Annette and I took this trip independently using a rental car (Audi) and booking our lodging at pensions (like B&Bs)as we went. Our primary interest was with sites associated with Luther and the Reformation. Of course we tried to learn about the other things that these places had to offer -- from military history to the fine arts.
June 29th Monday
We flew on Northwest (KLM) from MSP to Amsterdam and then KLM to Berlin.
June 30, Tuesday
Arrived at the Tegel Airport in Berlin, We picked up Audi rental car from National Car Rental.
It took only twenty minutes for us to reach our Hotel IBIS on Messedamm. (circled, lower center on map)
After our long air flight we welcomed a good night’s sleep in our comfortable bed at the hotel.
July 1, Wednesday
After a nice breakfast buffet, we walked to the corner Metro station. We left our car rental in the parking lot to avoid all the urban hassle. We exited the tram at Zoological Garten Platz where we planned to meet our guide for a walking tour of east Berlin. He wore a red shirt and was sporting a beard, like one of Garibaldi’s redshirts. Very good guide who knew his stuff well.
While waiting for our tour to begin looked over the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. The present building, which consists of a church with an attached foyer and a separate belfry with an attached chapel, was built between 1959 and 1963. The damaged spire of the old church has been retained and its ground floor has been made into a memorial hall.
Our guide had us board a tram for the former East-West border (Spree River) to Friedrichstr. Here we were shown a piece of the Berlin Wall set aside for posterity. We saw construction everywhere allowing us to see side by side old buildings neglected under communism with the new efforts to rebuild.
A block away was the New Synagogue (domed building). When the New Synagogue was consecrated on Rosh Hashanah in 1866, it was the largest synagogue in Europe, with 3,200 seats. Capped with one of the most spectacular domes in Berlin, the New Synagogue's design was inspired by the Moorish architecture of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain.
The Neue Synagogue was damaged on Kristallnacht (November 9, 1938), when Nazi looters rampaged across Germany, burning synagogues and smashing the few Jewish shops and homes left in the country. It was desecrated and set on fire, but avoided major damage thanks to the efforts of Wilhelm Krützfeld, the local police chief.
Picture on lower right showing 1938 damage by Nazis.
The synagogue was, however, heavily damaged by Allied bombing in 1943. It was then torched by Berliners in 1944 and finally demolished by the Communist East Germans in the 1950s. The recent restoration has brought it back to its original state.
We continued on to Museum Island. On the map to the right, the museums are in red. We walked across the bridges on the upper part of the map. Of the five museums in the complex, the one we were most familiar with was the Pergamon Museum, the final museum of the complex, constructed in 1930. It contains multiple reconstructed immense and historically significant buildings such as the Pergamon Altar and the Ishtar Gate of Babylon.
Museum Island right. The museums are today maintained by the Berlin State Museums branch of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.
On the same island is the Berlin Dom (building in dark red at the bottom of the red zone). Like so much in East Berlin it was in the process of being restored.
During the Reformation Joachim II Hector converted from Catholicism to Lutheranism, as earlier had done many of his subjects. The collegiate church as it was called, thus became Lutheran too, like most of the electoral subjects and all the churches in the Electorate. In 1817 - under the auspices of King Frederick William III of Prussia - the community of the Supreme Parish Church, like most Prussian Calvinist and Lutheran congregations joined the common umbrella organization named Evangelical Church in Prussia.
On the map our walking tour started at the extreme right at the French Cathedral (Franzosische) .
The first parts of the actual French Church was built from 1701 to 1705 for the Huguenot (Calvinist) community. At that time, Huguenots made up about 25% of Berlin's population. The French Church was modeled after the destroyed Huguenot temple in Charenton-Saint-Maurice, France.
If one follows the line for the walking tour, he will pass by in front of the Russian (formerly Soviet) Embassy on Unter den Linden. It demonstrates what socialist architecture was supposed to look like.
A few steps further on Unter en Linden we came to Pariser Platz (see map above). Here was the imposing Brandenburg Gate
One of Berlin's most famous sights, the Brandenburg Gate is located on the western edge of Pariser Platz just inside the former East Berlin. Rising up from behind the Berlin Wall, it was a potent symbol of Berlin's division. From the construction of the Wall in 1961 up until 1989 the Brandenburg Gate was inaccessible to the general public. Today,a red line on the pavement indicates the location of the torn down wall.
Reichstag (Parliament) was to the left of the
Brandenburg Gate.
Our guide then led us around the controversial Holocaust Museum site (which was under construction). He pointed out where he thought Hitler’s Bunker had actually been and where Hitler committed suicide. Some of the corridor's of the bunker still exist today, although now in disuse and sealed from the public. On right, a parking lot is situated on the site.
We moved on towards Potsdamer Platz which was the site of much construction -- earth movers, welders and a forest of cranes. It had been totally laid waste during World War II and then left desolate during the Cold War era when the Berlin Wall bisected its former location. Since German reunification, Potsdamer Platz has been the site of extensive redevelopment.
We watched the reconstruction from the Info Box on the right. The red pavilion was designed by Schneider und Schumacher as a temporary structure to provide information about, and a viewing station for, the construction around Potsdamer Platz.
From here we proceeded to the site of Checkpoint Charlie. Checkpoint Charlie "Checkpoint C" was the name given by the Western Allies to the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Germany and West Germany during the Cold War.
During that period, there were many successful and unsuccessful escape attempts, many of which are chronicled in the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. Annette and I spent considerable time here viewing the exhibits.
