Meet the Germans | Rory's Berlin Blog | Goethe-Institut

Happy birthday Goethe Institut London

nospam@example.com (Rory Maclean) — 2012-05-17T05:29:00Z

   Over 50 years the Goethe Institut London has contributed to the UK’s cultural life, initiating, hosting and supporting thousands of German – and Anglo-German -- projects. This summer alone a Tino Sehgal installation is being created in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern. The Barbican hosts Bauhaus: Art as Life, the biggest UK exhibition of the design school’s work in a generation. And German artists Thomas Schütte and Hans-Peter Feldmann have shows at the Serpentine Gallery. All these projects are supported by the Institut, which is also celebrating both the anniversary and the reopening of its Exhibition Road headquarters with a bold and imaginative original work by Gloria Zein.

   On Sunday 20th May the Institut throws open its doors to the public. Londoners are invited to discover its stunning new library and reading rooms, to snuggle up with a book in the intimate reading spaces and to watch German television in the TV-corner. Visitors can also see the state-of-the-art classrooms while enjoying German wine and Warsteiner beer, and listening to special guests Silbermond.

    In addition Londoners will have the chance to experience the specially commissioned installation by Zein, winner of the 2011 Cass Prize for Sculpture and profiled in this month’s artist interview.
   Zein’s three-part ‘intervention’ involves large parts of the fine Kensington building, responding to its architecture as well as to the Institut’s structure and identity.
   The first part is in the main stairway which connects the different departments to the outside world. A remarkable painted mural rises in the stairwell, its bold colours determined by a nine-sided dice, linking the nine institutes of the North Western Europe to their regional headquarters in London. Viewers ‘complete’ the work as they climb the stairs, as if walking into a sculpture.
   On the rear terrace Zein’s second creation is a pair of flowing sculptures, drawing attention to the cultural and promotional work which flows out of the Institut building. The third element -- inspired by interviews with the Institut’s 30 staff members – is a series of miniature sculptures at different work stations, some of which can be seen on Sunday.

   Since 1962 the Goethe Institut has introduced British audiences to the work of many of Germany’s leading contemporary artists including Pina Bausch, Gustav Metzger, Gregor Schneider, Thomas Schütte, Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky and Ricarda Roggan. The Institut ‘has been a focus of contemporary German culture in the UK for the past 50 years,’ according to director Sabine Hentzsch. Its success over five decades has been due to ‘the constant dialogue and collaboration with artists, authors, musicians, film-makers, translators, creative artists, German teachers and course participants.’ Its efforts – along with the rise of Berlin as a European cultural centre (and boredom with the old nationalistic stereotypes) – have strengthen old bonds and created dynamic new links across Europe.

   On Sunday 20th May come and celebrate the links, take part in the dialogue and join in the birthday party.

Prostitution in Berlin (2)

nospam@example.com (Rory Maclean) — 2012-05-10T06:10:00Z

    Alabaster Jar is an outreach to women working in prostitution on the streets and in the brothels in Berlin. Each week its small female team visits sex workers offering friendship, support and practical help. New Zealander Patricia Green – whose story was told in last week’s blog – founded the organisation in 2006.

   ‘When I first came to Berlin my objective was to help Thai women who had been brought here on the pretext of marriage, and sold into prostitution,’ Green told me. ‘I wanted to offer them freedom, a chance to live a different life, and the love of Jesus.’
   Soon Green was helping working women of all nationalities.     ‘I remember the first time that we walked down Oranienburgerstrasse. Everyone cut us dead. Then on our second or third visit, one woman smiled at us. The next night we took her a bouquet.
   “Why have you brought me flowers,” she asked us.
   “Because you are beautiful,” we answered.
   ‘At Christmas we started handing out fluffy earmuffs, gift bags and chocolate angels. On Valentine’s Day and at Easter we gave out Easter eggs and red roses. We seek to restore dignity and self-esteem through acts of kindness.’
   As well as along Oranienburgerstrasse, Green’s team runs a twice-a-week drop-in centre at the Café Neustart, operated by Neustart e.V on Kurfürstenstraße. Last year more than 400 women dropped by for coffee, tea, conversation or a hand massage in the ‘spa corner’. They shared their life stories, talked about accommodation and financial problems as well as family, health and pregnancy matters. About 60% of the German women who use the café are drug users. Some women ask for practical or spiritual help, but most simply want to rest and talk.
   ‘There is a girl who came from a broken family,’ said Green, sharing the story of one young woman. ‘Her parents had separated, and her leftover parent had a new partner. She was no longer welcome at home, and at thirteen, she met a man who could have been her grandfather. He raped her. As far as I recall, she had already been sexually-abused within her family too. She became pregnant and dropped out of school. At eighteen she landed on the streets.’

