Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
service in 1941. Transmitted from the Funkturm, the weekly programme could only be
received in Berlin; the service continued until just a few months before the end of the
war. Today the Funkturm only serves police and taxi frequencies, but the mast remains
popular with Berliners for the toe-curling views from its 126m-high
observation
platform
. With the aluminium-clad monolith of the
International Congress Centre
(ICC) immediately below, it's possible to look out across deserted, overgrown S-Bahn
tracks to the gleaming city in the distance - a mesmerizing sight at night.
10
The Olympic Stadium
Daily: late March-May & mid-Sept to Oct 9am-7pm; June to mid-Sept 9am-8pm; Nov-late March 10am-4pm • €7, including the
Glockenturm; check online for details of English-language tours (1hr; €10): there's usually one at 11am, and as many as four daily in
summer •
T
030 25 00 23 22,
W
olympiastadion-berlin.de • U- & S-Olympiastadion or bus #M49 from Bahnhof Zoo, stop “Flatowallee”
Built for the 1936 Games, the
Olympic Stadium
is one of Berlin's few remaining
fascist-era buildings, and remains very much in use, and even well looked after thanks
to a major renovation for the 2006 football World Cup. Despite its history, the
building is impressive, the huge Neoclassical space a deliberate rejection of the
modernist architecture that began to be in vogue in the 1930s. Inside, its sheer size
comes as a surprise, since the seating falls away below ground level to reveal a much
deeper auditorium than you'd imagine. On the western side, where the Olympic flame
was kept and where medal winners are listed on the walls, it's easy to see how this
monumental architecture, and the massive sculptures dotting the grounds outside,
some of which still stand, could inspire the crowds. During the Olympics, Berliners
were kept up to date with commentary on the games, interspersed with stirring music,
from hundreds of loudspeakers that ran all the way from the Museum Island via Unter
den Linden and the Brandenburg Gate, through the Tiergarten and out to the stadium.
Standing here, looking back out to the city, you realize what an achievement this was.
As the home ground of Hertha BSC, Berlin's best football team, the stadium is
regularly closed for sporting events, so it's best to check online before trudging out.
Tours take you behind the scenes, to the VIP areas, locker rooms and so on; the
knowledgeable guides provide interesting anecdotes along the way and after the tour
you are free to wander around.
Glockenturm
Am Glockenturm • Daily: late March-May & mid-Sept to Oct 9am-7pm; June to mid-Sept 9am-8pm; Nov-late March 10am-4pm • €7
including the Olympic Stadium • U- & S-Olympiastadion or bus #M49 from Bahnhof Zoo, stop “Flatowallee”
Just a ten-minute walk from the Olympic Stadium, the
Glockenturm
(bell tower)
towers above the spot where Hitler would enter the stadium each morning, state
business permitting. Rebuilt after wartime damage, the building includes an exhibition
about the history of the Olympic grounds here, while its tower offers stupendous views
not only over the stadium but also north to the natural amphitheatre that forms the
Waldbühne
, an open-air concert site, and south to the Teufelsberg and the beginnings
of the Grunewald.
Teufelsberg
A massive mound topped with a faintly terrifying fairytale castle, the
Teufelsberg
(Devil's Mountain) used to be a US signals and radar base, built to listen in to eastern
bloc radio signals. No longer needed, it's scheduled to be dismantled - though no one
seems in a hurry. he mountain itself is artificial: at the end of the war, the mass of
debris that was once Berlin was carted to several sites around the city, most of the work
being carried out by women known as
Trümmerfrauen
- “rubble women”. Beneath the
poplars, maples and ski runs lies the old Berlin, about 25 million cubic metres of it,
perhaps awaiting the attention of some future archeologist. In the meantime, it's
popular as a place for kite flying, and, in winter, skiing and tobogganing.
FROM TOP
ALLIERTEN
MUSEUM
P.162
; SCHLOSS CHARLOTTENBURG
P.153
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