(This is the second of
a five-part series. Part one is Charming, Livable Amsterdam.)
Brandenburg Gate November 1989 |
Berlin is a paradox.
Full of history and charm, it is neither quaint nor charming in a
conventional sense. It has buildings that look centuries old but, in fact, were
rebuilt nearly stone for stone only a few decades ago. It is the capital of a
country with one of the greatest economies in the world, and yet its streets and
its people often look a disheveled, funky, scraping by. Like Rome,
Berlin has so many resonating layers of history they burst through each other
to claim one’s attention. There is Prussian old Berlin of the Kaisers and ambitious
Bismark. There is chaotic Berlin of the twenties, rising fascist Berlin of the
30’s. There is insane warmongering Nazi Berlin, and defeated, bombed-into-rubble
post-war Berlin. Occupied Berlin turns into Cold War Berlin that segues into
wall-divided Berlin. This crystallizes into a Berlin dominated by the paranoid,
scary, and in some ways wildly funny DDR, a James Bond villain government if
there ever was one. And then we have heroic Berlin, Berlin of the
wall-tearer-downers, Berlin of the jubilant Brandenburg Gate. Berlin reclaiming
itself; a Berlin of unity, healing, restoration. And today a Berlin that is
still reimagining and reinventing itself, greening itself, all the while
shouldering its role as uber-serious fiscal leader of Europe.
See the gleam |
For one of my daughters, Berlin was her favorite of the
cities we visited; for the other, it was the least. One found it modern,
bustling, vibrant, its history exciting, its people lively and creative. The other found it grey, drab, gritty, its
scale too big, its history too sad, its architecture too prone towards
brutalism. More than anything, Berlin feels unfinished, a work in progress. The
former eastern half is still being rebuilt, upgraded, repaired, a massive effort
and investment. From the top of the Berlin Cathedral we could see an absolutely
ridiculous number of construction cranes in operation. The banks of the Spree River
host gleaming new government buildings, some with stunning architecture, most
with extensive glass walls so that even major politicians can be seen lunching
and conversing. (The walk along the Spree in and among these buildings is
absolutely lovely.) A repaired and restored Reichstag boasts an elegant new
glass cupola from which the public can gaze down at their government at work. (In
theory all this glass is a symbol of the German government’s commitment to transparency.)
The scale of it all, the sense that the German people are finding their stride,
taking control of their destiny and finally putting their country back together
the way they want it is impressive. This is not a country so divided by
political dysfunction that nothing gets done. Things are happening here.
But let’s back up to our entry into the land of Beethoven,
sauerkraut and Euro Cup mania. Even though trains leave from Amsterdam to
Berlin every other hour, our train was packed! I was very glad I reserved seats
for the five of us or not only we would have been spread out among cars, we
might not have had seats at all. (One Japanese tourist stood in the aisle of
our car well over an hour to her destination.) The train was comfortable, but
the food available for sale was surprisingly lacking. Luckily we had some fruit
with us and a round of Dutch cheese. (This cheese saw us through three separate
train trips.) Our train wasn’t one of the high-speed, 196 mph versions that
Europe boasts. It was a cheaper, medium-speed train, humming along at only 120 mph.
Practically a snail.
See them everywhere |
As we traversed Germany, I was impressed by the number of
solar panels and wind turbines dotting the landscape. The solar was mostly on
rooftops; the wind turbines peppered farmland. Though there were some wind turbines
in the Netherlands, they were nothing compared to Germany’s. Just the ones I
could see from my train window made the great California wind farms of Altamont
Pass and Montezuma Hills look small. Indeed, Germany now has 29 Gigawatts (GW) of
wind energy capacity installed, compared to California’s 4.3 GW. The amount of solar
PV we saw was also remarkable, especially given the latitude, considerably north
of the US/Canadian border. But even with their northerly location, Germany has
installed close to 25 Gigawatts (GW) of solar PV compared to California’s 1 GW
of the same. Together wind plus solar meet about 16% of German electricity
demand, so you can see the Germans are going after renewables pedal to the
metal (so to speak.) It’s interesting to compare California to Germany since
California has a little less than half of Germany’s population and a bit more
than half of its GDP. California is first in the US for installed solar, and
third for installed wind, behind only Texas and Iowa. But although California
is ostensibly wealthier per capita than Germany, we’ve made only one-tenth the
investment in solar and wind.
Our view |
After crossing almost to the eastern edge of Germany, we
finally arrived in Berlin. Our apartment was near Alexanderplatz, right in the
center of the city. In fact, our apartment had a balcony terrace with a view of
the crazy TV tower left over from the sixties (1969, to be exact) when so many
cities felt the need to put up groovy, space-age constructs reaching toward the
sky. Our apartment was five floors up and involved a lot of stairs. (Luckily, we
are used to stairs where we live.) I found it pleasant to have an
outdoor space, however small, to drink a cup of tea in the morning or look out
at the city lights in the evening. It made the apartment more airy, more
connected to the neighborhood and the natural world. I would go so far as to
say having some small amount of outdoor living space is connected to
psychological health.
