Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
his important historical district was key in Berlin's eighteenth-century transformation
from a relative backwater to the capital of Prussia, when it became one of Europe's
biggest players. With Prussia's rise its architects were commissioned to create the
trappings of a capital city - churches, theatres, libraries, palaces and an opera house -
all on and around Unter den Linden. Safe
Baroque
and
Neoclassical
styles
predominate, and there are no great flights of architectural fancy. hese buildings
were meant to project an image of solidity, permanence and power, perhaps to allay
the latent insecurity of Prussia's relatively late arrival on the European stage.
However, almost every one of these symbols of Prussian might was left gutted by the
bombing and shelling of World War II. Paradoxically, it was the postwar communist
regime that resurrected them from the wartime rubble to adorn the capital of the
German Democratic Republic. he result was a pleasing re-creation of the old city,
though one motive behind this restoration was to give the East German state a sense
of historical continuity by tacitly linking it with Prussia.
his
restoration
was so successful that looking at these magnificent eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century buildings it's di
cult to believe that as recently as the 1960s large
patches of the centre lay in ruins. Like archeologists trying to picture a whole vase from
a single fragment, the builders took a facade, or just a small fraction of one, and set
about re-creating the whole. And even though much of what can be seen today is an
imitation, it's often easy to suspend disbelief and imagine unbroken continuity.
he rejuvenation is at its most amazing on the
Gendarmenmarkt
, a square just south
of Unter den Linden where, even in the 1980s, its twin Neoclassical churches - the
Französischer Dom
and
Deutscher Dom
- remained bombed-out shells. Also impressive
is the reconstruction of the grand buildings in and around
Bebelplatz
, which under the
noble rulers of Prussia - the Hohenzollern - became an impressive prelude to the awesome
buildings of the Spreeinsel, which included their palace and Museum Island (see p.53).
Just south of the
Reichstag
and the
Brandenburg Gate
is the
Holocaust Memorial
,
which perversely paves the way to the site of
Hitler's Bunker
- sitting within Berlin's
prewar
Regierungsviertel
or “government quarter” along
Wilhelmstrasse
- where the
Führer committed suicide. Almost nothing of Regierungsviertel survives today, but
along the road there's a small but interesting exhibition on the
Stasi
, the East German
secret police.
1
The Brandenburg Gate
U- & S-Brandenburger Tor
Heavily laden with meaning and historical association, the
Brandenburg Gate
(Brandenburger Tor) has come to mark the very centre of Berlin. Built as a city
gate-cum-triumphal arch in 1791, it was designed by Carl Gotthard Langhans and
modelled after the Propylaea, the entrance to the Acropolis in Athens. he Gate
became, like the Reichstag later, a symbol of German solidarity, looking out to the
monolithic Siegessäule, a column celebrating Prussian military victories and guarding
the city's grandest thoroughfare. In 1806 Napoleon marched under the arch and took
home with him the
Quadriga
, the horse-drawn chariot that tops the Gate. It was
returned a few years later, and the revolutionaries of 1848 and 1918 met under its
form; later the Gate was a favoured rallying point for the Nazis' torchlit marches.
After the building of the Wall placed the Gate in the Eastern sector, nearby
observation posts became the place for visiting politicians - John F. Kennedy included
(see p.79) - to look over the Iron Curtain from the West in what became a handy
photo opportunity; the view was apparently emotive enough to reduce Margaret
hatcher to tears. With the opening of a border crossing here just before Christmas
1989, the east-west axis of the city was symbolically re-created. he GDR authorities,
who rebuilt the Quadriga following wartime damage, had removed the Prussian Iron
Cross from the Goddess of Victory's laurel wreath, which topped her staff, on the
