Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1
THE REICHSTAG IN HISTORY
The Reichstag was built in 1894 to house a sham parliament answerable only to the Kaiser,
but in November 1918, Philipp Scheidemann declared the founding of the German Republic
from a window here, paving the way for the Weimar Republic, which lasted just fourteen
years before the Nazis claimed power. Their coup came partly as a result of a fire in the
Reichstag in 1933, seen across the world in flickering newsreels, which gave the Nazis an
excuse to introduce an emergency decree suspending civil rights and effectively instigating a
dictatorship. Debate as to who actually started the fire began immediately and continues to
this day. In a show trial, an itinerant ex-communist Dutch bricklayer,
Marius van der Lubbe
,
was successfully charged with arson and executed the following year, but it's more likely that
the Nazis began the fire themselves. Equally famously, the Reichstag became a symbol of the
Allied victory at the end of World War II, when soldiers raised the Soviet flag on its roof - even
though heavy fighting still raged below. The building was left in tatters by the conflict, and
only in 1971 was its reconstruction completed to house a museum of its own and Germany's
history, but in 1990 the government of a reunified Germany decided to move its parliament
back, though that didn't happen until April 19, 1999 - once all its interiors had been
refashioned and a new
cupola
set atop the building. This ended up being more than just a
stunning new refurbishment - it became part of a huge drive to improve energy e
ciency.
The Reichstag is the most energy-e
cient parliament building in the world - all energy
comes from renewables - meaning that the building has made history once again.
Having explored the inside of the Reichstag, wander around the outside of the
building and try to spot the scores of patched bullet holes around some of its windows,
dating from the last days of the Battle of Berlin. At the back of the building, beside the
River Spree and the nearest corner of the Tiergarten, there is also a poignant series of
plaques
and
crosses
with the names (where known) of those who died attempting to
swim or climb the East German border here.
The Holocaust Memorial
Memorial
24hr; tours in English Sat 3pm • Free; tours €3
Information centre
Tues-Sun: April-Sept 10am-8pm, last admission
7.15pm; Oct-March 10am-7pm, last admission 6.15pm • Free; audio tours €4 •
T
030 26 39 43 36,
W
holocaustmahnmal.de •
U-Brandenburger Tor
he block of land immediately south of the Brandenburg Gate and Pariser Platz is
o
cially dedicated to the National Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.
Generally known as the
Holocaust Memorial
, it was unveiled in 2006 after almost
seventeen years of planning and controversy (see box, p.39), and six years of designing
and building. he monument is the work of New York architect Peter Eisenman, who
took inspiration from the densely clustered gravestones of Prague's Jewish graveyard. It
involves 2711 dark grey oblong pillars of varying heights evenly and tightly spaced over
the entire site - which is about the size of three football pitches. As there is no single
entrance, visitors make their own way through the maze to the centre where the blocks
are well above head height, tending to convey a sense of gloom, isolation and solitude,
even though Eisenman insists he has created a “place of hope”. At night, 180 lights
illuminate the space, creating a sombre yet stunning spectacle.
he underground
information centre
,
in the southeast corner of the monument, relates
the life stories and plight of some Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Carefully researched
and expertly presented, the small exhibition outlines the overall history of the Nazi
hounding and extermination of Jews before moving on to the personal stories that lurk
behind the monstrous statistics. Among them are notes left by those on their way to
their death - including some thrown from the cattle wagons as they were transported to
death camps. he
audio tour
is largely unnecessary, but does help flesh things out a little
and acts as a donation to the foundation that built and runs the memorial, whose
spiralling costs - the final tab was €27.6m - have landed it in some financial trouble.
