Mia Savage
First of all we will go to Brandenburg Gate.
It is one of Berlin’s most important
monuments. It is a landmark and symbol
all in one with over two hundred years of
history.
A former symbol of the divided city, it drew visitors who used to climb an
observation platform in order to get a glimpse of the world behind the Iron
Curtain. On the other side of the barren “death-strip” separated East from
West Berlin, geographically and politically. It was here that on June 12, 1987,
Ronald Regan issued his stern command to his cold war adversary
admonishing him with the words: tear down this wall!
It was officially opened to traffic on December 22, 1989 and 100,000 people came
to celebrate the occasion. Unfortunately this also resulted in severe damage to
the monument which needed to be restored and was only officially reopened
on October 3, 2002.
Next we will go to the Berlin wall. It was made
on August 13th 1961.They built the wall as a way
of separating the three zones controlled by
France, Britain and America from the zone
controlled by the Soviet Union.
People attempting to get from East to West were regarded as traitors and guards
were instructed to shoot at them if they attempted to cross, although not to kill
them!
Lots of people scored it four and a half out of five when
they asked 75 people how it was.
The site was designed by Alfred Messel and was
constructed in twenty years, from 1910 to 1930.
The museum is visited by approximately 1,135,000 people
every year, making it the most visited art museum in
Germany (2007).
It is a museum displaying Islamic art!
The Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral), completed in 1905, is
Berlin’s largest and most important Protestant church as
well as the sepulchre of the Prussian Hohenzollern dynasty.
This outstanding high-renaissance baroque monument has
linked the Hohenzollerns to German Protestantism for
centuries and undergone renewed phases of architectural
renovation since the Middle Ages. First built in 1465 as a
parish church on the Spree River it was only finally
completed in 1905 under the last German Kaiser -Wilhelm
II. Damaged during the Second World War it remained
closed during the GDR years and reopened after
restoration in 1993
Finally, we will go to Berlin’s most famous trademark
department store, KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens) – or
department store of the West. It is Berlin’s shopping
paradise, a favourite, easy to spot landmark on Wittenberg
Platz. With 60,000sqm, the equivalent of nine football
fields it has 40,000 visitors a day, this is the legendary,
largest department store on the continent.
The KaDeWe has survived the turmoil of 20th century
German history unscathed. Beginning its commercial life
in 1907, the store was a constant Berlin presence, its highs
and lows reflecting those of the city.