A Whole Day In Berlin!

Less than 50 days to go...I am getting really excited! This week I got a map of Germany and put it up in the church hallway. Complete with itinerary, I marked each city we will visit with a pushpin and a corresponding number. It looks great!

I also received a letter from the group leaders. Located in Arizona, the retired Lutheran pastor-and-wife team have led tours to Germany for 30 years. I feel blessed to be hooking up with such experienced tour leaders. I know we will have a great time!

How exciting to have a whole day in Berlin! This city has a both a rich and a very painful history. Throughout the ages, Berlin has served as an important city in German history. It has served as the capital of Prussia, the capital of The German Empire (or Second Reich) under Otto von Bismarck, the capital of The Weimar Republic (between WWI and WWII), and The Third Reich under Adolf Hitler.

When Germany was divided into East and West, East Berlin served as the capital of East Germany and was surrounded by The Berlin Wall. The Wall came down November 9, 1989. There are sections of the wall located in museums all over the world today (including the Kansas Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, KS), and I understand there is a section remaining there in Berlin as a memorial to these dark days in Germany's history. The infamous "Check Point Charlie" has been removed, but a replica is nearby.

Several US Presidents have spoken in front of the Brandenburg Gate, including Barak Obama, Ronald Reagan, and John F. Kennedy. It was here that JFK gave his famous "ich bin ein Berliner" exclamation. While I understand this is now considered to be grammatically correct, at the time what he really said was "I am a jelly doughnut!" Yet another one of those "funny" things one remembers from German class.

Berlin was heavily bombed during WWI and WWII. On the downtown stretch of the Kuhrfurstendamm is where we will find the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. I really hope we get to see this. I remember discussing this part of Berlin in high school German class, too. There are 2 buildings near it, affectionately called The Lipstick (tall, skinny, and cylindrical building) and The Powderbox (short, squat, and round building).