14 May 2010
 
Macht Schnell Tours, Ltd
 

(One of Berlin’s ubiquitous cabs)
 
 
I am little impatient this morning and want to get at it. I seem to have developed a craving for speed. The State Special Security Headquarters (Stasi) tour was like hours ago, and the Soviet War Cemetery at Treptower Park is so like- I dunno. Before lunch.
 
Some wild techno music is flooding in the open window on the coldest May recorded in this part of Northern Europe in two centuries. At least that is what the Cabbie said, and if you cannot trust a Berlin Cabbie, who can you trust?
 
My expert guide figured out the transit system and managed to have us delivered by U-Bahn to the Magdalenastrasse stop on Frankfurter Allee. We trudged up from the Socialist Realist murals down on the walls of the subway platform and found ourselves in front of a narrow lane that ran up into a sprawling complex of formal box-like buildings of various vintages. We found our way along to Building One, and found a portable beer hall in the parking area in front of Building 1, the Headquarters of the former Ministry of State Security of the Deutsche Demokratic Republik, the Stasi.


(Building 1, State Security Service compound)
 
It was only twenty four hours ago, give or take, but I am still processing the experience. It is going to take a story in its own right, so this serves as only a placeholder, pending additional thought and contemplation. The exhibition contained within Building 1 was both banal and chilling. IN the right time, it would have churned the guts to be brought here. I can’t bring myself to talk about it outside the context of what it was and how it went away, nor the crushing presence of the Red Army, which was next up on the morning menu.
 
Departing Stasi, I again relied on the superb navigational skills of my Kreuzberg veteran. With unerring accuracy we found our way to Treptower park, and wandered through a little traveling carnival set up in the park to commemorate the long weekend.


(Red Army Cemetery and Memorial, Treptower Park)
 
Treptower had once been a place where the working class families picnicked before the turn of the prior century; like everything else it was crushed under the heel of the Red Army, and reborn as the solemn resting place for 5,000 of the 22,000 Russians who died in the final conquest of Berlin.
 
The monument to their memory is the most significant work of Socialist Realist landscape architecture, and that too is worth its own story. So be patient, all will be revealed soon enough. The pictures tell the story, and both the Stasi and Cemetery pictures are posted on the Facebok page if you cannot wait.
 
We then took the train back to Kruezberg in search of a Turkish flea market that seemed to be a moveable feast. Instead we wandered down the marvelous public spaces that had been canals to connect the city with the River Spree. It was quite similar to the scheme attempted in Washington, and in fact Constitution Avenue was once a waterway.
 
In Berlin’s case, it was determined that in parts of the network the water stagnated and was a hazard to the public health, and they were filled. Until the 1920s there was a canal which linked the Urban harbor and the River Spree. The filled area was then ladscaped to form an idyllic park in the heart of the city, which leads straight to the former Wall.


 
I was exhausted after the adventure and welcomed some down-time. We parted after making plans for dinner, and I gobbled some Tylenol.
 
Well, the adventures were hardly over for the day. I posted the pics of the two target venues and the sky opened with gray rain. It stopped just before the appointed hour for dinner, and we ventured out for the Ostbahnhof and points north.
 
There is a new photo album posted since then, only partly captioned, which is completely appropriate since I have only a vague recollection of what actually happened.
 
I can fill in some of the blanks, though, and it was a breakthrough in trying to know everything at once and winding up confused and not knowing much at all.
 
We took a break from looking a mass graves and holed up to work the e-mail lists and post photos. We agreed we would meet up for dinner, and maybe a trek to the Planetarium, which is not far beyond the Mauerpark.
 
We traipsed the mile or so over from my associate’s apartment (The Armony Hotel where I am staying is literally next door) in Kreuzberg to the Ostbahnhof station to head up to Alexanderplatz and the big underground transfer warren to an S-Bahn train to go to somewhere, beats me where. From the trappings, I assume this was one of the deep shelters from the bombs raining down from above back in the days of fire.
 
There was an excellent little Italian place on the street and we dined without alcohol- a rarity in my life, but completely appropriate. The general plan was to go to the Planetarium, which opens at 7:00pm, but I could really have cared less about the formal program.
 
What attracted me was the fact that the facility was once the HQ of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (GSFG), and that is what I wanted to see without any Federal Republic interpretation. Having seen two of the mighty and heavy-handed Soviet monuments in the last couple days, I wanted to see another at some distance.
 
I told my associate we could just take a cab, my hidden agenda being that the plod back up the stairs to the S-Bahn were going to kill me for sure.
 
