As I wrote last week, a city is best discovered on foot so over the next month I’m sketching out my favourite Berlin strolls. I’ll post two every week, and I ask you to use them only as a rough guide. I believe that to really know a place, you have to discover it by yourself.
The Government Quarter
At U Zoologischer Garten, the centre of old West Berlin, catch the 100 bus to the stop Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of the Cultures of the World). Circle America’s ‘pregnant oyster’, the culture centre gifted to the city in 1957, and the new Bundeskanzleramt (the Chancellery), the largest government headquarters building in the world (eight times the size of the White House). No prize for figuring out why it’s called the Bundeswaschmaschine, or federal washing machine. Across the Platz der Republik, climb to the top of the Reichstag (note: a visit to Foster’s dome must now be booked at least 48 hours in advance). Immediately to the south-west (and across the line of the old Berlin Wall – watch for the bricks in the pavement) is the Brandenburger Tor. Few monuments in the world have witnessed greater tragedy and euphoria. Beyond the US Embassy is the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas, or the Jewish Memorial. Allow yourself to become lost and disorientated among its 2,711 concrete stellae, and reflect on how architect Peter Eisenman positioned the outer slabs low against the ground so that they would seem to fan out into the whole city.
Now consider the courage needed to take responsibility for a terrible chapter of ones history. Berlin’s determination to face the past – and the conviction that the psychic health of a society depends on past atrocities being unearthed and confessed as a condition of healing – has contributed to making it such a dynamic city today.