Here is the next installment of photos from our trip to Berlin. Enjoy!
Cheers,
B & JBrandenburg Gate and Surrounding Area
The Brandenburg Gate (German: Brandenburger Tor) is a former city gate and one of the main symbols of Berlin and Germany. It is located west of the city center at the junction of Unter den Linden and Ebertstraße, immediately west of the Pariser Platz. It is the only remaining gate of a series through which Berlin was once entered. One block to the north stands the Reichstag building. The gate is the monumental entry to Unter den Linden, the renowned boulevard of linden trees which formerly led directly to the city palace of the Prussian monarchs. It was commissioned by King Frederick William II of Prussia as a sign of peace and built by Carl Gotthard Langhans from 1788 to 1791. The Brandenburg Gate was restored from 2000 to 2002 by the Stiftung Denkmalschutz Berlin (Berlin Monument Conservation Foundation). Today, it is considered one of Europe's most famous landmarks. [Source Wikipedia]
The Protestant Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (in German: Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche) is located in Berlin on the Kurfürstendamm in the centre of the Breitscheidplatz. The original church on the site was built in the 1890s. It was badly damaged in a bombing raid in 1943. The present building, which consists of a church with an attached foyer and a separate belfry with an attached chapel, was built between 1959 and 1963. The damaged spire of the old church has been retained and its ground floor has been made into a memorial hall. [Source Wikipedia]
Unter den Linden is one of, if not THE, major boulevards crossing Berlin. It runs from the Brandenburg Gate in the west to Stadschloss royal palace in east. Along this main thoroughfare are some of Berlin's most well known sights.
I.M. Pei designed German History Museum.
Neue Wache (New Guard House)
Originally built in 1816 as the main guardhouse for the troops of the Crown Prince of Prussia, this neoclassical building has been used as a war memorial since 1931. After the reunification of Germany, the building was rededicated in 1993 as the "Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Victims of War and Tyranny." Inside this imposing structure is a heart-wrenching statue by Käthe Kollwitz's entitled Mother with her Dead Son. The sculpture sets directly under the oculus, and is therefore exposed to the rain, snow and cold of Berlin, symbolizing the suffering of civilians during World War II.
Bebelplatz
The Bebelplatz is known as the site of the infamous Nazi book burning ceremony held in the evening of May 10, 1933 by members of the SA ("brownshirts"), SS, Nazi students and Hitler Youth groups, on the instigation of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. The Nazis burned around 20,000 books, including works by Thomas Mann, Erich Maria Remarque, Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx and many other authors. Today a memorial by Micha Ullman consisting of a glass plate set into the cobbles, giving a view of empty bookcases, commemorates the book burning. Furthermore, a line of Heinrich Heine is engraved, stating "Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen" (in English: "Where they burn books, they ultimately burn people"). Students at Humboldt University hold a book sale in the square every year to mark the anniversary.