Berlin is essentially a former East German city surrounded
by former East German suburbs, and the fortunes of Berlin today reflect this
historical fact. Even though Berlin is Germany’s capital and its largest city,
its unemployment rate is double Germany’s as a whole and its GDP per capita is
16% less. This makes for a city that is both run-down and vibrant, energetic but
also oddly tranquil.
Biking in Berlin |
One source of tranquility for this dense city of 3.5 million
was surprising: in the capital of one of the world’s greatest car
manufacturers, there just weren’t a whole lot of cars on the streets. In fact,
the rate of car ownership in Berlin is lower than every other major city in
Europe. (Even lower than Amsterdam.) Half of all Berlin households do not own a
car. In the area of town we stayed in, the Mitte, most buildings were six
stories high, with shops and businesses on the ground floor and residential
above. The public transportation in Berlin is extensive. There is the U-Bahn
(underground), the S-Bahn (mostly elevated but some underground) and trams and
buses. There are not THE BICYCLES of Amsterdam, but there are still twice as
many bicycles in Berlin as cars. And not only do people in Berlin not own cars,
they don’t drive them much when they do have them. In the US two thirds of
trips under a mile are made by car compared to one third of such trips in
Germany. In the Mitte, 13% of trips are made by bicycle, 30% by walking, 29% by
public transit, and only 22% by private vehicle. This makes the private vehicle
use roughly half that of San Francisco. The even more surprising part is that
congestion is not linear: halving the
number of cars reduces congestion to the point that the Mitte “feels” like it
has only a fourth of San Francisco’s traffic. In addition, three fourths of Berlin’s
streets have a 30 km per hour (18mph) speed limit. This may sound horribly
limiting, but when you combine this speed with car-lite streets, car
drivers actually get places faster than in American cities because there is so
little congestion.
Tranquil Mitte neighborhood |
The car-lite streets combined with the low speed limits
makes the Mitte area, even though densely populated, very livable. Low noise, low
pollution, few vibrations. Pleasant for
outdoor cafes; safe and easy to cross the street. Safe and easy to bicycle. On the whole the bicycle infrastructure I saw
in Berlin ranged from pretty good to inadequate, much better than San Francisco
but generally nowhere near as good as Amsterdam. However, because so many streets are so calm
with just sporadic, slow-moving cars, bicycles sharing the road with cars on
these streets isn’t so bad. The injury and death rates for pedestrians and
bicyclists in Germany are a fraction of ours in the US. On the street we were
staying, one with shops and many lively restaurants, probably only one car
passed by a minute. Three times that number of bicycles and six times that
number of pedestrians passed by in the same time frame. Just as a note, people tend to have nicer
bikes in the Mitte than in Amsterdam. Part of this might be due to people
storing their bicycles at night in the interior courtyards of their apartment
buildings rather than out on the street.
Low car ownership levels might be due to Berlin’s high
unemployment and relative poverty, at least in relation to the western parts of
their country. It might be due to West
Berlin and East Berlin spending several decades competing with each other as to
who could provide better public transportation. It might be
due to Berlin being flat and easy to bicycle around, although Berlin does get its
fair share of rain and snow. It might be due to decent levels of fitness that
makes walking fifteen minutes to get somewhere both practical and effortless for most people.
It might be due to expensive parking; it might be due to people from
the suburbs taking the excellent train network into the city rather than their
cars. Infrastructure, habits, attitudes,
years of investment, and car-lite government policies all add up.
Dozens of Chinese tourists wanted this shot (Marx and Engels) |
Right after settling into our apartment we went to the base
of the crazy TV tower where we met up with our bicycle tour. Our guide was a British woman with a
half-shaved head who absolutely adored Berlin and its history. She sure knew her stuff. As usual with a
bicycle tour, we were able to cover days of sightseeing in four and a half
hours, and this included wending our way through masses of drunken, singing
football (soccer) fans, competing with hordes of Chinese tourists for photo
opportunities, and a stop at a beer garden in the lovely woods of the
Tiergarten. The tour covered many WWII and Cold War highlights. What was
interesting was how the city itself appeared to celebrate the Cold War (and its
eventual jubilant end) and played down WWII.
One history is sung, the other mumbled. Perhaps, on reflection, this is
not so surprising.
