Berlin Day 3 - Museums

Today was our last day in Berlin, so we put our luggage in a locker at the train station and headed to Museum Island. This is a section of Berlin that has a number of museums including art and history. Our first stop was the DDR Museum. DDR stands Deutsche Democratic Republic or German Democratic Republic in English (GDR). The museum was all about what life was like in East Germany right after WWII until the Berlin Wall came down.

After the war, Germany was divided up among the Allies and the Soviet Union. It became four sectors controlled by the Americans, the British, the French, and the Soviets. Berlin, the capital was also divided accordingly. The Soviets formed the GDR promising freedom from the control of Nazis and power to the people. The philosophy was that everything was for the common good. And they promised the people a much better life as a result. They believed that once people experienced the satisfaction and reward of living in a socialistic society, they wouldn't want to leave. But things were not as rosy as the leaders promoted. Instead, people were leaving East Germany and escaping to West Germany, and that is when the Berlin Wall was constructed in 1961 to keep East Germans in and everyone else out.

The museum was filled with so much information from education, to food shortages, from sports to politics,  from housing to holidays. There was a common theme - everyone gets the same thing and the community is more important than the individual. The idea of collectivism was promoted in everything that was done. For example, it started in Kindergarten when children first went to school. There was a room with a bunch of toilets and everyone went "potty" at the same time. The children sat there until everyone was finished. I also watched a propaganda film that talked about housing construction and how quickly apartments were being built for the people and how happy everyone was to have a new place to live. In fact, there were only enough new homes constructed for about a third of the population. Families had first priority and they had to often wait years before an apartment was available.

A number of other facts stood out to me. No one went hungry. There was always plenty of bread and essentials available to everyone. People had plenty of money, but there was shortage of most everything else. There was rationing of common food items and when the word was out that something was on the shelf, the whole family would go to the store so that they could get their allotted amount before the store ran out. 

Voting was another interesting situation. Pretty much everyone voted, but there was only one set of candidates. Voting was supposed to be secret, but when you went to the voting booth, what was expected was that you would fold your ballot and turn it in. If you chose to go into a voting booth, people thought you had something to hide and your name was recorded. You could line out a name on the ballot, if you remembered to bring a pencil, but there were no other choices. If you chose not to vote at all, then they would show up at your house with a mobile ballot. If you refused, you were blacklisted.

One final item of interest was the value the Eastern Bloc placed on physical fitness. Children did sports in school as a regimen and everyone including adults were expected to choose and participate regularly in a sport. I have noticed while here in Germany, that there are very few overweight people. When I see a chunky person (like me), they appear to be tourists. People are active. They walk or ride bikes everywhere. I wonder if this is a cultural carryover from the Cold War.

We spent a lot of time in this museum, but finally we left to get some lunch. Zach had seen and read about a taco shop called Dolores California Burrito. It had been started by a guy from California and Zach has been looking for a good burrito. The boys each got a burrito and I got a quesadilla. Lunch was spent listening to the two sons discuss the quality of the food and how it compared to San Diego Mexican food. They decided it was pretty good. Not as good as a true Mexican taco shop from home, but better than Chipotle. Whatever...

We only had a few hours left before we needed to be back at the Train Station to catch the high-speed train back to Frankfurt. After having missed a few trains, I am a bit paranoid about being early. So we chose one more museum to visit and that was the Pergamonmuseum. It was a museum filled with antiquities that had been discovered by German archaeologists, in the early 1900s. One in particular was Baron Max von Oppenheim. There were statues and architecture from Babylon, Assyria, and Rome. There was a note on one of the placards that explained that there has been some concern over the acquisition of these artifacts. Although the museum and/or archaeologists have papers showing that they purchased the pieces from the Turkish and other governments at the time, it is questionable whether it was really about those with more power taking advantage of those without.

After a walk through the gift shop and and several souvenir shops, we were back at the train station with 60 minutes to spare. The boys rolled their eyes at me for wanting to be there so early, but we needed to get our luggage, purchase some dinner to take on the train, and find our platform. As it was, we got on the train with only about 4 minutes to spare. I have been typing this post for about 90 minutes and we still have over two hours left on the train before we arrive in Frankfurt at around 10:30 pm tonight.

With just two days left in Germany, I told Zach that I wanted to take a boat tour on the river in Frankfurt. I thought the river was the Rhine River, but Zach quickly and bluntly point out to me in true German fashion that I was mistaken. It is the Main (rhymes with Rhine) River. So my apologies to those I may have misled!