The students had already studied the establishment of the Weimar Republic in 1919 and Hitler’s rise to power before they left for Berlin, but the places on the itinerary were specifically chosen to help them understand more about Germany during Hitler’s dictatorship, why Germany and Berlin were divided during the Cold War, and what happened following the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union. There was a packed itinerary and this article is long as there was so much to see and share.
After a long coach trip from Highcliffe, the first stopping point of the trip was at the Tropical Paradise swimming complex, just south of Berlin. What can only be described as a cross between the dome in the ‘Truman Show’, a sauna and the swimming pool at Center Parcs, the Tropical Paradise was also a holiday destination for some Germans who could camp in the sands or stay in villas by the various pools. It was quite surreal, although possibly understandable for people who live many miles from the coast. After a good night’s sleep we headed out for a packed day of sightseeing.
The first destination was the Berlin War Cemetery: one of two (British) Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) cemeteries in Berlin. Of the wartime burials, about 80% are aircrew, killed in action over Germany, the remainder being for prisoners of war.
We then made our way for a quick photo stop at the impressive Olympic Stadium which was originally built for the 1936 Summer Olympics. Hitler wanted to use the Berlin Olympics as a showcase for their ideas particularly with regard to race and he was very disappointed when the black American athlete, Jesse Owens, became the star of the games winning 4 gold medals.
The stadium has since been associated with football, in particular the 1974 and 2006 World Cups.
The group then had a guided tour of the Field of Stelae Holocaust Memorial for the European Jews of the Holocaust.
'I had an idea about silence- I wanted the monument to speak without speaking.'
This was Peter Eisenman's comment on his monument to the European Jews murdered by the Nazis and this stark memorial allows visitors to develop their own interpretation of the design. German citizens expressed a desire to have a memorial from the late1980s and when the Wall came down in 1989, a site was made free in central Berlin that was allocated for this purpose. The concept of the memorial is taken from a Greek idea, where there are vertical memorial ‘stelae’, on which usually the names of the dead are inscribed. However Eisenman’s vision was for the hundreds of grey rectangular blocks, of various heights, to be left blank and that information about individuals could be found in an underground visitors centre. Both the Field of Stelae and the information centre were hugely moving, especially some of the testimonies from some of the Jews. For the Year 10 students, who had not yet learnt about the Holocaust in any detail, they began to understand why the Holocaust should not be forgotten.
We made a short detour to the anonymous but infamous site of Hitler’s bunker, where he spent his last days prior to committing suicide in May 1945. Then we made our way to the iconic Brandenburg Gate, the symbol of victory for the German Empire, and also the scene of the torchlight processions on the night that Hitler became Chancellor in 1933. Hitler made the decision to turn the statue on the top of the gate around to face outwards as a sign that he believed that Germany should expand beyond its current borders. In 1945 Russian soldiers draped the communist flag over the gate in celebration at their capture of the city. It is most famously in the background of many images reporting the fall of the Wall in 1989. The students enjoyed photo and ‘selfie’ opportunities and some free time to visit the square.
We walked round the corner to the Reichstag, the seat of the German Parliament, is one of Berlin's most historic landmarks.
Before we went through security we took time to read the memorial outside the Reichstag which honours the political opponents of Hitler, many of them supporters of Weimar democracy, others Communists and Socialists, who were imprisoned and murdered under Hitler’s dictatorship. At the top of the Reichstag building we went up the giant spiral walkway to the top of the glass dome which gives you impressive panoramic views over Berlin.
There was a wealth of information about the history of the Reichstag including the fire in 1933 and its near destruction in the battle for Berlin in 1945, where the Soviets famously draped their flag to symbolise the Nazi defeat.
We briefly stopped at the Soviet Memorial not far from the Reichstag to find out about the Soviet capture of Berlin before being transferred to the Stasi Museum, located in the east of the city. We had a guided tour of the museum which is housed in the former offices of the former East German Ministry of State Security. The Stasi had two functions: it worked as both a secret service and a secret police. The Stasi ran a huge apparatus with as many as 91,015 full-time employees in an effort to control and monitor the East German people for any signs of deviance from the communist regime.
There were also thousands of spies and informers from all areas of society who provided the Stasi with information about the people they had contact with. Workers wrote reports about their colleagues, teenagers about their fellow classmates, soldiers about their comrades, and sometimes family members even spied on each other. We saw a range of spying equipment, which looked like something from an old James Bond film, but equally there was the distinct impression that life had been difficult for many in East Germany during 1945 and 1989.
