sábado, 22 de agosto de 2015

TWO WORLDS BERLIN AND GERMANY









After a year of traveling to Germany I have an idea about what could I saw or may impresions of this country, but specially about Berlin.
Two separated for decades by a wall trying to be today the capital of present-day Germany cities, because throughout history was one city state for centuries throughout its existence.

Only after the Second World War the city, Germany and the world was divided / do two  halves, separated the city, the rest of Germany, Europe and the world by a wall that still makes the difference of two cities very different now they are trying to be one, which was once the capital and two ways of understanding life, politics, and daily life.

One released, the other under a communist dictatorship that did not restore anything that Esquiline everything the war had not destroyed a regime that finally divided the city into a barrier trying to prevent the escape of tens, hundreds of thousands of Berliners who aspired to a different world than they supported  in East Berlin. 

That barrier, that wall, guarded day and night by the army with orders to shoot to kill anyone who tried to cross, divided Germany for decades but specially divided Berlin. 

It divided the world also in two sides and for years we had what it was called the Cold War between the two blocs, one the Communist with several countries of Europe and other in Asia and Latino America and the capitalist West that could be the rest of the world.

One the comunist and the other the democratic world were fighting for yeas and years.
Get army in a crazy way till the point that the world could be destroyed several times.
More or less now is similar, but with more silence, still the atomic nuclear weapons are there like a terrible worning advise of what men could do with their own world.
 

Differences are evident between those two cities called Berlin  showing the contrasts between two ways of understanding life on the past years. Communism and Capitalism, both wild, but quite different.
It´s evident that I prefer mine, and on the sixties people from Berlin wanted also to be and live on the west world.





The Germans, the inhabitants of Berlin today do not try to forget the past, do not forget the two Germanys items and divided by an absolute shower of bombs that devastated completely the old Berlin and the rest of the Germany ruled by a mad dictator, elected in democracy for his people blinded by promises of a mad mass murderer dreamer. 

Every one knows his name, so I prefer even not to mention it.

It is not the only murderer in recent history, as last century was full of them, another not so well known was Stalin surpassed in cruelty and blind evil any statistics of genocide that in history has been.


The German people want to preserve some remnants of the destruction and the past  is there, in sight, with buildings that are characteristic of the old communist world. 

Proletarians ugly story hives and hives luxurious alleged socialist mind hierarchy.



Solares, infirm ruins, abandoned factories, the remains of buildings that were bombed and that remain as reminders of what was the great destruction of a unique huge city.

Personally my impression was puzzled at the big difference I have noticed between the two absolutely different cities that combine what is now the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany. 





It is not a city, are two or probably more, and feel to observe the landscape, houses, small towns, or great, is that there are still two different worlds, two Germanys that struggle to unify their structures and different worlds and forged over decades of repression and injustice continued mentalities. 







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Visiting Dresden one observes that the ruin remains still, cranes everywhere, incredibly luxurious, baroque, beautiful buildings are next to lots where are built and restored architectural gems destroyed tens of thousands of tons of incendiary bombs that caused the total destruction of a jewel of Western culture and hundreds of thousands dead, burned, crushed by the massive, absurd, incomprehensible Allied aircraft pounded again and again a jewel and pride of the city historical culture of human bombardment.

The war was won against the Nazis and the bombing of Dresden was mercilessly destroying a unique city and killing most of its inhabitants.



And the funny or shocking was that during the First World War the city remained intact, with the end of  World War II when the coup was destructive and absurd. 

In February  1945 , just twelve weeks before the capitulation of Nazi Germany, Dresden was the subject of a series of bombings that triggered a  firestorm  that reduced to rubble the  historic center .



The Allied air raid on Dresden remains one of the most contentious and controversial episodes of the Second World War.

Df ps Fotothek 0000010 Blick vom Rathausturm.jpg


My journey has continued for other cities in Germany, but that's another story to tell in the next installment.

GOING TO BERLIN AND MUNICH












YES, I am going to Berlin, incredible.

That´s true, after so many years without traveling, except last year that I went to London, next eleventh of july I´m going to
one of the big capitals of Europe that is Berlin.

Berlin it is not only one of the bigger nice cities of Europe but
it is also a symbol of how time changed after some decades, as this a city with a large history since the last seventy years of 
last century.

When I was born, Berlin was the capital of The German Nation that was under the Nacional Socialism  Regimen that has inmersed Europe, and the rest of the world, in the Second World War.





Along the years of the Second World Berlin thousands of bombs
were throwed on the city till its total destruction.

After that, once the war was over and the nazis were defeated, the city of Berlin was divided in four parts, the same as the rest of German, England, France, EE.UU. and Russia occupied the four parts of the German Nation.





Some years after, Berlin was divided only in two sides, the Russian Communist Side and the Occidental part controled by EE.UU. , and a wall was erected on 1961 by the D.G.R., to prevent the bad capitalists ideas of the East and preserved the communist regiment of the West as long as possible from that bad capitalist east influence on people.

In fact what the R.D.G. wanted was avoid the pass of german people from the West side to the East.
So Germany was divided in two, the East, capital Bohn, and the West, capital West Berlin.

The Cold War between the West countries of Europe and the East, together with EE.UU. and other allies , was so long that I could live it in first person along all my youth and adult life.

It seems the world was going to be destroyed by the Nuclear Bombs, and some how every body was afraid of that events. 

But in 1989, radical political changes occurred in the Eastern Side. 

After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. 

Over the next few weeks, euphoric public and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the wall; the governments later used industrial equipment to remove most of what was left. 


The physical wall was primarily destroyed in 1990. The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification in one Nation, which was formally concluded on 3 October 1990.



 








perdiz

COMING FROM NETHERLAND




Ten days have passed since I returned from my little trip to Amsterdam and some other towns in that area.
I try to assimilate what I've seen, what I've been talking to these people and the general treatment received.


The biggest contrast for me has been to find  "clean" cities and tended to the smallest detail, another aspect that has surprised me pleasantly was to find "older" workers in various activities, and also as absolute and unexpected tip for me, it has been the sum friendliness of all its people.  


Without encountering a single person who has not responded politely to my requests for information on streets, buildings or any other needs. 
And not just stop and listen to me, it is also helping accompany as indicating where and how to get it also explains in detail the functioning of other gadgets which we lack in my city, Madrid, and which constituted little problems for the newcomer.







Not surprisingly, the cities visited have been beautiful, clean, cozy (as I have seen leaving my country to Europe other time), whitth roads being impeccable, the absolute absence of tolls, which virtually everyone who have asked something or I have requested assistance, has responded favorably.  








It is perhaps check the respect that youth and children feel about their environment, correction with listening to their teachers or who asks for help, this has been what perhaps surprised me and deeply pleased.







It was an informative and scenic tour by ourselves renting a car and visiting my friend and I the places you wanted to visit us.
The experience was magnificent, the time has fortunately been great and I guess this circumstance favors full of experiences relatanto already go for anyone who would be interested to read them.  




perdiz