We went looking for the Topography of Terror Museum which is located near Checkpoint Charlie. we thought we had found it, but it turned out to be an Exhibition on the GDR's (East German State Security) (the STASI). Not what we were looking for, but interesting nonetheless. Lots of reading. It gives visitors basic information of the GDR State Security Service. It discusses their fundamental mistrust of anything that deviated from the SED norm; its all-embracing claim to total control; its multiple functions as the secret police, an investigative agency and the foreign intelligence sevice rolled into one; and finally, its methods of spying and interrogation. They were answerable only to the SED leadership.
The biographical section is devoted to the people who were kept under surveilance and processed (arrested and imprisoned) by the State Security.
The unofficial informants (citizens of the GDR) were the key weapon of the Ministry for State Security. They reported on all areas of society, infiltrated opposition groups and supplied even the most intimate infrmation about their colleagues, friends, or fellow pupils. By 1989 there were about 189,000 unofficial informants - one for about every 90 GDR citizens.
After this fairly depressing look at life in the GDR during the Cold War era, we again went looking for the Topography of Terror Museum with the history of the Gestapo, SS and Reich Security.
"Topography of Terror" - this is the present day name of the site on which the most important institutions of the Nazi apparatus of terror and persecution were located between 1933 and 1945: the headquarters of the Secret State Police (Gestapo), the Reich SS leadership and Security Service (SD) of the SS and, from 1939 on, the Reich Security Main Office.
The buildings, which were partly destroyed and partly damaged in the final phase of the war, were demolished in the years up to 1956. The history of the site was forgotten, and only gradually reentered the public awareness in the late 1970's.
This center conveys the historical information on Nazi terror throughout Hitler's rise to power, the concentration camps for political prisoners and the persecution of the Jews. After the war, many members of these organizations were found tried and punished at the Nuremberg trials; but many more were not. Some received extremely light sentences for the pain and suffering they caused. Others never were caught or if they were never came to trial for various reasons.
No pictures as it seemed almost sacriligious to photograph the magnitude of the terror, pain and suffering caused by this, one can only call it 'evil', organization. Just lots and lots of reading.
On the walls outside is displayed the history of the Nazi takeover of Poland and the systematic destruction of the city of Warsaw by the SS. Hitler emphatically ordered its total destruction. He felt it had historically been in the way of Germany's future for generations. He ordered the SS to evacuate the city and then to blow up every house, business, church, and monument, and then burn them. Warsaw was completely devastated. What he couldn't suppress was the spirit of the Poles to resist; and they did. Even so they were overpowered by sheer numbers during the war. None of the allied nations came to their defense during Hitler's invasion. They were again betrayed by the allies at Potsdam when the allies allowed Russia to claim Poland as part of their spoils of war.
Again a section of the wall is still standing here and the polish story of
Hitler's invasion of Poland and the destruction of Warsaw is told on this mall
Ok, about 6 hours of two depressing museums and we were really tired. There were more things we wanted to see, but my feet ran out of oomph and we ran out of time.
Here are a few light hearted things we also observed on this day.
"The Trabant (or Trabi)
was a series of cars built in the German Democratic Republic. When the first cars were released, people saw them as being innovative. The cars were also easy on fuel, they did not need much fuel. Trabant had a two-stroke engine. Trabants were not made with steel or iron, because the German Democratic Republic did not want to importsteel and iron for the cars, because that would have been too expensive. Instead, the Trabant was made of Duroplast, a special kind of plastic, made by mixing formica and bakelite, and made stronger with fibres of cotton. After the Berlin Wall was opened the Trabant did not sell as much as before, because the people wanted bigger cars that they could get after the wall was opened. Trabants can still be found in East Europe, for example in Hungary".
We saw these cars near "Checkpoint Charlie". They were being used as a tour attraction. You buy the tour and you drive the car in a convoy behind a tour operator. It looked like fun. Maybe next time we will try this for a change. The bus tours are getting old. These were at the little Trabi World Museum.
We saw these all over Berlin. There was one at our Hotel, so we asked the Concierge about them. He said the story of the Buddy Bears started with an artistic event in Berlin in 2001. Inspired by the idea of bringing art in the streets of a metropolis like the cow parade in Zurich and New York, the initiators of the Buddy Bears, Klaus und Eva Herlitz, decided to start a street art project in Berlin.
It was quickly agreed that a bear would be the ideal sculpture for the backdrops of the German metropolis. The bear - Berlin’s heraldic animal with a high level of public appeal – was envisaged to capture the hearts of Berliners and their guests in various different designs.
Different artists designed the bears. Different businesses sponsored the bears by purchasing them to be placed at their places of business.
He was the last one we saw inside the Berlin Central Train Station as we prepared to board our train back to Amsterdam.
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