Ein Ausländer in Deutschland
Prelude
Honestly, I never thought I would be visiting Germany. When I would plan of visiting Europe, it was always France, Italy or Spain in Western Europe, or Croatia, Czech Republic or Hungary in Eastern Europe. So when I had a 2-week business trip coming up in Germany, I thought this was a good opportunity to mix business with tourism and explore Germany. I grew up reading stories of the Second World War, and the following Cold War — both conflicts had Germany in a prominent role. In particular, I was fascinated by the Brandenburg Gate description in Ken Follet’s Edge of Eternity, so this was on my must-see list.
Arrival in Munich
My United flight from San Francisco was direct to Munich, and was very sparsely populated as I was traveling in Feb 2020 — the beginning of the Coronavirus scare. As a result the flight was very comfortable, and within minutes of landing, I had my immigration done and bags collected. Munich is one of the few cities in Germany where Uber works (more on that later), and I hailed one and was on my way to my hotel. At the hotel I realized that all talk of “German efficiency” are a complete myth. Not only was the check-in to the hotel incredibly inefficient, but I also had to return to the reception twice as my room key would not work. The third time, one of the staff accompanied me to the room and only then could figure out what was wrong!
The next 2 days were spent in work, and on the third, I got a chance to explore Munich a bit. I had to take the train to Stuttgart in the afternoon, and planned to explore a bit before heading out. My hotel and workplace was in a northern suburb of Munich called Garching, and there was really not much around there.
The city of Munich is called “München” in German and it literally means “by the monks”. This reflects the history of the town — it was formed in the twelveth century when the Bavarian duke granted land to monks to establish a market. Today, it is the capital of Bavaria, and is famous for BMW and Beer!
Just outside the Hauptbahnhof (Central Station) is the Karlsplatz square with the 19th century courthouse known as “Palace of Justice”.
I didn’t know this was a court, and I walked in thinking it is a museum. The security guard was very courteous and handed me a pamphlet which summarized the history of this 19th century building.
Since I had about an hour before my train, I could not explore much, but I did get the chance to taste the famed Bavarian beer at a pub called Wirthaus Rechthaler.
After a quick beer and Bavarian sausage meal, I was back at the Hauptbahnhof to catch my train to Stuttgart.
Baden-Württemberg & Berlin
My next few days were spent in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg, shuttling between Böblingen (outskirts of Stuttgart) and Karlsbad. This region is the northern end of the Black Forest, but sadly I did not get time to explore it.
Between work and shuttling myself between cities, I had just the weekend for leisure. Instead of the famed Black Forest, I chose to spend the approaching weekend exploring Berlin. After all, I didn’t want to leave Germany without seeing the Brandenburg Gate or the remains of the Berlin Wall.
As an aside, I should mention that my adopted home in Mountain View has a section of the Berlin Wall displayed outside the public library. When the Wall came down, some enterprising Berliners sold off sections to whoever was willing to buy! One Frank Golzen, a German immigrant in Mountain View, decided to buy a section and donate it to the city. Mountain View Voice has an article on this here.
I flew from into Berlin Tegel airport on a Saturday morning. The airport was surprisingly basic for an one in a capital city of a developed nation. A few parts looked more like a railway station, and, the Munich Hauptbahnhof station looked larger than the entire Berlin airport! Notwithstanding the size, the airport is still well organized, and I was able to figure out how to get a bus to my hotel in the Moabit area. Just like the airport, the city of Berlin is also not very large, and easily navigable using the bus, U-bahn (underground train) and S-bahn (sometimes underground, sometimes overground train). Pro-tip here would be to buy a “day-ticket” which costs about 8 Euros, but can be used for unlimited trips on bus, U-bahn & S-bahn. Traveling on these local trains also gives you an opportunity to explore the city up-close, which you cannot do in an Uber or taxi. For example, the view from Friedrichstraße…
…or the quaint and vibrant Hackesher Market station.
