From Checkpoint Charlie to the Holocaust Museum

At first glance, it may seem that the wall museum is a good business project in which the Berlin wall and other souvenirs of the matryoshka type and Ushanka hat are sold to tourists piece by piece. The Wall Museum actually began its history almost immediately after the wall was established in August 1961. The founder of the museum, Wildebrand, had already suggested that it was necessary not only to document injustice, but also to do so in the place closest to where it occurs. This is how the Berlin Wall Museum appeared near Charlie's Checkpoint. Translated with Google Translate

One of the most interesting exhibits of the museum are real artifacts exhibited on the street. This is a Soviet-era border pillar, which, along with millions more of these pillars, made the border of the socialist block a huge prison territory. These are fragments of graffiti on the wall during its dismantling. This is the famous inscription that you leave the American zone and this is a photo of the GDR border guard. Translated with Google Translate

The name Check Point Checkpoint Charlie is associated not with Charlie, but with the English letter C. In total in West Berlin there were three checkpoints and they, as was customary in the American army, were named by the letters of the alphabet A, B m C. This check point C became the most famous and famous thanks to the close proximity to the main points of contact of the social political and economic life of the West and East Berlin. Translated with Google Translate

A wooden house with a low roof, bags of cement folded into a high parapet and poured with water (the fastest and simple fortification system, widely used by the English during the First World War) - that’s the whole checkpoint. But it was near this house that American and Soviet tanks stood face to face during the Caribbean crisis, when Khrushchev and Kennedy were on the verge of a third world war. Today there are crowds of tourists and not to visit Charlie's Checkpoint, but how much stress and symbolism its modest details retain. Translated with Google Translate

The whole Friedrichstraße was a government quarter. During the war, it was completely destroyed. Today, along the street you can see new buildings, but important ministries and departments are mentioned in historical places. At this place was located the Ministry of Finance. It was headed by Ludwig Schwerin von Klozig. He served as Minister of Finance until his arrest on May 23, 1945, replacing the Nazi German Kaiser Joseph Goebbels, who committed suicide after Hitler. He advocated the alienation of Jewish property and money after the Crystal Night. Ludwig did not appear before the court at the Nürnberg trial, but was convicted by the United States and served a ten-year sentence from which he was actually in prison for 6 years. He had 5 daughters and 4 sons. His granddaughter from the eldest daughter is today a member of the European Parliament. Aunt Ludwig Schwerin was the wife of Karl Marx. Translated with Google Translate

This square used to be round and along it were located the main elements of German statehood and government. The Reich Chancellery is located in the former palace of Shelenienburg. Near the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the already mentioned Ministry of Finance. During the reign of the National Socialists - the party of Hitler, another building was built for the State Chancellery, and the Ministry of Propaganda - the office of Joseph Goebbels - was housed in the historical building. Translated with Google Translate

At this place in the middle of the 18th century, a building was built, which houses the Order of John of Jerusalem. After the order was disbanded at the beginning of the 19th century, the building became the property of Prussian kings. During the Weimar Republic, there were departments of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and under the Nazis, the Ministry of Education and Propaganda was located. Josef Goebbels. Within a few months, he was able to establish absolute control over all the media, during the year he was able to practically destroy those who did not agree, and for almost 10 years to educate the Germans in unbridled Nazism under the auspices of social nationalist ideology. Translated with Google Translate

Until the end of the 19th century, this building was the seat of the famous German banker. Then it was sold to state ownership and was used as the residence of prominent statesmen of the Weimar Republic. With the coming of the Nazis to power, Rudolf Hess is located here - the Fuhrer’s closest ally, who participated in Hitler’s writing of Mein Kampf. This house is associated with the name of Joachim von Ribentrop - Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Third Reich, and in 1941, Hess inherited Martin Bormann. Hess attempted to persuade the British to make peace with Germany in 1941 and "without permission" found himself in London. He was arrested and put on trial 5 years later at the Nuremberg Tribunal. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. He died in Spandau prison in West Berlin in 1987 at the age of 93. Until the end of his days, he was loyal to Hitler and the Nazi ideology. Martin Borman, who replaced him, was a longtime man close to Hitler. He was married and had 10 children. According to one version, Borman died in 1945, and according to another, disappeared without a trace. Translated with Google Translate

This is one of the youngest and most unusual Holocaust memorials in Europe. The Nazi ideology of Hess, Bormann, Hitler created the hell that Jews were the first victims of. Huge concrete slabs, like gravestones, cover a vast area. Passages between them become deeper or rise up. It seems as if you can plunge into stones and drown in them, or climb and look over them. This allergy made me think about the fate and the role of a person in it. About the Germans and the Jews, about the two peoples of Europe who have not tried on themselves and their role. Some with the role of executioner, others with the role of victim. Translated with Google Translate