May 24 - June 8, 2011
| May 24 - June 8, 2011 |
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During my first trip to Germany with my mother, I turned five. We took a train from Louisiana to New York and then an ocean liner to Germany. I actually have a few memories of that trip. My second trip was in 1970 for a vacation with my parents. We were living in Japan at the time so we flew from Japan to Anchorage, Alaska over the North Pole to Germany. I was stationed in Zweibrucken, Germany for two years (1975-1977) and I made a few stops in Germany on an Eastern European bus tour in 2000. Considering the fact that my mother was born in Germany and I have many relatives there, I guess it’s no surprise that Germany is one of the few countries I keep going back to. I figured it was time to go again and Kathy agreed that she would like to see Germany for the first time, especially since she could see a little of four other countries as well.
While bus tours and river cruises have their advantages, we decided the best way to see and do all we wanted was to go on our own and rent a car. Since we were on our own, we purchased a cell phone that works in Germany and a chip for our GPS with maps and points of interest for all the countries we planned to see. Both came in very handy!
The trip started out with a small glitch. We were flying from San Francisco to Dusseldorf and then on to Munich. Our plane coming in from Germany got in to San Francisco about an hour late (Air Berlin blamed it on the erupting volcano in Iceland) so we left late and missed our connection in Dusseldorf. Luckily, there was another flight to Munich a few hours later that Air Berlin put us on.
After arriving in Munich, we picked up our rental car and drove about 55 miles south to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. It was a long day and we were both exhausted so getting to our hotel in Garmisch around 8:00 p.m. local time seemed like a good way to get a full night’s sleep. Wrong! I woke up at 2:00 a.m. as my internal clock was all screwed up from the nine hour time difference.
Since we got to Garmisch just after dark, we finally saw the beautiful German Alps surrounding us when we went outside the next morning. We drove a short distance to the Eibsee (a lake resort), where we took the cogwheel train and cable car to the top of the Zugspitze, at 9,717 ft. (2,962 m), the tallest mountain in Germany. I had gone to the top of the Zugspitze twice before but the last time, I took the cable car the whole way up and back.
I didn’t remember just what an engineering marvel the cogwheel train was. Not only is the route steep but over half of the route is through a tunnel. Most tunnels I’ve been in are fairly level. This tunnel actually gains quite a lot of elevation. The track never comes out of the tunnel at the end – the station is underground and you climb up stairs to the restaurant/bar/museum/cable car station.
We then took the cable car to the very top where there is another restaurant and bar and even a border crossing to Austria. There was still quite a lot of snow at the top and the view was amazing – we could see the Alps of three countries – Germany, Austria and Switzerland as well as the green valleys, towns and lakes below.
After we got back to the Eibsee station, we drove toward the town of Hohenschwangau. Along the way the scenery of the Austrian Alps was like a picture post card. Unfortunately, there was hardly ever a place to pull over and take a photo, let alone just enjoy the scenery. About a third of the way to Hohenschwangau, the road was closed due to construction. We had to double back and go another way but finally arrived in Hohenschwangau where we took the tour of Neuschwanstein Castle.
Neuschwanstein is probably the most famous of “Mad” King Ludwig’s castles and palaces in Bavaria. This was my third visit to Neuschwanstein in 41 years but I still thought it was worth seeing again. We took the bus up the hill to a foot bridge high above a waterfall that affords a great view of the castle and surrounding countryside. The last time I was there on that bridge 35 years ago, my camera broke before I could get any photos so I made sure I got plenty of exterior photos this time. Unfortunately, they don’t allow photography inside the castle.
The weather had been great most of the day, but heading back to Garmisch we encountered a pretty good hailstorm. I tried to find a tree to pull under so our rental car wouldn’t get damaged and thankfully, when I checked later, I didn’t see any dents. Because of our prior detour, we didn’t have time to stop at King Ludwig’s Linderhof Palace on the way back to Garmisch.
Our next day trip from Garmisch was to Berchtesgaden and Salzburg, Austria. I was hoping to maybe have a “Sound of Music” picnic on the mountains overlooking Salzburg but the worst rain of the trip cancelled that idea. Just outside of Berchtesgaden is Obersalzburg where Hitler, Goering and Borman all had houses before and during World War II. There were also SS barracks, a few hotels and a huge underground tunnel system linking everything.
