In 1970, Barry Mizes arrived in Berlin with a tour group. He went to some bars and clubs in and around Kurfurstendamm, and then went to East Berlin. To do this, he stopped at Checkpoint Charlie, where East German soldiers armed with machine guns and sniffer dogs scoped out his tour bus to make sure he and his tour buddies weren't smuggling anything beyond the wall. Once in East Berlin, he found it drab and decrepit, with no stores to sell him anything. It was very scary.
44 years later, his son Adam arrived in Berlin, except the Berlin he arrived in was entirely different. The Berlin Wall had ceased to be a thing in 1989, and the effects of nearly 25 years of reunification were immediate and massive. Adam got in after midnight, and immediately boarded the light rail, which took him into East Berlin, where his hostel was. There were no guards or dogs or mirrors, and in post 9-11 America, those things were in West Texas anyway, and not all scary.
The next morning, he went out to do laundry. On his way, he passed a bunch of retail stores in East Berlin, and didn't notice the buildings in any sort of state of decrepitude. In fact, many of them were rather new and modern. After that, it was on to Checkpoint Charlie, which is now a museum. Here he learned about the history of the wall, and the numerous desperate escape attempts made by East Germans. Some were successful through the sheer ingenuity of the East Germans (this is a country renowned for its engineering prowess), some were successful through the determined efforts of students and brave West Germans, and some were doomed to fatal failure. The museum ended with a comparison of Putin's Russia to East Germany (fair enough, as Putin is one repressive S.O.B.), but the terror inspired by the place has been replaced by currywurst stands.
From there, it was on to Tiergarten and Brandenburger Tor. This gate has stood since 1791, and was right on the wall for the years it stood. Today, it was in the process of being turned into a giant projection screen for Germany's first World Cup match. The Germans have closed off Avenue Der 17 Juni to prepare.for this, as well they should. They plan for 1,000,000 Berliners to come to the place to cheer on Die Mannschaft. After that, the German Victory Column, built to celebrate the unification of Germany in 1870, and most recently famous for being the site of a speech by Barack Obama in 2008. From there, I went to the Reichstag, and then on to Potsdamerplatz.
Potsdamerlplatz is near Kurfurstendam, but is nothing like what it must have been when my dad was there. Every single building in the neighborhood was super modern. Heck, Renzo Piano had designed two of them, and he wasn't famous until after the Pompidou Center in the mid 1970s. The whole area must have sprung up since I was born. Furthermore, my guidebook listed Kurfurstendam as a street of upmarket boutiques and clubs. I skipped it and went back to my hostel, which was located in a much more youth-oriented neighborhood.
Here, east of the wall, my reality was much different than my father's. There were some drab buildings, and there were a few buildings with some suspicious round chunks taken out of the facade (and other buildings that looked like they'd seen some shit), but most of the buildings were well maintained, and at least half had all the hallmarks of being modern. There was retail everywhere, including some big chains (Capitalism, thy truest mascot is the Nike store), and instead of Trabants (the line of shitty little cars who were brought to Tiergarten to amuse a conference with their shittiness), there were BMWs and Benzes and Audis and even an Aston.
In truth, the Berlin my father visited, and the Berlin I'm in right now are two entirely different cities. One was split, fearful, and unequal, and the other place seems like it cannot be the same as the first. Yet the Brandenburger Tor and Victory Column sit there as they did when my dad was.here, the ampellman still tells you when to walk, and the beer still flows. It is great for the city that it has come so far in so little time, and I hope that my future relations will see the Berlin I do instead of the one my father did. That one sucked, this one doesn't.
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