Today it was back to class. I had a cold cut sandwich, muesli mit Shokolade flakes, and Brotchen/Nutella for breakfast. I was/am looking forward to the end of class and stressing about the final.
First we went to the Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park. It was a very wide expanse with beautiful sculpted pictures carved into the columns. There was a giant statue of a Soviet soldier clutching a child, but no mention, of course, of the Soviet rape of the women of Berlin. It was very collectivist in that there was no individual honor for the 5000 Soviet dead buried there, nor for the 20000 that died there. The wording on the slabs is very careful to avoid offending German national senses as the Soviets wanted a unified, neutral Germany. It refers to “Hitler’s Deutschland” and the SS and SA as a bunch of rogues and paints the communists as great liberators. The irony is they recycled the remains of the Reich Chancellery to build the memorial (as well as pieces of several train stations). They also recycled material for several building projects on the Stalinallee, renamed later Karl Marx Straße, after Stalin fell out of favor.
Stalinallee was an ideal communist street, but turns out to be more of a showcase than the norm. When practicality took over, the government resorted to bland 60’s-70’s style prefab apartments.
Then we saw the Alexanderplatz, and where the department store of the East was, along with the famous dial clock that tells the time anywhere in the world; it was shot in the Bourne Supremacy. Then we headed to the showcase of the West: the Kurfürstendamm. About twice as narrow as Stalinallee, but with twice the glitz. Everyone who is someone in business has a shop on the Ku’damm. It also appears pretty seedy with porn shops and sex museums. No doubt who hangs out there at night. Then we visited the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche, which was left as a memorial to the war (probably because the complete product was considered an eyesore).
We finished of the day at KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens). Think Parisian times ten. On the top were tastes of the world. Apparently, anything is available there. The prices on the food weren’t all that bad either. 1 L of Spezi (Mezzo Mix) cost only €0,99.