Eventually, the Nazis took over the whole area and the public was no longer able to go there. Just before the end of the war in Europe, the British bombed the area pretty much destroying all the buildings. The SS tried to burn the remains of Hitler’s house called the Berghof but the walls stood until 1952 when the German government blew it up completely. All that is left now are the ruins of a retaining wall above the site of the house and a sign marking where the house once stood.
Since this area was such a significant site for the Nazis after Hitler came to power, a Documentation Center was opened in a former Nazi building there around 1990. Up until that time, I think most Germans wanted to forget about this awful part of their history and had gradually destroyed most of the former Nazi buildings in this area. At some point though, the local or federal government realized it was important to document the Third Reich era and so several Documentation Centers were opened in Germany.
Because I’m a history buff, I’ve read many books and watched many documentaries on the Third Reich and World War II. That being said, I really didn’t need to see the exhibits in the Documentation Center but I did want to go down in the tunnel and bunker system. In order to do that, I had to pay the entrance fee for the Documentation Center. One of my favorite shows on the History Channel is “Cities of the Underground” and it was really cool getting to go walk around these tunnels just like they do on the show.
Next on the agenda was a visit to the Kehlsteinhaus (called the Eagle’s Nest by American soldiers who arrived there shortly before the end of WW II). The Kehlsteinhaus was a meeting place that Martin Borman had built as a gift to Hitler for Hitler’s 50th birthday. Sitting on top of a mountain, the Kehlsteinhaus along with the steep road that leads up to it was another engineering marvel. We had to take a bus up the mountain and then walk through a long tunnel to an elevator that goes straight up though solid rock to the Kehlsteinhaus. The elevator is lined in shiny brass and still has the original clock and phone in it.
Because of the inclement weather, we weren’t able to take in the spectacular view from the Kehlsteinhaus. In fact, the visibility was about 30 ft. (9.1m). But we made the best of it and had a bockwurst, potato salad and beer lunch in the restaurant sitting by the infamous fireplace that Mussolini gave Hitler as a 50th birthday gift. When the American soldiers first arrived here, I’m sure they took some souvenirs (there are some chips missing from the fireplace) but at some point, the powers that be decided not to destroy this building seeing the future tourist potential.
We next made the short drive to Salzburg, Austria. The weather was so bad (and it was almost 5 PM) that after catching a glimpse of the Salzburg Fortress, we decided to head back to Garmisch. I had seen the Kehlsteinhaus and Salzburg in good weather on a previous trip but was disappointed that Kathy didn’t get to experience the same. Luckily though, this was the only weather-related problem on the whole trip and the weather was great for the rest of our trips through the Alps!
We spent the next day seeing Munich. We were able to find a parking garage not far from the Hofbräuhaus and Marienplatz. We missed the performance of the famous glockenspiel on the Neue Rathaus (New Town Hall) but we went up to the top of the tower and got a great view of the old town.
We walked around and saw several buildings that survived the heavy bombing of World War II including the Third Reich-era Haus der Kunst (Art Museum). We almost missed the swastikas that were cleverly incorporated in the design of the outside ceiling tiles. Swastikas are illegal in Germany today and most from the Third Reich era were destroyed but I’m guessing these were left because they are hard to discern amongst the whole pattern.
We also saw the Führerbau. The infamous Munich Agreement between Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy permitting the German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland was signed in Hitler’s office on September 30, 1938 in this building. After WW II, the Führerbau was taken over by the American military and turned into the Amerika Haus where American library and cultural materials were available to Munich residents.
It was drizzling off and on but we had our umbrellas so that didn’t stop us. We happened upon a festival in the Odeonsplatz where there were food stands and Bavarian singers in colorful costumes performing.
After all the walking, we were hungry and thirsty and what better place to eat and drink in Munich than the enormous and historic Hofbräuhaus established in 1592. The huge upstairs Festival Hall in the Hofbräuhaus was the scene of the first meeting on October 16, 1919 of the Deutsche Arbeiter Partie (German Worker Party) which later became the Nazi Party. The Hofbräuhaus was heavily damaged during WW II but was restored after the war. Kathy and I ended up sharing a liter of beer with our lunch. When I went to the Oktoberfest in Munich in 1977, I had 3 ½ liters of beer over about a six hour period but I wasn’t driving then so I figured a half liter was enough this time!
Before heading back to Garmisch, we drove around the site of the 1972 Summer Olympics and then stopped at the sprawling Nymphenburg Palace.
