Seeing Berlin

While this is not my first time in Berlin, I can without a doubt say that this is my first time really seeing Berlin. When I was here for the first time four years ago, I did all of the things and went to all of the places that any self-respecting tourist would; seeing the Reichstag, Schloss Charlottenburg, Schloss Sanssouci, and the Berlin Zoo, eating döner, schnitzel, and currywurst and shopping at the KaDeWe were all on the menu. During this trip, however, the sightseeing has gone a layer deeper.

Berlin is a city bursting with monuments, commemorations, and memorials. Given the often regrettable history of the German state, with Berlin as its capital, this is not surprising. What is surprising is the way in which so many of these monuments are purposefully inconspicuously placed, and even disguised, to the effect that many people do not even notice them. Immediately coming to mind are the Stolpersteine (stumbling blocks) created by the artist Gunter Denmig. The Stolpersteine are simple square blocks covered in brass, placed flush with the sidewalk in front of the last residence of German Jews who were victims of the Holocaust. The stolperstein gives the date of birth and deportation, and place of death of the victim. Interestingly enough, there are a few stolpersteine right around the corner from our hotel on Torstraße and Tucholskystraße.

During our recent visit the the Reichstag, Professor Chaouli pointed out an often overlooked dedication to all the peoples of Germany. Dem Deutschen Volke, very visibly placed above the entrance to the Reichstag, is the well-known dedication of the Reichstag to the German people – that is, those people who can legally or ethnically call themselves Germans.  In a courtyard covered over by ivy is a similar dedication, but this time to der Bevölkerung, “the population”. In a city like Berlin, in a country where multikulti is becoming the norm, this seems to be the more appropriate sentiment, one in which all the people who call Germany home can share. While we were there, our small group of foreigners were the only people who noticed this obscure work of art.

This purposeful obfuscation of memorials and dedications, which in America would be made glaringly obvious, strikes me as quintessentially German. The German mindset nowadays seems to be one of quite remembrance – they feel the need to acknowledge the atrocities of the past, but not to let them define who they are as a culture or where their culture is headed.