I always meant to visit Berlin before the wall came down. Somehow, I never did: circumstance, inertia, other places to go, the thought that there was always another time. A dangerous thought to harbour that, that there’s always time. For events, personal and those of nations, have a habit of turning such lazy thinking on its head. Who would have predicted that the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe would come so soon and happen so fast? Not many, if any, as I recall, including people far more qualified than me to speculate on such weighty matters. That wall was good for another five decades in my travel plans, certainly more than enough time to see an end to my gallivanting around.
So, why Berlin? With or without the wall. It had to be its past, bound so tightly to our own for the last hundred years. The city was the capital of our greatest and most destructive enemy in the first half of the twentieth century: two world wars waged with only twenty-one years separating them. That’s just one year longer than the time since the wall was toppled. Time, like falling bricks, flies.
As a baby boomer, born two years after WW2 ended, I carried pictures of a city in flames, planted in my consciousness before I could read or write, and of Soviet troops battling their way, building by building, towards the Reichstag, the place that had come to symbolise Nazi power. A triumphant Russian soldier was filmed on the bullet-riddled parapet waving a flag baring the hammer and sickle, back and forth, high above the ruined and defeated city. It was this political symbol that would reign supreme over half the divided city and East Germany for the next forty-four years.
During the cold war Berlin became the symbol of the deadly game being played out between East and West. A game that carried with it very high stakes indeed. The press of a button or the turn of a key would signal the destruction of the planet. As much as the newsreels of the day – Kennedy’s ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ speech, comings and goings at Checkpoint Charlie, refugees throwing themselves at barbed wire, the construction of the wall – it was literature, film and TV that turned Berlin into a darkly romantic and dangerous city. In fiction, John Le Carre and Len Deighton did as much to keep the flame of fascination alive for me than real-life events.
Then I came across Christopher Isherwood’s tales of Berlin between the wars under the short-lived Weimar Republic: corruption, decadence, sleaze, addiction and cabaret, all illustrated in the work of German artist George Grosz. It was the city in which David Bowie chose to reinvent himself. Lou Reed named an album after the place. All of these things a brick in my own Berlin wall, building up to the day when I would make a visit of my own.
Then in 1989 the wall fell. Damn. Missed it. But never mind, I could still go, although the possibility of mystery and intrigue would no longer be present around the next street corner, under the constant gaze from concrete watchtowers. But to wish the wall’s continued presence merely to satisfy my free-Western curiosity would have been selfishness in the extreme, for unlike the citizens of East Germany, I would have been free to come and go at will. Now they too could cross over and see the wall from the other side.
When, twenty years later I finally arrived in Berlin, landing at Tegel Airport through leaden skies and heavy rain, I was prepared for the city not to be as I imagined. I’d been caught out by preconceptions too many times. Being familiar with famous landmarks is one thing, seeing them in context is another. On the ground, walking the streets, smelling the smells, observing the people, hearing the language, breathing the air, is when things are liable to change. And the first sight of a city can leave a visitor with an indelible and accurate impression. Speaking of his lifetime of travel, author and playwright Michael Frayn believes that spending longer in a place doesn’t necessarily add much to change the impressions formed in the first few hours.
On the bus ride from the airport – just 5 miles from the city centre – I passed through the kind of suburbs that ring any large European city: blocks of modern flats, local shops and restaurants, a school here, a hospital there. Then, as the bus edged its way towards the centre, I began to see more. There were a lot of trees and open spaces. We crossed rivers and canals. Many businesses were Turkish. The great majority of cars on the road were German built. There were no hills.
When the bus inexplicably (explicably had I spoken German) stopped short of the expected destination I followed the crowd of hurriedly disembarking passengers and transferred to one of the S-Bahn trains which would take me to the neighbourhood of my hotel, in the east of the city. The trains were frequent and fast and although approaching the start of the rush hour, were not overcrowded. It was on this short journey that I became aware of something that was a most noticeable feature of Berlin: the majority of the population appeared to be aged under twenty-five. It could be that those people of a greater age didn’t use public transport or just didn’t get out much. Whatever the reason, this was a constant observation of my 4-day stay.
