Tag Archives: statue

Gallery: Weimar

We stopped in Weimar on our way from Leipzig to Opfermoor Vogtei. Weimar was a charming Thuringian city in Central Germany, home to literary icons like Goethe and Schiller, the Wiemar Republic, Bauhaus, and a town idealized by the Nazis as a ideal of German culture. It is also home to Buchenwald Concentration Camp, which we did not go to. One of the more interesting things Elliott and I noted in Weimar was a noticeable lack of small children.

Gallery: Altes Museum (Old Museum)

The Altes Museum was built in the early 19th century to contain the Prussian royal family’s collection of art. As lovely as it looks in photos, in real life it is stunning. My traveling companion and I toured the museum for hours, studying the Ancient Greek, Roman, and Etruscan works. At 6pm the bells of the Berlin Cathedral began to ring the call to Vespers, so we ran outside to listen. Once out there, we saw a Syrian wedding party arrive in the Lustgarten out front. They danced and played music while the crowds gathered around and clapped. Later in the trip, I discovered that this exact location was used by the Nazi’s for rallies during WWII. In the image below, I would have been standing about where Hitler is standing as I filmed the New Berlin being celebrated.

Berlin Kundgebung zum 1. Mai 1936 am alten Museum im Lustgarten. Attribution: Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-P022065 / CC-BY-SA 3.0
Berlin
Kundgebung zum 1. Mai 1936 am alten Museum im Lustgarten. Attribution: Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-P022065 / CC-BY-SA 3.0

Syrian Wedding Party, Lustgarten, Berlin. Photo by Scarlett Messenger
Syrian Wedding Party, Lustgarten, Berlin. Photo by Scarlett Messenger

Gallery: Kreuzberg

Gallery: Viktoriapark

I went to Viktoriapark in Kreuzberg with my friends Elliott and Ben. We had radlers in the Biergarten and then walked up the hill to the Prussian National Monument for the Liberation Wars, which actually predates Germany as a nation (1821). It is a beautiful Neoclassical spire commemorating the German Campaign of 1813 during the Napoleonic Wars. From the top of Kreuzberg you can see the entire city. It was a fun afternoon.

Ben on a zipline, Viktoriapark, Berlin-Kreuzberg.