Back in Garmisch, we had dinner at the Edelweiss Hotel, a really nice hotel for U.S military personnel and their dependants. I had stayed in military hotels (The General Patton and General Abrams) on my prior two stays in Garmisch. We found the General Patton Hotel and it has been returned to the Germans but is abandoned. The General Abrams Complex is now used to house the Edelweiss Hotel employees. We originally planned to stay at the Edelweiss but decided on a more German experience instead.
It was nice having a car for this trip. While it cost a lot more than taking trains or touring by bus, it gave us the freedom to go where and when we wanted. We got a good rate on our Hyundai I-20 but the insurance was expensive. Our U.S. auto insurance and our credit cards don’t cover cars in Europe.
When we picked up the car, we were informed that we would have to purchase a vignette sticker for both Austria and Switzerland if we wanted to ride on the autobahns (freeways) in those countries. We were able to buy a 10-day vignette for Austria for €8 at a gas station. We decided not to buy the vignette for Switzerland as they only sold them for one year and they cost 40 Swiss Francs (about €35). We figured we could stay off the autobahn in Switzerland.
There were no toll roads in Germany but we had to pay fairly high tolls in Austria and Italy. The biggest expense was gas - $8.25/gal in Germany, a little less in Austria. The only good thing about all these costs are much of the fees and taxes must go to maintaining the autobahns in these countries. While most of the interstate freeways in the U.S. are in dire need of repair, the autobahns we drove on were as smooth as glass which made driving at high speed a real pleasure even in our small car.
Many people in the U.S believe there is no speed limit on the autobahns in Germany. This is only partially true. There are speed limits near the cities and on sections that aren’t straight, but on the straight sections, watch out! If you don’t want to get run over by a Mercedes or Porsche doing 130 mph, stay out of the left lane. One time, I floored our little four-cylinder Hyundai and could only get it up to 98 mph (158 kl/h). Another thing I really liked about the autobahns – there were no advertising billboards at all to spoil the views of the adjoining forests or farmland.
Parking in the cities was fairly easy. Whether parking on the curb or in a garage, they had machines that accepted coins, cash or credit cards for the fees. I also liked the electronic signs for parking garages – they show how many spaces are available.
Our next day trip from Garmisch took us through the Austrian Alps to Switzerland where we encountered our only border stop. You can drive from one European Union country to another without stopping at the border. Switzerland however, is a neutral country and not part of the European Union.
The border guard peered into our rather cluttered back seat and then told us we needed a vignette sticker. I showed him our route on the map and tried to explain that we weren’t going to drive on an autobahn. He didn’t seem convinced and warned me that there is a 100 Swiss Franc ($120) fine if we’re caught driving on the autobahn without the vignette. I guess he finally believed me as he let us go without checking our passports.
We drove through some really beautiful scenery, a few small towns and the Wolfgang Pass, 5,351 ft. (1,631 m). We then stopped at the Flüela Pass, 7,818 ft. (2,383 m) which is above the tree line. There were a couple of frozen lakes, lots of snow and a hotel at the pass.
From the Flüela Pass, we drove into the small Kingdom of Liechtenstein which is basically a valley surrounded by mountains. Liechtenstein was my 82nd country visited. We stopped in Vaduz to see the castle there before heading back through Austria to Garmisch. The weather was perfect and the scenery was awe-inspiring on this day trip!
The first stop on our final day trip from Garmisch was Innsbruck, Austria. We walked around the old town square seeing the famous Golden Roof and then climbed the 140 steps to the top of the Town Hall tower which afforded a great view of Innsbruck and the surrounding mountains. For lunch, we stopped at a small café and had warm apple strudel. It seems I’ve started a tradition of having apple strudel every time I visit Austria.
From Innsbruck, we drove over the famous Brenner Pass, 4,495 ft. (1,370 m) into Italy. We went as far south as the town of Bolzano which has a very picturesque town square with lots of flowers. We could also see the nearby Dolomite Mountains from there.
On such a well planned trip, I forgot all about wanting to see Ötzi the Iceman housed in a museum in Bolzano. Ötzi the Iceman was found near Hauslabjoch in the Ötzal Alps on September 19, 1991, by Helmut and Erika Simon, two vacationing German hikers. Since Ötzi froze after he died about 5,300 years ago and was buried in ice most of that time, his body, clothes and tools are remarkably well preserved.
I noticed that even though we were in Italy, many people spoke German here as I believe this area had been part of Austria at one time. Even many of the buildings looked like the buildings in Tyrol, Austria.