The hotel that held my reservation had opened just four months earlier in July. It was situated in a converted industrial building in former East Berlin. It had received a good review in The Independent. Clinging to that thought I exited the station and wheeling my case, joined a procession of twenty-something Berliners heading for home in the gathering gloom of dusk, heads down in the swirling wind and lashing rain. I had to retrace my steps when the street numbers were obviously heading in the wrong direction – up, not down.
I battled back against the tide, re-crossing the bridge over the railway tracks and squinted ahead for a building that looked like it might possibly be a hotel. Then, in the middle distance I saw a vertical illuminated sign that without my distance glasses, looked like it might contain enough letters to spell out the name of my destination. I didn’t dabble as a typographer all those years for nothing. Getting closer I was relieved to read Michelberger Hotel in pale green neon. Under that, in smaller type, was the legend ‘I know I’m ugly, but I glow at night’. My soggy spirits lifted. A Hyatt Tower this most definitely was not. A glance around the reception confirmed it. The current time in the world’s capital cities were ticking away on the bare concrete wall in the shape of an assortment of antique cuckoo clocks. The receptionist – under 25, or less – was welcoming, full of friendly smiles and seemed genuinely pleased to see my drenched over 25 self walk through the door.
I was soon drying out in my room, which was warm, spotless, bright and high. So high that the double bed was on an elevated platform that formed the ceiling of the toilet and shower room below. The bed was accessed by steps that alternated left and right. Not good for climbers that had trouble telling the difference. Around the platform’s perimeter there was a ‘goal’ net to prevent restless sleepers from going bump in the night. A single bed under the large window doubled as a couch. In the corner was a built-in desk with a covetous retro chair. I would have made an offer had it qualified as hand baggage on the return journey. Above that was a slim-line TV. No phone. No need. All under 25’s have mobiles welded to their ears. On the room-side wall of the WC/shower was a washbasin and mirror. To the left of the room door was a rail for hanging clothes and netting shelves for folded stuff. The only gripe: not enough hangers. But hang it all, if that’s the only complaint. And you’ve seen the hanging signs on the doors in the last post. www.michelbergerhotel.com
So the hotel was great, what about the city? Back in my room after dinner in Potsdamer Platz, my first impressions of Berlin led me to decide that I’d seen enough to conclude that I wasn’t going to dwell on the past. The wall had gone, apart from a couple of tiny sections and I found myself to be not much interested in seeking those out. Neither was I anxious to see notorious sites from the Nazi years. Not that’s there’s much left to see. Most of the buildings used by that regime, especially those in the east of the city, have been bulldozed flat and built upon. To stand and stare at these dark places would have been no more than morbid curiosity and desperately sapping for the soul.
Instead, I preferred to submit to the elevated spirit of a new age. Moving around the city, seeing the regeneration and feeling the energy of the young population, there is a real sense of moving on, putting some distance between now and then. Not that Berliners turn their backs on history. The Reichstag has been restored and is once again the seat of the German Bundestag or federal government and with its new dome, one of the Berlin's biggest crowd-draws. The Brandenburg Gate was commissioned by Friedrich Wilhelm II to represent peace. It now stands as a symbol of the reunification of the two sides of the city. The Fernsehturm (television tower) was constructed between 1965 and 1969 by the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) who intended it as a symbol of Berlin, which it remains today.
Driven inside by three days of unrelenting rain, the only break being when the rain turned to snow for two hours, I sought shelter in many of Berlin’s impressive galleries. Highlights were the Gemaldegalerie, Neue Nationalgalerie, the Bauhaus Museum and an exhibition of iconic photographs of jazz artists taken by Blue Note founder Francis Wolff for Blue Note album covers showing at the Jewish Museum.
On the last day the sun shone for three hours before the rain rolled back in. I used the dry spell to wander the streets around Hackescher Market and soak up the atmosphere amongst the old apartment blocks, hidden courtyards and took lunch in a bustling, traditional restaurant. Then it was back on the bus to Tegel. One day I shall return to Berlin. In the sunshine. When the trees are in leaf in Unter den linden.





































