Day 352: East Berlin
36yearsago.com
Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day
352 — East Berlin
19-Jul-1972
(Wed.)
TRANSCRIPT
TV Tower in Alexanderplatz, East
Berlin
WEST BERLIN
Left my room. Said goodbye to Frau Artzt. Without her
help, the week would have been certainly less good.
EAST BERLIN
No trouble going through border. A little wait. Only
had time to walk around the tourist area. Was very
surprised, this part was all built up and fairly
nice. The drabness is not as apparent here because
buildings are newer. (Advertising has something to do
with livening it up.)
Saw Pergamon Museum. Unbelievable, in that the Greek
ruins are inside the building.
For me, the Museum of German History was much more
interesting. Very heavily filled with propaganda.
Their history is all told in the struggle of wars,
and people of course—Marx, Engels, and Stalin—are
held up big. Hitler, of course, is not!
The color red is seen quite a bit.
There was also one other interesting thing. A
memorial to those who died under fascism. There are
two soldiers who always stand guard—in memorial. The
thing I didn’t like was that some tourists heckled
them. When they marched in a changing of the guard,
they used the Hitler-ish strut.
Met a couple of students in the center. Had a nice
conversation (in German). They don’t really like it
there, even though they say that life isn’t too bad.
Mostly because they want the freedom to be able to go
anywhere they want. They wish they could go, even if
just for a visit, away. They also don’t like the
drabness of the life. I will write to them with
cards. One, especially, wants one of Broadway in New
York.
It’s amazing how many people think that way (it’s
natural of course). Freedom is an inborn type of
desire that must be in every person.
Well, after quite a bit of walking around. Very
clean, nice, and modern. Went back to Berlin.
Leaving for Munich, perhaps just to travel through.
REFLECTIONS
Leaving
the pension. I’m
leaving wonderful Frau Artzt at the pension. Through
her kindness I save a little money. I thank her for
her generosity. I probably placed my suitcases in the
West Berlin train station. I’m off to East Berlin for
the day.
Checkpoint
Charlie. I was very
surprised that I didn’t write about Checkpoint
Charlie in the journal. I remember going through the
checkpoint at the American sector—where you go from
free West Berlin to communist East Berlin. The Berlin
wall, seen earlier in the journal, was the amazing
symbol of repression that divided the principle of
freedom from that of oppression. On this summer day,
I am the tourist, with camera and lenses around my
neck, walking through the dead-man’s zone between the
two Berlin Walls that separated the two Berlins.
Going through Checkpoint Charlie
Off the path. Another
journal item that I didn’t write, but that I
remember, was my wanting to see the “real East
Berlin.” I remember walking down the main tourist
boulevard in East Berlin heading towards the main
center of “modern” communist Berlin, symbolized by
the tall communications tower, and then going
off-track by a street or two and walking down the
“normal” street towards the center. I don’t remember
much detail but that it was not as fancy as the
tourist area. In my youth, I was not worried about
being robbed, despite my cameras and being the
tourist, or that I could be whisked off the streets
by the secret police for wandering off the tourist
path.
Pergamon
Museum. Why was
this museum named after a city in Greece? For one
thing, the museum had a full-size replication of the
Altar of Pergamon displayed within the museum. (See
photo below.) Amazing. The museum included other
life-like displays and fascinating relics of
antiquity.
Museum Island. This was a
series of museums clustered together. In addition to
the Pergamon, I saw the Museum of German History
which, at that time, included the representation of
Germanic nationality from the viewpoint of the
eastern bloc—there was much communist propaganda
espousing the communist view of history. As a
patriotic American, I didn’t like this communist
rhetoric but I was glad that I saw it.
Soldiers.
One item that bothered me a little was the heckling,
by tourists, of the soldiers that were at the
Memorial to the Fallen Soldier in East Berlin. A
soldier follows his duty and orders. There is no need
to heckle them. Perhaps underneath the uniform, they
want to escape to West Berlin as well. However, the
“goosestepping” march seen in East Block countries is
a bit unnerving. Regarding the soldiers, I can
understand that people don’t like the symbols that
represent repression.
Memorial to the Fallen Soldier
Modern East Berlin. I
remember that the “tourist” area of East Berlin was
extremely large, clean, and very modern. The
government built it up to impress tourists. In the
slides below, you can see the Alexanderplatz (wide
plaza) and the TV tower, and several other photos of
this East Berlin modernity.
Two
East Berliners. I also
remember sitting in the wide plaza and meeting two
students. They knew I was a tourist and we started
talking. Then they asked me if I had a car—that
surprised me. Then we parted. To this day, I wonder
why they asked me that question. I suppose they just
wanted to ride around in a car, and not attempt to
make a dash across the border—getting us all killed
in the ensuing shootout. I did get their addresses
and send them postcards of America, which they
wanted. As always, the meaning of “freedom” is always
most appreciated when you visit societies where true
freedom does not exist or is restricted. These two
students probably just did want freedom.
Off
to Munich. I leave
East Berlin and head back to West Berlin where I am
taking the train to Munich. How long will I stay in
Munich? Uncertain.
East
Berlin photos. Since I
have many photos of East Berlin, I will place them
below. Enjoy.
Checkpoint Charlie
Berlin
Wall
Walking
through East Berlin
Memorial
to the Fallen Soldier
Pergamon Altar in the Pergamon Museum
Alte
Nationalgalerie
Museum
of German History
Alexanderplatz
Links:
Pergamon Museum
in
Wikipedia
Pergamon
Altar
John
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