Berlin Highlights and DDR “Bückware”
By Lothar. Filed in Germany |
Gabi and I know our way around Berlin pretty well and today (April 19th) her students will experience a “Blitz Tour” of a few of the city’s highlights.
Reveille is at 6:15 and after breakfast, we catch the M29 bus, leaving from “Schöneberger Ufer” at the “Landwehrkanal”. The bus is empty, and we enjoy great views from the front seats on the upper deck(almost like Business Class). We travel to “Lützowplatz”, switch to the 100 bus and drive along the large “Tiergarten”, “Siegessäule” with the hefty 35 ton “Viktoria”, aka “Golden Else” on top, “Schloss Bellevue”, “Haus der Kulturen” (The Pregnant Oyster) and arrive at the “Reichstag” ( House of the German Government) at 8:30. We are in luck, there are no lines to get in. We visit the famous rooftop glass dome with it’s open spiral staircase, over-looking the “Parlament” (Assembly Hall) and the Berlin skyline. It is cold (8°) and sunny, picture perfect weather.
Nearby I see the “Charite”, Berlin’s oldest hospital. It opened in 1727, and the oldest building still in use dates back to 1836. Several physicians, who made medical history, were working here:
Robert Koch: microbiologist: discovered the Bacillus anthracis (Anthrax spores), Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Tuberculosis Bacillus), and Vibrio cholerae (Cholera) in Alexandria, Egypt;
Ferdinand Sauerbruch: surgeon: first open chest surgery with positive lung pressure, “Sauerbruch Arm” prosthesis;
Rudolf Virchow (Founder of modern Pathology) among them.
Incidentally, from 1849 to 1856, Virchow was teaching at the Medical School in “Würzburg”,
my Alma Mater.
Back to our Berlin Tour. From the roof of the “Reichstag”, I also could see the “Rubble Mountains” (Trümmerberge). After the WWII bombings of Berlin, some of the roughly 70 Million Cubic Meters of rubble were carted out of the inner city, and nowadays are the green “mountains” called “Insulaner” and “Teufelsberg”.
We continue, walking to Brandenburg Gate, “Unter Den Linden”, Holocaust Memorial and the recently opened underground Holocaust Museum. Then the U6 takes us to the Museum at Checkpoint Charlie, dedicated to all the escapees from former East Berlin(and East Germany) and World Peace.
U6 takes us back to Friedrichstrasse, with free time for everybody to have lunch on their own
(my choice is “Berliner Bulette”).
Another “group check” and I lead the thirty people, running from one subway to the next: running up the stations’ stairs is a new competitive sport for some of us. S-Bahn to the DDR-Museum across from the Berliner Dom. This is a new exhibit, showing the ordinary person’s life under the East German Socialist Regime. I find the egalitarian job salaries interesting: the range was from 1100 to 1300 Mark per month, regardless if you were a farmer, doctor, lawyer, chemical engineer, teacher or blue collar worker. Everybody’s contribution to the Socialist Society was considered equally important.
One interesting trivia: what is “Bückware” (bend down goods)? Answer: Berliner slang for the rare imported goods from the “West”: citrus fruits, bananas, coffee, quality stationary etc. were sold “under-the-counter”!
We continue navigating the subway system: back to “Friedrichstrasse”, U6 “Hallesches Tor”, U1 to “Wittenbergplatz” for a break in the “KaDeWe” : Berlin’s biggest department store.
The “Gourmet Food” Floor by itself is already overwhelming with all the choices of Domestic and International Foods. A far cry from the choices in the former “DDR”. We can only imagine what the East Berliners felt in 1989, after the Berlin Wall came down.
Finally, we take bus M29 back to the Youth Hostel, pick up our luggage, hop back on the bus to “Bahnhof Zoo”. I am relieved when all our 30 people with luggage have room on the same bus and subway, so we do not have to split into several smaller groups. We fight the crowds of rowdy soccer fans, on their way to the “DFB Pokal” championship match between “Bayern München” and “Borussia Dortmund” (Bayern with Oliver Kahn in the goal wins). Dinner is in the “Berlin Hauptbahnhof”, and we have all students on board ICE 552, as it pulls out of the station at 18:51.
The adults can relax a little now, and 4 1/2 hours later, we see the familiar sight of the Cologne Cathedral, as our train pulls into the “Köln Hauptbahnhof” station at 23:15. Gabi and I are in bed at midnight, having accomplished another day of travel for her students, without losing anyone!