    Green explained that the most common method of recruitment today is through a ‘lover boy’, an attractive young man who snares a vulnerable girl.
    ‘Once they find a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old, they pretend to be in love with her and court her affections,’ she explained. ‘The girl is enticed away from her family and moves in with him. He prepares her for prostitution and sends her onto the streets. There are men in Berlin who are constantly doing this with three or four girls at the same time. The women are so emotionally dependent on the man that they do what he wants even when they hate it. Some are compelled to take drugs. They become drug-dependent and prostitute themselves to make money for the drugs, though most of that money goes to their pimps. Escaping this kind of situation is difficult, because it has broken the will of the woman.’

   As well as helping victims themselves, Patricia Green – whose story is told in the new book ‘Ein Engel im Rotlichtviertel’ (An Angel is the Red-light District) -- is passionate in her determination to create public awareness of these haunting issues. She wants to motivate people to actively combat sexual trafficking. But Alabaster Jar – like many small charities and the women it aims to help -- is suffering from the impact of the economic crisis. To continue its work, Green is seeking financial support and volunteers, both linguists (eastern European languages) and ‘ladies who are a bit older and willing to be mother figures for the girls’. Individuals who are interested can contact her here.

   ‘Being with the girls in the café was like taking a very honest look into a mirror, seeing all the brokenness in their eyes and realizing that I carry the same broken heart inside me,’ said one Alabaster Jar volunteer. Another recalled a young woman who ‘sat down at the "spa corner" and when I started to gently massage her hand, tears started falling down her face. It was like she had never been touched with care, respect and love.’
   Isherwood’s Sally Bowles? Dietrich’s Lola Lola in The Blue Angel? Sonia Rossi’s Fxxking Berlin? They are just stories. This is the reality of modern day sex work in Europe.

Prostitution in Berlin (1)

nospam@example.com (Rory Maclean) — 2012-05-03T06:01:00Z

    Isherwood’s Sally Bowles. Dietrich’s Lola Lola in The Blue Angel. Christiane F. and Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo. Sonia Rossi’s Fxxking Berlin. Prostitution has played a central role in Berlin’s films and literature for over a century. But what is the reality of the profession in the capital? Do Berlin’s sex workers live lives of high glamour, or suffer from criminal enslavement?

   Sex seems to be popular in Germany, given that an estimated 1.2 million men pay for it every day. The non-profit organisation Hydra e.V. -- a support group for sex workers in Berlin -- calculates that some 400,000 prostitutes are at work in Germany, 8,000 of whom are active in the capital’s brothels. Not only is the trade legal but here (as well as in Rostock) there are no Sperrbezirke. Off-limits areas. Women and men may offer their services on any street, at any time, apart from in front of churches and day-care centres.

   Prostitution is a very complicated and controversial industry. Many German professionals take pride in their trade, openly promoting it as a means of supporting a family or financing a university education. Others – both German and foreign – have fallen into the business because of debt, drugs or sexual abuse. A third category – which constitutes about 25% of all sex workers – have been tricked or trafficked into the trade.

   It is the vulnerable women of this third category who are most in need of help, and a number of organisations – both German and foreign – have been established in Berlin to offer them practical and emotional support, as well as to demonstrate that – even in the darkest moments – there is the possibility of an alternative lifestyle.

   Patricia Green is a sixtysomething New Zealander who for over 40 years has worked on behalf of sexually-exploited women and children. In 1971 she established the Landmark Christian Home for Girls, a safe house and sanctuary for hundreds of young women in Hamilton, New Zealand’s fourth largest urban area. Fifteen years later she moved to Thailand to found the Rahab Ministries.
   ‘In the bars and hotels in Bangkok I watched girls appear and disappear and suddenly I understood what was happening. Something happened in my heart and I wanted to do something. I wanted to help them.’
   Green learnt to speak Thai and, with the help of fellow Christians, began to visit the bars and bordellos of Bangkok and Pattaya, bearing small gifts for the working women, making friends ‘just as Jesus did’. She found that most girls were treated no better than indebted labourers: their salary often withheld for weeks, or docked for not wearing lipstick or high heels. One young woman told Green that if she could find the money for schooling, she would study hairdressing. Green and the Rahab Ministry began to sponsor women to attend vocational training courses, providing seed money for small businesses (i.e. buying a pair of scissors plus chair and mirror for each beauty shop), thereby enabling hundreds of woman to escape prostitution. Come 2004 Green handed over Rahab to her Thai colleagues, having created a model ministry.