Using Google Map’s transit routing feature, I figured out the combination of bus and U-bahn rides to get to the Brandenburg Gate. This being the main attraction that I wanted to see in Berlin, I headed straight to it after checking in at my hotel. As soon as you emerge from the underground station, the iconic gate is visible.
The structure was built in 1791 with the purpose of being a tax checkpoint. The architecture is modeled on the Greek Acropolis. The statue on the top is called “quadriga” and depicts the Greek Goddess of peace riding a chariot of four horses. When Napoleon defeated the Prussian army, he carried away this quadriga to Paris, and it was restored back to Berlin only after Napoleon’s defeat. In 1933, the Nazi party’s army marched through these gates to celebrate their rise to power. In 1945, the Battle of Berlin left this gate badly damaged, but was restored after the Allies took over Berlin.
Post-War, the gate was at the epicenter of the symbol of the Cold War divide — the Berlin Wall. In a way, this gate symbolizes the entire history of Berlin and Germany, and even today it is the site of major social and political demonstrations. There was a demonstration on-going even while I visited — seemed like the Turkish party of Germany was organizing a rally. Despite the rally and the news crews and police personnel, the place was peaceful, and not too crowded. Another solo traveler snapped my picture with the Gate, in exchange for me returning the favor.
After having spent some time at here, I grabbed a quick lunch at a nearby cafe of the Aldon Kempinski. The Aldon hotel itself is a very expensive place, meant for world leaders and pop stars, but this small coffee shop attached to it is affordable! After lunch I joined a walking group tour that I found on Viator. The tour started off at the beautiful Berlin cathedral and the guide, Chris, explained the history behind the buildings.
The cathedral and various museums are located on an island on the river Spree. It’s aptly named “museum island”, due to the many museums located here. The cathedral is a fairly recent, late 19th century construction, but it is built on a site of previous churches dating back to when Berlin was established as a city.
From here, Chris led us to the Humboldt University, which boasted alumna like Einstein, Max Plank, Karl Marx, and even (for 2 weeks before he dropped out) Illych Vladimir Lenin! It was also the site of the infamous Nazi book burnings, where books written by authors who were disliked by the Nazis were burnt. The place now has an underground memorial, which is just empty shelves of books, with a prophetic plaque that warns — “That was only a prelude where they burn our books. This will in the end also burn people”
As we continued walking west-ward through the streets of Berlin, we passed the concert house, and soon came upon the site of “Checkpoint Charlie”. This looks just like a regular city block, but is actually a Cold War era checkpoint separating East & West Berlin. When the Allied forces divided Germany among themselves, the US, and Britain got West Germany, while the Soviet Union got East Germany. Berlin, while geographically in East German territory, was politically divided into East and West Berlin, administered by Soviet and American forces, respectively. The Soviets built the Wall to keep East Germans from escaping to the West. During the Cold War, Checkpoint Charlie became the site of numerous spy crossings. Today a large KFC greets you there — a clear sign of which side won the Cold War!
You can still walk along the path and see markings of where the Wall stood. As we walk, we could see the site of the fallen wall marked with cobbled stones.
There are shiny Tesla's, Volkswagen's, and Audi's parked here with there wheels straddling where the wall once stood. In contrast, on the other side of the road is the Trabant (“Trabi”) Museum, which was the quintessential East German car, similar to Lada in the Soviet Union.
We reach the standing remains of the wall, which also has a Holocaust museum. Chris explained that the Berlin Wall actually consisted of an inner and outer wall, which a 100 meter “death-strip” in between.
Despite the Wall and death strip, many East Germans escaped the West, including one family that zip lined from the office building which can be seen above. One escapee even used a hot air ballon. However some escape attempts ended in disaster, as with the sad story of 18 year old Peter Fetcher.
