Berlin Walking Tour — Eugene Fox

Earlier this week, I went on the Insider Tours walking tour. This was a highly recommended tour and compared to the free walking tours that are common, I think the price really paid for the quality. I feel like with all tours, a good guide really makes the experience. For this tour I had Brian, the Texan, who lost his Texan accent after becoming fluent in German.

Brian started off by giving us a very fun overview of Berlin/German history condensed in 15 minutes to make sure we remembered some of the more important German history and context.

Berlin is full of world class museums and monuments. There are about 180 museum in the city of Berlin and many of them are funded by the city and free. Museums are great place for rainy day activity, but Berlin proudly says that it has more museums here than rainy days in an average year. Along the tour, Brian gave recommendations on some of the museums that I plan to visit while here.

A theme that Brian brought up a throughout the tour was the meaning of a monument and the motivations behind the people who curate them. Some past monuments in Berlin were erected for propaganda purposes and the more recent motivations come from wanting to be open and educate the public on Germany's past. I learned of a uniquely german word "Vergangenheitsbewältigung" (I admit, I just copy pasted that spelling from Wikipedia) which means "Coming to terms with one's dark past". In this spirit, many museums in Berlin dig up its difficult past and display it to the world in an objective manner.

Neue Wache - A building that only has this statue of a mother holding her dying son where its commemorative message changed over the years as the government changed. On the ground there is an inscription that reads now, "To the Victims of War and Ty… — Neue Wache - A building that only has this statue of a mother holding her dying son where its commemorative message changed over the years as the government changed. On the ground there is an inscription that reads now, "To the Victims of War and Tyranny." During the Soviet control of Berlin, the inscription read, "Memorial to the Victims of Fascism and Militarism." And even before that during the Nazi regime it read something like "To the fallen German soldiers" which excluded many other groups who were involved the first World War. And way back when the memorial was first commissioned, the inscription read "To all victims of war and violence."

These next two pictures are from the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. A memorial square lined with stone blocks that get deeper in the middle. Walking through it gives you feelings of being lost and oppressed.