   As many of the women’s clients had been German tourists, Green came into contact with the German Embassy which helped her to raise funds and finance some of the girls’ ‘gift packs’. She also advised officials (unofficially) on illegitimate visa applications, enabling a number of Thai women to be saved from being trafficked to Germany. In time she herself visited Berlin, and – as soon as she arrived in the capital – she felt as if she’d come home. She also felt called to help the working women of the city...

Next week: Alabaster Jar in Berlin

Walking Berlin (12)

nospam@example.com (Rory Maclean) — 2012-04-26T05:21:00Z

    In this last Walking Berlin instalment we step along a line which once divided the world, and consider the loss of a unique Berlin.

The Wall

    A double row of cobblestones traces the six kilometre route of the Berlin Wall through of the centre of the city. Begin at Bernauer Strasse (S-Bahn NordBahnhof) which in 1961 East Germans split down the middle. The Berlin Wall Memorial centre documents the history of the divide, and must be visited. Head south to the Brandenburg Gate and – as you mingle with the tourists and street entertainers – consider that for 28 long years this was no-man’s-land, with the Gate sealed off from West and East Berliners alike. Note the old East German border watchtower near Potsdamer Platz. Follow a 200 metre stretch of the original Wall past the Topography of Terror to infamous Checkpoint Charlie (and the fascinating Mauermuseum). Carry on along Zimmerstrasse to the memorial to Peter Fechter, an escaping, 18-year-old East Berliner who was shot and left to bleed to death by East German border guards in 1962. Pause at Stralauer Platz with its remains of the inner (east facing) Wall. End your walk at the East Side Gallery, the longest-surviving section which has been transformed into an open-air art exhibition on the banks of the River Spree (U1/S-Bahn Warschauer Strasse).

    The Wall was a heinous construction which scarred Berlin and Europe. Its fall was among the most important historical events of the 20th century. Yet for almost three decades it and the paucity of East German Communism, and its near-strangulation of West Berlin, made this place unique. In its Kreuzberg squats, on the death strip, in the sleepy suburbs and during pompous May Day Parades along Karl-Marx-Allee, there was nowhere like it in the world. No one wishes for the return of those days, but should modern Berlin be going so far to erase the physical reminders of its uniqueness?

    Today the danger facing Berlin – like almost all wealthy Western cities -- is homogenisation. As property prices spiral, and shopping centres rise on open ground, and artists’ studio are converted into luxury apartments, this dynamic, mixed and infuriating capital becomes more and more conformist. On this walk you will see the change at Potsdamer Platz, along Friedrichstrasse, at Checkpoint Charlie. Of course, ‘Berlin ist eine Stadt, verdammt dazu, ewig zu werden, niemals zu sein,’ as author Karl Scheffler wrote over a century ago. It is a place damned to forever become, never to be. But in twenty years’ time, if this trend continues, how different will Berlin be – in urban-planning terms -- from Chicago, Munich or Beijing?

Walking Berlin (11)

nospam@example.com (Rory Maclean) — 2012-04-19T05:10:00Z

    Berlin has 13 Michelin-starred restaurants. Its celebrity chefs are making-over classic Prussian dishes like ham hocks and rediscovering black salsify. Mitte boasts more sushi bars than parts of Tokyo. Yet Berlin will forever be associated with the Currywurst. In the time it takes you read this post, more than 5,000 of these spicy sausages will be eaten in Germany. That’s more than 2,000,000 every day, or an astonishing 800,000,000 portions per year. This week’s walk takes you to my favourite four Currywurst spots in the capital.

The Currywurst Crawl

   Our mini-Super Size Me tour begins in Prenzlauer Berg, under an elevated section of the U2 at Eberwaldestrasse. Konnopke’s is Berlin’s oldest stand from which the family has sold sausages since 1930. In the open, under the rail line, surrounded by portraits of Dietrich and dancing Berliners, you can experience ‘Tradition mit Geschmack’ (call it, Tasty Tradition).

   For those who don’t (or would rather not) know, a Currywurst is a hot pork sausage cut into slices, covered in curry powder and a sauce made from tomatoes, onions, chilli, sugar and vinegar as well as a ‘secret ingredient’ such as apple puree, fruit juice and even Coca-cola syrup.

