Berlin O philia

You probably noticed we did not update the blog for a few days now. Well, due to lousy planning and a flood of irrelevant events from the uninteresting realm of everyday life, we have flown off to our yearly vacation, in Berlin, natürlich, without preparing enough posts in advance. But I cannot leave you with nothing for this whole period, can I… So here are a few teasers for our new crop, which should last till the next visit…. (yes, we’re kind of killing ourselves for the Cause…)

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The Oscar winning film “The Lives of Others” from 2006 (”Das Leben der Anderen” in German) is another film about the days of the former German Democratic Republic, very different in ambience from the film Goodbye Lenin!.

Click on the picture to buy the DVD.

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The film Goodbye Lenin!, from 2003, was the most prominent example of Ostalgie to the world outside Germany. The film is basically about a son who, for his mother’s health, tries to create a make-believe world, in which the Wall didn’t come done and the GDR didn’t disappear from the face of the earth.

Click on the picture to buy the DVD.

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My personal favorite Ostalgie item, as I mentioned before, is the Ampelmann, the man in the traffic lights of East Germany (”Ampel” is “traffic-light” in German).

My first encounter with the Ampelmann was actually in a traffic-light. I immediately liked that cute darling. And then I found out about his oh so naïve and sweet history, but also about its outrageous commercialization. I mean, I really wanted an Ampelmann bag, but not at these prices. So I settled for a woolen hat and shirt, and a little green man for my key chain. I also got a small book elaborating on the history of the man, the brand and the various products.

The Ampelmann was created by the traffic psychologist (what a weird profession, I’d say) Karl Peglau, in 1961. The rationale was to combat the danger of road accidents by using appealing symbols, since “road users react more quickly to appealing symbols” (well, maybe. I don’t believe it would have worked here). Read the rest of this entry »

The official Berlin tourism site offers a program for East Berlin nostalgia tours, which you can find here. They claim that “The recent history in Berlin has many aspects and different ways of handling. On one hand there is the difficult historical discussion, on the other hand is the (n)ostalgic mood… Our tour shows both sides”.

Another option is taking the “Trabi-safari” tour, which costs between 25 to 35 euros, depending on the number of participants. Information about the “Trabi-safari” can be found in their website.

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After dealing with the commemoration of the darker side of the communist regime in East Germany, I turn now to deal with the phenomenon of Ostalgie, also mentioned here before, in relation to the current situation of the German Unification.

Ostalgie is like it sounds – the German word for nostalgia for life in the former German Democratic Republic (Ost is east in German). Everybody knows, most of all people who actually lived there, that the tearing down of the Wall was not a spontaneous whimsical act that happened with no reason. So I think it’s pretty obvious that Ostalgie does not mean wanting to live again under a totalitarian dictatorship and the unbound reign of the secret police.
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In the website of the city of Berlin you can find a lot of very useful information about sites and museums, dedicated to the commemoration of the wall, its victims, and the GDR (German Democratic Republic, as East Germany called itself) period and works.

Among the memorial sites for the victims of the Berlin Wall you can find the Memorial for Günter Litfin, the first person to be shot and killed attempting to flee to West Berlin. The memorial is located on Kieler str. 2, and you can get there by taking the U6 to Reinickendorfer Strasse station, or by bus line 147.

There is also a memorial for Peter Fechter, an East German teenager who was shot at the crossing and left there to bleed to death. The place was marked with a wooden cross, which was replaced in 1999 by a stele created by Karl Biedermann and donated by Axel-Springer-Verlag. The spot where Peter Fechter died is marked on the ground by basalt rock.

Other memorials include the Parliament of Trees against War and Violence, and the White Crosses memorial site. For further information, including a map, look here.

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The communist era is heavily commemorated in Berlin, with memorials, museums, special tours and more, scattered all over the city. We have already mentioned and elaborated about the Berlin Wall, and mentioned the sweet and sour issue of German Unification, but there still remains a lot to be said.
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The Spree is the river that passes through Berlin. The river runs through Saxony, Brandenburg and Berlin, and is approximately 400 km in length. Its source is on the Czech border, and its final portion runs through the city center of Berlin, and joins the Havel River in the western quarters of the city.

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Tiergarten (translation: “animal garden”) is Berlin’s Central Park (although somewhat smaller than New York’s). It is located in the heart of the city, and is a popular outdoor oasis for Berliners and tourists.

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