From Bolzano, we headed back north to Vipiteno, Italy. This town looked even more Austrian. The main street is lined with 15-16c Tyrolean houses with arcades, oriel windows and wrought iron signs. We had a fine Italian dinner at an outdoor café in Vipiteno and then headed back to Garmisch. On this day, we had breakfast in Germany, lunch in Austria and dinner in Italy.
In Italy, I missed the entrance to the autobahn so we took the smaller parallel highway. Our GPS finally had us enter the autobahn. We thought we were past the toll section of the autobahn but about 300 m after entering the autobahn, we came upon a toll booth. We went to an automated booth by mistake and when Kathy put our ticket in the machine, we found we had made a grievous error. A man came over the speaker with instructions but we didn’t understand his Italian. With cars backing up behind us, the machine finally spit out a ticket with a bill for €3.80 that I’m sure we are supposed to pay by mail. Thankfully, this was our only driving-related mistake.
Unfortunately, it was now time to leave Garmisch but fortunately, we still had a week in Germany. Our planned route would take us to Oberammergau and then follow the Romantic Road north to Bamberg, then northeast to Dresden and finally ending up in Berlin.
Oberammergau is the Bavarian town that puts on the famous Passion Play every ten years. The Passion Play dates back to the middle of the Thirty Years War. In 1633, after months of suffering from the Bubonic Plague, the people of Oberammergau took a vow to perform the "Play of the Suffering, Dying and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ" every ten years if they were spared.
Miraculously from that point on they all survived and true to their promise, the first performance of the Passion Play was held in 1634. The entire cast consists of villagers who have lived in Oberammergau for at least 20 years. They must also be amateurs and people of high moral and ethical principles. Villagers make all the outstanding costumes. As no wigs are used, participants must grow their hair and beards for several months prior to the performances, beginning on Ash Wednesday.
We saw the theater where the play is performed and walked around the small town. Oberammergau probably has the most and best examples of Bavarian style buildings with pained murals on them.
Our next stop on the Romantic Road was Augsburg, one of the oldest cities in Germany. Augsburg also had some great painted buildings.
When we were getting ready to pay for our parking in the garage, a German man asked us if we needed any help figuring out the machine. We didn’t but the man asked where we were from and told us when he was in the German Air Force, he flew T-38s and had training in Wichita Falls, Texas.
We drove through the walled Medieval City of Dinkelsbühl but since it was getting late in the day, we decided to continue on to Rothenburg which is also a walled city very similar to Dinkelsbühl.
We arrived in Rothenburg and checked in to the Hotel Spitzweg located not far from the town center inside the walls. The building that now houses the hotel was originally built in 1536. Our clean and comfortable room looked very medieval except for the flat screen TV.
The owner and breakfast chef, Herr Hocher was a real character. When we came down for breakfast, he said to have a seat but we weren’t sure where we should sit. When he came in the room, he asked why we weren’t sitting and I told him we had a reserved table each day at our hotel in Garmisch. He joked that we were now in Franconia and not in “Barbaria” so we could sit anywhere. Actually, Franconia is a region of northern Bavaria but I guess the people there don’t think too highly of the rest of Bavaria.
We walked to the Rathaus and, you guessed it, climbed the tower for a great view of the town. The old wall completely surrounds the town and when I was last here in 1976, I walked all the way around on the wall. Walking around the cobblestone streets of Rothenberg is like stepping back in time and staying in our hotel was a great experience also.
The next day, we drove to Nuremberg. Kathy let me indulge in my history quest of this city that was so much a part of the Third Reich. From 1933 to 1938, six Nazi Party rallies were held in Nuremberg. The 1939 rally with the motto “Party Rally for Peace” was scheduled to begin on September 2 but was cancelled without stating reasons on August 26. Gee, I wonder if the reason was because Hitler was planning his invasion of Poland to commence on September 1st?
I toured the Documentation Center located in the huge unfinished Kongresshalle. Since military history isn’t one of Kathy’s favorite subjects, she had a snack and read a book in the café there.
The Kongresshalle is the second largest remaining building built during the Third Reich and if completed, could have seated 50,000 people. The Kongresshalle is part of the vast Parteitagsgelände (Nazi Party rally grounds) which included the Zeppelintribüne (a grandstand) and adjacent Zeppelinfeld (the parade ground), Märzfeld (a huge staging area) the Luitpold Arena (now a park) with its Ehrenhalle war memorial and the Great Road which ran through the grounds. A few buildings were never built because of the war and the greatest one was a huge sports stadium designed by Albert Speer that could seat 400,000 people.
