Berlinwalks: Four Intimate Walking Tours of Berlin's Most Historic Neighborhoods, With Maps, Photos, and a Select List of Restaurants, Hotels, and More
Peter Fritzsche, Karen Hewitt
Language: English
Pages: 145
ISBN: 2:00344373
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Berlin is a city that visionary architects, city planners, social revolutionaries, and ruling kaisers have all tried to reshape. As a result, it is sheathed in layers of modern history, each providing a chapter in the city's story of constant change. Its rich atmosphere of energy made it the intellectual hub of early twentieth-century Europe: its lively theaters, cafes, and bawdy street life drew visitors form around the world.
The four intimate walking tours in this book reveal Berlin's breathtaking history as a small medieval commercial town; as the capital of a ninteeth-century Prussia; as the modern dreamscape of the Weimar Republic; as the "new Rome" of the Third Reich; as a divided city' and now, as the capital of a reunited Germany. Readers will be taken through Merlin Mitte, site of the Brandenburger Tor and the dismantled Wall; past the old stones and new synogogues of the Jewish Quarter; among the working-class neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg; and into the politically vibrant Kreuzberg. Berlinwalks also explores the city's cultural development through the creations of its artists, architects, and novelists, among them Bertolt Brecht, Christppher Isherwood, and Kathe Kollwitz. The book also features maps, more than forty black-and-white photographs, general advice and information, and a select list of restaurants, hotels, and shops. Like the other volumes in this series, Berlinwalks is written for people who want to learn when they travel, not just see.
Just around the corner, on Leipziger Strasse, a prewar sightseer would also have found (on the left) the headquarters of the Navy and (on the right) the War Office. These buildings are all gone now, of course. Potsdamer Platz also reveals traces of Germania, the “thousand-year imperial city” that Hitler hoped Berlin would become in the Third Reich. In the late 1930s, Hitler and his architect Albert Speer envisioned a triumphal north-south boulevard that would have swept right through this
lanterns on horse-drawn carts and automobiles, arc-lighting, light bulbs, carbide lamps.” Unter den Linden certainly does not compare today. The only building on the corner to survive the war is the Switzerland House on the northwest corner, which was built in 1936. Farther down Unter den Linden is the long stretch of the Russian embassy, built partially with marble retrieved from Hitler’s New Chancellory that the Soviets blew up in 1945. This imposing complex attests to the crucial role played
likely to survive the current wave of renaming East Berlin sights. Volksbühne Loop around the corner of the Babylon and continue on Weydingerstrasse one block to Kleine Alexanderstrasse. This section of Berlin, particularly around Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, was not only the site of Poelzig’s experiments in urban planning but also served as the operational center of the influential Communist Party. The successor party to the East German Communists, the Party of Democratic Socialism, makes its offices
necessity for most families. Trips to outdoor markets with wicker baskets in hand or to supermarkets with hand-pulled carts are an everyday fact of life here. But timing, too, is important. Most neighborhood shops close their doors by 6 pm on weekdays and by 1 pm on Saturday. Except for flower shops, newspaper kiosks, and a few snack stands, nothing at all is open on Sunday. These strict hours are governed by national statutes and are intended to allow shopkeepers and their employees adequate
Wilhelm II abdicated and Social Democrats declared Germany’s first democratic government, the Weimar Republic. Unfortunately, harsh economics and unfulfilled political expectations kept Berliners divided. As democrats battled monarchists, socialists battled Communists, and the Nazis clashed with all parties, the Weimar Republic had little chance for political stability or longevity. The streets of Berlin in the 1920s were not simply a dangerous political battleground. The ruinous inflation in