Berlin (4)

Mentioning the security checks on visiting the Reichstag reminded me I have rather a lot of old photographs of Berlin.

Below, for example, are two images taken from the rear exit to the Reichstag building, on the left from a cold November 1988, with the Wall snaking its way between the Reichstag and the East German government buildings, and on the right the same view in the summer of 1992, with no Wall and only a snaking line of tourist buses in front of the Brandenburg Gate:

And here we are in February 2012, the government and parliamentary buildings integrated, spruced up, and complemented by shiny new meeting rooms and libraries - and directly across the double line of flagstones marking where the Wall once ran, a sign forbidding access to all but officials with the right sort of ID (to be fair, nowadays you'd only be running the risk of a bureaucratic talking-to rather than a bullet):

Berlin (3)

Some random observations:

Strange to think, as I turn off the heating and take off my sweater (so aptly named), that this time last week I was shivering in my thermals and looking at the ice on the Spree and the canals around Berlin:

And isn't advertising in other countries - particularly when it tries to be humorous - sometimes rather strange? I'm used to hairdressers' windows having pictures of the hairstyles they might want you to aspire to, and I've heard of putting on the dog, but would this entice you to trust them to find your look for you?

Berlin (2)

These rather jaunty pedestrian traffic lights are among the few aspects of daily life in the former East Germany to be accepted after reunification (and it took a bit of a battle). Well, that and the cardboard-and-two-stroke Trabant car, which are now to be seen travelling in convoy as a tourist ride.

Which is by way of observing that, yes, even if there are no cars apparently in the vicinity, Berliners stop and wait for the green man before crossing the road. But this isn't necessarily a sign of undue obedience to authority. Many roads in Berlin are broad, straight avenues, and German drivers are keen on the accelerator. If you don't watch the lights in Berlin, you'll find it's even more true than in Britain that, as a learned judge once said, there are two sorts of pedestrians - the quick and the dead.

Berlin (1)

At what point does visiting Berlin stop including a somewhat morbid association with the horrors of the past?

Difficult, probably impossible, but I started last weekend's visit with its symbol of the present and future, the iconic dome on the Reichstag building (I had to, since you can only visit by pre-booking: for once it paid to check a guidebook in advance, otherwise I would have missed the chance).

All is light and air, with the mirrored cone reflecting light into the Parliamentary chamber below, and extracting the hot stale air of debate (ho ho) to help warm the building up. It also serves to catch and re-use any rain or snow that falls in through the open oculus at the top.

The claimed symbolism of transparency, allowing citizens literally to look down on their representatives at work, is belied by the fact that it's not really possible to see much through the thick glass ceiling of the chamber, not to mention the sadly necessary airport-style security around the building (of which more later).

However, the spiral ramp around it allows you to climb right up to the top and survey the views of the city round about. Most of the skyline isn't particularly dramatic, but you get a good view of how the new government buildings are deliberately formed in a swathe (sometimes directly linked by internal bridges) across the former line of the Wall, snaking along the meandering course of the River Spree. Below is the Federal Chancellor's office, where in the past I've stood looking across the narrow channel at blank sheds and menacing East German patrol boats:

The reunification theme understandably appears all over the place: these gigantic "Molecule Men" mark the point where the districts of Treptow (where I was staying) and Friedrichshain (in the East) meet Kreuzberg (in the West).
Something that was still only on the drawing-board when I last visited Berlin was the new Hauptbahnhof. Like Paris and London, Berlin had different rail termini for the lines from different parts of the country, but reunification gave them the opportunity to link up as much as possible in one station, pretty well exactly on the line of the Wall. One gigantic steel and glass box with five different levels allows easy interchange between mainline, regional and suburban trains, the underground and local buses.One more new development, reflecting the unavoidable past: the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, sited on what was once Hitler's Chancellery. A striking field of blank grey concrete blocks, in regular lines, but at irregular angles, blank, impersonal, unyielding, and all the more striking against the trees and blue sky: