14 May 2010
 
Mauer Land


(At the East Mauer Gallery, with attitude. All the pics are at my Facebook Page)

Part of this trip to Berlin is an exercise in bringing down the Wall that exists in the middle ground of my-more-than-middle-aged brain. I think we succeeded yesterday, though there is much more to come.

First, an important correction.
 
My source here in Kreuzberg filled me in on Mai Tag, May Day, here in the red district.
 
While it is true that the last two years have not had as much violence as in the past, it was anything but calm here. In fact, it was a bit like the Warp 2 music tour meets heavy polizei presence. If it was a theme park, it would not be by Disney, but it would be Mauer Land.
 
Das Bullen are not as intrusive as they have been in the past, but there is still an attitude of “bring it on” by the kids.
 
During the time when the Mauer- The Wall- loomed just on the other side of St. Thomas Church, anarchists and free thinkers of all persuasions came to Kreuzberg to take advantage of the low rents and abandoned buildings. Due to the special status of Berlin as an occupied zone, the rules and regulations of the Fedral Republic did not apply, so young men anxious to avoid their period of public service came here.
 
Heaviy pacifist, these young people were joined by punk squatters like the ones who still live in the gypsy convoy of old Soviet trucks in back of the church. Punks squatted in abandoned houses and gays and lesbians found an environment in which they could live, associate and dance without interference.
 
Kreuzberg became one of the most open places in the world, located in a blob of artificial freedom in the middle of the grim socialism of the DDR. My associates tell me the feeling is still real and tangible, and I have to agree this is the most extraordinary places I have ever been. I consider graffiti to be abhorrent back home; here, it is the voice of freedom against cruel authority.
 
In the old SO 36 postal district, the clichés come automatically: squatters, punks, street riots, flat-sharing communities, Turks and, of course, the famous ‘long nights.’
 
Since 1987 there has been a tradition of rioting in Kreuzberg. The Polizei clash with rioters under the bemused gaze of excited, camera-toting tourists, some of whom pay good euros to have a guided tour of the action. The holiday has combining the superb quality of German organization with the penchant for nihilism into something very hard edged. Adding 36 bands playing a wild assortment of techno music and no rules about smoking dope or drinking in public and you have a potent cocktail for mischief and merriment. The police banned glass and cans from he street, but there was a general distain for imposed order of that sort. It has a long tradition.
 
In 1987, almost a thousand Kreuzberg "revolutionaries" fought running battles with the Berlin police for twelve hours. Two decades later, the city has mellowed a bit, gotten comfortable with the Wendt, but there is still the occasional skirmish and car-fire to highlight the festivities. Das Bullen were taking no chances; I was told there were over five thousand cops in riot gear at the ready, just in case it went to stones versus water cannons again.
 
This year continued a tenuous tradition in which the "Witches Night" festival didn’t descend into full-scale riots on Saturday night. Although the police arrested dozens of people, in general they said that things had passed off pretty peacefully.
 
In Kreuzberg, the "Myfest" street party has taken over from the previous rioting, and has evolved into more of a family affair. While some of the radicals of yesteryear still have piercings and bleached hair, many have also tired of running around after the police and just want enjoy a nice day out with the kids.
 
Kreuzberg has gone upscale, but has not lost touch with its scruffy past as District PO 36.
 
So, that was the conversation about Kreuzberg on the walk to the East Side Mauer Gallery. The exhibit is more than a kilometer of original wall on DDR side of the Spee River.
 
It is hard to convey the joy and sadness of the images painted there. It is all inside out, of course. The DDR side had no graffiti back in the day; these are re-creations of the famous tags that softened the grim face of Socialism presented to the West.
 
My favorite panel is the one hyper-real image of Leonid Breshnev tongue-kissing DDR First Secretary Erich Honeker. Nothing could convey the situation better, though the science-fiction themes of other sections came close. Maybe the one with the sign announcing that “You are now Departing the Japanese Sector” came closest to the sublimely surreal.
 
I almost got  run down by bicyclists as we turned the corner past the O2 Palace, where Lad Ga Ga performed the other night. There are designated lanes for bikes on some of the sidewalks, and wandering in wonder and confusion can be a definite hazard to your health. I was yanked to safety by an alert companion, and then spent the next few hours attempting to look in all directions at once.
 
I had to do the classic stuff, so we decided to get it out of the way. We found out way to the S-Bahn stop that conveyed us to Mitte, the old center-city, where we got off a Frederickstrasse and fond a Starbucks.
 
If you think I am going to launch off on American consumerism you are wrong. The Germans take their Kaffee in absurd little cups. Yesterday, as right now, I am a pot light in caffeine. Starbucks offers a Vente house brew that will keep you going through the mounting chaos of the Unter den Linden and the circus of performers and scoundrels around the Brandenburg Tor (Gate).
 
I was still clutching my Vente as we walked around the Reichstag, now refurbished as a monument to Reunion, and the sullen tanks adorning the Soviet War Memorial just within pointed sight.
 
We strolled through the Tiergarten in the gray chill. They say the Germans get naked there when June comes with warmth, but there was no one doing anything more than ambling or biking in the greenery.
 
Emerging from the trees near Eberstrasse, there was a curious style of adamant black stone. Featureless except a window on the front, we looked in and saw a continuous loop of two men kissing. Apparently a monument to the vibrant gay community that had existed in Berlin prior to the depredations of the Nazis. Curious and unsettling, but nothing compared to what was across the strasse.
 
Gray rectangular stones of differing heights undulated across a vast field. It was the memorial to the slaughtered Jews of Europe. Paths between the stones led to narrow valleys and cross alleys that bewildered and oppressed my senses.
 
Symbolism on so many levels, too many metaphors to process of the horror of what was directed from just across the street, since that is where the Fuhrer Bunker existed.
 
Or exists still, since it is still there. There is no signage and no comment. We walked around the dog park in the middle of the modern apartment complex where the canines can shit on where Hitler spent his last days, or you can have a nice Chinese meal in the restaurant on the corner.
 
No mention of what was there, and that is just the way they handle things here. No sense of closure on that, just the bewilderment left over from all the gray stones in neat rows.
 
We took a cab, intending to find the Stasi Museum, but that was too hard and we wound up in the Mauerpark where the wall was first breached in 1989. At that point I began to take leave of my senses, or at least to the notion of counting coup on the historic places in this astonishing city.
 
We would up in Alexanderplatz again, under the gigantic radio tower, and then eventually back to Kreuzberg for a sushi dinner and drinks at the Molotov Cocktail bar. It was completely fulfilling. On the way home, I was shown an old tag on the pavement of the historic school at Marianenplatz.
 
It was simple and stark, just the initials “RAF.” The Red Army Faction. I shivered a bt, but it was not out of fear of the old Lefties. It is just chilly here in the Spring.
 
Today, we are going to hit Oranienstraße, the neighborhood’s main street, where the Turks have a flea market and we may or may not pick something up to show off in down the street in Schnabelbar (steel decor) or Bierhimmel (intellectual beers and trashy cocktails in the back room).
 
Then the Stasi Musuem and the Soviet War Cemetery in Treptower Park.
 
Or, at least that is the plan of the moment anyway. It is a town of anarchy, after all.

Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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