Checkpoint Charlie

You all should know by now that I’m a total history geek, so I was pretty excited to visit Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin.  Unfortunately, it’s totally turned into a tourist trap, so we took a few pictures and quickly moved on.

Checkpoint Charlie was the best-known crossing point between East and West Berlin during the Cold War.  According to Wikipedia:  “It was a crossing point in the Berlin Wall located at the junction of Friedrichstraße with Zimmerstraße and Mauerstraße, (which for older,  historical reasons coincidentally means ‘Wall Street’).”

Just for a frame of reference, this is what the place looked like in 1977:

 

Checkpoint Charlie from the American sector in 1977: Image from Wikipedia.

 

There was a simple wooden shed with patrol officers on foot.  Along the pavement on the right side you can see the iconic “You Are Now Leaving the American Sector” sign.  In the distance, you can just make out the watchtower and the wall.  Interestingly, the West did not consider this to be an international border crossing, and there were few formalities for westerners here. On the other side however, the East heavily fortified the crossing, with the wall, a two-storey watchtower, zig zag barriers, and a shed for checking cars for stowaways.  I think it’s interesting to note that the East Germans were very concerned with people LEAVING, whereas almost all border control today is concerned with people ENTERING.  It puts an interesting spin on travel, doesn’t it?

Now look at what Checkpoint Charlie looks like today:

 

Checkpoint Charlie in December 2010. Image courtesy of me.

 

You can still see the small shed, although here they’ve placed an earlier and smaller version that was replaced in the 70s with the larger metal shed in the above photo. You still see the flag pole, but behind it you see a giant photo of a Russian soldier.  From the other side you see an American soldier. I guess it’s supposed to show you what you would have seen back then?  I don’t know. It seems pretty silly.  The most offensive thing about it was the stores in the background. Yes, that is an Einstein Coffee house.  And check this out:

 

Argh! Is that a McDonald's I see?

 

Yes, indeed. It’s actually a McDonald’s.  So you can have your McMuffin and contemplate the Cold War at the same time. How sad is that?  I mean,  I support globalization and all, but you’ve got to be kidding me. This is just offensive.

 

NOT a real soldier. Just some guy in a costume looking for a tip.

 

This was an interesting phenomena that I’ve never encountered before, but I’ve just discovered that it’s quite common at sights of historical military interest:  guys dressed up in uniform for the photo op.  That’s right. This is not a real soldier.  He’s just a guy wearing (probably incorrect) uniform, and he’ll gladly pose with you for pictures for a tip of a few Euros.  There were Americans, Russians, and Germans in uniform also, so you could get pictures with the whole crowd.  One other thing we saw, but didn’t get a picture of, were the “passport stamping” booths.  Some enterprising individual has made stamps identical (or so they say) to the original country stamps of East Germany and the Soviet Union, and for 10 Euros they will stamp your passport with them.  Alex and I were highly skeptical of this, until we saw a number of people handing over their documents for a tourist souvenir. I would be okay with it if they were stamping fake passports, but I think it’s a real and official document!  Don’t go messing around with that!

 

Alex in front of one of the original pieces of the wall.

 

This post is making me sound a bit sceptical, isn’t it? One of the saddest things I saw in Berlin were the many, many, MANY pieces of the Berlin Wall that are for sale.  I’m quite serious when I say that if all these pieces were put together, then the Berlin Wall must have stretched to the moon and back, because there are WAY too many pieces floating around out there.  Every single store had them in spades!  Some of them even come with Certificates of Authenticity!  But I want to know WHO authenticated them?  Because otherwise I just don’t buy it.  But anyway,  this is a picture of Alex standing in front of the Checkpoint Charlie Museum (which we didn’t go into), with one of the surviving, “authentic” sections of the Wall. I kind of believe this one, just because it’s still whole.  It’s all the little pieces that I doubt (also — all the little pieces are ALL spray painted, and I don’t believe that the wall had that much surface material. SOME of the pieces would be interior, and therefore lacking color, don’t you think?)

Argh! Sorry!  Off on a tangent again.

 

Some nice person scraped away the snow so we could see the plaque.

 

Apparently on the ground, streets, and sidewalks throughout Berlin you can see a bronze plaque or stone line showing the original location of the Wall. Unfortunately there was too much snow on the ground, so we ended up guessing a lot of the time.  In this instance, some nice person scraped away the snow so we could see the plaque.

 

The obligatory pic.

The usual place to take this pic is from the other side, where it says “YOU ARE NOW LEAVING THE AMERICAN SECTOR” — but it was too crowded to get Alex in the frame as well, so we went to the other side. I think it’s funny that they ask you to obey the traffic rules, because that is clearly very important!

 

Impressions of Berlin

While we’ve got a ton of photos and separate posts of specific places in Berlin, I want to start with an overall impressionist piece!  One of the primary reasons I like to visit cities (apart from the transport, of course), is to get a feel for different places – the architecture, the layout, the people, and so forth. 

As always, let me start with a few factoids.  Berlin has about 3.4 million people in the city proper and 5 million in the metropolitan area – making it smaller than most of the major European capitals of London (12-14m), Paris (10-11m), and Madrid (6m) for example.  If you are comparing to the US, Berlin city proper would be the third (behind NY and LA, a bit ahead of Chicago), but only 12th when comparing metropolitan areas after Detroit (can you name the top 10 in the US, in order?).  In terms of people, you might be interested to know that Berlin is the largest Turkish settlement outside of Turkey, with over 250,000 Turks, and also has large numbers of Polish and Russian people. 

