...the end, for now.

I've presented a barrage of material, explaining some of it, letting the rest stand on its own, but really, what DOES it all mean? Let me start with some background.

During my year abroad (are you tired of hearing that phrase yet?), whenever I started talking to random Germans, the conversations were often so similiar it was almost if Emma Thompson were scripting my life, and something that always came up (after the, "Did you vote for Bush" question) was what Americans think of Germans: "Do Americans really think Hitler is still alive? Do they think we're all Nazis?" I usually told them that although I was obviously not qualified to speak for my entire country and that I was clearly more well-versed in the country and culture than most, I was pretty sure the majority of the population did not think contemporary Germans were "all Nazis."

I wanted to write this off as a completely preposterous and misconceived stereotype, but what DOES the average American know about Germany and what ARE the most common associations? Any trip into the history section of a major bookstore will answer that question pretty accurately. The Germany from 1933-1945 has come to define Germany as a whole. My intentions are in no way aimed at downplaying the unforgivable, but I decided to work on a project focusing on contemporary Berlin because I wanted to prove that Germany and Germans offer so much more.

From the skeleton of major architectural schemes, projects, and fixtures in the urban landscape of Berlin, with this project, I launched into a greater exploration of the intersection of art, politics, history, and the media in a largely contemporary context. With this presentation, I truly believe I have garnered a dynamic 'image of the cityscape,' and I can only hope that anyone who is reading this has shared even a small part of that experience.

street/memory

So you're probably thinking: oh, she got to the end of her project and just decided to lump these two things together. Well, you're half right. The unit was originially titled "Politics of Memory and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe," aside from being excessively cumbersome, this last topic failed to incorporate some of the research/literature I had found and themes that my advisor and I had been discussing. I then thought that "Street Life/Scenes" would just be another category, but I realized that the theme of memory is very much integrated into the street scape of Berlin life. There are large empty spaces, there is a long line of brick through the city, indicating the path of The Wall, and in one Eastern neighborhood, they've integrated in the walkway raised "tripping stones," which bear the names of families who had lived there before being deported to intournment and concentration camps further East.

Although Doeblin and Goetz do not write about memorials or the more heady 'politics of memory,' the excerpts I've included are not only important pieces of German genre literature, they are so very Berlin. Their literary talent perfectly encapsulates how a casual glance out of your apartment window can define an entire day or citywide event. And just as much as street vendors and the antics of such institutions as the Love Parade bring character to the city, the prominent pieces of public art and architecture devoted to facing a problematic history head-on are completely incorporated into the totality of 'the scene.'

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is no exception. These places of memory are highly-publicized and highly-visible, yet once placed in the environs of a particular area, they become fully integrated. At once, Memory as a cultural priority is fully incorporated into the urban landscape.

Much of the criticism against this particular memorial questions its complete accessibility. Is it right that people can sunbathe and spill ice cream all over the stone pillars on hot summer days? Should toddlers really be learning to walk on a Holocaust memorial? And what about the fact that it's built extremely close to Hitler's bunker? To me, this is much less offensive than the Holocaust 'tourism' centered around the extermination camps. Smiling under the "Arbeit Macht Frei" wrought iron gate is MUCH more perverse than interacting with a streetside memorial intended to ensure that time does not heal all scars or forgive all atrocities.

Trains, Planes, and Automobiles (or really, just Trains)

First of all, I must make it clear that I am in no way overstating the importance of public transportation in the average Berliner's daily life. To illustrate this fact, I am including a long excerpt from what my friends endearingly refer to as my 'epic study abroad updates, which [they] didn't really read.' Screw them, my grandparents STILL oo and aahh about these 3,000 word missives and lament the fact that I don't find daily college life nearly as 'let me detail every minute of my life'-worthy. Without further ado, letter from late September, 2005 (and yes, I AM quoting myself):

"The closest subway station to my host family’s apartment is Sophie-Charlotte Platz, which is on the U2 subway line (quite appropriately named, I must say). It’s the original line that winds its way through the city (here’s where you should bust out a map of Berlin, as architecture and geographic boredom is sure to follow), connecting Alexanderplatz and the Fernsehturm (TV tower) to Potsdamer Platz (the geographical center of the city, formerly a Soviet No-Man’s Land, made famous by the hyper-modern glass and steel architecture of Daimler-Chrysler and Sony-Ericsson), the Zoologischer Garten, the Deutsche Oper (one of three main opera houses in the city), and at the very end, the Olympic Stadium (not to be confused with the Velodrom where Robbie Williams, the British pop sensation, will play to crowd of thousands whose tickets sold out within 20 minutes for over 98 Euros a pop on October 9^th). On the subway map that is always in my wallet, the line is red, uncannily depicting its artery-like qualities, representing on a perfect microcosmic level the spirit of this burgeoning, ever-evolving, intricately fascinating metropolis.