   Hop on the U2 and head south to Mehringdamm (U6/U7) to sample the wares of Curry 36. To many, Curry 36 serves the best Currywurst in town. Certainly the stall is open for the longest time, from 09.00 to 05.00 every day, and is especially popular with clubbers heading bed-wards after tripping the light fantastic at nearby Kreuzberg nightclubs.

   Back-track now to Alexanderplatz (U2/U5/U8), and the ultimate Berlin al fresco dining experience. In Alexanderplatz, grillwalkers sells Wursts from a mobile kitchen strapped around their neck, rather like old time cigarette girls (with tomato stains). As your stomach wrestles with its third sausage, pause to consider the Currywurst’s origins. In the hungry years after the Second World War an enterprising Berliner housewife, Herta Heuwer, hit on the idea of spicing sausages with curry powder. She bought an old van for 35 Marks and started selling the cheap and filling snack on a street corner, thereby assuring her place in German culinary history.

   But why has the Currywurst remained a Berlin obsession? In part because – like Berliners themselves -- it is honest, down-to-earth and a bit rough (with an irresistible spice). Also because of its democratic credentials; it is best eaten standing around a small bistro table, rubbing elbows with businessmen, shoppers, hookers and bus drivers. But even poor-and-sexy Berliners like to go up market once-in-a-while, for example to Bier’s Ku’damm 195. Catch the S-Bahn to Savignyplatz and stroll along Kurfürstendamm to where Gerhard Schroder, Boris Becker and even Tom Cruise like to munch on the most abstracted form of the pig. And if you are in a celebratory mood, or just pleased to have survived this digestive Armageddon, Bier’s sells miniature bottles of Moët & Chandon champagne. Enjoy!

Walking Berlin (10)

nospam@example.com (Rory Maclean) — 2012-04-12T05:05:00Z

    No visit to Berlin is complete without a few hours at the Neues Museum. After eleven years’ work, the star British architect David Chipperfield has created the most perfect museum for the city.

   The history is fascinating. Friedrich August Stüler’s neoclassical building was erected in 1847. During the Second World War it was so badly damaged that the East German government could neither conceive how nor afford to restore it. For almost half a century the ruins were left to the elements, with trees taking root in its galleries and the Spree at times flooding its basement. Only with reunification, and deeper (West) German pockets, could the €200 million be found to resurrect it.

   In an inspired and bold move, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation – along with other government bodies – chose not to simply restore the museum to its pre-war state. Instead they decided to preserve its ‘strange chronology’ – to quote Chipperfield – by linking together original material, war- and weather-damaged sections as well as modern elements. The result is a museum that can be read like a history book, the fabric of the building telling the story of Berlin.

Neues Museum and Museum Island -- Living History

   Ride the U2 to Spittelmarkt and cross over the Kupfergraben to Fischerinsel, site of medieval Cölln, the sister town of Old Berlin. Turn left and follow the canal towards Schloßplatz, where the old Hohenzollern palace once stood. Ahead is Museumsinsel, dedicated to ‘art and science’ since 1841. As well as the Altes Museum, the complex – now a UNESCO World Heritage Site – includes Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s Altes Museum, the Alte Nationalgalerie, the Bode Museum and the Pergamon Museum, which houses the Pergamon Altar and the Ishtar Gate of Babylon. How long will this final Walking Berlin walk take you? Well, a visit to the island’s museums requires a long-term view, not least because the renovation of the Pergamon – which has only just begun – is not due to be completed until 2028. So take your time, and enjoy.

Walking Berlin (9)

nospam@example.com (Rory Maclean) — 2012-04-05T05:58:00Z

    I’m interested in what happens beneath the surface of things. How do machines work? Where do subterranean rivers flow? What’s the origin of a word? Why do men behave as they do? My nine-year-old son shares an interest in things unseen, most evidently in his fascination with Berlin’s U-Bahn system. When we first moved to the city he persuaded me to travel with him on all nine underground lines. He opened carriage doors at most of the network’s 170 stations. At school he advised his teachers on the easiest way to reach unfamiliar stops. He even taught himself to recognise the different models of U-Bahn by the sound of their motors, identifying an approaching train before it reaches the platform.

Underground Berlin

   At U Deutsche Oper my son and I clambered off the platform and went walkabout, in the care of half-a-dozen BVG guides. With families, couples and not-a-single-trainspotter, we explored a little-used branch line which connects the U2 and U7 (with the electricity switched off to the third rail). A guide took my son’s hand and explained signal and power systems, enlightening us into the meaning of blue tunnel lights, and transported him to a kind of subterranean heaven.