Our next stop Chris took us to a building that served as the Luftwaffe headquarters during World War II, and housed Herman Goering’s offices. It was later used as Soviet administrative office before the formation of East Germany (German Democratic Republic). Typical Communist utopian murals still decorate the walls, showing happy farmers, factory workers, railroad workers. Today the building houses offices of the German income tax department.
Our next stop was at a nondescript parking lot attached to a few blocks of apartments. Chris stopped the whole group here and announced that we were now standing over Hitler’s bunker. All the buildings around this parking lot were the offices of the Third Reich.
Yet there is no sign or plaque placed here — in fact nothing to indicate this could have been a World War II bunker. Chris told us that it was kept intentionally low-key as the German government did not want to encourage neo-nazis to start visiting this site.
We continued walking towards the Brandenburg Gate after this, but before the Gate itself, we walked through a solemn and disturbing memorial. This was named “Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe”. The memorial was designed by an American Jewish architect.
If the name of the memorial makes you uncomfortable — it is designed to do so. Chris told us that it would be very easy to just call it a “Holocaust Memorial”, but that does not do justice to the millions of people who were just snatched away from their daily lives and murdered. The location is right in the heart of the financial and government district, with the US embassy at one side, and the Tiergarten on the other. This is intentional as well, as the German government wants everyone to remember and reflect on the crimes against humanity.
After walking through this memorial, our walking tour ended at the beautifully lit Brandenburg Gate. While I had visited it earlier in the afternoon, it looked even better lit up.
That was the end of the walking tour, and we dispersed, but not before Chris recommended a great place for drinks and dinner — the Brauhaus Lemke at Hackesher Market (“Brauhaus” is the German word for brewery). This was a short walk from the Hackesher Market station and had some good beers. The food, though was just average. I had the Veal Schnitzel, which was nothing to write about (although, ironically, I am writing about it).
The visit to the Brauhaus ended the first day in Berlin. The next morning, after breakfast, I decided to visit the one site which was not included in the walking tour — East Side Gallery. This is a section of the Berlin Wall in erstwhile East Germany, which is now home to paintings and graffiti. One of the art pieces here is famous over the world now, and shows Soviet leader Leonoid Breznev kissing an East German politician with the caption “Mein Gott hilf mir diese tödliche Liebe zu überleben”, translated as “my God, help me survive this fatal attraction”.
Ulm
After the weekend in Berlin, I had to head to Ulm for work. It was a long day of traveling — from Berlin to Stuttgart, to Böblingen, back to Stuttgart, and then finally to Ulm. The reason was that I had traveled light to Berlin, and left my bags at my hotel in Böblingen. When I finally walked in to Ulm after the long day’s journey, I was pleasantly surprised to see the charming town. My hotel was right across the street from the old Ulm Münster church.
The Ulm Münster church’s construction dates back to around 1377. Back home in India, this was the time Feroz Shah was ascending to the throne of Delhi after the very welcome death of the mad king Tughlaq. The church here claims to be the tallest in the world, and it very well may be! What is amazing is that the ancient and the new reside side-by-side in perfect harmony. The plaza leading to the church is dotted with shopping malls with global brands like H&M, Esprit, Jack & Jones, Mango etc. A Middle-Eastern restaurant nearby sells Kebabs just across the church and has named itself “Münster Kebab”.
The Old City is a short walk away, and the well-preserved city walls overlook the River Danube.
I spent about four days in Ulm — mostly busy with work — but since I was walking to and from my workplace, I did get a chance to explore the old city on the way back from work one day.
Auf Wiedersehen
My two weeks in Germany were soon up. The last two days I spent in Munich again, but confined to my workplace and hotel room. The number of Corona-virus cases were rising, and it was prudent to avoid crowded places and public transportation. I flew back on Feb 29th, and again, the flight was quite sparsely populated. While I did manage to see a lot of places, many were left unexplored, especially the Black Forest region. Also what was missed out is driving on the famed Autobahn. Hopefully the COVID-19 outbreak gets under control soon, so I can plan another visit!
