I spent some time in Berlin in March 2017 for work (the ITB fair) but there was time to wander the city and make some photos.
As a historian I find Berlin absolutely breathtaking. It has a splendid past, but it also played a central role in the nazi regime. The city was devastated by the war, and signs of this destructing is everywhere.
What really impresses me is the way the Germans have learned to live with a very difficult past, without negating what happen. Rather the way old and new is mixed and intertwined makes it clear that they have learned some very hard lessons.
The Germans are looking towards the future, but without turning their back on the last. That is no mean feat.
While there I didn’t visit lots of museums. Rather I just walked the streets, and photographed what I saw.
I have developed some of the photos both in B&W and in colour. The colour versions are in a separate gallery below.
Monument commemorating the people taken to the kz camps by train from the Friedrichstrasse station..MotorbikeKurfürstendammAlexanderplatz, Berlin, with street musicians and a man leaving them a bit of moneyU-bahn station and street lamps near the BundestagBicycle parked in front of the BundestagKarl-Marx-Allee with a kid of a skateboard.Street view of the Karl-Marx-Allee, with an advertisement billboardMonument of a couple of lions in the Tiergarten, close to the Brandenburger TorThree women on bicycles at the Brandenburger Tor, around sunset.A young boy unmounting his bicycle in the garden of Schloss CharlottenburgA willow in James-Simon Park with the Berliner Dom and the TV tower in the backgroundA couple is greeting heartily in Alexanderplatz, with a street musician wearing a giraffe head playing drums on bucketsView of the Berliner Dom from an underpassage leading into the James-Simon park along the Spree in BerlinGirl running over the Potzdamer Platz in front of a piece of the Berlin wall
Colour photographs from Berlin
U-bahn station and street lamps near the Bundestag in BerlinBicycle parked in front of the Bundestag in BerlinThree women on bicycles at the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin, around sunset.Girl running over the Potzdamer Platz in front of a piece of the Berlin wall
Leave a Reply