ONLY IN BERLIN For Roswitha with love and thanks – and the many friendly Berliners who offered their time and help to me along the way Above: Ornate ironwork on the Schlossbrücke, between Unter den Linden and Museum Island Page 2: Europe’s first traffic lights on Potsdamer Platz Contents Introduction 8 Inner City – Central & West (District I – Mitte) 1 Medieval Berlin 11 2 The Other Berlin Walls 14 3 Churches in Ruins 18 4 Fragments of a Bygone City 21 5 A Hidden Corner of Museum Island 23 6 The Crypt of the Hohenzollerns 25 7 Wonders ex oriente 28 8 Lenin’s Head 30 9 An Appointment with Hitler 34 10 The Facts about the Führer Bunker 38 11 Holocaust Memorials 42 12 The End of the Stauffenberg Plot 45 13 The Victory Column and Other Highpoints 48 14 Remembering Mori Ogai¯ 51 15 The Anatomical Theatre 54 16 A Pneumatic Postal Dispatch System 56 17 The World’s Biggest Model Railway 58 18 Silver Screen Berlin 60 19 The Last of the Old Market Halls 63 20 Home of the Berlin Archaeopteryx 66 21 Concealed Courtyards 69 22 Descent into a Flak Tower 73 23 Some Unusual Museums 76 24 The Real Metropolis 79 Outer Suburbs – Northwest (District IV – Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, V – Spandau, XII – Reinickendorf) 25 The Old Villages of Berlin 82 26 Europe’s Oldest Buddhist Site 84 27 From Russia with Love 87 28 No Longer a Famous Prison 91 29 A Most Beautiful Cemetery 93 Contents 5 30 The Olympic Bell Tower 95 31 The Schildhorn Column 98 32 Curious Devil’s Mountain 100 33 Death and Glory on the AVUS Race Track 103 34 The Villas of Charlottenburg 106 35 Truffles, Marzipan and Perfume 108 36 From Kasseler to Currywurst 110 37 Sheltering from the Cold War 112 38 The Wilmersdorf Taj Mahal 115 39 Concrete Cadillacs and Other Modern Art 117 Outer Suburbs – Southwest (District VI – Steglitz-Zehlendorf, VII – Tempelhof-Schöneberg, & Potsdam) 40 Treasures from the Silk Road 120 41 “Scars As Nowhere Else” 123 42 Where the Atom was Split 125 43 The Changing Fortunes of Schwanenwerder 128 44 Suicide on Lake Wannsee 131 45 An Infamous Address 134 46 The Follies of Peacock Island 137 47 Princely Towers and Far Pavilions 139 48 Bridge of Unity, Bridge of Spies 142 49 Exploring Garrison Town 145 50 A Well-Travelled Coffin 148 51 “Life Goes On” in Babelsberg 151 52 The Secrets of Lichterfelde 154 53 “I Still Keep a Suitcase in Berlin” 157 54 Lost Jewish Worlds 160 55 Through Quiet Colonnades 163 56 More than just Fairytales 165 57 The Ghosts of Germania 168 58 Schöneberg’s Urban Jungle 172 59 Hitler’s Eagles 174 Inner City – East (District II – Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg) 60 A Pair of Little Theatres 178 61 Riehmer’s Hidden Hofgarten 180 62 From the Hebrides to the Halle Gate 182 6 Contents 63 Berlin’s Moving Statues 186 64 The Remains of a Great Railway Station 188 65 Bunker Capital of the World 191 66 All in the Name of Louisa 195 67 Berlin’s First Socialist Street 198 68 The Factory Hostel and Other Unusual Accommodations 201 Outer Suburbs – Southeast (District VIII – Neukölln, IX – Treptow-Köpenick) 69 History on the Banks of the Spree 204 70 What’s Left of the Berlin Wall? 206 71 Berlin’s Turkish Quarter 211 72 Where Einstein Lectured on Relativity 215 73 The Sunken Garden and a Bohemian Village 218 74 An English Park in Berlin 220 75 A Very Modern Crematorium 222 76 An Old Fishing Village 224 77 Bookworms and Fleamarkets 226 78 Waterworks and Water Towers 229 Outer Suburbs – Northeast (District III – Pankow, X – Marzahn-Hellersdorf, XI – Lichtenberg) 79 Where the Second World War Ended 232 80 The Extraordinary Life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf 235 81 In an Oriental Teahouse 237 82 Who was Rosa Luxemburg? 240 83 Evidence of a Forgotten Industry 243 84 Five Jewish Cemeteries 246 Appendices Opening Times 249 Bibliography 254 Acknowledgements 255 Imprint 256 Contents 7 Introduction “Berlin combines the culture of New York, the traffic system of Tokyo, the nature of Seattle, and the historical treasures of, well, Berlin.” Hiroshi Motomura, U.S. law professor (2004) Straddling the Spree and Havel rivers, as well as numerous lakes and canals, Berlin is one of the most dynamic and fascinating capital cities in Europe; its tumultuous history over the last century makes it also one of the most controversial. The spate of guidebooks published since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 offers the undemanding visitor a broad and easily accessible array places to visit reflecting the history of the city from the time of the Hohenzollerns and the Weimar Republic, via the Third Reich and the Cold War, up to the present day. However, much of what is proffered tends to bolster the opinion of Kaiser Wilhelm II (1888– 1918)* that “there is nothing in Berlin