Remnants of the Cold War

[Admittedly I am back home but am going to finish this blog about my 2+ month adventure.  The hotel in Berlin, while perfect in many ways, did not have a dependable Internet so I gave up trying to write blogs.  So, I will continue the story in a couple more posts from the comfort of my home.]

Following our day at the Reichstag building and the visit to the Topography of Terror, the next one seemed to focus on Berlin, and Germany in general, during the Cold War.  It is yet another important part of Berlin's history.  While many are aware of what happened, I have included the following information as a "refresher" or to augment readers' knowledge.  The following is from the website, history,com

After World War II, defeated Germany was divided into Soviet, American, British and French zones of occupation.  The city of Berlin, though technically part of the Soviet zone, was also split, with the Soviets taking the eastern part of the city.  After a massive Allied airlift in June, 1948, foiled a Soviet attempt to blockade West Berlin, the eastern section was drawn even more tightly into the Soviet fold.  Over the next 12 years, cut off from its western counterpart and basically reduced to a Soviet satellite, East Germany saw between 2/5 million and 3 million of its citizens head to West Germany in search of better opportunities.  By 1961, some 1,000 East Germans - including many skilled laborers, professionals and intellectuals - were leaving every day.  In August of that year, Walter Ulbricht, the Communist leader of East Germany, got the go-ahead from Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev to begin the sealling off of all access between East and West Berlin.  Soldiers began the work over the night of August 12-13, laying more than 100 miles of barbed wire slightly inside the East Berlin border.  The wire was soom replaced by a six-foot high, 96 mile long wall of concrete blocks, complete with guard towers, machine gun posts and searchlights.  East German soldiers patrolled the Berlin Wall day and night.

Many Berlin residents on that first morning found themselves suddenly cut off from friends or family members in the other half of the city.  Led by their mayor, Willi Brandt, West Berliners demonstrated against the wall, as Brandt criticized Western democracies, particularly the United States, for failing to take a stand against it.  President John F. Kennedy had earlier said publicly that the United States could only really help West Berliners and West Germans, and that any kind of action of behalf of East Germans would only result in failure.  

The Berlin Wall as one of the most powerful and iconic symbols of the Cold War.  In June 1963, Kennedy gave his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech in front of the Wall, celebrating the city as a symbol of freedom and democracy in its resistance to tyranny and oppression.  The height of the Wall was raised to 10 feet in 1970 in an effort to stop escape attempts, which at the time came almost daily.  From 1961 to 1989, a total of 5000 East Germans escaped; many more tried and failed.  High profile shootins of some would-be defectors only intensified the Western world's hatred of the Wall.

Finally, in the late 1980s, East Germany, fueled by the decline of the Soviet Union, began to implement a number of liberal reforms.  On November 9, 1989, masses of East and West Germans alike gathered at the Berlin Wall and began to climb over and dismantle it.  As this symbol of Cold War repression was destroyed, East and West Germany became one nation again, signing a formal treaty of unification on October 3, 1990.

We had learned much of this information during our walking tour on our first day here.  So, our first stop was the East Side Gallery.  This memorial in Berlin-Friedrichshain is a permanent open-air gallery on the longest surviving section of the Berlin Wall in Muhlenstrasse between the Berlin Ostbahnhof and the Oberbaumbrucke along the Spree River,  It consists of a series of murals painted directly on a 1.3 km remnant of the wall.  We walked along the wall seeing some of the iconic paintings and then walked across the Oberbaumbrucke.

That afternoon, we continued with the "Cold War" theme by visiting the DDR Museum.  This is an interactive museum based on life in the former East Germany.  It is located across the river from the Berliner Dom.  Its exhibitions depicts life in the former East Germany (known in German as the Deutsche Demokratische Republik or DDR) in a direct "hands-on" way.  For example, a covert listening device ("bug") gives visitors the sense of being "under surveillance".  One can also try DDR clothes on in the recreated tower block apartment, change TV channels or use an original typewriter. The exhibition has three themed areas: “Public Life”; “State and Ideology” and “Life in a Tower Block”.  Each of them is presented under a critical light:  the positives as well as the negative sides of the DDR.  A total of 35 modules illustrate these themes.  It was very interesting; however, because of the very large number of school groups when we were there, it was difficult to see all the exhibits and, in fact, sometimes to even get close to them. I took no photos in the museum but for this one.

There are other parts of Berlin where you can see remnants of the wall including the one near the Topography of Terror museum and also near Potsdamerplatz.   Other times, you can see where the wall was because there are bricks in the roads in many places showing where the wall stood.

I have said this before in other blogs but it is interesting to me that reminders of Berlin's past - both in WWII and during the Cold War - are everywhere in this city.  There is no question that every Berliner know about this city's past!