We had put in a busy day and returned to the Ibis Hotel for a well deserved rest.
July 2, Thursday
After a large buffet style breakfast of the usual cheeses, assorted cold cuts and hard rolls, we checked out of our hotel and headed for Spandau. The old fortress town of Spandau lies at the confluence of the Spree and Havel rivers. See left hand side of map. Until it was incorporated into Berlin in 1920 Spandau was an independent town that owed its origin to a choice position near where the main trade route from west to east via Magdeburg and Berlin crossed the Havel
After the Second World War, the Spandau Citadel was first occupied by Soviet troops. With the division of Berlin, Spandau and its Citadel was part of the British sector. The citadel was used as a prison for Prussian state prisoners such as German nationalist Friedrich Ludwig Jahn. It was not used as the prison for national socialist war criminals who were housed at Spandau prison in the same Berlin borough. The moat surrounding the Citadel was completely filled with water.
The morning’s activity accomplished, we drove over to the City of Brandenburg on the Havel River. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam. Brandenburg surrounds but does not include the national capital and city-state of Berlin. Albrecht the Bear defeated the Slavs when he captured Brandenburg in 1157. The Hohenzollerns arrived in 21415 and Frederick I established his governorship in Brandenburg.
Our pension “Zum Birnbaum” was a charming restored building with a breakfast cottage in the courtyard. From our window we could observe other restoration projects transforming a formerly neglected neighborhood. The cost of lodging at the pension was only DM 90.
Our afternoon was spent exploring the streets of this historic community. Only a block away from our pension was a large stone tower, the Steinturm situated on the Scheusenkanal (bottom right on map below #3). This was used as a watchtower.
As I walked out to see the Brandenburg Dom, I crossed the island and reached the Brandenberger Canal with the Muhlentorturm watchtower (upper right on map). The bridge here led me to Cathedral Island and the Dom of St. Peter and St. Paul (1165). Massive reconstruction work was underway. Here stands Brandenburg’s oldest edifice. Although construction began in the Romanesque style in 1165, it was completed as a Gothic cathedral during the 14th century.
While the exterior is rather austere, the cathedral surprises the visitor with its sumptuous interior, especially the painted vault of the Bunte Kapelle and the Wagner organ (1725), one of the most famous Baroque organs in Germany. Although J. S. Bach had never been in Brandenburg, his name will forever be connected to this town through the Six Concertos.
On my return walk to our pension I stopped to visit the Katharinenkirche, St. Catherine's Church, built in 1401 in the Neustadt (#1 on the map). It is an impressive example of northern German brick Gothic architecture.
Our pension manager recommended a good eating place in the romantic countryside along the Havel River. We ate a nice quiet meal while visiting a young lady who was hiking around Europe.
July 3, Friday
In the morning we had a pleasant breakfast at our pension and then set out for Potsdam, via the autobahn. The Audi handled well at high speed on the highway.
Our primary goal was the Palace of Frederick the Great, often called German’s Versailles. We found out why. The building of the palace commenced at the end of the Seven Years' War, to celebrate Prussia’s success. In an architectural form, Frederick the Great sought to demonstrate the power and glories of Prussia attributing it as fanfaronade, an excess of splendor in marble, stone and gilt. For the King, the New Palace was not a principal residence, but a display for the reception of important royals and dignitaries.
Of the over 200 rooms, four principal gathering rooms and a theater were available for royal functions, balls and state occasions.
Opposite to the palace’s westward-opening court of honor were the Communes, designed by Carl von Gontard and Jean Laurent Le Geay. Styled in the same manner as the palace itself, the two buildings housed the royal kitchens, utilities, gardeners’ shops, palace guards and servants.
The Chinese House, designed by Johann Gottfried Büring between 1755 and 1764; a pavilion in the Chinoiserie style: a mixture of rococo elements coupled with Oriental architecture.
The South or Garden façade and corps de logis of Sanssouci
To take a break from our morning walk we boarded an open trolley. This gave us an opportunity to see more of the grounds like this historic mill powered by a large windmill.
Our trolley ride tour included visiting the other historic sites in Potsdam. Three blocks north of the Alter Mark we came upon the Hollandisches Vietel building by Frederick the Great to induce Dutch artisans to settle in the city,The gabled hip-roofed brick houses were neglected under the Communist rule, but the Dutch government funded restoration of these buildings.
Alexandrowka is the Russian Colony in the north of Potsdam It consists out of thirteen wooden houses and a chapel in Russian style, which were built between 1826 and 1827 on special wish of the former Prussian king, Friedrich Wilhelm III.
The trolley brought us back to the Sanssouci grounds and we had our last look at the Great Fountain
We followed a flowered pathway to Friedkirche. the Church of Peace (1845-48). The church is a columned basilica with three naves and no transept, with a freestanding bell tower. The 13.5 m high central nave overlaps the side aisles, which are half as wide. An arcade of central arches mark the crossing point.
The religious Frederick William IV desired a flat coffered ceiling on the inside, with gold stars on a blue base painted on the panels. The king saw the design of early Christian sacred buildings, converted from market and court halls, as particularly appropriate.
Our last major undertaking for Potsdam was to visit Cecillenhof Palace, the headquarters of the 1945 Potsdam Conference where Truman, Stalin and Churchill met to discuss the post war matters such as the partition of Germany.
In the courtyard of the palace is a red star pattern from flowers, as there had been when the conference took place.
We spent the night at our pension in Brandenburg again.
GO ON TO 1998 EASTERN EUROPE PART II WITTENBERG ....
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