29. June 2016

2 days in Berlin

The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany), starting on 13 August 1961, the Wall completely cut off (by land) West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe[1] (German: Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas), also known as the Holocaust Memorial (German: Holocaust-Mahnmal), is a memorial in Berlin to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, designed by architect Peter Eisenman and engineer Buro Happold. It consists of a 19,000 m2 (4.7-acre) [2][3] site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs or "stelae", arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field.

Checkpoint Charlie (or "Checkpoint C") was the name given by the Western Allies to the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War (1947–1991).

East German leader Walter Ulbricht agitated and maneuvered to get the Soviet Union's permission to construct the Berlin Wall in 1961 to stop Eastern Bloc emigration and defection westward through the Soviet border system, preventing escape across the city sector border from communist East Berlin into West Berlin. Checkpoint Charlie became a symbol of the Cold War, representing the separation of East and West. Soviet and American tanks briefly faced each other at the location during the Berlin Crisis of 1961.

After the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc and the reunification of Germany, the building at Checkpoint Charlie became a tourist attraction.

The Brandenburg Gate (German: Brandenburger Tor) is an 18th-century neoclassical monument in Berlin, built on the orders of Prussian king Frederick William II after the (temporarily) successful restoration of order during the early Batavian Revolution. One of the best-known landmarks of Germany, it was built on the site of a former city gate that marked the start of the road from Berlin to the town of Brandenburg an der Havel, which used to be capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg.

It is located in the western part of the city centre of Berlin within Mitte, at the junction of Unter den Linden and Ebertstraße, immediately west of the Pariser Platz. One block to the north stands the Reichstag building, which houses the German parliament (Bundestag). The gate is the monumental entry to Unter den Linden, the renowned boulevard of linden trees, which led directly to the royal City Palace of the Prussian monarchs.

The Berlin Wall was the largest canvas in the world. Much of the artwork was not claimed by artists and remains anonymous. Because the wall was open to everyone, there were no restrictions on what artists could put on the wall. Over the past 30 years since the collection of artwork was started, much of the controversial artwork has been removed from the wall.

The Bundestag was established by chapter III of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (Constitution) in 1949 as one of the legislative bodies of Germany and thus the historical successor to the earlier Reichstag.

Berlin Cathedral (German: Berliner Dom) is the short name for the Evangelical Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church (German: Oberpfarr- und Domkirche zu Berlin) in Berlin, Germany. It is located on Museum Island in the Mitte borough. The current building was finished in 1905 and is a main work of Historicist architecture of the "Kaiserzeit".

The Dom is the parish church of the congregation Gemeinde der Oberpfarr- und Domkirche zu Berlin, a member of the umbrella organisation Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia. The Berlin Cathedral has never been a cathedral in the actual sense of that term since it has never been the seat of a bishop. The bishop of the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg (under this name 1945–2003) is based at St. Mary's Church and Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin.

The Fernsehturm (English: Television Tower) is a television tower in central Berlin, Germany.

The Trabant is an automobile produced from 1957 to 1990 by former East German auto maker VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau in Zwickau, Saxony.

It is often regarded as a symbol of the defunct East Germany and of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in general. The car had a reputation for being uncomfortable, slow, noisy, and dirty. Nevertheless, it was very sought after in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall. It had a hard plastic body mounted to a single-piece steel chassis (a so-called unibody or monocoque), front-wheel drive, a transversely-mounted engine, and independent suspension—all features that were unusual for the era in which it was manufactured.