   At present the BVG, the public transport operator Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe, has suspended the Tunnelwanderung. On offer instead is a fascinating midnight tunnel tour, with participants towed through 35 kilometres of tunnels by a Akkulok locomotive on open flatcars. It's not a walk, but what a ride.

Walking Berlin (8)

nospam@example.com (Rory Maclean) — 2012-04-03T05:51:00Z

    What would happen if Rome’s mayor proposed turning the Coliseum into a music venue? Or Athenian city councillors rented out the Acropolis for a fashion show? Or Stonehenge was opened to joggers and skateboarders? No doubt locals and foreigners alike would be outraged. So what’s going on with Berliners and Tempelhof?

   Tempelhof airport is the world’s most stunning example of fascist monumental architecture. It’s a former Royal Prussian parade ground, the spot where hot air balloons, Orville Wright and zeppelins once flew. It’s the airfield where the majority of American and British ‘candy-bombers’ landed during the Berlin air-lift, defeating Stalin’s attempt to starve the city into submission. It is the vast ‘mother of all airports’ – according to architect Norman Foster -- with façades of shell limestone and a 1.2 kilometre-long terminal building which features an enormous overhanging canopy that sheltered passengers disembarking from Junkers G-38 and Douglas DC-3s. There is no building like it anywhere, yet in 2008 Berlin’s leaders closed it to aircraft – and they still can’t come up with a worthy idea of what to do with it.

Tempelhof

   This bitter sweet walk begins at U Paradestrasse or S+U Tempelhof. Gaze in awe at the monumental buildings. Wonder at the city fathers’ failure of imagination (they rent them out from time to time for concerts, fashion shows and the Popkomm music week). Slip behind them onto the runways and aprons which cover an area equivalent to 525 football fields. Join the rollerbladers, kite-flyers, cyclists and walkers to ramble and roam. And be amazed that like Tempelhof, Berlin-Tegel airport, the fourth busiest airport in Germany and one of the most convenient in Europe, will also be closed from June for no sensible reason.

Walking Berlin (7)

nospam@example.com (Rory Maclean) — 2012-03-29T05:32:00Z

    Lose yourself in the Tiergarten. That’s my simple advice for the discovery and enjoyment of Berlin’s great 630 acres central park which stretches from the Brandenburg Gate in the east to Kurfürstendamm and the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church in the west. Once a royal hunting ground, the Tiergarten reveals itself as a latticework of winding paths and arrow-straight avenues, intimate lakes and busy canals. On foot and by bicycle, visitors move from wild Neuer See to the Neoclassical order of Schloß Bellevue, official residence of the new German president Joachim Gauck. Children play in its dozen playgrounds, rock concerts are staged along its Straße des 17. Juni, gay Berliners congregate for open-air sunbathing in the fields along Hofjägerallee. Pack a picnic, bring a Frisbee or badminton rackets, drop by the zoo and plan to spend the day.

Tiergarten

   To the north the Tiergarten is flanked by a loop of the overground S-Bahn line, with the stations Tiergarten and Bellevue providing the most convenient access to the park. The BVG 200 bus – which runs from S+U Zoologischer Garten to Unter den Linden and Alexander Platz — follows its southern edge. Step off at any stop or station and dive into the woods. Travelling by chance, lightly, without expectations or a final destination opens one to the unexpected – and that is the finest way to experience the Tiergarten (as well as, arguably, life).

   But as the day cools, or the stomach rumbles, it can be helpful to have a welcoming hostelry in mind. To my mind nowhere beats the atmospheric Café am Neuen See, a Seventies glass pavilion dropped into the park, surrounded by old trees, fronting a lake, flooded with light and fantastic nosh. In the summer its adjoining al-fresco beer garden serves salmon and cream cheese pizzas and southern German specialties as well as barbecued meat and fish. Its Sunday brunch -- refined and civilised by Berliners into one of the world's most relaxing meals – is delicious.

Walking Berlin (6)

nospam@example.com (Rory Maclean) — 2012-03-27T05:24:00Z

    On any warm Berlin evening Simon-Dach-Straße buzzes with tens of thousands of people, its diners and drinkers spilling across the pavements of Wühlischstraße and Boxhagener Platz, revelling in the good life, happy to be in one of the trendiest corners of Europe.

   Friedrichshain is home to the world’s largest open-air gallery and many of its smallest, most intimate clubs. Along Simon-Dach-Strasse partypeople trip from fondue restaurant to Thai cocktail bars, chatting with strangers, gazing into shops called Cupcakes and Trash-Schick. A visitor’s greatest challenge is deciding what time of day or night to visit; in the morning for a Canadian brunch with Aunt Benny, afternoon kaffee-und-kuchen at Kuchenrausch, evening bar-hopping along Krossener Straße, or very-late-night (i.e. around dawn) clubbing at Berghain? The choice is yours.

