- Briefly about Western Berlin
- Tiergarten
- Siegessäule
- Kurfürstendamm
- Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church
- Charlottenburg Palace
- Potsdam
- Sanssouci Palace
- Spandau
- The Citadel
- Berlin Olympic Stadium
- Sachsenhausen
Briefly about Western Berlin
After World War II, Berlin was divided between the victorious powers, with the Soviets managing the eastern part while France, Great Britain and the United States managed the western part. During the night of 13 August 1961, there was a physical division when West Berlin was surrounded by barbed wire along the more than 150 km long border with East Germany. After that, the east side built the infamous Berlin Wall and the city’s inhabitants were forced to live separately until November 9, 1989. At that time, a people was reunited, who had not been able to decide over their lives since the early 1930s. Here we’ll visit sightseeings that are located west of Berlin Mitte. There we’ll find Tiergarten and Charlottenburg with Ku’Damm, which is the exclusive part of Berlin, and which continues all the way to the Charlottenburg Palace. A little further west is Potsdam with the Sanssouci Palace and Spandau with the Citadel. Three monuments that remain after World War II are the ruin of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (Gedächtniskirche), the 1936 Summer Olympic Stadium and the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Tiergarten
Tiergarten (Animal Garden) is known from the early 16th century as a royal hunting ground and didn’t become a park available to all Berliners until the end of the 19th century. In the Tiergarten there’re hiking trails, memorials, statues and next to the park there’s also the Berlin Zoo and Aquarium, but above all, the park is a green oasis in the big city. The main avenue, Straße des 17 Juni, honors the memory of an uprising on 17 June 1953 against Soviet supremacy after Stalin’s death, and at the avenue there’s also a memorial site for fallen Soviet soldiers. At the avenue there’s also Der Große Stern (The Big Star), actually a square but in practice a roundabout shaped like a big star, and in the middle is the Victory Monument Siegesäule.
Siegessäule
In the middle of the roundabout Der Große Stern is the Siegessäule, the victory column that is a memorial of Prussia’s victory in the war against Denmark in 1864. Paintings inside the Siegessäule are reminiscent of ancient days and cannon tubes, which had been captured from the enemy, were gilded and set up as victory decorations on the outside of the column. After war victories that led to the unification of Germany in 1871, the golden statue of Victoria was also erected at the top of the column. It’s worth all the steps to walk on the inside of the column to the platform under the statue where you get to enjoy the view over the Tiergarten and all the way to Alexanderplatz. Remember to come here when it’s dark and watch when the gilded column is lit.
Kurfürstendamm (Ku’damm)
In the 16th century, the Kurfürstendamm was a riding trail for the Electors to their hunting grounds, while today it’s a long shopping and business avenue. From the Zoologischer Garten it’s close to the Kurfürstendamm or Ku’Damm as it’s popularly called. At Breitscheidplatz, one of Berlin’s many popular Christmas markets is organized every year. On December 19, 2016, the Christmas market was hit by an act of terrorism. The memory of the victims is honored, while the coward who performed the act deserves nothing more than to be forgotten. The Savignyplatz S-bahn station is worth a visit for its quaint wall decorations. Dicke Wirtin has been a favourite local but small restaurant in the area around Ku’Damm that we use to visit when we’re in the city.
Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (Gedächtniskirche)
At Breitscheidplatz was Kaiser Wilhelm’s Memorial Church (Gedächtniskirche) which was completed in 1895 but under an Allied bombing raid in 1943 the divinely beautiful church was destroyed. The stately church tower was 113 meters high and the ruin remains as a memory of the horrors of war and is now called “The Hollow Tooth”. What’s left of the old church has been renovated and they’ve also managed to preserve the old roof mosaic. Next to the war damaged ruin, a new octagonal church with an octagonal church tower has been built. Both buildings have been given a glass facade that gives a divine blue shimmering light both from the inside and on the outside.
Charlottenburg Palace
A few kilometers north of Ku’damm is Charlottenburg Palace, which was completed in the early 18th century. The castle was an imperial residence until 1888, but nowadays everyone can enjoy the beauty of the park and the interior of the palace. Charlottenburg Palace is a pleasant excursion if you want to get away from the noise of the city and enjoy some open spaces. Nearby we found a nice small pub, or kneipe, called just Kleine Kneipe (Small pub).
