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Published: July 19th 2013
So today I saw twin brothers, lets call them 14ish, dressed exactly the same. Parents of twin boys, I urge you, after the age of 4, unless they are on the same sports team, or attending a black-tie event, your sons should not be wearing identical clothing.
So today I took another Fat Tire Special Bike Tour. This Special Tour focused on the Cold War, the epicenter of which was Berlin.
We learned about the division of the city after the war. We discussed the Berlin Airlift, and how the East German Secret Police (many of whom were recruited because of their days in the Gestapo) kept a population in fear for 4 decades. We also talked about how East Germany generally, and East Berlin specifically, fell behind the west during the Cold War.
We visited a Cemetery for Soviet War Dead (the Soviet equivalent of the American Cemeteries at Normandy and Punchbowl ). It is a mass grave for tens of thousands of Red Army soldiers who died in the street-to-street fighting during the Battle for Berlin. I believe that sometimes we in the west, who grew up during the Cold War, with the Soviets as villains, forget the tremendous human sacrifice the Soviet Union made during the war, losing somewhere in the range of 33 million citizens. This does not excuse the Soviet Union's oppression of its own people and the people of Eastern Europe, but it is worth noting, and honoring the very real sacrifices they made.
The primary focus of the bike tour was, unsurprisingly, the Berlin Wall.
Part of the Wall has been retained as a monument, but the vast majority has been torn down. The thing I found really interesting was that the Berlin Wall was actually two walls, an inner wall ... and, wait for it ... an outer wall. The outer wall is what we see in all the photos, a tall concrete wall, covered in graffiti that actually bordered the west. The inner wall was the interior East German Boarder, and was located approximately 160 yards from the outer wall. This 160 yard "non-man's land" was known as the death strip. It contained guard towers, barbed wire and other booby-traps, and was patrolled by armed guards and guard dogs. Any unauthorized person entering the death strip was arrested, or more likely killed.
You know what was left when the Wall fell? A 160 foot by 135 mile long area of prime, undeveloped real estate!
It is actually quite cool, to watch the development. You can literally follow the line of the Wall by following the narrow strip of hip new buildings that have been constructed in the last 20 years.
First of all, when the Wall fell, Berlin again became the capital of Germany. Accordingly, the entire world moved their embassies from Bonn to Berlin. All of the shiny new embassies were built right next to each other in the death strip, on either side of Brandenburg Gate.
From Potsdamer Platz it goes something like this ... Canadian Embassy, Holocaust Memorial (see previous blog) British Embassy, US Embassy, Brandenburg Gate, French Embassy, Japanese Embassy, Swiss Embassy, Saudi Embassy ... right down the line. If there was ever an emergency, and they needed to get all the ambassadors together, they could all just meet out on the sidewalk.
As a side note, the Russian Embassy is not in the strip. The Russians took over a HUGE complex of buildings near AlexanderPlatz, built and used by the Soviets as a base from which they oppressed the people of East Europe.
There is also a huge new commercial area in the death strip called Potsdamer Platz. The sense I have is that large German companies were strongly encouraged to establish a presence in un-divided Berlin, because the headquarters of Mercades, Bayer, BMW, DuetchBank and DuetchBahn (national rail system) are all right next to each other in Potsdamer Platz, as are many restaurants, clubs and world class hotels.
So in addition to a very informative bike ride, I also had a wonderful surprise on the Cold War Tour.
We stopped for lunch at what can only be described as a "hole-in-the-wall Turkish joint." The food was excellent and prepared before our eyes.
When I got my food, I joined some of my fellow cyclists at a picnic table outside. We got to talking and I said I was from Madison, Wisconsin. This very nice woman from Indiana named Beth indicated that the only person she knows is Madison, is her college roommate "Maribeth Gettinger."
Most of you know, but for those that do not, Maribeth Gettinger (a/k/a Maribeth Brown) is the matriarch of the Brown Family (or House Mother of the Brown Frat House, depending on how you look at it) and is among my best friends in the world.
Beth, her husband Ace, and I immediately took a picture (see below) and texted it to Maribeth.
And then, of course, we stated to share our respective Maribeth stories.
My stories were, of course, focused on Maribeth's wonderful family, her successful career, and all of our adventure travel, including Maribeth's climb of a 200 foot cliff at Mooney Falls, among the bravest things I have ever witnessed.
Beth said that the Maribeth I was describing was different from the Maribeth she knew. She reminded me that she knew Maribeth during her college years. Beth the proceeded to regale me with a series of tales so shocking that ... well ... I don't even like to think about them!
I also had a long conversation, over good beer, with Beth's husband Ace, a skilled mountain climber, who has summited 3 of the 7 summits. As many of you know, we are going on a trek in the Everest Region, Nepal in the fall of 2014. In exchange for some cold beer, Ace shared with me his thoughts on the expedition and gave me the names of some outfitters to contact. It was a very worth while conversation.
A couple of thoughts before I go:
I forgot to mention, that upon my arrival in Berlin, as I stepped of the Ice Train and into the the first or second largest train station in Europe, the first words uttered to me were by a young female backpacker, who spotted my St. Louis Women's Basketball tee and announced "Hey, I go to St. Louis." We chatted a bit, and she promised to come to a game next year.
A prime example of Nazi Architecture is Albert Speer's masterpiece headquarters for the Nazi Air Force (it was subsequently used by the East German Secret Police). It survived the war. Is it wrong that I think it is a super cool looking building?
Keep the comments coming.
Ok, I will catch up with you from Poland.
One final note. I am having trouble uploading photos for today's blog. I do not know why. I think some pics may come up with the text, but I have not been able to add captions. I am going to go ahead a publish this blog and we will see what happens with the photos.
JJF
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Tot: 0.038s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 9; qc: 22; dbt: 0.0204s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
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Tom Shorter
non-member comment
Something I know and something I learned...
So, I knew about the twins clothing limit (for girls it is 6)...the rest was new to me. Sounds like dining in the Death Strip is the thing to do in Berlin. Get the photos up.