of Germany now you couldn't tell that an empire held this land. Not much is left after WWII, for example on Monday we went to a rebuilt concert hall. Sadly it looks fake on the inside due the bombing runs during WWII. I still believed it to be interesting to hear the history behind. Interesting enough was the two churches beside it. One is German, and the other is French, both look identical. Just a little imaginative view. At the end of the day we did see a very interesting modern addition to the city. Imagine a mall in America. Imagine a supper market, with the finest cheeses, meats, wine, etc. Now imagine them together. It's amazing how this city has become so modernized after the wall fell. However, for an history major, Tuesday was the best. We went to Potsdam, and right off the bat you could tell that Berlin wasn't all of Germany. First we went to this massive church, I forget the name, however it was very nice on the eyes. It was still being renovated even all these years after the war. This is due to the communist occupation of eastern Germany. It was until the wall fell that people were able to begin to help restore it. It was damaged during WWII and on display on the inside you could see the tip of a bomb that fell on the church. It was adorned with statues in concave indentions at the top of the dome of the church. The statues were of the 14 witnesses to Jesus in the Bible. One had it's head missing. I soon found out that it was left this way as reminder of how war can affect history. You couldn't say that the architecture didn't have music in his mind. At one point I could here the choir from a back room practicing. It was really, peaceful. Kind of reminds me of a picturesque dream. We soon began to walk to a local park and in the park was the remnants of an old Soviet art piece. I made the statement that this looked like a place kids played at. Dr. Etheridge replied (for emotional appeal) what better place to remind them. It's sad that is how the Soviets though. After that we broke for lunch. We went down a rode that was like out of a book. It had markets and restaurants up and down it with little shops and kanuks. I went to my first chocolate store. Forget that stuff we get in wrappers this was awesome. After lunch we went to the Sanssouci Palace. Now that was Imperial Europe right there. I loved it. Underneath shade behind the palace we sat and had our history lecture. Apparently it was built at first by the money from the King Fredrick I who believed in spending money on improvements around the country then on himself. However his son messed that up, and did the opposite. Afterwards we took a walk through a wind trail and another long(ggg) walk over the hillside next to a palace that was essentially destroyed by the Soviets after their take over. It was sad that we didn't get to see much because of it's damage but the outside looked extremely classic and well adorned, even though it was considered a vacation home. I loved. Well that's it until today which is Wednesday. I'm a little behind but I'll try to catch up with week two.

First few days at Berlin!

So far so good! Really tired though. I have the city very much so far. Thursday is when we started really looking at the buildings. That was the day we got to see the a lot of the metro system. Have you every heard that trains run on time in Europe. Well, Berlin is a prime example of that. It's train system is so complex but yet everything runs on time. But if you miss yours don't worry, you'll probably have a good chance of catching another one with in a decent amount of time, but it's better to make sure you are on time. One thing I did notice that I didn't really know of was how Berlin's Train Stations have a very strong presence of shopping centers. Imagine a mall with about 10 trains running through it at once. That's how the Haupbanhnhof or one of Berlin's main train station is setup. Later that day we were able to see where the Chancellor of Germany conducts her business. I forgot who called it this nick name but I believe they called the building the washing machine. I experienced my first Berlin Super Market as well. Some what the same as an American Super Market, except you pay for buggies and bags. My main interest was the Reichstag for that day. It's amazing how the people of Germany were able to form a capital out of a building that was so very close to were the Berlin Wall once stood and better yet a building almost destroyed during WWII, rebuilt and modernized for the unity of Berlin and Germany. On Friday we visited the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. They had a strong and emotional collection of German Art. I saw WWII Propaganda, Cold War Propaganda, but I believe the one exhibit that hit me the most was one of a parent holding their children as if she was protecting them. Covering them if you will. It was located in the WWII exhibit. I can't even began to comprehend the destruction that took place in that last year of WWII for Berlin. That day we also went to the Philharmonie. This building is different than most. It was built so that the orchestra is actually in the middle of the audience. As if to include the people. It was originally built for all of Berlin but sadly it was built two years after the Berlin Wall was constructed so only the Western Berliners were able to attend the first concert conducted in the Philharmonie. Later that day I enjoyed my first German meal. I don't know what it was called but it had two meat balls, fired potatoes and vegetable greens delicious but different. Yesterday, Saturday, I had a French Salad at at a French Restaurant and Fish Chips at another. Now the first couple of days the waiters and waitresses at the restaurants I visited were somewhat mean, however, these waiters and waitresses were quite nice. If you think only Europeans live in Berlin think again. I met a waitress at the French who was from Hong Kong. She had lived in Germany most of her life and she had family back in the states. She was hopeful to actually visit the US soon. She was friendly and joked around that the US was going to lose to England in a soccer match during the world cup, we tied. So far I have experienced more than I would back in my home town. I'm not even done with week one.

New Blog

This is my new blog for this summer's Louisiana Tech Berlin Study Abroad Program.