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Germany: East Berlin

Today Ana, Alenka, Nada, Tilen and me decided to explore the East Berlin, starting in Alexanderplatz and moving through Brandenburger Tor, where we checked the outside of the modern Bundestag, already in West Berlin. Soon we moved back to the East where we checked the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Checkpoint Charlie and Berlin Wall.

 

Urania World Clock, where you can see the current time in 148 major cities in the world and the Fernsehturm, with its height of 368 metres (including antenna), the tallest structure in Germany. Both are located on Alexanderplatz.

Marienkirche - St. Mary's Church was first mentioned in German chronicles in 1292. The church was originally a Roman Catholic church, but has been a Lutheran Protestant church since the Protestant Reformation and a united Protestant church since the Prussian Union of churches in 1817.

Marienkirche and Fernsehturm

 

The oldest parts of the church are made from granite, but most of it is built of brick, giving it its characteristic bright red appearance. Outside we can see the statue of Martin Luther.

Heiligegeistkirchplatz

Berliner Dom - Berlin Cathedral is located on Museum Island

 

We crossed the river Spree over Friedrichs Bridge to Museum Island. The Alte Nationalgalerie was one of the first museums we spotted on the island.

The Altes Museum was built between 1823 and 1830 by the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel in the neoclassical style to house the Prussian royal family's art collection.

The history of today's Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church and its community dates back to 1451.

Old Royal Library on Bebelplatz, now 

The Bebelplatz is known as the site of one of the infamous Nazi book burning ceremonies held in the evening of 10 May 1933 in many German university cities. They burned around 20,000 books, including works by Heinrich Mann, Erich Maria Remarque, Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx, Albert Einstein and many other authors. Today a memorial by Micha Ullman called The Empty Library, consisting of a glass plate set into the cobbles, giving a view of empty bookcases (large enough to hold the total of the 20,000 burnt books), commemorates the book burning.

Sankt-Hedwigs-Kathedrale - St. Hedwig's Cathedral is the seat of the Archbishop of Berlin.

The Brandenburg Gate is an 18th-century neoclassical monument, built on the orders of Prussian king Frederick William II after the (temporarily) successful restoration of order during the early Batavian Revolution.

Tuši, Nada and Ana at the Brandenburger Tor.

In 1916 the iconic words Dem Deutschen Volke were placed above the main façade of the Reichstag building.

 

Past Memorial to Heinz Sokolowski, a German man who became the sixty-fourth known person to die at the Berlin Wall, we returned back to the East side.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, also known as the Holocaust Memorial, consists of a 19,000 m2 site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs or "stelae", arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. The stelae are 2.38 m long, 0.95 m wide and vary in height from 0.2 to 4.7 m.

Bethlehemkirchplatz with Memoria Urbana Berlin, originally planned as a temporary installation.

Checkpoint Charlie, a symbol of the Cold War, representing the separation of East and West. It was also a stand-off pont between Soviet and U.S. tanks in October 1961, also called Berlin Crisis of 1961.

 

No passports needed this time

 

Remains of the Berlin Wall and exit from the Checkpoint Charlie Museum

 

The Berlin Wall was constructed in 1961 to separate West Berlin and East Berlin during the Cold War. All the differences between the countries made it a perfect place for people to express their opinions, especially on their preferences and dislikes. In the 1980s, the wall was reconstructed and made 14 feet tall. Graffiting on the wall became popular for artists from all over the world and a place where tourists would go and admire the artwork. The West Berlin side of the wall had artwork completely covering the wall, while the East Berlin side was kept blank because people were not permitted to get close enough to the eastside of the wall to paint anything.

My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love between Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker

 

From authors and Alexey Taranin and Rosemarie Schinzler

 

Tuši and Nada @ East Side Gallery, consisting of consists of 105 paintings

 

With Trabant through the wall

  

155 km wall finally fell on 3 October 1990.

Ana and Nada went back home, while I decided to pick up some geocaches.

Berlin Tempelhof Airport - The Abandoned 1920s Iconic Berlin Airport is Now the City’s Largest Park

 

Selfie on the runway and Apostle Paul's Church in Schöneberg

GeoCaches found:
- Der Telespargel, GC37RRG
- Mahnmal Versunkene Bibliothek, Virtual, GC7B7JM
- Virtual Reward - Brandenburger Tor, Virtual, GC7B91A
- Historic Words, Virtual, GC9A6E
- Eastside Gallery, Virtual, GC7B6YM
- Tempelhofer Feld #11, GC77GVM
- Die Eisenbahn auf dem Tempelhofer Feld, GC2B5WA
- Tempelhofer Feld #12, GC77J3M
- Tempelhofer Feld #13, GC77JMK
- Incineration Plant, GC3KE6F
- Tempelhofer Feld #16, GC77NBQ
- Tempelhofer Feld #17, GC77NCX
- Die Stadtwohnung vom kleinen Maulwurf, GC5G1C7
- Tempelhofer Feld #1, GC78B7P
- Tempelhof - the X marks the spot, Virtual, GC7B7KM
- Tempelhofer Feld #2, GC78K2Q
- Tempelhofer Feld #5, GC78KR7
- Tempelhofer Feld #6, GC78KR8
- Tempelhofer Feld #7, GC7PEDT
- Tempelhofer Feld #8, GC7PEDC
- Tempelhofer Feld #10, GC7CP0V