After seeing the Documentation Center, I asked the man at the information booth how to get to the Zeppelinfeld. He told me it may be closed because they were getting ready to stage the annual “Rock in Park” three-day music festival there starting the next day. I was really going to be disappointed if I couldn’t see the Zeppelintribüne and Zeppelinfeld. He showed me a place where we might be able to park and then walk to the Zeppelintribüne. We drove there and the police (who were blocking off the area for the rock concert setup) let us park in one of the last spots. A short walk brought us to the Zeppelintribüne overlooking the Zeppelinfeld.
The main and side tribunes could hold 60,000 spectators and the Zeppelinfeld could hold 100,000 participants, i.e. troops, Hitler Youth, workers with shovels, fitness demonstrations, etc. The 1,000 ft. (300 m) long Zeppelintribüne originally had colonnades on each end but these were torn down in the 1970’s when they were deemed structurally unsound and a safety hazard. As it is now, there was a sign saying “Enter at your own risk” as some of it is crumbling.
I have a 1945 issue of “Life” magazine with the cover showing two American soldiers standing in front of the huge swastika in the middle of the Zeppelintribüne shortly after the capture of Nuremburg. The swastika was blown up by the American military who then held a victory parade there. American soldiers were stationed in Nuremburg until 1994. We found a plaque and flowers commemorating the post-war friendship of the Germans and Americans near the central viewing stand where Hitler would deliver his speeches.
At night, 130 anti-aircraft searchlights surrounding the Zeppelinfeld aimed straight up would create a “Cathedral of Light”. We drove by the transformer building used to power this spectacle and it now houses a Burger King.
We saw the stage being prepared for the rock concert. Coldplay and Kings of Leon were just two of the 100 bands scheduled to play. This is one of the biggest annual music festivals in the world. I guess if Hitler had a grave, he’d be rolling over in it knowing this decadent rock concert was being held in his prized rally ground. Our timing was good as when we came back to the car, our parking area was now off limits until the concert was over.
I also walked to the nearby Ehrenhalle (a war memorial built in 1923) in the Luitpold Arena which could hold over 150,000 SS and SA troops during “Cult of the Dead” war memorial ceremonies. We then tried to drive to see the Great Road but that area was already closed off for the music festival and the police wouldn’t let us in.
The Nazi Party rallies were a logistical nightmare – the last one was attended by 1.6 million people. A display in the Documentation Center has comments on the inadequate toilet facilities, attempts of senior party members to enter the red light districts, and complaints that bars playing dance music were better attended than those relaying Hitler’s speech.
From the Parteitagsgelände, we made the short drive to the old part of Nuremburg which also had a wall built completely around it. One of the places we saw in the old town was the house of my favorite Renaissance artist, Albrecht Dürer. Dürer lived in this house from 1509 until his death in 1528. We took the self-guided tour of the house using headsets. In one room, a woman demonstrated how Dürer made his prints by engraving copper plates. I really enjoyed this tour.
Our last stop in Nuremburg was at the Palace of Justice where the Allied Military Tribunal, AKA Nuremburg Trials was held from 1945-1946 in Courtroom 600. They have another Documentation Center inside and if there is no trial going on, you can go into the courtroom. Unfortunately, (or fortunately in Kathy’s case) we didn’t have time to go in as we had to head to our next destination – Bamberg.
When you tour as many cities as we did on this trip, it is easy to get burned out by cathedrals, town halls, etc. that begin to all look alike after awhile, but we were pleasantly surprised with Bamberg. Bamberg survived World War II unscathed so most of its buildings are original and it became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1993.
One thing different about Bamberg is its “Little Venice”, a former fisher settlement consisting of a row of mediaeval style houses right on the river. The Old Rathaus is also different – it stands in the middle of the river connected by a bridge. There are large murals almost completely covering two walls and if you look closely at one, there is a man’s leg sticking out. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed in the landmark Imperial Cathedral due to services in progress.
From Bamberg, we headed northeast to Weimar. I dropped off Kathy in the old town and she planned to tour the Goethe House while I drove five miles out of town to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp Memorial.
A few years prior to this trip, I read the best seller “Night” by holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. The book is about Wiesel’s experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchenwald concentration camps. Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for speaking out against violence, repression, and racism. On June 5, 2009, Wiesel accompanied US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel as they toured Buchenwald.