We debated briefly as to what corner to perch ourselves upon to hail a cab, and I was delighted when one swerved to the curb. The driver was a German of the dark-haired variety, with wild curly hair and an absurd thinly outlined beard and a prominent proboscis. He had a garrulous manner and swiftly determined that I was an American, I fact for which I apologized without remorse.
 
We discussed the pronunciation of the world "Planetarium" for a while and he allowed he could drive us there with great speed, which he then proceeded to do. He is the first maniac behind the wheel I have encountered here. He swerved to the curb in front of a strange EPCOT-like silver geodesic dome structure with a great fat gray windowed concrete bunker protruding from one side, which I presumed was the former GSFG HQ.


(GSFG HQ- or Planetarium)

We waited for me to pay him, which was an event I was not quite prepared for, having sought only to see the thing. When we arrived at the shared conclusion that we just wanted to see the outside of some stuff, he grew quite animated. My associate was able to converse with him in real German, and I was able to intermittently contribute some Germlish, or Anglen, as the case may be, and soon we were informed of several things we really should see and then proceeded to do so at high speed.
 
We three called it Schnell Touring, and as we got into it, intensified it to Mach Schnell in Germlish.
 
I have been told to learn the language, and the advise is quite correct. I have no idea that the proper phrase is "Mach Schnell" or “Macht Schnell,” the latter of which is an illogical phrase, though possibly appropriate in some local dialects of German.
 
The word "Macht" means having power, strength or authority.
The word "schnell" means fast or rapid.
 
Thus, the phrase "Mach schnell" would be logical, meaning "hurry up," or "Make it quick!"
 
That illustrate the pratfalls of the way I have wandered around the world lo these last five decades. Never having had to learn even my own language, the pitfalls of doing business in someone else’s are difficult. I am certainly glad things worked out as they did, since the lingua franca of the European Union is not French, certainly not German, but of all things, English.
 
I am gratified, but bewildered, since I have gone through my life as a pigeon speaker in a dozen tongues. I had not idea what an idiot I have been- or for how long- until I traveled with someone who has actually learned how to speak the language and understand the culture.
 
If one analyzed it, in this case "Macht" does not mean "Power," but rather something more in the line of “Y'all hurry up!” and it certainly seemed to work, even if it impacted the careful framing of my (or the cabbie’s) subjects.
 
The Cabbie clearly thought we were quite mad, but after a while, he announced that he had the better shot from the driver's seat. I handed him the camera periodically, and considered that I could have mailed him the camera and taken the middleman out of the equation altogether.
 
It was awesome. Ann is a practical woman and obviously had never considered hiring a cab to barrel around the city capriciously. Living in the socialist hotbed of the Kreuzberg neighborhood, it would be conspicuous Bourgeoisie behavior. I am under no such strictures, had more in my pocket than time, and said, "Let's go!"



(Original Section of the Wall with Marble Bookend)

We headed back east to the remaining segment of The Mauer as it was, which is scheduled for preservation in all it's grim magnificence. We looked at this section from west to east, and the impressive marble book-end that marks the beginning of the brief segment that can still bring a chill to the spine. It dwindles to re-enforcing rods after a period, having been scavenged by the chisel for souvenirs and in some places the concrete is thin as paper, or rendered transparent. The path of the Mauer then turns one of the baffling corners that the old Wall took roaming around the divided city.


(This is a highly significant public building)
 
After that, it gets a little confusing. Gendarmenmarkt is one thing we were looking for, and I bet I have a picture of it. Mitte's finest restaurants competed with real class schnitzel houses along with the first kebob place, and most are anonymously documented only with their image and I can’t click on it to make it do anything but fly by the window.
 
I am still in the process of trying to determine what it was I saw.  It will take some time- by the time we had beat down Frederckstrassen to the heart of Mitte, I was lost and disoriented, but in a good way.
 

(Jewish Museum. Superman is in head first)
 
The Jewish Museum was in there someplace, along with the headquarters of a publishing magnate- Der Bild, maybe?
 
I had to be on a conference call at two in the afternoon with an attorney and my family in Michigan, so I was up on Skype at the appointed hour. The internet was not reliable enough to hold the call longer than a couple minutes, so I hope the effort counted for something.
 
Anyway, more about that in the morning when I process this day and evening in the land of dreams, and get something on paper before we have to get our butts in gear for the Haiuptbahnhof and the Number 57 for Potsdam, and the Sans Soucci of an old King's dream.
 
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Subscribe to the RSS feed!