The happy history |
As the Russians and Germans fought through Berlin block by
bitter block in April and early May of 1945, the city was pretty much bombed to
rubble. When the war was over, anything left of the grand Nazi architecture was
hurriedly obliterated. One of the few buildings intact from that grandiose era
is the former Luftwaffe headquarters. Hitler’s New Reich Chancellery, built in
one year by 4000 workers staffed round the clock, is no more, demolished by the
Soviets, its blood-red marble carted away. On top of the bunker where Hitler
spent his last days is merely a gravel parking lot. Not even a marker indicates
what lurks beneath, but it’s all still down there, just bulldozed over. While Checkpoint
Charlie has cheery actors in American and Soviet uniforms, and segments of the
Berlin Wall are displayed around the city like public art, reminders of what
preceded Berlin’s sad division are few. Maybe this is good; maybe neo-Nazis
would just use Hitler’s bunker or palace as a shrine of adulation, but still
it feels almost as if the Nazis have been photo-shopped out of the picture.
Even the word “Hitler” has gained Voldemort-like unmentionable status. Given
that Berlin is rife with twentieth-century history, we discussed the various
eras and events with our kids, doing our best to make a distinction between the
Nazis and the German people. However, in restaurants and on the U-Bahn, we soon
learned to speak in undertones or in code when mentioning Hitler. Uncomfortable
looks got sent our way otherwise.
Some wounds leave scars |
But the Cold War is visible in Berlin in spades, not only in
relics and museums (the DDR museum manages to be both nostalgic and a hysterically
sarcastic examination of Berlin’s cold war era) but in the physical scar still
left by the Wall. The Wall itself wasn’t all that thick, but it included a no-man’s
land that cut a swath through the city up to a hundred yards wide and 27 miles long.
Berlin is still trying to figure out what to do with the space. Some want it eradicated as fast as possible
to facilitate unity and healing; others see it as a creative void, allowing
impromptu activities and events that are themselves monuments to freedom. Around
the Brandenburg Gate the scar was easy to erase, just reinstate a great plaza
that, while we were there, was filled with giant screens for the public to
watch the Euro Cup competition, courtesy of Hyundai. (A Korean car company?
Really?) Poor Brandenburg Gate, standing forlorn in the midst of barbed wire
for so many years. I can imagine the exultation Berliners of both side must have
felt to get it back. While many parts of the Wall’s scar have been filled, much
remains, mutely reminding Berlin about its past and simultaneously raising
questions about its future.
A serious gate |
A simply amazing place in Berlin is the Pergamon
Museum. For some reason, before I began
researching our trip, I had never heard of it. I don’t know how this is
possible. It’s like not knowing about
the British Museum. Back at the turn of the century, when every wealthy
colonial power wanted to show off its cultural prowess by carting off the
remains of some ancient civilization, the Germans went gung ho in what is now
Turkey and Iraq. They dug up some absolutely amazing stuff and brought it all
back to Berlin, apparently without a twinge of conscience because everyone knew
only northern Europeans could appreciate ancient cultures. So the Pergamon Museum
now houses Babylon’s (yes, that
Babylon) absolutely enormous Gate of Ishtar, one of the seven wonders of the
ancient world until the Lighthouse in Alexandria booted it off the list in the
6th century AD. Evidently what’s in the museum is just the small,
frontal part of the gate. The big kahuna back part was deemed too large and is
in storage. (Heck, just the front is nearly five stories high.) The Pergamon Museum
is also home to (and named after) the great Pergamon Altar, a prized example of
Hellenic art and architecture. It was reconstructed
in its entirety so that today we can walk up and down its steps and pretend we
live two millennia ago in the Pergamene Kingdom. And there is the Market Gate of Miletus, perhaps my favorite exhibit at the Pergamon. The history of Miletus
(located, like Pergamon, in what is now Turkey) begins in the mists of the
Bronze Age. After several incarnations it eventually wound up as an Ionian
Greek city and produced philosophers, writers, architects, even urban planners.
Miletus must’ve prospered because the Market Gate dates from the second century
AD and reflects Roman rather than Hellenistic design. The gate was shaken down
by an earthquake around 1100 AD and then waited eight centuries for the Germans
to put it back together like Humpty Dumpty. If I could be a time tourist, I
would visit its crumbling, magnificent ruins just before that quake.
Miletus, put back together |
Imagine our surprise |
But ancient treasures are not the only surprises in Berlin. A
block from our apartment, we saw a restaurant sign that curiously said,
“Dolores.” Well, that didn’t sound German. Peeking our heads in, we saw a map of our San Francisco neighborhood spread out larger than
life on the wall! It turns out Dolores is a well-reviewed gourmet burrito place
that pays tribute to San Francisco. Of course we ate lunch there, and while the
burritos aren’t exactly the same as the ones in the Mission, they were quite
tasty. I suppose if they’d named themselves “Valencia,” that would’ve been even
more hipster cool, but next time you’re in Berln, I say check them out.
