mattAtomic: Europa - Deutschland Part II: Berlin

Shane and I explored many historical places around Berlin. The Berlin Wall (Berliner Mauer) was a barrier that divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Built by the German Democratic Republic (GDR), East Germany, the Wall completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area that contained anti-vehicle trenches and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc claimed that the Wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the will of the people in building a socialist state in East Germany. In practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that had marked East Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period. While the majority of the Wall has been demolished, there is a memorial plaza and museum where a section of the original wall still stands. We spent a number of hours there before we headed over to the Brandenburg Gate (Brandenburger Tor). It is an 18th-century neoclassical monument in Berlin, and one of the best-known landmarks of Germany. It is built on the site of a former city gate that marked the start of the road from Berlin to the town of Brandenburg an der Havel. It was commissioned by King Frederick William II of Prussia as a sign of peace. The Brandenburg Gate suffered considerable damage in World War II. During the post-war Partition of Germany, the gate was isolated and inaccessible immediately next to the Berlin Wall. The area around the gate was featured most prominently in the media coverage of the tearing down of the wall in 1989, and the subsequent German reunification in 1990. Throughout its existence, the Brandenburg Gate was often a site for major historical events and is today considered not only as a symbol of the tumultuous history of Europe and Germany, but also of European unity and peace. Then we went to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted Under Nazism, and the Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism. We visited the Reichstag, a historical edifice in Berlin, Germany, constructed to house the Parliament, of the German Empire. It was opened in 1894 and housed the parliament until 1933, when it was severely damaged after it was set on fire. After World War II, the building fell into disuse. It was not renovated and restored until after the reunification of Germany. The current Parliament is housed in the Reichstag. We walked a few blocks to the Führerbunker, an air-raid shelter located near the Reichstag. It was part of a subterranean bunker complex used as the Führer Headquarters during the Second World War. Hitler took up residence in the Führerbunker January 1945 and it was the centre of the Nazi regime until the last week of World War II in Europe. We ate dinner at a nice restaurant on the Unter den Linden, browsed shops along the street, and returned to the Brandenburg Gate once it got dark. Then we headed back to the hotel for the night.