Post from Tim:
The same thought popped into my head each time I passed a vacant lot in Berlin, "What was there before the war?" The areal photos from 1945 show almost every building leveled or left as a deserted shell. I couldn't believe I stood in the same city.
The war's presence is very much alive, even half a century later.
As my friend Sebastian points out, Berliners have lived in an occupied city for almost half a century. Post-war peace only truly came in the last decade. But memorials to the old times live on everywhere:
It is increasingly hard to tell what used to be east from what used to be west, especially with all of the construction in the former border area. Ten years ago Potsdamer Platz was virtually empty, but now it is full of new glass and steel structures, plus at the time I counted, 35 construction cranes building more. This new construction is like a suture on a wound, healing the city that has been destroyed and split apart for so long.
The war's presence is very much alive, even half a century later.
- The destroyed former SS headquarters was left as an innocuous grassy hill after the war. But today, Germans remember the horrible Nazi war crimes crafted there with the open-air Topography of Terror exhibition.
- For 79 years the elegant Moorish-styled Neue Synagogue served Berlin's Jewish population, but wartime bombing and post-war demolition left only a small part of the structure intact. Just recently third of the building was restored to its former glory, including the impressive dome that graced Berlin's skyline long ago. Now the building keeps the past alive with exhibitions on Berlin's pre-war Jewish life.
- Every historic building downtown could probably have a line similar to "Destroyed by Allied bombing in 1943 and painstakingly reconstructed in 1955" somewhere in its written history. Reconstruction continues on even today, while other buildings will remain forever as memories or piles of rubble.
As my friend Sebastian points out, Berliners have lived in an occupied city for almost half a century. Post-war peace only truly came in the last decade. But memorials to the old times live on everywhere:
- The cold war's Checkpoint Charlie, a crossing point between east and west, once hosted a permanent face off between Russian and US tanks. Though it is now no more than a pile of sandbags, thousands of visitors each year come to remember what was there only a few years ago.
- The famous Berlin wall has been mostly destroyed, but a large portion was saved and painted with murals. It now too serves as a monument to history.
- Parts of the old east was once dominated by ugly ten story apartment buildings and wide Communist-style avenues. The buildings are still there, but the neighborhoods have sprouted with scores of new cafes and have become fashionable places to live.
It is increasingly hard to tell what used to be east from what used to be west, especially with all of the construction in the former border area. Ten years ago Potsdamer Platz was virtually empty, but now it is full of new glass and steel structures, plus at the time I counted, 35 construction cranes building more. This new construction is like a suture on a wound, healing the city that has been destroyed and split apart for so long.