This week brought World Cup fever, including a last min win by Germany, and rain to Berlin. Every bar, restaurant and coffee shop has TVs playing every game. You know where your neighbours are from based on spontaneous cheering and knowing who’s playing. On Thursday we got to see a random protest march walk through the city which was interesting as well as celebrate the Summer Solstice by standing an egg on end.

On Saturday we took a nice bike ride to OBI, a Home Depot type store, to shop for some outdoor furniture and to get an idea of what plants we’d like to see on the terrace. We had a wonderful time looking at all the different plants we aren’t used to seeing in the states and got a solid idea of how we’d like to decorate the terrace.

The afternoon brought rain and a chance for Logan to bring out his rain gear for a little play time.

Over the past weeks Chad has been exploring the area surrounding his office with afternoon walks. On one walk a few weeks ago he discovered a great walking & bike path. With further exploration it became clear this was the Berlin Wall Memorial. In the years since the wall was taken down there has been a concerted push to remember in an effort to never repeat. Memorials are baked into the culture here for good reason.  

Although Berlin had been occupied by the Allies on the West side and the Soviet Union on the East, migration happened freely between 1948-1957. In the early 50’s Stalin started to become more erratic and cracked down on various citizen’s rights. During this time there were hundreds of thousands of citizens that moved to the Western side to escape these crackdowns. In 1957 Stalin implemented a passport law with penalties for leaving (i.e. food restriction, transportation restriction, incarceration). In short people were leaving and you can’t be a dictator without subjects. However, with all of these changes, Germans still didn’t feel like they were two different nationalities. Most Germans from the time would tell you they didn’t see any difference in one German over the other. The wall would eventually change this mindset.

When the wall was erected in August of 1961 it literally happened over night. People from the East who worked in the West were no longer able to get to work. The first iteration of the wall was cinderblocks and fairly unstable. Some parts were simply timbers bolted together. In the early days the shock is what separated people not necessarily the fortification. There are pictures from the time of citizens standing on chairs waving at friends and family from across the street, on the other side of the wall. Imagine waking up one morning and the neighbour you borrowed sugar from or had dinner plans with all of a sudden was in another country - it would be shocking to say the least.

As time went on the shock went away and people started leaving again. This prompted more fortification, more crackdowns, and eventually guard towers with soldiers, dogs, and snipers. By the time the late 60’s rolled around the area in-between East and West was aptly named No Mans Land. The message was clear - try to cross and die. 

The people in the countryside had a different experience then those in Berlin. After the war, rule peoples in the East were already being indoctrinated into Communism. However, the people that lived in the city had always resisted such teachings and felt more inline with the Allies. This made policing the wall very difficult. It’s estimated that 239 civilians were killed trying to cross over with 5k successful defections during the time the wall stood. 

As you walk the memorial you immediately notice a massive juxtaposition. The modern structures that fill what was once No Mans Land are seamlessly integrated with the older structures. The area is covered in grass and feels more like a park then a memorial. On the ground, throughout the city, are metal strips that line the path of the wall. No Mans Land is purposefully left open which is an immediate attention grabber seeing as Berlin has a history of building structures as close as possible in the city centre. The memorial is about a mile long and at each block are rusted metal pillars with descriptions of the time and events through the years. Some of them tell individual stories and some tell a broader more geopolitical perspective. The individual stories are heart breaking. One individual story tells the saga of an older woman that escaped through a tunnel, crawling on her stomach, to get to the West to be reunited with her family. The people that helped her were later captured and tortured by the Stasi - a common occurrence during this time. The area where the tunnel started is still preserved today.

Metal posts line the path of the wall with enough room to reach through and touch someone on the other side but not enough room to squeeze through. About halfway down the site there are two thick metal beams stretching to the sky marking where a guard tower once stood. In several different places there are metal maps outlining the path of the wall, guard towers, electrified positions, and other areas. It’s easy to point out Chad’s office on the map.

Lining the walls on the buildings are murals and pictures from the different years. With each passing year the images are drained of any hope and by the time the 80’s are pictured the images only give off a sense of despair and emptiness.

At the end of the memorial there’s a section that was left in tack, complete with original walls and a guard tower. When work was done on the wall speed was the focus so there were mistakes and little gaps all over the place. This section has a gap just wide enough to see through (similar to many parts of the wall) where you can get a sense of the hopelessness someone would have felt on the Eastern side looking through to only see an armed guard, attack dogs, and electrified metal fencing. It’s sobering.

The juxtaposition isn’t just the modern architecture next to the old it’s also in the reflection of what Berlin has become since the the 1989. The city is a European hub for art and culture. Murals line the walls of the city and the startup culture is found in every borough. Just off the memorial is a repurposed ammunition depot being used to house multiple tech companies named “The Factory.” The startup mentality combined with the art and culture provide for an interesting backdrop to such a serious and somber place. However, the seriousness of the history that happened on this ground isn’t lost on the young artists. One mural on a building next to the memorial tells the story of what happened here better then any words could. It’s a 6 story tall depiction of a butcher knife cutting through flesh.

Berlin is full of memorials that showcase how the human condition can devolve into a tyrannical rule one poor decision at a time. Walking the streets you see placards marking the removal of jewish citizens in the 30s. Metal strips run alongside modern train tracks showing the path of the wall. Dark mistakes in history are purposely preserved to remind us not to repeat them. The wall tore families apart and caused unmeasurable heartache. The people that experienced it are still alive and will be for a long time. It would’ve been very easy to remove all markings of the DDR but what does forgetting ultimately do other then set us on a path to repeat the past. Statues and memorials don’t just need to be erected when something great happens; they are significantly more powerful and thought provoking when they remind us of past mistakes.

Until Next Time,

The McNeills