Travel / Part 1 / Berlin

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By : Sky Shield / All right reserved
Sources :
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In this part we travel to Berlin

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Introduction



capital and chief urban centre of Germany. The city lies at the heart of the North German Plain, athwart an east-west commercial and geographic axis that helped make it the capital of the kingdom of Prussia and then, from 1871, of a unified Germany. Berlin's former glory ended in 1945, but the city survived the destruction of World War II. It was rebuilt and came to show amazing economic and cultural growth.

Germany's division after the war put Berlin entirely within the territory of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany). The city itself echoed the national partition—East Berlin being the capital of East Germany and West Berlin a Land (state) of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, or West Germany). West Berlin's isolation was later reinforced by the concrete barrier erected in 1961 and known as the Berlin Wall. Its status as an enclave made Berlin a continuous focus of confrontation between the Eastern and Western powers as well as a symbol of Western lifestyle for 45 years.

The fall of the East German communist regime—and the accompanying opening of the wall—in late 1989 unexpectedly raised the prospect for Berlin's reinstatement as the all-German capital. That status was restored in 1990 under the terms of the unification treaty, and subsequently Berlin was designated a state, one of the 16 constituting Germany. These developments heralded the city's return to its historic position of prominence in European culture and commerce. Area 344 square miles (891 square km). Pop. (2005 est.) 3,395,189

The Brandenburg Gate, Berlin

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Physical and human geography

The landscape

The city site

Berlin is situated about 112 miles (180 km) south of the Baltic Sea, 118 miles (190 km) north of the Czech-German border, 110 miles (177 km) east of the former inner-German border, and 55 miles (89 km) west of Poland. It lies in the wide glacial valley of the Spree River, which runs through the centre of the city. The mean elevation of Berlin is 115 feet (35 metres) above sea level. The highest point near the centre of Berlin is the peak of the Kreuzberg, a hill that rises 218 feet (66 metres) above sea level.
Measuring approximately 23 miles (37 km) from north to south and 28 miles (45 km) from east to west, Berlin is by far the largest city in Germany.

It is built mainly on sandy glacial soil amid an extensive belt of forest-rimmed lakes, formed from the waters of the Dahme River to the southeast and the Havel to the west; indeed, about one-third of the Greater Berlin area is still covered by sandy pine and mixed birch woods, lakes, and beaches. “Devil's Mountain” (Teufelsberg), one of several hills constructed from the rubble left by World War II bombing, rises to 380 feet (116 metres) and has been turned into a winter sports area for skiing and sledding .


Climate

Berlin lies where the influence of the Atlantic Ocean fades and the climate of the continental plain begins. The city's mean annual temperature is about 48 °F (9 °C), and mean temperatures range from 30 °F (−1 °C) in winter to 65 °F (18 °C) in summer. The average precipitation is 22 inches (568 mm). About one-fifth to one-fourth of the total falls as snow

The outskirts of Berlin are covered with woodlands and numerous lakes

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The city layout

The original twin towns of Berlin and Kölln developed from the early 13th century onward, on an island of the Spree River (the site of Kölln) and a small portion of land on the north bank of the river facing the island (the site of Berlin). While still a small town, it became the capital of the electoral princes of Brandenburg from the end of the 15th century onward. From the late 17th and early 18th centuries, when the electors of Brandenburg (also kings of Prussia from 1701) developed into powerful figures on the European political stage, the city expanded and gained a Baroque appearance; new castles, such as Charlottenburg Palace, were built. The central quarter expanded and was embellished with broad avenues, handsome squares, and grandiose stone buildings. The central area acquired broad north-south avenues, such as Wilhelmstrasse and Friedrichstrasse, and also its characteristic east-west road axis. Supplementing this main axis are several exit roads that now serve as major traffic arteries.

In the late 19th century suburbs developed around these arteries and their subsidiary streets. Where destruction during World War II was massive, there has been large-scale construction of modern apartment and office buildings, one of the most famous being the Hansa Quarter, built by renowned architects from many countries.
Although there is only one major park near the city centre—the Tiergarten, just west of the Brandenburg Gate—Berlin has always been a surprisingly green city, with luxuriant trees softening the effect of the stone apartment blocks in many streets. Water is even more prevalent, with the Spree River running through the city's centre, a broad belt of lakes spreading out east and west, and canals running through much of the city.