On February 1, 2007, Wiesel was attacked in a San Francisco hotel by 22-year-old Holocaust denier Eric Hunt, who tried to drag the 79 year old Wiesel into a hotel room. Wiesel escaped unharmed and is still very active with his causes today at age 83. It baffles me how people can still deny that the Holocaust happened. I guess they believe all the photos, film, first hand eyewitness accounts and camp memorials, are some kind of elaborate hoax created for some crazy reason.
After seeing Dachau near Munich, Auschwitz in Poland, Theresienstadt in the Czech Republic on previous trips, and now Buchenwald, the Holocaust is very real to me. I can understand how some people cannot bear to see such places or even read about them but I believe there is a good chance some of my relatives from Eastern Europe died in the Holocaust. When I visit these sites, I take a moment of silence for all the victims and hope that by keeping these places as memorials, the victims will never be forgotten.
After seeing Buchenwald, I drove back to Weimar to pick up Kathy who enjoyed the tour of the Goethe House. We walked around the old town and had dinner at an outdoor Italian Café before heading back to our hotel.
Next on our tour was the city of Dresden, one of my favorite German cities. What makes Dresden so different is it was almost totally destroyed by fire bombs over two nights in February, 1945. And when I say almost totally destroyed, I mean it. I’ve seen photos of Dresden after the rubble was cleared away and there was nothing but streets for miles around. Because of this, most of the buildings you see today were built after the war. Many were not rebuilt until after the reunification of Germany in 1989 because the East German government couldn’t handle the huge rebuilding projects.
We saw several masterpiece art works in the Gallery of Masters in the Zwinger Palace, the nearby Hofkirche and took a tour of the Semper Opera House which burned down in 1869. The opera house was rebuilt by German architect Gottfried Semper between 1871 and 1878. It was destroyed again in the firebombing of World War II and rebuilt over eight years reopening in 1985. We took a guided tour of the interior and it is very ornate.
We walked along the Fürstenzug (procession of dukes), a magnificent, 334 ft. (102 m) - long frieze depicting the procession of many Saxon rulers. It contains 24,000 Meissen porcelain tiles and is quite impressive.
Next was the number one landmark of Dresden – the protestant church called Frauenkirche. The Frauenkirche was built between 1726 and 1743 and inspired by the dome architecture of Italian churches. It initially survived the bombing of World War II but couldn’t escape the ensuing fire. It was left in ruins as a monument against war but after reunification, the people of Dresden decided to reconstruct it. Reconstruction began in 1993 and the Frauenkirche was finally consecrated in October, 2005.
We tried to go inside the Frauenkirche but found out it was “Church Day” and so only worshipers were allowed in. However, we were able to take the elevator and spiral ramp to the top of the dome for an incredible view of this most scenic city. It’s hard to believe that all the buildings there are less than 65 years old.
The next day we headed to our final destination – Berlin. At the last minute, we decided to stop in Potsdam just outside of Berlin. There are several parks and palaces in Potsdam but we just saw the Cecilienhof located in the Neuer Garten.
The Cecilienhof is the English-style manor where Winston Churchill and later his replacement Clement Attlee, Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin all met between July 17 and August 2, 1945 in order to decide the fate of postwar Europe. The one feature of the manor I really liked were the unusual brick chimneys which all had different designs.
Before turning our rental car in at Tegel Airport in Berlin, we stopped at the Olympic Stadium where the 1936 Summer Olympics were held. Once again, our timing was bad as we couldn’t go into the stadium due to preparations for a concert being held the next day. When I last saw the Olympic Stadium in 1976, I remember a wall with winners’ names including Jesse Owens engraved on it but unfortunately, we could only see the outside of the stadium from behind a fence.
My niece, Anke and brother-in-law, Peter, picked us up at the rental car return and drove us to Anke’s apartment where my sister, Brigitta (Biggi) was waiting. There we met Anke’s husband, Florian, his mother, Mony, and Anke and Florian’s two sons, Luca (5) and Joshua (8 months). We had a great BBQ dinner and visit and planned our activities for the next two days in Berlin. Before our trip, I had informed Peter that I hoped to see several historic World War II buildings and sites and Peter had mapped them all out for me to make them easier to see in the time we had.