Saturday (and Sunday) in Boxhagener Platz

   Berlin has as many local markets as neighbourhoods and on weekend mornings locals and visitors alike lick, taste and smell in the open air from Kollwitzplatz to Pestalozzistrasse and Winterfeldtplatz. In Friedrichshain the best known – and most popular – market is on Boxhagener Platz. On Saturdays the focus is on food. Sunday morning brings the antique dealers, vinyl collectors, jewellers and drop-dead-groovy clothing stalls.

   To join the party catch the S-Bahn to Warschauer Strasse (or the U1 to Schlesisches Tor if you want to start with a walk over the elaborate Oberbaumbrücke and the Spree). Head north, enjoying the sight of spent-clubbers heading home after a night tripping the light fantastic. Turn right – or eastwards – into Revalerstrasse, glide by the RAW-Tempel, a warehouse-cum-arts-centre and – depending on the time – enjoy the heavy techno beat rising from the Cassiopeia club.   Turn right at Simon-Dach-Strasse and drift towards Boxhagener Platz. You don’t need me to suggest a place to stop for your second -- or third -- coffee, the choice is huge, but my favourite spot is Café Szimpla, a Hungarian jewel at Gärtnerstrasse 15 with fine coffee, evening music and the occasional share ‘n’ show artist night.

   Enjoy, indulge and -- if you can ever motivate yourself to leave -- wander northwest to Frankfurter Tor (U5) and gawk at the twin Stalinist towers on Karl-Marx-Allee, part of East Germany’s monumental socialist boulevard built after World War Two.

Walking Berlin (5)

nospam@example.com (Rory Maclean) — 2012-03-22T06:05:00Z

    No one has ever called me a fashion victim. On Sunday mornings I like to slob around in a tattered dressing gown. On weekdays I write in ancient track trousers and a patched sweater. Only last week did my long-suffering wife finally persuade me to throw out my father’s moth-eaten cardigan (he died way back in 1973).

   Most Berliners don’t care how they look or what people think of their look. Just ask any of the ‘forever young’ geriatrics who cycle around Friedrichshain in pink hot pants, smoking cheroots, with a Chihuahua balanced in their bicycle basket.

   Berlin – with its passion for grunge -- suits my total disregard for fashion. So it may come as a surprise that one of my favourite strolls is along the city’s catwalk, Alte and Neue Schönhauser Straße.

A Fashion Victim’s Catwalk

   Twenty five years ago the streets around Hackescher Markt were grey with crumbling walls and lost hopes. Most old buildings hadn’t been ripped down as had happened elsewhere in the eastern half of the city. The Communist authorities had decided not to seize and demolished the once-Jewish-owned properties so as to deny Western media another chance to liken them to the Nazis.

   Hence when the Wall fell, Hackescher Markt retained some of the richest, mixed-use architecture in East Berlin. Squatters and artists moved in, and were pushed out by trendy money, transforming the area into one of the hippest places in town.

   The walk starts at Hackescher Markt S-Bahn station. First head north into Hackesche Höfe, a complex of eight interconnected courtyards reached off Rosenthaler Straße. Enjoy the hugely popular ‘New Berlin’ mix of businesses and residences, theatres and cinemas, art galleries, boutiques, bars and restaurants. Now strike out up Neue Schönhauser Straße, past dozens of trendy temples of fashion (and the Goethe Institut Berlin). At the top of the street is Caras, arguably the capital’s favourite café. But to my mind one should stroll on to Tor Straße, turn left to Rosenthaler Platz and indulge in a fantastic latte macchiato at the hilarious St. Oberholz. Now head south down Rosenthaler Straße and back to Hackescher Markt.

   On a bike this short circuit could be completed in under ten minutes. But on foot, with stops for coffee and a meal – as well as sufficient lèche-vitrine (or ‘window-licking’), expect it to take at least three hours.

Walking Berlin (4)

nospam@example.com (Rory Maclean) — 2012-03-20T06:58:00Z

    Berlin is encircled by lakes and bisected by the Spree hence – given the efficiency of both the U-Bahn and S-Bahn – it’s a doddle to get out of city and spend a day by the water. As all trains have designated carriages for bicycles, embarking on a two-wheeled ‘walk’ could not be easier ... as long as you remember to pay the €1.50 bicycle supplement.

