Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
BERLIN ON BERLIN
Remarkably, Berlin doesn't really have one single great
museum
all about its own history. But
maybe this isn't even desirable, since the process of exploring its scattered single-perspective
museums is so rewarding and revealing.
With little or no background knowledge of the city, the obvious place to start is the flashy
but relatively superficial
Story of Berlin
(see p.112). Another good starting point is the more
formal, less Berlin-centric approach of the
Deutsches Historisches Museum
(see p.46).
Undoubtedly Berlin's most fascinating epoch began with the industrial revolution and the
best places to get a feel for this are two nineteenth-century apartments: Zimmermeister
Brunzel's
Mietshaus
(see p.135) and
Museum Pankow
(see p.140). For a more art-centric
perspective, the
Zille Museum
(see p.67) shows industrial Berlin portrayed by its most famous
cartoonist, and the
Berlinische Galerie
(see p.119) gathers together local art for a revealing
insight into the early twentieth-century city. The
Filmmuseum
(see p.92) is most fascinating
for its coverage of the same era.
The Nazi era effectively destroyed much of all this, and several collections provide insights
into the regime. Foremost among them is the
Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp
Memorial
(see p.174) and the
Wannsee Villa
(see p.163), where the Jewish Holocaust was
planned; both lie on the edge of Berlin. In the centre you can complete the picture with the
Topography of Terror
exhibition on Nazi terror apparatus (see p.121), the
German Resistance
museum
(see p.98), the
Holocaust Memorial
(see p.38), and the
Blindenwerkstatt
(see p.74),
a brushmaker's workshop where a Jewish family went into hiding. The best insights into the war
in Berlin itself are provided by the
bunker tours
of Berliner Unterwelten (see p.87).
Essential to Berlin's Cold War chapter is the last remaining complete section of the Berlin Wall
at the
Berlin Wall Memorial
(see p.86); the
Tränenpalast
(see p.84), the city's main former
border crossing; the former GDR secret police headquarters at
Normanenstrasse
(see p.143)
and the eerily well-preserved Stasi prison
Hohenschönhausen
(see p.143). For an overview of
all this and reminders of the GDR's better sides, visit the
DDR Museum
(see p.64), while to see
it all from the West's point of view visit the
Allied Museum
(see p.162) or the
Kennedy
Museum
(see p.79).
As Berlin busies itself with closing previous chapters of its history, it still awaits a single
museum to properly record the post-reunification era. Until such a place exists, the story is all
around; talking a
walking tour
(see p.25) should reveal much.
of years until the GDR decided to use border controls as a lever for winning
diplomatic
recognition
(which the Federal Republic and its Western allies refused to give). Access to
West Berlin via routes through GDR territory was subject to o
cial hindrance; on one
occasion, deputies were prevented from attending a plenary session of the Bundestag,
held in West Berlin in 1965. New and more stringent
passport and visa controls
were
levied on all travellers from June 1968 onwards.
As the direct threat to its existence receded, West Berlin society began to fragment along
generational lines. Partly because Berlin residents could legally evade West German
conscription, young people formed an unusually high proportion of the population -
many gravitating towards squats and cheap digs in Kreuzberg. he immediate catalyst
was the 1967-68 wave of
student unrest
, when grievances over unreformed, badly run
universities soon spread to embrace wider disaffection with West Germany's materialistic
culture. As in West Germany, the APO, or
extra-parliamentary opposition
, emerged as a
strong and vocal force in West Berlin, criticizing what many people saw as a failed
1982
1987
US President Ronald Reagan visits Berlin
for the first time.
During his second Berlin visit, Reagan makes a speech
in front of the Brandenburg Gate, demanding Mr
Gorbachev “tear down this Wall!”