Until the “peaceful revolution” of 1989, the most notorious feature of the city's topography was the Berlin Wall, erected by the East German communist government in 1961 to stop free movement between East Berlin (and indeed East Germany) and West Berlin. The boundary between East and West Berlin and the boundary between West Berlin and East Germany, for a combined length of 103 miles (166 km), were closed until 1989 by a solid ring of barriers, consisting mostly of prefabricated concrete slabs. Of the several heavily guarded crossing points, Checkpoint Charlie on Friedrichstrasse was the most famous. Here one can find remnants of the wall as well as a small museum dedicated to its history. In some places buildings had immediately adjoined the wall, and in the early days of division some people died attempting to jump to freedom from their upper floors. Today crosses mark some of the places where these and other would-be refugees, numbering at least 110, lost their lives

Tiergarten (foreground) with the Brandenburg Gate (lower left) and the television tower (centre), Berlin, Germany

The political and physical division of Berlin had a profound and pervasive influence on urban planning. Because the walled boundary created, in effect, an urban frontier immediately west of what had been the city's central administrative, commercial, and cultural quarter—Berlin Mitte—which became part of East Berlin, West Berlin was forced to develop a new central area of its own, around the Kurfürstendamm and the nearby Zoo railway station in the former suburb of Charlottenburg. The area had been a distinctive commercial and entertainment district since the late 19th century, but rebuilding following extensive damage from World War II gave it a decidedly modern character.

Throughout the city an effort to blend the modern with the traditional is evident. A striking example is the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche), which incorporates the bell tower of the original 19th-century structure (ruined in World War II) into a dramatic glass-and-concrete church built in 1961

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Dome atop the Reichstag, Berlin

A landmark of more conventional historic preservation is the heavily restored Reichstag building. The decision to restore the former parliament house in the 1970s was a controversial one—the building had been torched in the early days of Hitler's chancellorship (a key event in his assumption of dictatorial powers) and heavily bombarded during the final Soviet offensive in April 1945. In early 1990 the building's plenary session chamber was made suitable again for parliamentary use. In 1999, after extensive renovation and a major redesign, the German legislature finally moved into the Reichstag building, and the area surrounding the Reichstag became a centre of national government

Schloss Charlottenburg, front view , Berlin

Other buildings of note include Philharmonic Hall (Philharmonie; built by Hans Scharoun in 1963) and the New National Gallery of modern art (Neue Nationalgalerie); the gallery was the last creation of architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who worked in Berlin and Dessau (Bauhaus) until 1938, when he emigrated to Chicago. The Hall for Chamber Music (Kammermusiksaal), a companion facility to Philharmonic Hall, opened in 1987. The Charlottenburg Palace, dating from the late 17th century, is perhaps the city's most outstanding example of Baroque design.The centre of the city has its own architectural symbol and war-memorial church—St. Nicholas Church (Nikolaikirche), dating from about 1200. Only the red-brick shell of Berlin's oldest building remained standing after a bombing attack during World War II, but restoration was completed in 1987, the 750th anniversary of Berlin's founding. The church, capped by two steeples, serves as the centrepiece of the old city enclave, the St. Nicholas Quarter (Nikolaiviertel), which includes replicas of townhouses from three centuries.
Two structures erected by the communist state dominate central Berlin—a 1,197-foot (365-metre) television tower and the Palace of the Republic (Palast der Republik), both adjacent to the Alexanderplatz. The tower, completed in 1969 to mark the 20th anniversary of the founding of East Germany, commands the Berlin skyline. The Palace of the Republic was opened in 1976 as the new seat of the East German parliament (Volkskammer), occupying the site of the former palace of the Prussian and German kings and kaisers. The decision to raze rather than to restore that badly damaged residence met with wide public disapproval. Proposals have been made to tear down the asbestos-contaminated building and to reconstruct the former palace. Also on the Alexanderplatz, which has once again become a crossroads of Berlin, rises the 39-story hotel Stadt Berlin, one of the city's tallest buildings.
In the same general area are Berlin's oldest surviving church, the Church of Mary (Marienkirche), and the Museum Island, on which are located the Old (Altes) and New (Neues) museums, the National Gallery (Nationalgalerie), the Bode Museum, and Pergamon Museum with its famous Greek altar of Zeus. Most of these museums are Neoclassical buildings designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel and his disciples. Also in this area are the Town Hall, seat of the state parliament (Rotes Rathaus), built of red brick; the former State Council and Central Committee Building; and the rebuilt St. Hedwig's Cathedral, which dates from 1747 and which was the first Roman Catholic church to be built in Berlin after the Reformation. North of the Museum Island, in the Oranienburger Strasse, is Berlin's main synagogue; it was officially reopened in 1991, 125 years after its first opening. The reconstruction of its interior, primarily as a museum, was completed in 1995

Charlottenburg Palace at 'Festival of Lights' 2007 , Berlin

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The cultural district on Unter den Linden, the broad avenue leading from near the Alexanderplatz to the Brandenburg Gate, also reflects the old and new. At its eastern end stands the Berlin cathedral (Berliner Dom), which was restored between the late 1970s and early 1990s. For its entire length the avenue features modern hotels and shops and landmarks, including the restored Arsenal (Zeughaus), New Guardhouse (Neue Wache), Berlin Palace (formerly the Crown Prince's Palace), Princesses' Palace (Prinzessinnenpalais), Opera House, National Library, Kaiser Wilhelm Palace, and Humboldt University.