Großer Müggelsee and Treptow

   Ride the S-Bahn east to Rahnsdorf, then bus (or cycle) south to Müggelwerderweg and one of the small BVG urban transport piers. The little, once-an-hour F23 ferry potters across die Bänke, with its sleepy harbour, to Neu Helgoland with a delightful waterside restaurant-hotel-cum-concert hall. This is the venue for Germany’s wackiest programme of ‘Ost-Rock’ and cover bands. On any evening you could hear an ersatz-AC/DC, Joe Cocker or Bruce Springsteen. But be warned; if you settled in for a beer you may not leave for days.

   Head west along the south shore of the Müggelsee, the city’s largest lake. Strand yourself at the ‘gestrandet’ beach bar, go for a swim or rent a paddleboat complete with waterslide. With a forest on your left, and the water on your right, this walk – or ride – is one of the most tranquil inner-city excursions in Europe.

   At the lake’s western end walkers can take the Spreetunnel under the river and back toward the S-Bahn Friedrichshagen, pausing for a bout of window shopping along Bölschestrasse, the so-called ‘boulevard of the east’.   Cyclists should push on along the Spree’s south bank, past canoe and rowing clubs, eyeing the elegant riverside conversions on the opposite shore. Ahead lies Köpenick, a relaxed yet quirky one-time fishing village and Slavic fortress which – according to existing records – is older than Berlin itself. Quirky? The town hall’s ‘basement’ restaurant is on the first floor and its prison is on Freiheit (freedom) Strasse. Above all Köpenick is known for the antics of Wilhelm Voigt, an unemployed shoemaker who in 1906 masqueraded as a Prussian officer and confiscated the town’s treasury, cocking-a-snoop at the-then unquestioning habit of deferring to men in uniform.
   Now idle at a waterside bar, watch the sunset and hang around until June when the jazz and blues music festival is in town. Alternatively catch the tram back into the city.

Walking Berlin (3)

nospam@example.com (Rory Maclean) — 2012-03-15T06:03:00Z

    As I wrote last week, a city is best discovered on foot so over the next month I’m sketching out my favourite Berlin strolls.   I’ll post two every week, and I ask you to use them only as a rough guide. I believe that to really know a place, you have to discover it by yourself.

The Government Quarter

   At U Zoologischer Garten, the centre of old West Berlin, catch the 100 bus to the stop Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of the Cultures of the World). Circle America’s ‘pregnant oyster’, the culture centre gifted to the city in 1957, and the new Bundeskanzleramt (the Chancellery), the largest government headquarters building in the world (eight times the size of the White House). No prize for figuring out why it’s called the Bundeswaschmaschine, or federal washing machine. Across the Platz der Republik, climb to the top of the Reichstag (note: a visit to Foster’s dome must now be booked at least 48 hours in advance). Immediately to the south-west (and across the line of the old Berlin Wall – watch for the bricks in the pavement) is the Brandenburger Tor. Few monuments in the world have witnessed greater tragedy and euphoria. Beyond the US Embassy is the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas, or the Jewish Memorial. Allow yourself to become lost and disorientated among its 2,711 concrete stellae, and reflect on how architect Peter Eisenman positioned the outer slabs low against the ground so that they would seem to fan out into the whole city.

    Now consider the courage needed to take responsibility for a terrible chapter of ones history. Berlin’s determination to face the past – and the conviction that the psychic health of a society depends on past atrocities being unearthed and confessed as a condition of healing – has contributed to making it such a dynamic city today.

Walking Berlin (2)

nospam@example.com (Rory Maclean) — 2012-03-13T06:57:00Z

    I once asked my oldest Berlin friend to name her centre of city. ‘The Ku’damm,’ she answered without hesitation.
   Her answer warmed my romantic soul. Was she recalling perhaps a candle-lit rendezvous at the Café Kranzler? Or a late-night stroll along Germany’s most famous boulevard, arm-in-arm with the man she loved? Or was she remembering (one can never really be sure with Berliners) her coming out in 1989 at the inaugural Loveparade?
   ‘Because it was there that I first rioted against capitalism,’ she told me, shattering my gentle preconceptions.

   Today the Ku’damm is a glittering two mile-long temple to consumerism with high-rent retailers like Hermès, Rolex, Mont Blanc and Louis Vuitton. West Berlin’s ‘High Street’ dates back to the 16th century when Elector Joachim II ordered a track to be built between the Schloss and his hunting lodge. In the 1870s Bismarck transformed the dirt road into a boulevard to rival the Champs-Élysées. The Kurfürstendamm was home to Berlin’s upper middle class up until the Second World War and then, with the division of the city in 1961, it became both the outpost and showpiece of (and battleground against) western capitalism.

