I left Sunday shortly after church and arrived in Berlin – via Frankfurt – on Monday AM. I meet Marshall at the airport, and we made for our downtown hotel. I took a short run to avoid a long nap, then we did a walking (and boat) tour of Berlin. It’s quite a city. Highlights included:
Checkpoint Charlie: Where East and West used to meet. It’s a gimmicky tourist site now – you can get your picture taken with some “guards” or have your passport stamped for a fee. I remember it from various pictures and movies. I am struck by how much I feared East Germany and the Soviet Empire years ago. Actually I am embarrassed. It turned out to be so fragile and it fell so quickly. But I remember real fear of “the communists.” Three cheers for RR for realizing that the Emperor had not clothes.
The Wall: At several places they have remnants of the wall that remain standing. It is about 10 feet high and crumbing. When I compare it with the wall Israel has up along the West Bank – 30’ high, sleek, sheer, topped with cameras and barbed wire – there is no comparison.
The Reichstag: I believe this is German equivalent of Congress.
The Brandenburg Gate: This neoclassical monument from ???? that has quite a history: Hitler and the Nazis showcased it; it then become a symbol of the divided city; it was hear that RR said, “Mr. Gorbachov – tear down this wall!”.
The Berlin Cathedral. We saw this from the boat tour – impressive! And as someone who has worked to raise money for church buildings in the past (and in the future), extravagant.
A Jewish Memorial: When you kill 6M Jews, you need some monuments. This one is large. Several hundred cement blocks of various sizes. No sure what to make of it.
Misc:
- We had intended to visit the Pergamum Museum to see the Ishtar Gate, which is what Daniel and his three friends saw when they were marched into Bablyon several thousand years ago. German archeologists excavated it in late 19th century, moved what they could to Germany in the early 20th century and rebuilt it there. (This is a source of some international tension today. But it’s not like we (the US) have any grounds to point fingers. The Oriental Museum in Chicago has many similar items.)
- I hear the gate is very impressive. It was designed to humiliate / sober anyone who walked past it. I was looking forward to getting some idea of what Daniel, Shadrach, Meshak and Abendigo had seen when they were taken as captives. Alas, the Pergamum is closed on Mondays.
- We walked past the opera house around 9 PM and there was a violinist out front playing. It was dark, the building was dimly lit. The music was beautiful. The weather was perfect. It was a timeless moment.
- Random Fact: There are more water ways in Berlin than in Venice and Amsterdam combined. Who knew.
- As I noted above, Berlin has always seemed a bit mysterious and dangerous to me. I think I got that impression from the film clips from the ’36 Olympics and various spy movies. I am ashamed of the fear I harbored when it’s now clear that: 1) there was so little there; 2) what was needed was for good people to stand up against it. It leaves me wondering how to think about today’s danger areas – ISIS, North Korea, cyber terrorists – etc. My sense is: fear God and smaller fears will fall away.
- After walking around an area formerly dominated by the Nazis, I pulled up the news and read an article in today’s paper noting that the governor of Florida has declared a state of emergency in light of a speech to be given by a white nationalist. Apparently, the Nazis were not shut down, just moved from Berlin to Tallahassee.