The next day, we planned to see the Berlin Technology Museum with everyone except Biggi and Mony. Some streets in Berlin were supposed to be closed for a few thousand bicyclists on some kind of bike ride through the city. Because of this, we planned to take the S-bahn train into town. When we got to the train station however, we found out the train we needed wasn’t running due to a mechanical problem so we drove to the museum in two cars. We never saw any bicyclists but did see the police getting ready to close some streets.
The Technology Museum is housed in an old train station and they have quite a collection of train engines and cars. They also have a large ship/boat and aircraft collection including several German World War II aircraft and a U.S C-47 used in the Berlin Airlift. We spent several hours there but probably saw less than half of the museum.
On the way back, Florian drove us by Tempelhof Airport. Closed in 2008 and now abandoned, Tempelhof was an amazing airport. The original terminal was built in 1927. In anticipation of increasing air traffic, the Nazi government began a massive reconstruction in the mid-1930s. The resulting terminal halls and adjoining buildings became the largest airport in the world even though the airport was never finished due to the outbreak of World War II. While the buildings are empty, the grass areas around runways and taxiways are now open to the public to use as a park.
That night Biggi and Anke cooked a delicious dinner at Peter and Biggi’s apartment. Afterward, we sat outside and had a nice visit while a thunderstorm was brewing overhead. Kathy and I learned that Luca is attending a bi-lingual kindergarten and knows quite a few words of English and we were able to coax a few words from him.
Since I had been to Berlin twice before and Kathy had never been there, the next day, Kathy took a bus tour with Peter and Biggi, while Florian and I did a walking tour. This allowed me to see most of the World War II sites I hoped to see and a few other sites I hadn’t seen before.
Our first stop was at the Wehrmacht (Army) Headquarters building designed by Albert Speer and completed in 1937. In the courtyard of this building is where Col. Claus von Stauffenberg and other leaders of the revolt were shot after their failed attempt to assassinate Hitler. There is a memorial to the resistance movement at the spot where von Stauffenberg was shot. Tom Cruise played Von Stauffenberg in the movie Valkyrie and they filmed the scene where he was shot in this courtyard. I remember hearing Tom Cruise say it was a hard scene to do knowing that that was where the shooting actually took place.
We then came upon a remaining section of the The Berlin Wall which has a large display of Third Reich history. I thought that was kind of odd that while the wall is indirectly linked to World War II (the wall actually went up in 1961), it has its own history. Then I discovered that the buildings that housed the Gestapo and SS headquarters occupied this site. Those buildings were largely destroyed by Allied bombing during early 1945 and the ruins demolished after the war. The Berlin Wall was actually built over the remains of the foundations of these buildings. Right near this section of the wall, a new Documentation Center called Topography of Terror was opened in May, 2010. This section of the wall is the longest segment of the outer wall that was not torn down.
The next building we found was the massive Luftfahrtsministerium (Air Ministry building). It was constructed between 1935 and 1936 and designed by architect Ernst Sagebiel, who also designed Tempelhof Airport in Berlin. The architecture is typical Third Reich style – a blend of Art Deco and Neoclassicism. This was Hermann Göring’s headquarters and its size matched Göring’s ego. It is huge! In fact, at the time it was built, it was the largest office building in Europe. This building is one of the few public edifices in central Berlin to survive the severe Allied bombings of 1944-45 with minimal damage.
After the war, the Air Ministry building was used by the Soviet military administration until 1948, and from 1947-49 by the German Economic Commission, which became the top administrative body in the Soviet Occupation Zone. On October 7, 1949 the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was founded in a ceremony in the building. Today after reunification, it houses the German Finance Ministry.
While walking to our next site, we happened upon a lot full of strange looking cars. This was a rental car company called Trabant Safari and the cars were all Trabants. The Trabant is a car that was built by East Germany (and relatively unchanged) from 1957-1990 and in the reunified Germany in 1991. The name, meaning 'satellite' or 'companion ' in German, was inspired by the Soviet Sputnik satellite.
The Trabant has an air cooled two cylinder 500 cc engine and its body is not made of cardboard as some believe but of duroplast. Duroplast was made of recycled material, cotton waste from the Soviet Union and phenol resins from the East German dye industry, making the Trabant the first car with a body made of recycled material.
Since it could take years for a Trabant to be delivered from the time it was ordered, people who finally got one were very careful with it and usually became skillful in maintaining and repairing it. The lifespan of an average Trabant was 28 years. Used Trabants would often fetch a higher price than new ones, as the former were available immediately, while the latter required the infamous long wait.
