Berlin: Madness, Mayhem, Modernity

Susan stands solid with Karl

Ursula hangs out with Berlin's famous 'Ample man'

I didn’t want to like Berlin. For many a year, since moving to Maastricht, I have struggled with my desire to visit this contradictory city, this place where a killing machine that defined the madness and mayhem that was the Third Reich took root. And then there was The Wall – the post-war punishment dividing a place and its people. For many, the punishment was nothing compared to the crimes that triggered its erection. I didn’t want to like this once-noble city that succumbed to an illness named Hitler and his henchmen Goebels, Mengele, Himmler, Hess, Eichmann, Barbie.

The Holocaust Memorial disorients visitors with a chilling maze.

Gate from the oldest surviving synagogue located in the former East Berlin. 

No, I didn’t want to like Berlin. I listed countless other European hubs I’d rather visit, but its lure haunted me. I wanted to set foot, not where my ‘lonsmen’ were piled in heaps of ash and bones, but from the place where many departed or were dispatched. I was curious about the Berlin pre-World War II where they lived full and whole lives as citizens, contributors to the art, culture, economy and color of normal, regular everyday life. So, I have not yet visited the death camps, those mean, dark constructions of the unimaginable. But I felt it was time for me to see where the pain began.

The observation needle pierces Berlin's skyline orienting tourists and inhabitants alike.

I didn’t want to like Berlin. But my life has allowed me the great gift of knowing that while history is important, the present is more so, and the future is critical. 

I didn’t want to like Berlin but because I love and respect my friends and colleagues who now live, and work and play there, I felt the time to see Berlin was right.

Ursula, Susan and Jens

Kathrin and Anne mug for the camera

And so it was with relief that I coordinated that journey with one of my closest friends, Ursula Glunk, who lives here in Maastricht and teaches at the university. And it was with gratitude that my young friends and colleagues, Anne Steinbruck and Kathrin Brockmann, both of whom graduated with me from my Masters of European Public Affairs Programme here in Maastricht, and now work and live in Berlin agreed to meet us. And it was greater fortune still that my dear friend, Jens Hasse, also from the Masters programme, choose that weekend to make a surprise visit as well.

With Ursula, Jens, Kathrin and Anne, I was surrounded by the living proof that life is what we make it. Their friendship and energy infused me with the understanding that I could view this city for what it was, but more so - for what it is.

I didn’t want to like Berlin but I fell in love with this Manhattan of Europe. It is a place filled with memory and magnetism. Yes, it is a haunted city, yet by virtue of all the acknowledgement and commemoration of its victims, it has liberated itself. Berlin enshrines memory but flows modernity.

New memorial to all victims of the Holocaust

Ironic echo of the memorial dome at chic French department store court.

Susan at the Brandenburg Gate. Later Ursula and I sat in the "Room of Silence" where we could center and process the many and conflicting sights and sounds evoked by this city of contrasts. There we read the amazing Prayer of the United Nations: "Oh Lord, our planet Earth is only a small star in space. It is our duty to transform it into a planet whose creatures are no longer tormented by war, hunger and fear, no longer senselessly divided by race, color and ideology. Give us courage and strength to begin this task today so that our children and children's children shall one day  carry the name of Human with pride." 

Bravo to a Berlin that rises from the ashes to face the future by facing its past.