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Berlin has been the capitol of one empire or another for centuries. As a result, it is laid out like a capitol with lots of broad avenues, plazas, and parks. As Chancellor and later, after the assumption of dictatorial power, Hitler and the National Socialists moved into the old palaces and ministerial buildings and established their terror-based rule over Germany and the conquered lands and peoples.
Berlin also has great significance in the post-war era when east and west struggled for ideological and political dominance. Bits and pieces of the Wall are in various places with more or less educational or commercial purposes. Men dressed as Soviet and American soldiers stand on a replica (?) of Checkpoint Charlie waiting to serve as the backdrop for souvenir photos, all overseen by Colonel Sanders and a huge KFC. If there were any doubt about whether Karl Marx or Adam Smith won the Cold War, the scoreboard is right there.
As the epicenter of the Third Reich, Berlin received the full force of the Allies military force and their desire to pummel the Germans into submission. Little is left of the edifice of their power. The
Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate, the creations of earlier days, are all that remain. Artifacts of their planning, the living memories of those who lived through the War, and the tools of archeology have allowed the city to memorialize or otherwise mark out the outlines of buildings and places that were central the exercise of power by the National Socialists.
Hannah and I made stops at a number of these places. As is to be expected, some left a deeper impression than others.
Outside the main building of the Humboldt University Law Faculty is the
Bebelplatz, a glass-topped vault set into the plaza containing empty bookshelves commemorating the Nazi-inspired book-burnings that took place there and elsewhere throughout Germany in -----. We nearly walked past this site. Obscured in part by construction, this memorial seems deeply insufficient to the profundity of the outrage committed on this place.
A large explanatory sign marks the location of the
Fürhrerbunker, where Hitler and his entourage spent their last days. Interesting I suppose, but not very engaging. I guess you cannot not mark the site.
A series of slabs outside the
Reichstag memorializes the parliamentary Deputies who voted against the National Socialist program in 1933 and those who otherwise opposed it and paid with their freedom and often their lives. It is a powerful memorial somewhat overshadowed, literally and figuratively, by the Reichstag itself.
In the heart of the old ministerial district, the Reich security agencies occupied a series of grand old buildings and from there shaped and controlled the administration of terror throughout the German-occupied territories. The State Security Police, the Gestapo, had their offices there and used the cells in the basement for detention and torture. Heinrich Himmler and his protégé, Reinhard Heydrich, directed the Reich Security Main Office, the RSHA, and the SS and its extensive economic activities from offices there. Adolf Eichmann eventually moved from his office in Vienna to the RSHA headquarters from which he directed the Nazi extermination program.
All of their buildings were destroyed in the Allied bombings and Soviet invasion. The site, however is preserved, the outlines or locations of old buildings are marked, and a new exhibit hall, The Topography of Terror, has been created. In it, a scale model of the old governmental district is on display. Other exhibits describe the individuals, groups, agencies, and policies that together made up the security apparatus that allowed Hitler and the National Socialist to maintain control and advance their malignant program. The biographies, activities, and rules described extend deep into the heirarchy of government and party. It was a bit mind-numbing. A source of hope was the presence of many, many groups of German school groups - no doubt being teenagers, but still showing signs of being engaged, reading, and being exposed to the darkest parts of their own history and that of the twentieth century.
Most moving for me was our walk among the pillars of the
Denkmal für die Ermordeten Juden Europas, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Occupying a plaza adjacent to the
Tiergarten, within view of
Reichstag, the Memorial comprises 2711 square pillars of varying heights set into a stone- cobbled depression, 10’ or 12’ below street level at its lowest point. Each pillar represents approximately 2200 Jewish lives taken by the Nazis and their allies in the name of racial purity. As I descended into the Memorial, the sounds of the street faded and the city disappeared from view. Placing my hand on the pillars, it was not hard to feel some of the weight of the lives, the hopes, the sadness of those who had been shot, gassed, poisoned, and immolated.
We spent some time wandering quietly among the stones. It was very powerful and good preparation for the days to come.
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brian
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Denkmal
A powerful image. It reminds me of the core of Yad Vashem in Israel, a dark hall in which the light of a single candle is reflected a million times, representing the children...