When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, many East Germans drove their Trabants to West Berlin and abandoned them. In the early 1990s it was possible to buy a Trabant for as little as a few marks, and many were given away. Later, as they became collectors' items, prices recovered, but they remain very cheap cars.
As we were walking around Berlin in the area where there once stood a number of Third Reich-related buildings, I saw several markers that explained the history of these buildings in German and in English. It kind of surprised me that they put up these signs but even though these buildings represent a dark period in Germany’s history, they are important to remember. I relate them a little to Civil War or slavery-related sites in the U.S. which should also not be forgotten.
We next found the Ministry of Propaganda building. This was Joseph Goebbels’ propaganda headquarters designed by Albert Speer and completed in 1937. Today, it houses the Federal Office of Health and Social Security.
We walked through the ultra modern Sony Center located in the Potsdamer Platz. Since the wall came down, this area of the former East Berlin that was a vast empty wasteland has been built up into a new modern business and financial district. I remember when I was here in 2000, there were hundreds of building cranes working to reconstruct the former East Berlin. On this trip, I saw the results.
We also walked by the Reichstag building, the American Embassy (the real one, not McDonalds), the Adlon Hotel (where Michael Jackson dangled his baby out over the balcony and Florian and Anke once saw President Clinton (without a baby) on a balcony.
At the Brandenburg Gate, there were people dressed as East German police or soldiers. For a price, you could take a photo of them or have your photo taken with them with the Brandenburg Gate in the background. One guy even had a small table and it looked like he could stamp your “papers” for a fee of course.
We walked though the large Holocaust Memorial designed by American architect Peter Eisenman and opened in 2005. It consists of a 4.7 acre (19,000 sq. m) site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs or "stelae", arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. According to Eisenman's project text, the stelae are designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and the whole sculpture aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason. An attached underground "Place of Information" holds the names of all known Jewish Holocaust victims, obtained from the Israeli museum Yad Vashem.
Just a block from the Holocaust Memorial, we found the site of the Führerbunker – the underground bunker where Hitler, Ava Braun and the Goebbels family spent their last days. The nearby ruins of both the old and new Reichs Chancellery buildings were leveled by the Soviets between 1945 and 1949 but the bunker largely survived. Some areas were partially flooded. In 1947 the Soviets tried to blow up the bunker but only the separation walls were damaged. In 1959 the East German government also tried to blast the bunker, apparently without much effect. Since it was near the Berlin Wall, the site was undeveloped and neglected until after reunification.
During the construction of residential housing and other buildings on the site in 1988–89 several underground sections of the old bunker were uncovered by work crews and were for the most part destroyed. Other parts of the Chancellery underground complex were uncovered during extensive construction work in the 1990s, but these were ignored, filled in or quickly resealed. Today, the site is right near a large apartment complex and the only way to know this is the Führerbunker site is by a plaque that was put up nearby in 2006. The Führerbunker will probably never be excavated or uncovered as the German government is concerned it could turn into a Neo-Nazi shrine. That’s a good thing as Hitler definitely does not deserve a shine or memorial!
After walking for about 10 km, we got back to Florian’s car and drove around a little going by the Altes Museum, Neue Wache (New Guard) and Berliner Dom (church) and then quite a way to Humbolthain Park. Here we hiked up a steep hill to Flakturm 3, the site of long range 12.8cm anti-aircraft guns during World War II. On the way back, we drove by the new all glass Main Train Station - Europe's largest two-level station. There were a few other sites I would have liked to see but we ran out of time and I’m very thankful that Florian took me on this driving/walking tour of Berlin.
Kathy enjoyed her bus tour with Peter and Biggi. This tour was one where the bus stops at several sites and you can get on or off along the route where you like. In between, you can listen to narration on headsets. Some of the places she saw were the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate, the old Checkpoint Charlie, the Holocaust Memorial, the Sony Center, and parts of the Berlin Wall that had murals painted on them. She also went to the top of the tallest building in Berlin for a nice view.
Berlin is truly one of the great cities of Europe with a very interesting and unique history. There is so much to see including many great museums that I haven’t seen in three trips and I would like to go back again someday, especially since I have relatives there.
Our last night in Germany, we all got together for Florian’s birthday at an Italian Restaurant and the next morning, we began our long journey home. Great sights, great relatives, great weather, great food, great beer – a wunderbar trip!
Here's a slidshow (can be paused) of 214 of over 900 photos we took: Photos.
Here's a short High Defination clip of the Zugspitze and Neuschwanstein Castle: