Tuesday 17th August
Today was the first day of the three day Berlin Card so they made sure they were on the bus before 10am along with lots of other campers. The bus to the station nearly filled up completely at the camp stop. Once on the train they worked out the changes needed to get to The Berlin Story Exhibition. They had decided that this would be a good place to start as it would give the history and the whole overview of Berlin. The multimedia presentation was in the form of a tour across the 800 years of the city’s history. It was a very full and extensive exhibition with all the information and video in English as well as German.
Included in the ticket was a guided tour to an original Cold War fallout shelter. Early in the 1970s a huge shopping complex had been built on the Kurferstendamn Boulevard. The Western Berlin Government had paid the owner to convert the bottom floor of the car park underneath, into one of several nuclear shelters under the city. There was room for 4000 people in this particular bunker. Inside were beds made of similar materials to a mini trampoline. There were airlock doors and a decontamination shower in the first compartment. There were limited toilet, kitchen, and medical facilities. Apparently you would have been able to live down there for two weeks after a nuclear explosion, but then you would have had to come out, as they were only able to store enough food for two weeks. It is unlikely the people would have survived once returning to the surface. There were not enough places for everyone in the city and it would have been on a first come first in basis. There were no lists or privileges. Apparently there had been a sign in the street, but they kept getting stolen. Part of the bunker has now been turned into a function centre. It would have cost a lot of money to build and maintain, but apparently the government felt that it needed to do something during the time of nuclear threat.
The tour took place part way through their visit in the main museum, so they needed to get their tickets recharged to go and finish looking at it. It turned out to be a three hour visit. They were quite hungry by the time they got out, so grabbed a quick bite to eat.
After lunch they went to visit the Emperor Wilhelm memorial church. The church was destroyed during severe bombing by the British in 1943. The ruins of the tower were left standing as a memorial. Inside is a cross is a cross of nails from the roof beams of Coventry Cathedral in England. It was bombed by the Germans in 1940. Mary and Alan have seen the cross of nails at Coventry and also the chapel of reconciliation there.
The new church that has been built on the site looks plain on the outside, but is breathtaking inside. Built between 1957-63, it is octagonal shape and the walls are completely made of reinforced concrete set with small blue glass squares to form a dense grid. Although the main colour in the glass is blue there are other colours introduced in patches. The glass has also been chipped on the exterior in places to create more light diffusion. There is minimum decoration in the church, it is all about the glass. Apparently when Egon Eierman came up with his plans for the new church it was so radical he had difficulty convincing people to accept his idea.
Being in the area, they took a short walk to look at KaDeWe. Kaufthaus des Westerns, (The west’s department store) is Europe’s largest department store where you can buy everything. The main attraction is the gourmet’s paradise with the largest collection of foodstuffs from around the world. It is very like Harrods, but probably not as expensive.
An afternoon tea break and free wifi at Hagen Daas finished the day. The trip back on the train was a real crush. People are allowed to take their bikes into designated carriages, and they are huge bikes. When they get to the station everyone has to move and shuffle about to let them off. It was ages before they could get a seat to sit down. It was quite a wait for the connecting bus which again filled up almost completely with people going back to the camp.
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