After watching Matt Frei's BBC Documentary about Berlin, I have been
able to further understand
the city's prominence in Germany's history. A theme I found very prevalent throughout the film was that Berlin was a battleground, torn by many notions that would lead the city to what it is today. Frei
the city's prominence in Germany's history. A theme I found very prevalent throughout the film was that Berlin was a battleground, torn by many notions that would lead the city to what it is today. Frei
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| A portrait of Frederick the Great of Prussia whose life strongly represents the history of Berlin |
introduced us to Frederick the Great of Prussia and how he firmly represented
Berlin. He stated, “To understand Frederick, is to understand Berlin” (Part 1; 5:06).
At first, this statement left me confused. How can one person represent the
ideal and history of an entire city? However, the farther in depth Frei went,
the more it made sense.
Growing up, Frederick was surrounded by his family’s military traditions
and way of life. He did as much as he could to steer away from it by having his
tutors teach him classical poetry and the flute (Part 1; 9:45) and as he got
older it became more noticeable that he possessed two very conflicting ways of
life, torn between something so delicate and something very harsh. After the
loss of the first World War the Kaiser renounced his throne and from that two republics
were declared. One by the Chancellor’s deputy and the other by the communists
(Part 2; 5:15). This caused much confusion among the people and the argument about who actually ruled began. Here we see two different ideologies clashing head to head in
one city, much like in Frederick the Great's own life.
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| The Schloss that was located in Berlin. Home to many of Berlin's rulers, the building was very important to the city. This was the "Heart of Berlin" |
Something that intrigued me was when Frei mentioned that even after all
of these years after WWII and the unification of East and West Berlin “The act
of demolition is as politically charged as the act of construction” (Part 5;
7:20). Soon after the war ended and the Communist Authorities took control over
East Berlin, they decided that the Schloss, a royal palace that was home to
Berlin rulers for centuries, needed to be torn down because with its imperial
past it represented the wrong kind of history despite the fact that it was the “Heart of Berlin” (Part 5; 10:30). In it's place, a new building known as the Palace of the Republic which East Berlin used as the seat of the Parliament and an open  |
| The Palace of the Republic. Seat of the East Berlin Parliament and stood from 1973 to 2006 |
In 1961, on a day know as "barbed wire Sunday," East Berlin authorities began construction on the Berlin Wall officially separating East and West Berlin. "When the wall was built it instantly became the most infamous and emotionally charged structure, not just in Berlin, but in the whole world" (Part 6; 2:38). Without fail, the wall spilt
everything in half including neighborhoods, families and the dead. This brought on strife and more competition from East and West Berlin with each side trying to construct the tallest building and further separating the two, but after the unification of East and West Berlin, the destruction of the wall in 1989 and the Palace of the Republic in 2006, there has been talk about whether or not a new Schloss should be built in the Palace's place, but there is disagreement from people throughout Berlin. Frei gave us an example when he sat down to talk with Berliners Heinrich Wulf and Sonja Schröter-Haacker. While Wulf thought that more than anything Berlin needed the Schloss to be rebuilt, Hacker could not disagree more. While disagreement about what should be built continues, the country is erecting "new old" buildings that acknowledge rather than deny the country's history. This could be very beneficial to the city as each side of the story is represented in one way or another.
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| Part of the Berlin Wall around the time it was being deconstructed. |
Word Count: 681
Works Cited:
Part 1-15 Berlin: Frei, Matt. “Berlin History – Dangerous Ideas”. YouTube. BBC, 27 Jan. 2011. Web. 08 Sept. 2016.
Image Sources
Frederick the Great of Prussia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_the_Great
Stadtschloss: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Palace,_Berlin
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