Weekdays around 9 am, I often find myself switching from the U-Bahn (underground) to the S-Bahn (above ground, faster, originally built to bring the workers from the suburbs into the city) at Zoologischer Garten. There was a seminal book written in the 80s called Children of Zoo (Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo), describing the drug-ridden youth counterculture that concentrated in the area. Since becoming the one of Berlin’s Deutsche Bahn hubs, the area has perked up and now fosters many a kitschy tourist shop and Döner Kebap Imbiss. The S-Bahn takes me to Friedrichstrasse, the closest station to the main building of Humboldt University (in conjunction with Duke, the host of my program) which, across from the Staats Oper, graces Unter den Linden, the historical thoroughfare of East Berlin punctuated by the Brandenburg Gate (Tor). The area was redesigned in the early 1800s by the architectural genius of Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the grandfather of Berlin urban planning and design, whose influence is still heavily witnessed throughout the city. From Zoo to Friedrichstrasse, the train runs through the new main train station (Hauptbahnhof) – Lehrter Bahnhof – which is currently under contrstruction, scheduled to be finished by next summer, when Germany will host the World Cup (Weltmeisterschaft). Business owners and commuters alike are worried about the Zoo area reverting to the filth, grime, and danger of the 80s once the trains are rerouted to Lehrter, which is an amazing feat of modern glass construction, sweeping through the northern center of the city, overlooking the Reichstag and the Spree River.

Depending on my evening activities, I will spend anywhere between 1.5 to 3 hours on public transportation daily. On the way to class, I usually finish up readings or look over notes if I have to give a presentation (although we’re not in German university classes, we’ve still fallen into their obsession with the Referat – oral presentation) on some random idea or person of historical significance, feeling very productive, glad to be “one of those people who reads on the subway.” On Tuesday and Friday evenings, I take the S1 50 minutes out of town to Mexiko Platz, where I am an English tutor for the daughter of the Korean Ambassador’s Press Secretary, I write German journal entries for class or stare off into the distance, bracing myself for yet another adventure with my over zealous parent of an employer, for whom I must resign to a very uncharacteristic role of subservient female. There are many ways in which one ends up “working for the man,” this one seems more literal than others, however. The most lonely train rides usually involve furiously text messaging my friends on my way out to some cool eastern neighborhood to partake in “Berlin’s famously wild nightlife.” I would not characterize any of my nights out thus far as “wild,” per se, but I will say that they are always long and invariably entertaining. I think my favorite rides involve a fresh butter croissant from the subway bakeries that open for commuters around 5 am, as I blankly observe my fellow early morning riders (an odd collection of homeless men reeking of sour beer and street filth, young, fashionable people with smeared eyeliner and dazed expressions, and the incidental elderly woman who carries an umbrella at all times and always wears that creamy tan color of velcro orthopedic shoes that matches her loose trench coat). I’ve come to enjoy the 7 minute walk from the U-Bahn station to my host family’s apartment as the sun rises, hearing my footsteps echo through the quiet residential streets of Charlottenburg, occasionally shivering as the early fall wind whips around the corner, blowing my scarf up to my face and shaking the green-for-not-much-longer leaves of the trees lining the vicinity."

There are many readings in the first section, "The Subjective Experience of Public Transportation," and I chose these for two reasons: 1) most of the authors are well-known, important figures on the literary landscape and are integral to a basic introduction of German Lit (modern or otherwise), and 2) they offer a different way to interact with the subject matter. The trainstation is no longer the faceless center of destination A that helps connect you to destination B, it is part of the process - the wonder, excitement, ridiculousness, and frustration.

I think it's fairly obvious how the Emil clips relate to the topic, but I chose the Christiane F. shorts in order to convey the mood of this time period (late 70s-early 80s). Zoo Garten is an important figure in the contemporary history of West Berlin and that this youth counterculture was so deeply and shockingly out of control presents a very different picture of the roaring West than what we're used to. Also, the soundtrack is just so good.

