BERLIN:Once a city with a very long turbulent history,preserves its historic heritage with captivating Landmarks, Museums & Theatres : a rare blend of Creativity, Technology & its Vibrant Culture

On 13/08/22 ,We reached the Berlin Haupthahnhof stn from Eindhoven, Netherlands on our two-day tour to witness the world renowned historical landmarks & the captivating museums which are full of unique specimens of art & cultural artefacts. On the first day we visited some of these great monuments !

About Berlin :

Berlin is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union’s most populous city, according to population within city limits. First documented in the 13th century and at the crossing of two important historic trade routes, Berlin became the capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg (1417–1701), the Kingdom of Prussia (1701–1918), the German Empire (1871–1918), the Weimar Republic (1919–1933), and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). Berlin in the 1920s was the third-largest municipality in the world. After World War II and its subsequent occupation by the victorious countries, the city was divided; West Berlin became a de facto exclave of West Germany, surrounded by the Berlin Wall (from August 1961 to November 1989) and East German territory. East Berlin was declared capital of East Germany, while Bonn became the West German capital. Following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all of Germany.
Berlin is a world city of culture, politics, media and science.Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the service sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations and convention venues. Berlin serves as a continental hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination.Significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering etc .Berlin is home to world-renowned universities .Its Zoological Garden is the most visited zoo in Europe and one of the most popular worldwide. With Babelsberg being the world’s first large-scale movie studio complex, Berlin is an increasingly popular location for international film productions. The city is well known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts and a very high quality of living. Since the 2000s Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene.
Berlin contains three World Heritage Sites: Museum Island ,the Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin and the Berlin Modernism Housing Estates. Other landmarks include the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag building, Potsdamer Platz, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the Berlin Wall Memorial, the East Side Gallery, the Berlin Victory Column, Berlin Cathedral and the Berlin Television Tower, the tallest structure in Germany. Berlin has numerous museums, galleries, libraries, orchestras, and sporting events,Madam Tussauds & Mall of Berlin. These include the Old National Gallery, the Bode Museum, the Pergamon Museum, the German Historical Museum, the Jewish Museum Berlin, the Natural History Museum, the Humboldt Forum, the Berlin State Library, the Berlin State Opera, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Berlin Marathon.

Brandenburg Gate:

The Brandenburg Gate is an 18th-century neoclassical monument in Berlin, built on the orders of Prussian king Frederick William II after restoring the Orangist power by suppressing the Dutch popular unrest.One of the best-known landmarks of Germany .It is located in the western part of the city centre of Berlin 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, a boulevard of linden trees which led directly to the royal City Palace of the Prussian monarchs.Throughout its existence, the Brandenburg Gate was often a site for major historical events and is today considered not only as a symbol of the tumultuous histories of Germany and Europe, but also of European unity and peace.

The Reichstag (German Parliament):

It is a historic building in Berlin which houses the lower house of Germany’s parliament.It was constructed to house the Imperial Diet (German: Reichstag). It was opened in 1894 and housed the Diet until 1933, when it was set on fire.The Reichstag served as the home of the German parliament until 1933 when the building was badly damaged in a fire. This event marks the end of the Weimar Republic and provides a convenient pretext for Hitler to suppress dissent.. The ruined building was made safe against the elements and partially refurbished in the 1960s, but no attempt at full restoration was made until after German reunification on 3 October 1990, when it underwent a reconstruction led by architect Norman Foster. After its completion in 1999, it once again became the meeting place of the German parliament: the contemporary Bundestag.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe also called the Holocaust Memorial Its a memorial in Berlin to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, designed by architect Peter Eisenman and Buro Happold. An attached underground “Place of Information” holds the names of approximately 3 million Jewish Holocaust victims, obtained from the Israeli museum Yad Vashem. Building began on 1 April 2003, and was finished on 15 December 2004. It was inaugurated on 10 May 2005, sixty years after the end of World War II in Europe.

The Topography of Terror & preserved section of the Berlin wall :

TOPOGRAPHY OF TERROR:

Its the present day name of the site on which the important institutions of Nazi apparatus of terror & persecution were located between 1933-1945 is an outdoor and indoor history museum in Berlin, Germany. It is located on Niederkirchnerstrasse. The buildings that housed the Gestapo and SS headquarters were largely destroyed by Allied bombing during early 1945 and the ruins demolished after the war. The boundary between the American and Soviet zones of occupation in Berlin ran along the Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, so the street soon became a fortified boundary, and the Berlin Wall ran along the south side of the street, renamed Niederkirchnerstrasse, from 1961 to 1989. The wall here was never demolished.
The first exhibitions of the site took place in 1987, as part of Berlin’s 750th anniversary. The cellar of the Gestapo headquarters, where many political prisoners were tortured and executed, was found and excavated. The site was then turned into a memorial and museum, in the open air but protected from the elements by a canopy, detailing the history of repression under the Nazis. The excavation took place in cooperation with East German researchers, and a joint exhibition was shown both at the site and in East Germany in 1989.In 1992, two years after German reunification, a foundation was established to take care of the site .This stood on the site for nearly a decade until it was finally demolished in 2004 and a new building began.The construction of the new Documentation Centre was finished in 2010. The new Documentation Centre was officially opened on 6 May 2010 on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II. The new exhibition and documentation building and the redesigned historic grounds were opened to the public on 7 May 2010.

Berlin Wall Memorial:

It commemorates the division of Berlin by the Berlin Wall and the deaths that occurred there. The monument was created in 1998 by the Federal Republic of Germany and the Federal State of Berlin. It is located on Bernauer Straße at the corner of Ackerstraße and includes a Chapel of Reconciliation, the Berlin Wall Documentation Centre, a 60-metre (200 ft) section of the former border, a window of remembrance and a visitor center. On 11 September 2008 the Berlin House of Representatives approved the opening of the memorial on the anniversary of the day that the Berlin Wall fell.

My dear readers may kindly point out any incorrect information in my above writeup needing any corrections! I am truly indebted to Wikipedia for the invaluable information on the subject !Happy Reading !