Monuments, Street Art, & Ampelmann
There is so much to see in Berlin! Here are a few of my favorites.
• Memorial to the May 10, 1933 Nazi Book Burning
In the Bebelplatz next to the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin is a memorial to the Nazi book burning of 1933. The memorial is underground and I passed by it several times during the day before I realized it. Then when I walked through the square in the evening I couldn't miss the pale glow coming up from the ground. The window looks down on a white room with empty, white shelves.
The nearby plaque includes a quote by a German poet from 1920: "When books are burned, in the end people will be burned." On the right side it reads, "In the center of this square on May 10, 1933, National Socialists students burned the works of hundreds of freelist writers, publicists, philosophers, and scientists."
Below is archival footage of the book burning from a British newsreel. Click here if you'd like to see a longer clip with translations from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
• Checkpoint Charlie
Checkpoint Charlie is on the short list of must-see places in Berlin. It was the most well-known crossing point between West and East Germany until 1990. The current guardhouse and sign are not the originals, but reconstructions. Of course, I couldn't help but notice the nearby KFC and McDonald's – how more symbolic of America can you get?
Even though the nearby Checkpoint Charlie Gallery open-air exhibit was closed when I visited, the large photos on the outside walls were vivid reminders of how much has changed in Berlin.
• Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
After a fabulous dinner at an Indian restaurant, I decided to take a short walking tour in the direction of Brandenberg Gate (click here to see a picture of me while I was there). On the way, I visited, Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.
The memorial is made up of more than 2,700 concrete blocks of varying heights and installed in a grid along undulating paths. It brings to mind a maze-like set of giant tombstones, and walking through it is both mesmerizing and unnerving.
• East Side Gallery
The East Side Gallery is a preserved section of the Berlin Wall containing dozens of murals painted when the city was divided. After seeing some of the photos one of my colleagues took after visiting the Gallery on our first day in Berlin, I was anxious to see it before our time was up. One of my Fulbright freunds and I (freund is "friend" in German – look at me finally learning some German!) made the trip on our second-to-last evening and it was an excursion that was worth the wait. We started on the northern end and worked our way down to the Oberbaum Bridge.
Most of the murals have been restored since they were originally painted, but they are only allowed to be painted by the original artists.
There were a ton of interesting murals; the examples below are just a few.
Below are a few more highlights.
Clockwise starting in the top right: this mural says, "Whoever keeps the world the way it is doesn't want it to last"; the oldest mural in the gallery; a view of the graffiti on the opposite side of the gallery; a closeup of one of the longest murals in the gallery.
• Crossing the Spree
The East Side Gallery runs along the Spree River, so we crossed over the Oberbaumbrücke – Oberbaum Bridge – and headed through Wrangelkiez, a neighborhood in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin near where we had our tour the day before. It was another hot day, so we found a great outdoor eating venue and enjoyed the evening with a couple of our fellow Fulbrighters.
Clockwise from top left: The Oberbaum Bridge, in the middle of the bridge looking north up the Spree (the East Side Gallery is on the right), restaurants and beer gardens along the canal just off of the river, and a street that the Berlin Wall once passed through.
• Ampelmann!
I knew nothing about Ampelmann, so when I came across him while exploring Berlin, he was a revelation. Ampelmann – literally "traffic light man" – is the crosswalk symbol that was designed in the 1960s for use in East Berlin. After German reunification, he became an emblem of East Berlin culture and wherever you find him, you know that you are in what was once East Germany. I came across a huge statue of him at the Hessische Landesvertretung building (center, below) which was made to celebrate the 25th anniversary of reunification. There is also a chain of Ampelmann shops across Berlin that sell merch with his likeness. So before I left Berlin, I made sure to grab a bunch of Ampelmann goodies to bring home to the fam.
Like I said at the top, there are so many things to see and do in Berlin. Plus, I'm sad to say that I didn't even eat currywurst. Sounds like a good excuse to go back!
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