The West is the Best! Adventures in Berlin

I am currently on holiday in Europe. The first leg of my journey is in Berlin.

My wanderings through the city have taken me into East and West Berlin (or the areas formerly known as East and West Berlin). I have come to the conclusion thus far that East Berlin is a place of grey sadness, and West Berlin retains its historical buildings, which makes it much prettier.

As we all hopefully know, Berlin as the capital of Germany was the headquarters for the NAZI regime, and then the site of what was arguably the greatest zone of confrontation between capitalism and communism during its occupation subsequent to the end of World War II. The reason (or one of the reasons) for this division was because the Allies and the Russians advanced upon the city in the final days of the war from different sides. The direction from which they came was not the only difference between the Allies and the Russians. The method used capture the city was very different. My trusty source of all military information (also my boyfriend) informs me that Soviets very methodically would take a city block by effectively razing it, and the moving on to repeat the process on the next block. Effective? Maybe. Destructive? Unquestionably. What this has meant was that the buildings that dominate the East Berlin landscape are typical of the communist era. The phrase that springs to mind to describe them is “the embodiment of an Orwellian Dystopia”. 

 The only tree in all of East Berlin. 

I actually turned off the black and white setting for this picture. That building in the background is the finance ministry (we hypothesised it may be a prison, initially). It has a mural of all the workers working together on its entrance.  

West Berlin has many trees

West Berlin is also just generally pretty

By no means do I wish to suggest that East Berlin has less value than West Berlin. However, I think that it is a great shame that the Soviets had control of that area of the city.

My advice for any travellers to Berlin: Stay in the Western part – there is great value in travelling during the days to the Eastern areas to see museums, monuments, and everything in between, but it’s much nicer to come home to a pretty neighbourhood when you’re away.