Furnish your apartment |
Flea Market finds |
When you’ve had your burrito and really want to fill your
hipster quota, the flea market next to the Mauerpark, (literally “Wall Park,”
because it was created from a stretch of Wall scar) is the place to go. You can
even take the U-Bahn to get there! By our third day in Berlin, after all the museums
and culture Mom tried to cram down her throat, youngest daughter was longing
for Shopping. Now Mom is not much of a Shopper and isn’t particularly inclined
to spend vacation time on the activity. But many museums had indisputably been
entered, and a compromise was in order. The Mauerpark flea market turned out to
be not only a Shopping Delight to younger daughter, it was also enough of a
Cultural Excursion to placate Mom. (Other family members shopped or appreciated
cultural niceties in varying degrees.) In addition, it was very Good Value,
pleasing to mother and daughter alike. At the Mauerpark market you could outfit
an entire apartment, down to the kitchen appliances. You could dress yourself
and three thousand of your closest friends, outfit half the bands at Woodstock with
instruments, eat a dozen different ethnic foods, buy communist memorabilia
(real and fake), obtain a flotilla of marginally working typewriters--it was
all there in the run-down but friendly and comfortable splendor of Mauerpark
market’s vast acres. As you leave you might even be greeted by a local, scrap-iron robot like we were.
Path among stelae |
Another way Berlin has filled its Wall scar is with the extraordinary
new Holocaust Memorial, inaugurated in 2005. Designed by American architect
Peter Eisenman, it goes even further than the Vietnam Memorial in Washington as
an interactive way not only to honor the dead, not only to feel and grieve the
loss, but, in this case, to actually comprehend some of the alienation, fear
and disorientation that was endemic to this dreadful period of time. First off,
the memorial is huge, covering more than four acres. It is made up of stelae
(large rectangular stones) placed on end in a grid pattern. But the ground is not flat; it slopes and
rolls in waves. The stelae are not
straight either, but rather cant like headstones in an old
cemetery. Walking through the tall sections, you can only see straight ahead or straight to the
side. The sky above feels a long ways away. Though you know can always walk
out, you have no idea where your family members have gotten to. The hundreds of
people traversing the paths with you appear and disappear between these massive
stones in the blink of an eye. You feel oddly alone. Distances seem long,
never-ending. And you begin to wonder what it would feel like to be split from
your family, loaded in a rail car, nothing familiar, nothing secure, to a fate
unknown. These acres of grey stelae form a maze of Kafkaesque surrealism, a
cemetery of broken dreams. To wander here is to be Alice fallen down the rabbit
hole into a terminally grey, merciless world. I recommend it.
What I don’t recommend is this: while grabbing a bite to eat near the
Brandenburg Gate at food stands set up for the Euro Cup viewing, do not, I
repeat, do not order the currywurst. Unless, indeed, an indifferent hot dog glopped
with some tasteless brown sauce and sprinkled with some sorry curry power
shaken directly from a cardboard box sounds like your idea of an appetizing
meal. I didn’t like it much as I ate it, and I liked it even less the next few
hours that followed. In fact, I can’t understand how anyone would like it,
especially given the excellent traditional German food we had at the beer
garden the previous evening. In general I liked the food in Berlin. In general I
made smart choices on the cuisine front—after all, I was smart enough to avoid
the sushi sold on the U-Bahn subway platforms. (Someone is going to buy sushi
there? Really?) But let me tell you, in the future I will avoid currywurst like
the plague. As we were leaving Berlin and I was trying to decipher which
platform our train was leaving from (a task not entirely stress-free given my
scant ability to read German) my son said it was too bad we didn’t have time to
visit the Currywurst Museum this trip. I gave him a dirty look, my family at
that point being well acquainted with my currywurst debacle. My son said, “No,
really! Didn’t you see the ad for it back there?” I thought he was seriously
trying to annoy me, but I went over to where he pointed. No doubt he was indeed
trying to annoy me, but he was also telling the truth. There was a sign with a
freaking chopped-up hotdog with a face that said CURRYWURST MUSEUM. Here is a video about
the place. Click on it and watch it. I’m not kidding. Watch it to the end. It is 2 minutes and
30 seconds of insane evil German satire. The people who made it are rolling on
the floor laughing even now. It is the
only explanation I have because no one in their right mind would CREATE A WHOLE
MUSEUM ABOUT CURRYWURST. Honestly, I’m
going to have to go back to Berlin just to see if this museum actually exists. If it does, I may weep.
Ein Berliner |
Note: “Ich bich ein Berliner” means both “I am one with the
people of Berlin” and “I am a jelly doughnut.” However, it’s an urban legend
that Kennedy gaffed with the latter because his audience would have known he was saying the former. Or so
I’m told.
Next stop: Sparkling, Technicolor Prague
I love your city descriptions, especially because they focus on different aspects of travel than most. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteSusan, thanks for your comment. There's so much to admire in all the cities we visited. I need to get cracking and write up Prague!
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