Today we took part in the Third Reich Tour put on by Berlin’s Fat Bike Tours. Since we already had rented bikes from them this seemed like a logical way to grapple with an unpleasant part of the city’s history. This turned out to be a good call as Ciaran (the guide) was knowledgeable, sensitive to the horrific subject matter and never seemed to rush us; dealing with bike newbness and the rather crowded tour with good humour. Even for a WW2 buff like myself the tour was very worthwhile. Anything that you wanted to later see you could in greater detail and at your own pace and leisure. Especially given our central location at Stressemanstrasse catching other hallmark exhibits of Nazi unpleasantry was rather simple.
We started the day by pedalling over to Alexanderplatz to join our tour group at 10.30am – a civilized start time. The tour was then over by 4 which gave us time to go check out Alltag in the DDR; another exceptional museum chronicling daily life in East Germany during the DDR times. We then capped it off by getting caught in a slight rainy squall. This turned out to be our only rainy patch in Berlin .
Holiday Inn on Stresermanstrasse wasn’t kidding when they warned the breakfast got packed after 9am. Lucky we were done by then
Brandenburg gate post Krieg – display in Parisier Platz
Also at the Parisier Platz is a key exhibit showing how the Nazi’s paraded through the Platz and the Brandenburg gate to pervert both places as patriotic national symbols
To more light-hearted fare here’s a store from the designer of Geh and Steh
One must enduro at the Brandenburg Gate at Parisier Platz
Riding under the Lindens of Unter der Linden
The first stop in our Third Reich tour was a garden/park to memorialize he first successful protest against the Nazi’s saw German women who married Jewish men ask for and obtain their freedom. This statue was created to show that anyone can sit in any bench. During this time the Jews were not allowed to sit in some Berlin park benches.
At one of the oldest Jewish cemetaries in Berlin
More surrealism
Close to the Jewish cemetery is a bullet riddled building which facade has been preserved
Various signs on the ground in the Jewish quarter to remember the families who were carted away – these one’s to Auschwitz
Humboldt Univ. Bebelplatz where the biggest book burning ever took place care of Goebbels and the Nazis
Saying by Heinrich Heine way back in 1820 which was oddly prophetic. Where they burn books, at the end they will also burn men
The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
Reichstag
One of Berlin’s original air-raid bunkers.- check out the blast damage. Thousands saught refuge here during the Allied bombing.
The Fuhrerbunker entrance. Its ironic that most Berliners take their dogs here to shit and piss and its just a parking lot
Trying to find the Museum Alltag in the DDR on Schoenhauser Alle. It’s hidden behind the facade of this building which occupies the entire block – the Culture Brewery- KulturBraurei
Alltag in the DDR
An old Trebant two stroke car that would take 10 years for a person to buy. This is there Caravan version for the lucky East Germans who could vacation in the Baltics.