A Golden October in Berlin

Red Baron has lost count of the number of times he has been to the birthplace of his father. I have visited Berlin either as part of a group or alone. Already in Genesis 2,18, you read, "It is not good for man to travel alone." So we enjoyed Berlin in the golden sunlight of late October just as we had enjoyed Paris in early September.

With a little delay, it took us nearly seven hours on the ICE (InterCity Express) from Freiburg to Berlin. This time, the B-minor of this trip was not broken toilets, but worse, the two coffee machines on board did not work.

The Eiffel Tower and Saint Basil's Cathedral on Red Square symbolize
 the name of the restaurant Paris-Moskau.
The photomontaged vintage car in the foreground is possibly a Horch, a precursor to today's Audis.

For dinner, we went to a cozy place near our hotel. An old, half-timbered house stood lost in the midst of massive concrete blocks.

  

On the way to the restroom, an original train directional sign was on display.
Such signs were hung on the outside of express train cars.

While the ambiance of the restaurant was top, the food was a flop.

The agenda for our visit to Berlin included a trip to Potsdam, visits to relatives and friends, and the hunt for a particular painting at the Altes Museum on the Museumsinsel.

Watch out for detailed future blogs. Here, I will share some photos I took during our walk from the Intercity Hotel near Berlin's Central Station to the Brandenburg Gate.

Looking back: Between the new buildings on the left side and the glass cube
on the right side, you see the upper deck of Berlin's Central Station

The area north of the Reichstag is bordered by a large loop of the Spree River. We crossed Moltkebrücke to enter the Spreebogen.

An aerial photo of the Spreebogen from 1960 shows that there are no buildings. The Moltke Bridge enters from the lower left corner, while the Reichstag building can be seen at the upper right edge. The white cube at nine o'clock is the Swiss Embassy. 

The wasteland is only partly attributable to the destruction during World War II, as the densely populated Alsen quarter was razed to the ground before the war to make room for Albert Speer's capital of Greater Germany, Germania.

©Hajo Dietz

The image above is an aerial view of the same site around 2020. The gray landscape of rubble has been transformed into the Spreebogenpark. Right in the middle stands the enlarged Swiss Embassy building.

In front of it lies the alliterative "Band des Bundes (Ribbon of the Federation)" stretching from East to West Berlin. It connects the Chancellery on the left with the Paul Löbe House on the right, housing the offices of the members of the German Bundestag (parliament). The ribbon is intended to symbolize Willy Brandt's words on overcoming the division of Germany: "Es wächst zusammen, was zusammen gehört (What belongs together will grow together.)"

From his non-oval office on the top floor, the chancellor looks out onto the Reichstag building, where the Bundestag meets. This reminds him daily of the sovereign and the separation of powers in a democracy: "Alle Macht geht vom Volke aus (All power comes from the people.)"

On the Spree River, there is busy boat traffic carrying tourists past Berlin's sights.

The trees in the foreground beyond Berlin's Gate to Brandenburg are those of the north rim of the Tiergarten (deer garden), the former hunting grounds of the Prussian Kings.

 
In the upper right-hand corner is the dark building of Berlin's Central Station. Further to the right, the block with the white roof was our Intercity Hotel, offering a "real" Trump shower. No dripping, but an overabundant water flow.

To the lower left-hand of the photo, you distinguish the roof of the House of Cultures, affectionately referred to by Berliners as schwangere Auster (pregnant oyster).

Having crossed the reddish Moltke Bridge, we entered the Spreebogenpark and approached the Swiss Embassy.

The Swiss Embassy. A historical building with its new annex

Main entrance to the Federal Chancellery

Memorial for the murdered Sinti and Roma in the Holocaust with a view of the south-east corner of the Reichstag* building. 

*Here is a history of the building

We walked through the Brandenburg Gate and took the "sightseeing bus" 100, which runs from Alexanderplatz station in East Berlin to the Bahnhof Zoo in the west. Tourists love this line for it provides, along its route, the time-stressed visitor with an overview of many of Berlin's sights.

Upgraded ruins at high noon

We stepped off the bus at Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche.

The old nave, which had been destroyed in the war, was demolished. Opposite the former entrance, Prof. Egon Eiermann created an impressive place of worship made of concrete and blue glass.

To the Protestant martyrs of the years 1933–1945: This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith (1 John 5,4).

Christmas 1942. A mighty-in-faith charcoal drawing of St. Mary with her Child from the Stalingrad pocket (Kessel), where the German Sixth Army was trapped. Light, life, love: a symbol of hope at the time of darkness, death, and hatred. The artist is Kurt Reuber, a surgeon, Protestant pastor, and a visual artist. For him and the other trapped soldiers, the hopeless battle ended with their surrender on February 2, 1943. Of the 90,000 Germans who were taken prisoner by the Red Army, only 6000 returned home. Kurt was not among them.