The day ended with a walk along the East Side Gallery – the last remaining section of the Berlin Wall, which was constructed in 1961 to prevent people leaving East Berlin and East Germany, until it was pulled down by the people of Berlin in 1989. The Gallery is so called as there are a range of colourful and meaningful murals and graffiti along the Wall, reflecting the desire for peace and unity.
The second full day of sightseeing was very sombre and a time for reflection as we visited places that really illustrated the extent to which Hitler persecuted the European Jews between 1933 and 1945. The first stop was the Plötzensee Memorial which commemorates around 3.000 people executed between 1933 and 1945 by the Nazi justice system. Starting in 1933, the prison increasingly became used as a remand prison and a central place of execution for political prisoners. After being detained, the prisoners were sent to concentration camps. The room in which the executions took place now serves as a memorial space.
This site was chilling enough but Sachsenhausen, the former concentration camp was possibly the first time you could visually imagine the scale of Nazi brutality and the Holocaust.
Sachsenhausen is situated about 30km north of Berlin and was one of three concentration camps built in Germany in 1933. It was initially established to imprison and terrorise political opponents, churchmen, homosexuals and Jews. It became a blue-print to test the efficiency of the design of such a ‘prison’ and the concentration camps that were subsequently built in Poland were on a much larger scale.
Between 1936 and 1945 almost 100,000 people lost their lives here, although it was never an extermination camp like Auschwitz. However an extermination complex was built during the war, alongside a work shop that was used for medical experiments.
The camp was liberated by the Russians in 1945, who used it as a prison and special camp to house many ex-Nazis and then later, opponents of the new Communist regime. A huge effort has been made to replicate some of the prison huts after they were destroyed by the Nazis as they tried to hide the extent of their brutality, and to provide information for visitors to learn what it must have been like to have been incarcerated in such an awful place.
The theme of the Holocaust continued with a brief stop at Grunewald Railway Station and Gleis 17. This was one of the major sites of deportation of the Berlin Jews. The trains left mainly for the ghettos of Litzmannstadt and Warsaw, and from 1942 directly for the Auschwitz and Theresienstadt concentration camps until February 1945.
Each section of the memorial which runs along the platform edge gives details of the date, destination and the number of people who were transported. On some occasions it was clear that over a 1000 Jews would have been deported on a daily basis in 1942/43. It was another moment for the students to reflect on the scale and impact of the Nazi regime.
There was some time for lunch before having some free time to explore the shops in the beautiful suburb of Potsdam, famous location of the 1945 wartime conference. Following this we continued to Wannsee, a beautiful lakeside villa near Potsdam, yet with a sinister history of being the place in which the 1942 Final Solution was planned – the order to exterminate all European Jews.
The grounds and the house of Wannsee were spectacular but the memorial and information centre that was inside fully explained the history of the persecution of the Jews in Germany and then in Eastern Europe as the German army invaded. It was here that many students began to piece together the Holocaust and how it had been planned and implemented during Hitler’s regime. Having had a day in which emotions and empathy had been stirred, we finished with a traditional German meal at a lakeside restaurant before heading back into Berlin for an evening of bowling.
Sunday was another packed day, starting with a guided talk at the German Resistance Memorial Centre. Here we found out how many Germans had made an effort to stand up to the Nazi regime in different ways. Some had refused to perform the mandatory Nazi salute, whilst others had tried to assassinate Hitler.
It was very interesting to realise that Hitler’s Germany was resisted by so many different groups of people that in some shape or form. We were able to quickly visit Checkpoint Charlie, one of the famous crossing points from West to East Berlin, between the Russian and American sectors.
From here we headed to the Topography of Terrors (located on the site of the Gestapo Headquarters) for another guided tour which really did explain the systematic way in which the Nazis took over people’s lives and liberties and how they gained obedience and loyalty through brutality and persecution of opponents. It was another time to reflect on the horrors of Hitler’s Germany.
After some free time for lunch, we made an unscheduled visit to Berlin Zoo, where the students were able to see a whole range of animals; from hippos to baby chimpanzees, meerkats and anteaters - or to simply play in the adventure playground.
This was a good way to end the day before getting back on the coach for the journey back to Highcliffe, with at least a few people getting some sleep!
Owned by: HFH | Last Published: 12/04/2016 14:22:20 | Next Update: NA
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