Lehrter - Metaphor for the Future? In many ways this is obvious, in others, it's completely not. The new main train station of Berlin's capital city, built right in the heart of the governmental district in the glass-and-steel-transparent-democratic style is a crossroads of European ground transportation. I have a problem ascribing too much weight to this concept, which is probably why I've emphasized visual materials over the news articles and architectural reviews of the site. Unlike the Reichstag or the Palast der Republik, I find that this piece of architecture is not necessarily a representation of a cultural and historical discourse, but rather visual depiction of a modern city with modern workers and technology (and also completely modern ideas of an Architect's rights: there are rumors that since they shortened the arching glass roof, thus altering the Architect's plans 'significantly,' they are going to spend an extraordinary amount of money either paying him off or rebuilding parts of the station --PREPOSTEROUS, anyone?)

Palast der Republik

As I've mentioned before, I was recently in Berlin, and I saw the sad current state of affairs around the former Marx-Engels-Platz, where the skeleton of the 'Palace of the People' becomes more sparse on an hourly basis as construction crews 'dismantle' the building, making sure that all of the materials are 'recycled.'

When I first saw the Palast, it was during a gloomy bus tour of the city in Februrary 2005. I knew absolutely nothing about the building but thought: "Gah, that is an absolute eyesore, they should tear that thing down immediately." At that point, asbestos that had been discovered shortly after reunification rendered the building 'useless' in the eyes of the West German government, and even though West German buildings had been successfully ridded of the abhorrent insulation, the stalwart of German Democratic Republic was just not worthy of salvation--perhaps the symbolism was too grand. Or maybe the Western mindset will never fully recover from the brainwashing of Cold War era politics.

This is one of my favorite 'units' because I find the question of responsibility and history bundled into this one building endlessly complex. The Palast, in its 'heyday' was a destination for East Germans (I think this idea is conveyed quite concisely with more than a dash of humor in the selections from 'Von Erichs Lampenladen'). A multi-purpose building with gourmet restaurants, an extensive art collection, a bowling alley, disco, theatre, AND a really large parliamentry auditorium...all organized with typically inefficient and arbitrary East German policies. How could you not love it? The images in the gallery of the inside of the Palast are scanned from a 1973 East German propaganda book celebrating the building. Even though my opinions and upbringing (and even forays into German culture) are clearly Western, to me, the Palast in its original, golden state epitomizes the romance of the DDR (GDR), and I am completely starry-eyed.

For this reason, seeing the deconstruction site almost made me cry. It was yet another gloomy winter day in Berlin, and I was accompanied only by a couple of cameras (the 'dismantling' clip -once the format is converted it may actually work- was taken with my little digital camera and provides a quick 360 of the area). They've exposed the underground ruins of the old royal palace and straight through the skeleton of the Palast, the Fersehturm (TV tower) remains one of the only shining beacons of Socialist Germany along the cityscape. In the past 18 years, the GDR's stamp on the urban landscape has been slowly, but steadily erased. The conformity of (Karl Friedrich) Schinkel's Unter den Linden neo-classical layout is being restored, and although it truly is beautiful...it all seems a little ersatz.

They've argued for years about what to do with the Palast--it took over ten to finally begin 'dismantling' (sorry for the continued use of quotation marks - I just find the state-imposed lexicon completely ridiculous) the building, so it might take another 20 to agree on what to put there. There were some rich businessmen who were pushing for a complete reconstruction of the Hohenzollern Palace that was destroyed in the bombings of WWII and subsequently razed by the Socialists in the 50s, but I believe the support for that plan is waning, and plans for a park or a revisionist sort of building are surfacing. The coast is wide-open, but I'm thinking I'd like to see some sort New German architecture with glass and steel, incorporating ideas and inspirations from both buildings. It's the sort of architecture one sees all over the city, but it's what Berlin has become, and I have truly embraced it.

Reichstag (endearingly, R-tag)

I've had a lot of problems with the formatting of this page, so hopefully the grey boxes are where they should be--perfectly behind the readings, but if they aren't, I'm quite sorry.