   As I wrote last week, a city is best discovered on foot so I’m sketching out a few of my favourite Berlin walks over the month.

Kurfürstendamm

   KaDeWe – Berlin’s original temple to consumerism -- is the starting point for this 90 minute Ku’damm walk. The vast Kaufhaus des Westens at Wittenbergplatz station (U1 U2 U3) is approaching its first centenary. Check out the wonderful food floor, which rivals Harrods’ food hall. Next head up Tauentzienstrasse to Breitscheidplatz. The five year ‘Zoofenster’ building project will revitalise the square. Do not miss the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtis church. Destroyed during the last war, the church was rebuilt in the early 1960s and its stained glass, designed by the French artist Gabriel Loire, is among the most beautiful and soothing in the world. Now stroll west along Ku’damm itself, people-watching, window-shopping and café-stopping (my favourite is the Literaturhaus Café off Fasanenstrasse, near to where Frederick the Great build Berlin’s first peasantry). Stop by the Ku’damm Karree, soon to be redeveloped by David Chipperfield, the gifted architect who turned the Neues Museum into the Europe’s most exciting museum building. Berlin’s ‘Gold Coast’ glitters most brightly at George-Grosz-Platz, a favoured corner for wealthy Russian residents. Finally beyond Adenauerplatz, at the corner of Joachim-Friedrich Straße, you reach an important point in 'Red' Berlin’s history. The crossroads today may feature a less-than-revolutionary Saab dealership and branch of the Commerzbank, but it was here in 1968 that Rudi Dutschke – the youth leader who advocated for the overthrow of the Federal Republic – was shot.

Walking Berlin (1)

nospam@example.com (Rory Maclean) — 2012-03-08T16:36:57Z

    A city is best discovered on foot. Tony Wheeler, founder of Lonely Planet, has probably visited more cities and countries than any one else on the planet. When he arrives in a town he drops his bag in the hotel and goes ‘awandering’ – without a map. I – like Tony – find that such an approach, opening oneself up to instinct and chance, makes a city – and ones encounter with it – more vibrant and personal. To critics his Lonely Planet imprint has packaged the world, making a commodity of the foreign, but Tony would be the first to point out that his books are guides, not Bibles. And the best travel books enable us to step out into the world with confidence, and then embark on our individual adventure.

   With this thought in mind I plan to sketch out a few of my favourite Berlin walks. Over the next month I’ll post two every week, in the hope that fleet-footed (and even armchair) travellers will use them to get a feel for my favourite corners of Berlin, and then strike out on their own. For that is the key, of course; to truly know any place, you have to discover it by yourself.

Paul-Lincke-Ufer

   With the arrival of spring the majority of European youth will be strolling along Kreuzberg’s Landwehrkanal, or so it will seem on any sunny weekend. This refreshing, 90 minute walk on the Paul-Lincke-Ufer – named after a renowned Berlin composer -- begins at U Prinzenstrasse (U1). Turn south out of the station and follow Prinzenstrasse to the canal. In summertime the Sommerbad outdoor swimming pool is one of the liveliest places in town to spend a hot day. Head east along the canal. On the south bank are a couple of restaurant boats but, if you have an appetite, just few steps ahead at the Admiralbrücke is Il Casolare, an Italian trattoria which serves the best pizzas in town. Beyond it the tree-lined canal snakes into the heart of Kreuzberg. At Kottbusser Strasse is the lively, loud and colourful Maybach-Ufer market and, on the north bank, David Bowie’s once-favourite restaurant (then called Exil, now rechristened as the Austrian Horvath).   Enjoy the waterside scene, stop for coffee or a glass of wine at any of the dozen open-air cafés, or watch locals playing boules at the foot of Lausitzer Strasse. After Thielenbrücke, follow your nose into Görlitzer Park, and collapse beside the water to enjoy the music (there’s usually a couple of musical-types jamming in the park). Once you’ve regained your energy, double-back (sort of) across the park to U Görlitzer Bahnhof (U1).

   Now a word on maps -- the best Berlin map by far is the spiral-bound Berlin Atlas und mehr published by the BVG, Berlin’s urban transport authority. Although heavy and pricey (€10.90), with it you will never get lost – and possibly never again miss a bus or U-Bahn. It is available at U-Bahn station Winterfeldplatz and Alexanderplatz.