A day of history

We set out from the Hackescher Markt station, just behind our hotel, this morning on a walking tour that was included in our Berlin deal. What a brilliant addition it turned out to be. Admittedly it was longer than expected, 4 hours including a lunch stop, but the information on the history of this city within the bounds of the area of Mitte was fantastic.

Mitte is the centre of old Berlin and until 1989 it was entirely within the eastern sector of the city and behind the Berlin Wall.

Far too much information for me to impart here but a couple of interesting points.
-Just across from our hotel the first inhabitants of Berlin, a Slavic tribe, settled. They gave their name to the River Spree next to the marshland which was called berl, hence the name Berlin.
- Across the river on the museum Island the buildings have been recreated to look exactly as they would have done before the devastation of the battle of Berlin in 1945. The Neue Museum was only completed in 2009! All are very recent rebuilds yet look 19th century classical.
- In front of the Humboldts University (original East Berlin university) just off Unter den Linden, there is a small memorial to the events of May 10 1933 when Nat Socialist students set fire to thousands of books considered unsuitable because of their authors, including Einstein. It is a square of glass set into the ground through which you can see row upon row of empty bookshelves. A plaque nearby quotes a poet from 1820 saying 'Where books are burned, in the end people will burn.
Most prophetic.

There's was lots more including the Berlin Wall memorial, Holocaust memorial and Checkpoint Charlie, even the site of Hitler's bunker. I will make a Flickr album later.
We finished at a lovely Christmas market in the Gendarmenmarkt. Had to pay a Euro to get in but it was quite a classy market between two churches with a stage and live entertainment, lots of hand made crafts, some being demonstrated and a reviving Gluhwein of course.

We decided to look at Potsdammer Platz before returning back to the hotel. It was a building site when we last came though the route of the wall had been marked clearly across the square. This can still be seen as there are two parallel rows of stones marking where it ran. The rest of the area is now full of high rise business and leisure buildings, cinemas, restaurants even a casino. Very bling and a most colourful Christmas market all around the streets complete with toboggan slide.
It was what was needed as we had visited the Topography of Terror museum enroute. It was recommended by our guide and we were passing it. It is on the site of the former SS and Gesapo headquarters and being alongside a length of remaining 'wall' it was also known as the 'death strip' where anyone climbing over was likely to be shot. It is somehow compelling to see these things and I feel it is good that such places are acknowledged.

So what about this blip. So different from everything else today. It is a shop on Unter den Linden totally devoted to Ampelman. It is the little man who turns green when you can cross the road and we crossed plenty of roads today. He has become an icon and the shop sells all things with his image as well as the red man who holds his arms out to tell you to stop.
Apparently he was unique to East Berlin and has now been adopted by the whole of the city.  I like him, he's fun and a great antidote to some of the things from this city's past.