I spent a really long time researching the Reichstag and have reached to the conclusion (to really downplay it), that the whole reason it's such a SYMBOL (ooh, buzzword!) of Germany and of Berlin is all rather arbitrary. But, as some of these readings suggest--people take their symbols, arbitrary or not, QUITE seriously. Although Hitler never even used the Reichstag to carry out the governing of the Third Reich, it was still the building that the Soviet soldiers flocked to during the Siege, staging the famous photograph (in the image gallery) where they symbolically raise the Red flag over the ledge of the building, signifying victory and an end to Hitler's wordsaren'tenoughtofullydescribehowterrible regime.

Despite its status as this staid 'institution' in Berlin, I love this building in its current state. Much of Wallot's original ornamentation has been stripped and Foster's eco refurbishments are just pretty damn cool (and quite attractive). I also completely love the idea of Christo's Summer '95 wrapping.

Michael S. Cullen - the premiere Reichstag historian - sent Christo and his wife, Jean-Claude, a postcard in the mid 70s suggesting that they consider a project to wrap the Reichstag. The process took over thirty years of bureaucratic hoops and finagling, but once everything came together, Berlin was once again seen as a destination city. The shimmery, silvery fabric (rarely accurately captured on film) remained covering the building for just two short weeks that summer, but the beauty of Christo's monster enviro-installations is that the process of creating them, and the stories people have about them are just as important as the actual works of art. For my final paper in my Berlin German class, I did an 'oral history' project on the Wrapping and emailed a few parliament members -- in a stroke of luck, four of them actually responded, and although my questions weren't terribly prodding and no one felt the need to really expound, they all expressed a nostalgic sense of spectacle and shared experience. For the first time in too many years, Berlin was once again the capital city.

intro: then/now/ in-between

The title picture isn't just random abstract figures hanging from some ceiling. It does relate to the topic: I took it in the fall of 2005 at the Berlin Philharmonic (a really cool building designed by Hans Scharoun and built between 1956 and 1963). The Philharmonic is right off Potsdamer Platz, which, at the time, marked one of the many areas of the city directly in sight of The Wall. West Berlin went forward with this truly unique design because of its favorably central and highly-visible location. The architectural landscape provided yet another arena for the East v. West conflict, and the West placed a terribly high importance on visibility, aesthetics, function, and generally outdoing the East in every imaginable way. To this day, Scharoun's keen acoustic engineering (along with a world-class orchesta) provides one of the most invigorating and layered live music experiences in the world.

A quintessential film every German Studies major has seen (along with Metroplis) at least three times, Berlin: Die Sinfonie einer Grossstadt (1927), provides a solid image of pre-WWII Berlin. Some really love the score, I find it rather irritating, but so it goes.

Although a new version of Sinfonie was made, I preferred to include Berlin Babylon (2001) because it so accurately depicts a reunified Berlin in a frenzy of construction (some of which continues to this day). The grit appealed to me, because Berlin IS gritty. If you want intact imperialism, try Vienna.

As alluded to in the first paragraph of this entry, the East and West viewed post-war reconstruction very differently, and although this architecture/time-period/cultural history is not the focus of my project, I think it's absolutely important to understanding why Berlin is what it is today. From the kitschy Eastern Ampelmaennchen (traffic light men - the East and West had two different styles and, after reunification, the Western versions were supposed to replace their stockier Eastern counterparts, but the plan was thwarted due to protests from both sides. The short, expressive, 2-D traffic men of the East were just too unique to be eradicated) to the different architectural styles that still litter the city, the relics of division remain as alive as ever.

Disclaimers

The website I JUST finished after months of research and hours and hours toiling away and damning computer programs and glitches?
http://lschiebler.web.wesleyan.edu/build

If my site is completely out of whack, it's due to the slightly faulty program (Antenna) I decided to write it with, apparently it looks different from how it's supposed to on half of the computers I tried. Really- it works and is aesthetically pleasing, I promise.

One more thing: the inspiration for this blog. My advisor and I decided that writing an informal (this is as informal as I get--I occasionally drop some vocab words, but I can't really help it) blog would be the best way to react to and further explain the materials I've gathered and presented. I think this is a great idea and am pretty excited about having an excuse to blog for the first time in my life. It's all rather liberating, right? Although I guess it's not exactly anonymous. But anyway, this is not meant to be ultra academic jargon, nor should it be particularly boring. If you have questions, I'd love to try to answer them for you.

That is all. Please enjoy.

-LCS