"This is Chiu Weng, reporting live from München": Berlin (1-2 April 2006) Part 5 - Potsdamer Platz, the Berlin Wall and the Soviet War Memorial

Potsdamer Platz is a main square in Berlin. While pretty much destroyed in WW2 bombings, reconstruction was hindered by the fact that it was split under the Soviet, British and American boundaries during the Cold War. After the Wall fell in 1989, Potsdamer Platz was then used to build several modern buildings, turning it into a site of modern architecture. Some of the buildings there include the DeutscheBahn Tower, Sony Center (Sony's European Headquarters) and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The train station at Potsdamer Platz

Deutsche Bahn Tower

Berlin Wall exhibition

The "umbrella" of Sony Center

Well, if Singapore has an IMAX, why not here?

Underneath the "umbrella"

The area underneath the "umbrella"

All you Finance people should know what this is

The Filmhaus or Film Museum

Deutsche Bahn Tower at night

The "umbrella" is luminated at night

Branding matters, even at night

View from the top of the Reichstag

Photobucket: Potsdamer Platz

The Berlin Wall (or Berliner Mauer) was constructed by the Soviets in 1961, supposedly to prevent East Germans to escape to West Berlin. In effect, the Wall surrounded and encased all of West Berlin, thus showing the world the effect of Communist tyrany. The Soviets erected a death strip to prevent anyone from climbing over the wall and shot to kill. The most famous of these incidents is perhaps that of Peter Fechter, who was shot on 17 August 1962 while trying to climb over the second wall into West Berlin, but fell back into the death strip and got entangled in barbed wire, in full view of Western onlookers and the media. The West Berlin guards could not do a thing because he was still on the Soviet side, neither would the East German guards help him for fear of being shot by someone from the West. Peter Fechter died an hour later after having bled to death, and the East German guards then removed his body.

In 1989, an error by Günter Schabowski, the East German Minister of Propaganda, on 9 November 1989, resulted in him announcing that all East Berliners would be able to cross the border with proper permission, his mistake being that when asked of the date it would take effect, the famous "As far as I know effective immediately, right now" came out. That night, tens of thousands rushed to the checkpoints, demanding to be let into West Berlin. Overnight, the Border Troops were unable to withstand the crowds and the checkpoints were opened one by one. By the next morning, all border checkpoints were opened. The Berlin Wall had fallen.

The brick trail that marks the route of the wall

The remnants of the Wall near Topographie des Terrors

Not much of it left

I'm a history buff, how can I NOT take a picture here?

Memorial near the Reichstag to the fugitives who failed to climb over the Wall

Photobucket: Berlin Wall

The Soviet War Memorial is built in the Tiergarten along Unter den Linden. Built as a memorial to the 5000 Red Army soldiers who sacrificed their lives to take the Reichstag in the Battle for Berlin, it is located in the former British sector of West Berlin, and not in the Soviet sector. In front of the memorial are 2 tanks and 2 artillery pieces, supposedly the equipment used in the Battle for Berlin. It also has a monument commemorating the soldiers who were awarded "Hero of the Soviet Union" in this battle. It is the highest distinction any person can have in the former Soviet Union, on par with the British Victoria Cross and the US Congressional Medal of Honor. The Soviets had constructed this monument using the black marble from Hitler's office in his Reichskanzlei, the ultimate prize for these heroes.