A March weekend in Berlin p. 3

Charlottenburg 

Palace

I decided on a minimalistic program on Sunday. The place that I stayed at was close to Schloss Charlottenburg and the weather was great, so I took my camera and my Kindle and went there.

I was quite surprised that the palace, which looks so genuine had to be reconstructed after the war. Charlottenburg seems so calm and peaceful now and the war so far away.

Park

My pocket guide pointed out that the park is a partly in a geometric clean cut French style and partly in English "natural" style. My attention, however, was attracted to birds, which clearly showed to everyone willing to watch and listen that the spring really came.

People

The clean paths of the park were frequented by bikers, joggers or people savoring the morning walk.

A March weekend in Berlin p. 2

Having accomplished my goal of Berlin visit I could start slow return stroll. The impeccable blue sky was ornamented by the Die Welt balloon, which ascended with yet another group of tourists watching the German capital from the balloons view.


I wanted to see the Branderburg Gate and Reichstag, so I took Eberstrasse. On my left I saw the eastern edge of Tiergarten. On the right there was an area on which a slowly rising hill of dark grey concrete blocks appeared. The Holocaust Monument. The theme of the monument is somehow mitigated by the toursts posing for photos and trying even to jump across the cubes. (A watchful woman guard did not allow it).

The next point -- the Branderburg Gate -- another structure that became a symbol of reunited Germany. When I looked at it I remembered Barbara Klemm's black-and-white photos of immense crowd of overjoyed Germans waiting for the opening in December 1989. Now the place is so colorful with multicultural crowd.

It is after 4 pm and it seems that everybody is on a walk, taking advantage of early spring sun. Although the lawns have not recuperated after winter, there are groups of people basking in the mild sunshine in front of the Reichstag.

The sun was slowly getting down, when I decided to call it a day and slowly treaded to my airbnb Berlin shelter. On my way back I could admire the modern, rectanguar shape of Bundesamt building.

The Spree is not a majestic huge river, but it has its charm, which shows the best at the sunset.

Good night, Berlin...

Barbara Klemm in Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin

I visited Martin Gropius Bau to see Barbara Klemm's photos on March 8. I expected good photos, but the exhibition provided much more. It was a sizable chunk of modern history frozen in hundreds of pictures. When contrasted with today's reality they seemed sometimes to come from another long gone century, not just 30 or 40 years ago. There were pictures showing the late sixties and seventies that would not surprise on 19th century paintings. Similar bleak and gloomy scenes.

Klemm, being a photojournalist, does not spare neither her own German compatriots nor other nations. The social contrasts are shown explicitly on the snapshots from the Western countries, poverty hardly imaginable to citizens of "developed worlds" shows on the Third World pictures.

Also she perfectly catches the excitement that overwhelmed Europe when the communist block crumbled. Metaphorically with the onset of glasnost and Polish Solidarity and literally when the Berlin wall was destroyed. The joy that accompanied the moments when Germany reunited.


The black and white pictures are perfectly composed and very well defined. A very good and impressive collection. I wonder what will happen with it after the Berlin exhibition is closed.

This was my main reason to come to Berlin on the March 8-9 weekend and it was really worth it.