The Brandenburg Gate's sculptured chariot with four horses was restored in 1958 and again in 1991, the 200th anniversary of the gate's construction.South of Unter den Linden is the Gendarme Market, one of the finest architectural centres in Berlin, where restoration of the German and French cathedrals and the Schauspielhaus, the former royal playhouse, was completed during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Wilhelmstrasse, which runs north-south, was once the site of Prussian and Reich government buildings. Removal of the wall west of the street exposed the remains of Hitler's bunker and the Potsdamer Platz, once the city's busiest traffic hub. Before its collapse, the East German government had bulldozed the bunker area and begun erecting apartment buildings. Archaeologists reopened the underground complex, which has again become a focus of historical examination. Since the removal of the wall, Potsdamer Platz has become one of the major sites of current city planning and development; international groups of architects, the federal government, and commercial enterprises have proposed various schemes for the area's revitalization.

While serving as the Prussian and German national capital, Berlin always attracted architects and city planners. After World War I it was the international centre of the architectural avant-garde, represented by architects such as Erich Mendelsohn, Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Bruno and Max Taut, Martin Wagner, and Hans Scharoun. Berlin's many buildings representing the styles of the Baroque, Classicism, Romanticism, Gründerjahre (1871–90), and the Wilhelminian era, of Art Nouveau, Bauhaus, postwar Modernism, and Postmodernism, and of the periods of socialist state architecture make the city a rich source for the study of 18th- to 20th-century architecture

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The people

Although the two parts of the city divided by the wall were approximately equal in area, the population of East Berlin numbered less than two-thirds that of West Berlin. Because the average age of West Berliners was higher than that of other West Germans, West Berlin encouraged the immigration of younger West German and foreign workers. With the end of partition, new patterns of population growth quickly emerged. Some people from the west sought cheaper housing in the east. Property values and rents soared throughout the city. Many international firms sought Berlin locations. In the early 1990s more than 300,000 non-Germans, “guest workers” and refugees, were permanent residents of the city. The district of Kreuzberg has the largest Turkish community in Europe. During much of its history, Berlin has had a multiethnic population. Since the collapse of communism, the city has attracted immigrants, including a significant number of Jews, from various eastern European countries and the former Soviet Union. Indeed, the city has experienced a modest rebirth of its once-thriving Jewish community

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The economy

Industry and trade

To a large extent, traditional economic activities, greatly reduced by World War II, have been revived throughout Greater Berlin. These include the production of textiles, metals, clothing, porcelain and china, bicycles, and machinery. Electronics became a principal postwar industry. The production of food, chemicals, cigarettes, and confectionery continues. Berlin is Germany's largest industrial town and a major centre of trade and technological development; many companies maintain facilities in the city

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Transportation

Modern rapid transit systems have existed since the 19th century. Construction of the Stadt- or Schnellbahn (S-Bahn), a largely elevated and partly underground railway system, began in 1871, and building of the subway, or Untergrundbahn (U-Bahn), was initiated in 1897. By World War II the city had one of the finest rapid transit systems in Europe. After the erection of the wall, the bus became the mainstay of transportation, although streetcar service continued in some eastern districts. After unification, through train service increased rapidly, reconnecting Berlin with all major German and European cities.


Air traffic has played an important role since 1945, particularly in West Berlin in 1948, at the time of the Soviet blockade of the western sectors. Tempelhof, the main field of the airlift, lost its traditional role as the centre of Berlin's air traffic during the 1970s. (It closed permanently in 2008.) German reunification brought a general revision of Berlin's passenger and commercial air traffic pattern. The Berlin-Tegel and Berlin-Schönefeld airports remained in operation, but in the late 1990s expansion of Schönefeld began, with the goal of eventually making it the sole commercial airport in the city.

The Bundesautobahn (National Expressway) in Berlin is part of a national superhighway network inaugurated before World War II. The system is linked with the Berliner Ring, a circle of autobahns around the city with Berlin in the centre of access spokes. Even before 1990, both Germanys had cooperated in maintaining road and rail traffic to and from Berlin. A new autobahn connecting Berlin with Hamburg was financed by West Germany. Since 1990, both the autobahn and railway systems have been expanded in order to serve Berlin's metropolitan and capital functions