that can captivate the foreigner, except for … museums, castles and soldiers”. With these words in mind this new guide has been written, especially for those who want to dis- cover something more of the place for themselves. It only takes a few minutes of planning, and a glance at a decent street map**, to escape the crowds and the orchestrated tours and discover a rather different Berlin. Based on personal experience walking the city’s twelve districts (Bezirke) – more correctly boroughs – the author points his fellow ex- plorer in new and unusual directions. This is the Berlin of peaceful for- mer vil lages, crumbling wartime bunkers and little-known public gar- dens; tradi tional breweries and ruined churches; quirky museums and grand villas; Oriental tea houses and unusual hotels; colourful market halls and vintage cinemas; not to mention an abandoned pneumatic postal system and a half-buried Second World War anti-aircraft tower, both of which can now be visited. Berlin remains, however, a city with a dark and turbulent past, its myriad memorials to the victims of Nazi and Soviet aggression, forgotten Jewish cemeteries, battle-scarred buildings, and Communist-era statuary still bearing grim witness to terrible times. Several of these uniquely historic locations lie in the city’s former medieval walled town of Berlin-Cölln (today’s Museumsinsel and Nikolaiviertel), as well as in the Baroque ‘new towns’ of Friedrichstadt, Friedrichswerder, and Dorotheenstadt, located either side of Unter den Linden in the historic district known today as Mitte (District I); others are located in the more workaday Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg (District II) to the southeast. However, a similar number lie outside these long- established areas of occupation, in the leafy bourgeois suburbs along 8 Introduction the banks of the Havel to the northwest (Districts IV, V and XII), as well as in those to the southwest, around Wannsee and the Teltowkanal (Districts VI and VII). A healthy number are also located in Potsdam, the independent capital city of Brandenburg just outside Berlin. Despite much of Berlin’s urban expansion having been traditionally westwards, the city’s industrialised working class suburbs in the east are full of interest too, both beyond the Spree to the northeast (Districts III, X and XI), as well as beyond the former Tempelhof Airport to the southeast (Districts VIII and IX), in what were once predominantly Communist areas behind the Berlin Wall. Using Berlin’s extensive transport network of underground trains (U-Bahn), suburban trains (S-Bahn), regional trains (Regionalbahn or RE), trams (Straßenbahn/MetroTram), and buses (Autobus/MetroBus), the explorer can quite quickly reach all the places described within the following pages – and that’s without detracting from the sense of personal discovery that each of these places has to offer. Indeed, direc- tions have been kept to a minimum so as to leave the visitor free to find their own particular path. Whether searching for remnants of Berlin’s medieval town walls, tracking down the building where the atom was split, marvelling at Buddhist treasures from the Silk Road, descending into the crypt of the Hohenzollerns, or exploring the follies of Peacock Island, it is hoped that the visitor will experience a sense of having made the discovery for themselves. In embarking on these mini-odysseys in search of Berlin’s tangible historical legacy the author would only ask that telephones be switched off in places of worship, and due respect be shown at the numerous memorial sites dedicated to those persecuted during the city’s short but turbulent history. Other than that, treat Berlin as a giant oyster containing many precious pearls – I just hope you enjoy finding them as much as I did. Duncan J. D. Smith, Berlin & Vienna * The dates given after the names of Germany’s various monarchs are the actual years they reigned for, whereas those given after important non-royal personalities relate to their birth and death. ** Most street maps of Berlin cover the central area and inner suburbs; the excellent Falk Stadtplan Extra map also includes the outer districts, as well as tram, bus, metro and rail routes throughout the city. Please note that the house numbers on many streets in Berlin commence sequentially on one side of the street and then, at end of the street, switch to the other side and run back in the opposite direction. Introduction 9 8 Lenin’s Head District I (Mitte), the Lenin window in the Old Library (Alte Bibliothek) on Bebelplatz S1, S2, S25 Brandenburger Tor; U6 Französische Strasse Visitors in search of the former East Berlin may well be disappointed to find so few fragments of the famous wall that once defined it (see no.