Thursday morning, we toured Berlin with our host, Ambassador Pakowski. We saw:
the outside of the Mercedes Benz building, (What does the left picture look like?) 
the very modern Sony complex, 
statues to Friedrich Wilhelm, the King of Prussia and the first emperor of modern Germany. We drove around the lovely Tiergarten (park) and past many of the foreign embassy buildings. The American Embassy was within walking distance of our hotel. No pictures allowed and guarded!
On May 10, 1933, just a few months after Hitler came to power, university students throughout Germany launched an 'Action Against the Un-German Spirit' by burning books written by Jews and leftist intellectuals. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda and public information, spoke at the book burning in front of the Opera House, the Opernplatz, in Berlin, of the intended 're-education' of Germany. This memorial commemorates the event with a translucent panel showing empty bookshelves below ground level; the Bebelplatz Memorial . "where books are burned, in the end people will burn" was written by poet Heinrich Heine in 1820. Mr. Heine attended Humbolt University which overlooks the square.
We went inside Tempelhof Central Airport to see the display of aircraft and jet engines. In June 1948, Russians cut off all traffic to West Berlin. Hundreds of American and British planes delivered supplies daily to Tempelhof to the people in West Berlin. The airlift continued until September 1949.
Then to Schloss Charlottenburg, one of the oldest palaces in Berlin, built for Prussian Empress Sophie Charlotte.
# posted by Martha @ 2:28 PM