The old entrance hall of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church now serves as a museum, where the mosaics glorifying the Prussian royal family are still preserved. These mosaics were created by Fritz Geiges, an artist from Freiburg.

It all began with the rise of the Hohenzollerns, whose ancestral castle in Hechingen, Württemberg, attracts crowds of visitors. 

Preußens Glanz und Gloria (splendor and glory) from the left and not in historical order: 

Frederick I (1657-1713) and his wife, Louise. As Elector of Brandenburg, he crowned himself King in Prussia (and not of Prussia) in Königsberg on January 18, 1701. 

Joachim II Hector (1505-1517), Elector of Brandenburg, his mother Elizabeth of Denmark, and Joachim's younger brother John, Margrave of Brandenburg-Küstrin. Joachim adopted the Eucharist in both forms and subsequently introduced not only the Lutheran Reformation but also the sovereign's ecclesiastical law in Brandenburg.

Albert (1490-1568) was the 37th Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights. After he converted to Lutheranism in 1515, Albert became the first ruler of the Duchy of Prussia.

John Sigismund (1572-1619), Elector of Brandenburg, converted from Lutheranism to Calvinism on Christmas Day 1613 to secure the support of the Calvinist Netherlands for his inheritance claims to the Lower Rhine duchies of Jülich, Kleve, and Berg, He celebrated Holy Communion in Berlin Cathedral without papal additions, in the manner customary in the time of the apostles and in the Reformed Protestant churches.

Frederick Wilhelm (1620-1688), Great Elector of Brandenburg, generously granted the Huguenot refugees from France the right of asylum with the Edict of Potsdam in 1685: "We are moved by righteous compassion, which we must have for our beleaguered and oppressed fellow believers, to offer them a safe retreat in all our lands.”

And here is the right side of the mosaic. The Prussian rulers from left to right are:

Queen Louise and her husband, King Frederick William III. While her husband was a softie, Louise was the driving force against Napoleon, calling him a monster and an undignified, despicable murderer. Tsar Alexander, one of her admirers, wrote, "The charm of her angelic face, with its regular and delicate features, radiated friendliness and kindness; the beauty of her figure, her neck, her arms, and the dazzling freshness of her complexion - she surpassed everything one could ever imagine to be particularly enchanting." After her untimely death, the people venerated her as a German Joan of Arc.

King Frederick William IV brutally suppressed the 1848 Revolution. Read the whole story here in German.

Emperor Wilhelm I was known in his youth as the Kartätschenprinz (Prince of Canister Shots), later as the founder of the Second German Empire, also called Wilhelm der Große.

Emperor Frederick III was Germany's hope for more liberalism, but reigned in 1888,
the year of the three emperors,  for only 99 days. He is known as the 100-Day Kaiser.

Emperor Wilhelm II and his wife, Augusta Victoria. The most brilliant failure in history, as King Edward VII called him, dismissed the Iron Chancellor Bismarck and slid into World War I.

Crown Prince Wilhelm and his wife, Cecilie. Initially, Wilhelm supported Hitler's rise to power, but when the crown prince realised that the dictator had no intention of restoring the monarchy, their relationship cooled.

And where is Frederick the Great? That probably has to do with his distant attitude toward religion. For him, "all religions were equal and good, as long as the people who profess them are honest people, and if Turks and pagans came and wanted to populate the land, we would build them mosques and churches."

And here is a special tribute to the founder of the empire. The senex imperator sits flanked by his son, Frederick, and his grandson, Wilhelm, as he accepts the homage of the German people. On the right stands a norn with her head covered, holding a tablet with the fateful Year of the Three Emperors in her hands.

In the evening, we went to the Deutsches Theater and saw the dyke greeve "Hauke Haien's Death," a play based on a modern novel that was inspired by the famous novella by the North German poet Theodor Storm, "The Rider on the White Horse." This sounds complicated, and indeed, I spare you my attempt at describing the bizarre theater plot.

The many stuffed animals were probably intended to give viewers the creeps. A white horse, a white mouse, a scratching cat, a howling wolf, a screaming seagull, and on the far left, Heike Hauen's puppet.

The only one who fell to it was the actor playing Hauke Haien. It happened on the open stage during the curtain call.

A classic, often copied, never equaled.(©Borchardt)

Lagniappe: The other night we dined at Borchardt's. On our way, we passed the Gendarmenmarkt. I took some night photos of the

Deutscher Dom (left) for the German Reformed and Lutheran congregations. The term "Dom" does not refer to a bishop's church but originates from the French word dôme (meaning cupola).

Konzerthaus Berlin (center) - former königliches Schauspielhaus (Royal Theater) - with Friedrich Schiller's statue in front,

Französischer Dom for the Reformed religious refugees from France, the Huguenots, who found asylum in Prussia,

and of a pun at the entrance to a restaurant in an annex of the Französischer Dom operated by Hugo & Notte.

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