Today we decided to book a tour of Berlin, despite having been here numerous times, we felt that it may shed light on things we didn’t know about or expand on the things we did.
We opted for Rude Bastard Tour of Berlin. Our tour guide was a very hairy man called Alex, who came from Southampton. He arrived in Berlin 10 years ago prior to Brexit, and admitted to having a small grasp of German. Perfect!
He wasn’t rude to us but a lot of what he said was expletive heavy, but really in a bad way, like he called Hitler, Shitler. On the site it describes it not like the usual politically correct BS that you are likely to get from the stodgy lecturing types.
We met at Postdamer Platz, where there was yet again a Christmas market, selling everything from bits .of the Berlin Wall (so shocking that there is still some around to be sold!) and yet more lebkuchenherzen, gingerbread hearts.
Our group consisted of a couple from Newcastle, the man was into strongman competitions. A man called Sam, a teacher from Hollywood, who hadn’t realised how cold it would be and was wearing black slips on with no socks, and another couple from down south. Sam later said that every holiday he gets out of the US as much as he can, because of how bad it is there with Trump. It was good that he wasn’t a Maga fan as Alex made a number of comparisons between Hitler or Shitler and Trump. There was also a couple of youngish French men but they didn’t really speak. I love these odd dynamics.
We were taken to a segment of the original wall, as we were in close proximity to the market I had to ask what I had already suspected, that the bits of Berlin wall are bogus. Of course they are! But are still being sold for double figures to very daft trusting tourists.
As we got to this bit we went past the first traffic light system in Europe or maybe anywhere. It had windows because it was manual. As of much of Berlin, it had been re-made as again it had been bombed.
The walking tour was nearly four hours long, but I kept up and that was the main thing. At the time I was really interested and kept thinking I should try to remember all the facts but not all of them have stuck in my head.
He said that after the war the area had been flattened as locals cut the trees down for wood, leaving only 700 of the 200,000. After the war other countries had donated 250,000 trees to repopulate it. When digging started they found lots of statues, as locals had tried to keep the Berlin history safe, which worked.
We then went on to the Reichstag, where he explained that the glass dome was made of glass, to show that politics was now transparent. but it is also about energy efficiency.
From here we went to the Brandenburg Gate/Tor. He showed us pictures of what the Nazis had wanted to make, another gate over the original one, but as he pointed out it would never be feasible as Berlin is built on a bog so it would have just sunk into the ground.
During one war or other the French took the top of the Tor as they wanted to exhibit in the Louvre, but it wouldn’t fit, so it is was put in storage and eventually came back to Berlin. The more I think about some of his stories I am think some of it was bollocks…..or maybe it wasn’t!
Passing through the Tor, Alex pointed out the Hotel Adlon where Michael Jackson dangled his son out of the window in 2002.
From there we went to the Holocaust Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Created by Peter Eisenman, with an expanse of 2,711 blocks of concrete of varying sizes, walking through a feeling of disorientation. They had it painted in anti graffiti paint, but then there was an expose by a journalist that the firm who made the paint, had been Nazi sympathisers. There was a lot of discussion, but it went ahead, as so many compainies fell into the same bracket. Such as Audi, Bayer, BMW – the list goes on and on!
Then a short walk round the corner to an unassuming car park, which had hed under the ground the Fuhrerbunker.
This was where Hitler/Shitler and Eva Braun killed themselves. The Russian filled it with concrete, but as it was undergraound it had already succumbed to the rising water levels of the boggy land. Alex said that Hitler/Shitler took at this stage 90 tablets a day, although I haven’t seen that corroborated anywhere. But he was taking speed, oxycodene and much much more!
Checkpoint Charlie was our next stop. I had told Alex that I had been to the East and had seen this in real time. He was jeaous but said that as he was 8 at the time I visited, it wouldn’t have happened. It was odd going back to somewhere that is so historic.
I had never heard of the stumbling stones, or Stopersteine, which are small brass plated concrete blocks set into the pavements, commemorating victims of Nazi persecution. Their names and fates engraved into the brass plates. These started in 1996.
After he pointed them out, we saw more and more, Heartbreaking!
On a lighter notewe passed Trabi Land!
We also passed the sculpture of Georg Eiser.
If Georg Eiser, a cabinet maker,had been successful, he would have killed Hitler and the course of history would have chnaged. But due to fog, Hitler gave his speech earlier and so it never came to fruition. It reminded so much of Alone in Berlin, small individual acts of dissent, powerful! We need more Georg’s in the world!
We did have a short break in a cafe, but overall the tme went quickly and I would recommend it.
After this we went to the Radisson near Alexanderplatz for a couple of hours. A trick I learnt in Ethiopia, going for a coffee or drinks in very posh hotels and acting like you are meant to be there! I went to a cheaper version a few weeks ago in Durham, they have a signature smell that they blast through the building, you can even buy it. It smells very good! We didn’t think that there was much point going back home as we were heading to see a film.
Babylon cinema wasn’t too far away, we had booked to see Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.
A film of nearly 3 hours with an orchestra playing. We even got two free posters!
I have to say this was an amazing experience!!!!
Random Acts of Travelling 