So, with those bits out of the way, the first thing to say about Berlin relates to age – it is practically new!  This is true on multiple levels.  First, although settlement can be traced back to 1192, it didn’t really become a European capital until the late 1800s, when it was established as the capital of the new German Empire.  Second, the devastation of the city in the World Wars of the 20th Century (1945 especially) destroyed a lot.  Third, and most importantly (at least in delivering the present situation), the divisions of the Cold War, including the occupation zones/sectors and the Berlin Wall,  led to both the destruction of older buildings that did survive the war (due to the desire to move on in separate ways in the West and East), a lag in modernization (especially in former East Berlin), and ultimately to a bubble of new development in the years since reunification (which actually occurred almost a year after the fall of the wall, with the capital of the new Germany not really moving to Berlin until 1999). 

My point is, especially compared with the rest of Europe, Berlin feels like a very new place.  This applies to the buildings, of course, in that there are really no super-old buildings like you get in most other major European capitals.  As an example, the Berlin Cathedral (Berliner Dom) dates from 1905, while St. Paul’s Cathedral in London dates from the late 1600s and Notre Dame in Paris was finished in 1345.  The buildings surrounding the Brandenburg Gate and the adjacent Pariser Platz, which is something of the heart of the city, are mostly from the last ten years.  The newness also manifests itself in the streets; unlike the small, winding streets of many European cities, Berlin is a city of wide and straight boulevards, clearly designed in a more modern age and for more modern vehicles.  Finally, the people also have a bit of newness; not only is the population generally quite young, but like London there are a lot of immigrants, and perhaps the current situation (and prosperity) is still quite new to those from the former East Berlin. 

Berlin reminds me of a mixture of Paris and Washington DC, largely because of the look and feel of the wide boulevards and relatively low buildings.  Of course, Paris is no surprise, given the proximity and the various entanglements with the French during the 1800s, and the timing – much of that grand look of Paris was created in the mid-1800s by the planner Baron Haussmann under the directive of Napoleon III.  I mean, the main square by the Brandenburg Gate is called Pariser Platz (Paris Square)! 

This is the Kurfurstendamm, but it was reminiscent of the Champs-Elysees in Paris - broad tree-lined boulevard with wide sidewalks and fancy shops.

Since Washington was planned by Frenchman Pierre L’Enfant in the 1790s, it makes sense that there are also similarities.  Interestingly, the population density of Washington DC and Berlin are almost identical (at just shy of 10,000 people per square mile), and the proportion of park land is close to the same as well.  Actually, the climates aren’t too different either; Berlin is about 5-10 degrees (F) cooler on average, with somewhat less rain, but the general climate profile is quite similar.

This is Unter den Linden, with the Brandenburg Gate straight ahead, but can’t you see it being in Washington DC?

Overall, the city is pretty poly-centric, meaning that there isn’t a single clear downtown, but a variety of small centers: Brandenburg Gate/Pariser Platz, Potsdamer Platz, Alexanderplatz, Museum Insel, the Kufurstendamm, etc.  Partly this is because of the Cold War divide, where both sides had to develop their own centers, but also a result of geography; the whole area is flat, with no big bodies of water, therefore encouraging things to spread out a bit more.  The River Spree flows through the city quite nicely, especially around the Reichstag and Museum Island, but it is quite small and doesn’t serve as a centerpiece (and, therefore, not in any way an impediment to travel). 

Berlin also has a wilder side; there’s a lot of graffiti, and a youthful energy to be found.  Riding through some neighborhoods on trams at night, I saw a healthy number of bars and cafes.  The cultural mix is definitely in keeping with other world melting-pot cities like New York or London.  Let me close with one last impression, about the people, although this was probably influenced at least partially by the weather.  Overall, I found people to be somewhat stoic – not much expression, no one really laughing or the like.  Going to a pub (or biergarten), this improved a bit, but nothing like the rowdy British (which was a refreshing change!).  For example, in simple circumstances where I would typically give a smile or a chuckle, I got stone faces from Berliners.  

 

In summary, I liked Berlin a lot, and would like to go back when it is warm and snow-free to see what the atmosphere is like then, and what the ground looks like! 

The Ku’Damm

 

This picture was taken from the bus.

The Kurfürstendamm, located in the former West  Sector of Berlin, is one of the most famous avenues in Germany. Full of shops and restaurants, the street reminded both Alex and I of the Champs-Élysées in Paris, only it was not quite as wide.  Known to the locals as the Ku’Damm, the street takes its name from the Kurfürsten (Electors) of Brandenburg.

Decorated with lights, the trees sparkle in the snow.

The Ku’Damm was originally built as a corduroy road, which means it was built with logs placed perpendicularly to the direction of travel over a swampy area. (Wikipedia claims that this is a major improvement over a muddy road, but is a hazard to horses.)  The Ku’Damm passes through the rich neighborhood of Charlottenburg, and many of the mansions that flank the street date from the turn of the century.

Looking down the Ku'Damm.

In the 1920s the area around the Ku’Damm was known as the “New West” and was a centre of art and nightlife. That all ended in 1933, and the street suffered greatly from air raids during the war and the Battle of Berlin.  After the war, when Berlin was separated into sectors of influence, the Ku’Damm once again became a focal point of the city.  Since Unter den Linden was in the Eastern sector, many people came to consider the Ku’Damm as the centre of the city.   This made it the natural gathering place for many student demonstrations and protests.  Since reunification, the Ku’Damm has lost some of its glamour, as a lot of money has been poured into the former East.  But the street is still home to many upscale shops and designer stores, and is definitely the place to go if you have Euros burning a hole in your pocket.

A restaurant decorated for the season.

We decided not to walk down the Ku’Damm because it was so cold. Instead we took Bus No. 100 from one end to the other, and then transferred back to the S-Bahn. It was a nice, if quick, way to see the street.  My only complaint is the parking in the center of the street: it seems really unnecessary!  The streetscape would be so much nicer with a nice strip of green down the middle.