Berlin again

"Ich bin ein Berliner!"

- John Fitzgerald Kennedy (Berliners really love him) 

After seeing the Kaiser Church I had a nice big lunch and set off to see the Brandenburg Gate. I first approached the Siegessäule Monument which was built as a display of German unification and accomplishment. It's a big pole with a golden angel perched on top in the middle of a round-a-bout.  I didn't know there was a tunnel that pedestrians were supposed to use to get to it. So, I ran accross the large road-in-a-circle.  

I climbed the Siegessäule and saw all of the City of Berlin from the top. I'm not sure how high I was, but there were some stairs involved. Lots of 'em. The only complaint I have has to be all the graffiti on the monument itself. It's an eyesore. 

I walked under the round-a-bout through a tunnel to cross the street this time, and a German lady was playing her guitar and singing in the tunnel. She was very smart I think in her choice of location for the acoustics of the tunnel accentuated her voice wonderfully. Her music was mezmorizing and luckily I got a video of it all. I really liked listening to her.  

The Brandenburg Gate is right in front of the monument down the street through the park that's in the middle of the city. On another sad note, the park used to have superb old growth hardwood trees until the winter between 1945 & 1946. The Berliners were desperate enough to cut down the woods for timber. Most trees there now are 50 years old, although some old growth remains. 

Unintentionally, I ran into a Soviet Monument that sits in front of the Gate, by the Reichstag, on the street. It was a grotesque and powerful showing of a 15 foot tall Soviet Soldier pointing down at you. He had a rifle and wore a large poncho.  There's tanks and artillery machines parked on either side of the deal with the actual monument being a series of columns connected by their tops complete with Russian words in brass on all the sides. I evesdropped (as I've been doing more and more) on an English speaking tour to find out that the monument was on a mass grave of about Seven Thousand Soviet Soldiers who fell taking the German Reichstag. In total, the Soviets lost around Twenty Million people during the war.  The monument was built when Berlin was in ruins and sectioned off between the allies. It lies in the British sector, making it the only soviet monument in West Berlin. Soviet Troops reached Berlin in March 1945, and the monument was built by November 1945. 

That was rather sobering for me.  Appropriatly there is a beer garden by the Reichstag and I decided to get unsobered in a libation to the past.

I drank my beer in a nice park that looked directly at the Reichstag, all I thought about was this is the place World War II ended. I was sitting where the history of the world had changed forever. 

Enough with World War II. 

The Brandenburg Gate sure was sweet. On top is a copper statue with four horses pulling a carriage. Inside the carriage is a man holding the German Iros Cross and a war eagle perched on top. When Napoleon liberated the German people from the Holy Roman Empire, he liked the sculpture on top of the Gate so much he brought it back with him to Paris. The Germans later retrived it - obviously.

Give me a bit, and I'll write day two. Now, I must eat