Potsdam
Potsdam is 25 km from the center of Berlin and has been the residence of the Kings of Prussia and the Emperor of Germany. The Brandenburg Gate in Potsdam dates from 1770 and was an entrance through the wall that then surrounded the city. Potsdam Day, Tag von Potsdam, in March 1933 was the beginning of what led to Hitler taking over as totalitarian chancellor in Germany. The Allied victorious forces countered after the end of the war in 1945 by reconciling the administration of defeated Germany at the Potsdam Conference. Today, Potsdam is the capital of the state of Brandenburg and the river Havel flows through the city. The Brandenburg Gate and St Nicholas’ Church are magnificent central symbols of Potsdam.
Sanssouci Palace
Next to Potsdam is the castle Sanssouci, which King Frederick the Great of Prussia built as his summer residence. Originally it was intended as a winyard, but King Fredrik changed his mind and had the beautiful castle and the equally picturesque castle park built instead. “When I’m there, I’ll be carefree,” Fredrik the Great said of “Sans Souci,” which means “no worries.” You’ll have the carefree feeling when you walk along the castle and through the park. The East German government sought to include Sanssouci and the castle park on the UNESCO World Heritage List. This was not achieved until 1990, or two months after the reunification of Germany. Then it became, together with several other castles and parks that coherently extend from Potsdam along the Havel to the northeast to park areas that were in what was then West Berlin.
Spandau
Around a fortress on an island in the river Havel, the village of Spandau grew up before the 11th century and the fortress was expanded to become the Zitadelle Spandau in the late 16th century. After King Gustav II Adolf’s death in the fog of Lützen on November 6, 1632, his body was send home during 19 months and came to Spandau in December, and then on to the funeral in Stockholm on June 22, 1634. At the train station in Spandau you see the town hall and behind that building is Spandau’s old town. Another famous building was the Spandau Prison, which was demolished when Rudolf Hess, the last Nazi imprisoned there, died in 1987.
The Citadel
Zitadelle Spandau is the official name and the fortress was built by bringing together a few islands at the entrance to the current Spandau. The Citadel housed Germany’s War Fund, which France had to pay after the war in 1871, but which Germany was forced to return as part of the war reparations after the Treaty of Versailles. A gas laboratory was established in 1935 in the Citadel, where developed chemical weapons, such as nerve gases, with both animal and human experiments. The castle avoided serious damage at the end of the war as the defending Germans chose to capitulate to the advancing Red Army. Nowadays, the castle is a museum, a tourist attraction and a concert arena, so why not visit when your idol is here?
Berlin Olympic Stadium
At the Deutsche Stadion, an open arena that was completed in 1913, the 1916 Summer Olympics were to be held, but had to be canceled because of the ongoing First World War. When Berlin instead would host the 1936 Olympics, the Nazis had taken power. They decided that the stadium would be demolished and instead had this gigantic arena built in antique style. For propaganda purposes, the Nazis made sure that the 1936 Summer Olympics became the first in which the Olympic flame was carried from Olympia in Greece to the Olympic city. The Olympic bell struck ominously about the dark clouds that would come over Europe and the rest of the world a few years later. Today, the stadium is home to the football team Hertha Berlin SC and a wonderful concert arena. It’s also a tourist attraction that is well worth a visit when you can walk around the facility.
Sachsenhausen
In Oranienburg, north of Berlin, there’s what remains of the concentration camp in Sachsenhausen, which the Nazis opened in 1936. The camp was built in a triangular shape and was intended for 10,000 prisoners, but at most there were about 50,000 prisoners. By the end of the war, more than 200,000 prisoners had been detained here, about half of whom died there. Many of the prisoners were forced to perform work for the German war industry in a nearby industrial area and to counterfeit foreign banknotes. Human experiments were also carried out in Sachsenhausen to come up with new execution methods to be used in the concentration camps.
The entrance for today’s visitors is just a way into the area compared to the scary entrance it was for the prisoners of that time. Along the wall ran a gravel path called the “neutral zone” but whoever stepped on the gravel was shot. The memorial obelisk in the middle of the open lawn has 18 triangles that represent the 18 nationalities that were imprisoned here. Polish names are engraved on the horizontal cross in memory of murdered Poles and a wooden work of art is in memory of those murdered from Luxembourg. More than 10,000 Soviet prisoners of war were executed in 10 days in Sachsenhausen, and a memorial is erected for all the victims.
In April 1945, more than 30,000 prisoners were forced to start a death march when the Nazis tried to destroy the traces of their deeds against humanity. On April 22, 1945, about 3,000 prisoners who had been too weak for the death march were liberated by Polish troops. After the end of the war, the Soviets continued to run the concentration camp and 12,000 of the 60,000 prisoners died until 1950. Today, the area is a memorial and museum, which is worth a visit despite its dark history.
