Elegant Elbe: Berlin 1a (5/31/2018)

Thursday, May 31, 2018

An extensive breakfast buffet at the InterContinental in the LA Café

The healthy foods section!

This morning we met for the included excursion of Panoramic Berlin. Quite a thorough tour of the city by motor coach.

Wittenbergplatz Metro/U-Bahn station (1913, by Alfred Grenander
in Art Nouveau style) is one of the oldest in Berlin

Arc de 124-1/2 degrees (1987, by Bernar Venet), a gift from France
on the occasion of the 750th anniversary of the city

Embassy of Austria (1999-2001, by Hans Hollein)

At Checkpoint Charlie, we were given some time to wander around.

A posed photo of a United States Army soldier as we enter the
former American sector

The original Checkpoint Charlie is long gone, but here you
can pose with actors at a fake guardhouse

A posed photo of a Soviet soldier as we leave the
former American sector

Checkpoint Charlie from the East Berlin side (10/3/1987)

The length of the outer wall of the Berlin Wall is marked with
a cobblestone line throughout Berlin (KSS)

Mostly Soviet-themed souvenirs

Plus a few gas masks and helmets

Back on the bus...

Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus (1935-1936, by by Ernst Sagebiel
as the Ministry of Aviation), the only Hitler-era building
to survive bombing, now the Ministry of Finance

The Profile of Georg Elser (2011, by Ulrich Klages)
of a carpenter who attempted to assassinate Hitler
in 1939, by putting timed explosives in a column,
but failed because Hitler left the meeting hall
earlier than planned to catch a train when
his flight was canceled due to fog

Quartier 207 (1992-1996, by Jean Nouvel),
of the Friedrichstadt Passagen housing the
Les Galeries Lafayette department store
with its vertical garden on the façade

Quartier 206 (1992-1995, by Pei, Cobb, Freed & Partner)
houses a shopping center luxury shops

Quartier 205 (1992-1995, by Oswald Mathias Ungers)
with more exclusive shopping;
there does not appear to be a fourth Quartier!

The old Arsenal/Zeughaus (1695-1730, by Johann Arnold Nering,
then Martin Grünberg, Andreas Schlüte, and Jean de Bodt) is now the
German Historical Museum/Deutsches Historisches Museum

Soviet architecture on Karl-Marx-Allee

More Soviet architecture at Strausberger Platz

Our next stop was at the East Side Gallery, on open-air gallery along the longest continuous section of the Berlin Wall still in existence. It was part of the inner wall that faced East Berlin, thus there had been no graffiti. Immediately after the wall came down, 118 artists from 21 countries came to create murals on the 1.3 km/0.8 mile stretch. It was given protected memorial status in 1991.

East Side Gallery

An example of what the wall looked like before 1989 (KSS)

One of the most famous murals is the Fraternal Kiss by Dmitri Wrubel,
showing of Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker

Hymn of Happiness/Hymne an das Glück by Fulvio Pinna

You have learned what freedom is/Du hast gelernt, was Freiheit ist
by André Sécrit and Karsten Thomas

Oberbaum Bridge/Oberbaumbrücke (1894-1896, by Otto Stahn
in North German Brick Gothic style, rebuilt 1992-1994)

Untitled by Thierry Noir

BASF Services Europe building

Jewish Museum/Jüdisches Museum Berlin old building (1735, by
Philipp Gerlach in Baroque style as the Supreme Court, rebuilt 1963-1969)

Jewish Museum Libeskind Building (1992-2001,
by Daniel Libeskind) is reached only by
an underground passage from the old building

Former Tempelhof Airport/Flughafen (1936-1941, by by Ernst Sagebiel)

Towards the end of World War II Tempelhof's German commander, Oberst Rudolf Böttger, refused to carry out orders to blow up the base, choosing instead to kill himself. Soviet forces took Tempelhof in the in April 1945. The airport was turned over to the United States Army as part of the American sector. Flight was allowed through three narrow air corridors over Soviet-occupied East Germany to West Berlin. In June 1948 the Soviets halted all land and water traffic in and out of West Berlin, forcing the the United States, Great Britain, and France to decide between abandoning West Berlin, or trying to supply the citizens with everything necessary for life. Considered one of the greatest feats in aviation history, the Berlin Airlift brought in food, coal, and other essentials over eleven months.

Berlin Airlift Memorial/Luftbrückendenkmal (1951, by Eduard Ludwig),
nicknamed the Fork, symbolizes the three air corridors and records
the names of 31 American and 39 British pilots who lost their lives
in accidents while flying in supplies during the Berlin Blockade

One pilot noticed children gathered outside the airport fence, so he started dropping candy for them, and other pilots began to do the same.

Schöneberg City Hall/Rathaus (1911-1914)
served as the City Hall of West Berlin from
1948 until Reunification

This city hall was the location where United States President John F Kennedy gave his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech in 1963. Having taken German in high school, I knew that the use of the article was not usual and "Ich bin Berliner" was proper. However, Kennedy's usage was not "wrong," only that there is a pastry called a Berliner, and it could have been taken that he said he was a jelly donut. But not in Berlin, where they do not call any pastry a Berliner!
Next: Berlin 1b.