Soviet and Turkish voices in Berlin

I was in Berlin for 3 weeks about a year and half ago. How I wish I'd gone there before the wall fell. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed my visit - it was in December, during Christmas season, and it was absolutely amazing how people really get into the Christmas spirit. More camaraderie than commercialism, unlike the US. I visited some of the museums (I especially liked Checkpoint Charlie and the Pergamon), but the club scene was what I really wanted to check out, and hands down, Berlin is THE party city! I found the German people to be friendly but indifferent. And I rarely ran into the surliness expounded upon in your article. The food was OK, but the beer more than made up for it. I liked the imbiss stands, especially the currywurst, and the Turkish restaurants in Kreuzberg. Getting around is easy thanks to the U-Bahn and S-Bahn - the only time I was in a car was the taxi to the airport to leave. I never felt in any danger or threatened at all, but it could be because I have german heritage - more than once someone would come up to me and start speaking in German. "Ich kann kein deutsch" - "I can't speak German" - was very helpful. I've got the look, I was told. Learn at least a few German terms before you go - I was stunned to find out, as pointed out in your article, that Germans don't or won't speak English. I can't wait to go back in the summertime for the Love Parade!

mike

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Amazing, in just a few short days your typically American condescension and narrow-mindedness enabled you to find the aspects of Berlin that would confirm your preconceptions.

Funny, your travelogue closesly resembles the sort of whiny, self-indulgent drivel I wrote in my journals when, at age 12, my parents moved our family to the former East Germany. I, too, thought that quality of life had something to do with the size of grocery stores and their hours of operation. I thought genuine interaction had something to do with phatic communication. I was twelve years old, what's your excuse?

My God, anyone dumb enough to trust a British guide book to reveal anything pleasant about Germany deserves such wretched impressions.

The city you 'discovered' in a matter of days does not at all resemble the city I lived in for several years.

</rant>

Just a clarification: My above comment is directed toward the author of these pages, and not the person who posted before I did. My apologies for any confusion.

i am an american who has been living in berlin for 5 years now. i have worked very hard to learn german, and to learn as much about berlin and its history as i can. everyone who has visted me here (and i also do tours for students) has always told me how much they enjoyed berlin. sometimes the people can be rude, but they can be rude in new york too. most people i have met here are nothing but kind and helpful, and that includes the east germans (i live in the east) i love this city, and i think you missed seeing the soul of berlin, the atmosphere that it has. most your photos are only of the tourist spots. i am amazed that you even went to kreuzberg and to the soviet memorial in treptow. your comments about the food selection show that you had no understanding of the situation in east berlin at that time. no limes in the market???? how about a telephone that works and no coal heating???? would you be in a good mood if you had to come home everyday in winter and haul coal up from the cellar? its all changed now, so you can come and visit again, and yes you can buy limes and kiwis and litchis and just about anything you can dream of. berlin has now reached the accepted standards of the west, so its safe for all americans to come and visit. the only thing is, now that there are limes at the supermarket, berlin is not so much different than some american city. sometimes i miss the old berlin, and ask myself why do we want the american comforts to follow us around the world? do i really want to be able to buy lays potato chips in some tiny little town in siberia? i think you should come back to berlin, and try it again. and stay away from the tourist spots!!! and keep an open mind... ps. i have never, ever noticed that germans smell bad. they seem to be bathing specialists, for all of their bath gels and bath salts and bath cures.

First of all let me start by saying that I greatly enjoyed reading this story/article and viewing all the pictures, most of which are quite beautiful. I was born in the U.S., but my family is German, and I moved to Frankfurt as achild and grew up there, moving back to the States in '96 to attend college. I have also visited Berlin, twice. Unfortunately, I think the author, having travelled a lot, thinks quite highly of himself and his ability to comment on everything. I do not want to start comparing history and cultures, mainly because I have had many (too many) argunments since I moved back to the U.S. with people who share similar views as the author. Unfortunately, a certain sentence moved me to write this comment.

The author ran across this opinion: "Americans as people are ignorant of geography, culture, and cuisine. Americans are loud and shallow. We get no credit for never having started a world war, enslaved and plundered our part of conquered Germany, nor rolled over Canada and Mexico and sent their citizens to the gas chambers."

Let me comment in two parts; living here I naturally have encountered many Americans, and yes, I have to agree, that in many if not most cases they are ignorant of geography, culture and cuisine. This opinion is widely shared by my American friends who have seen the world and come back home. And noone can argue with me on these terms after hearing the opinion (of a girl I met in Los Angeles) that the castle at the gates of Disney World was the original, and for some weird reason the Neuschwanstein Castle must be a replica. How sad. Also, most 'normal' restaurants (meaning not the high-end ones) meet foreign cuisine only by adapting American ways... no way can you find BBQ chicken pizza in Italy, yet it's everywhere in Italian restaurants here in the U.S. As to the second part: I am not in any way proud of Germanies history of starting wars, nor of the horrible acts of crime committed in WWII. But the way the author wraps it all up in one nice sentence to describe what Germany has been up to in the past centuries is utterly offensive to me. And conceirning the lack of museums and such on the history of the Holocaust and Jewish culture in Germany, or the apparent willingness of Germans to forget all about it... think about it. Would you build museums over and over again about something the world hates you for? About something that - yes! - Germans are trying not to forget but in a way leave behind as a terrible memory never to be forgotten but yet to be left behind so one can move on? I have not yet encountered a single museum in the U.S. that deals with the extreme takeover of America from the Native Indians. Growing up in Germany and attending a full 13 years of school there I can assure you that WWII and the horrors of the Holocaust are far from being forgotten. Not a year of history lessons goes by without touching this subject. Believe me, most Germans are VERY aware of their past, more so than most Americans that should be dealing with the killing of the Natives and slavery with African people. Also the author was commenting on the look of East Berlin. What do you expect of a city that was under ruling of a Nation without money or means to restore for over 40 years? Berlin, including East Berlin is a lot nicer now, and is still being remodeled as of today. How can you even assume that it would only take 3 years to clean up the mess it was in? I'm sorry there wasn't a McDonalds at every street corner by the time you visited. Well, I see you liked Prague better... I assume you had some "culturally enriched" food at either Planet Hollywood, T.G.I. Friday's or Dunkin' Donuts... all three of which are conveniantly present around the main market square... very sad.

As a Canadian I view myself as rather impartial. However, I do agree with most of the other comments. Berlin is a beautiful place with character. I lived in Mitte (old East Berlin) last summer and loved it. I speak very little German and found the people very helpfull and patient with me. I tried to stay away from the tourist traps and get a feeling for the culture.

I can not imagine the effort it would take to rebuild a city, but by the look of things now, and the energy of Berlins citizens I know that it will once again look as beautyfull on the outside as it does on the inside.

As for American influence, I was sad to see a Burger king open on the little narrow street in mitte. I stuck to all the little German restaurants. I can get BK on every corner here in Canada. I found American tourists would not even attemt to communicate in German. I would always start off a conversation in German, often it would lead to English. Im sure if I went to NY and just started ordering food in German the waiter would give me a wierd look. At least Germans have the Atlantic ocean as a buffer. When in Rome do as the Romans.

My most proudest moment was talking my was out of a parking ticket with the imfamously mean German police. As it turns out both the officers English was a poor as my German, but they turned out to be two of the nicest people I met on my trip!

I cant wait to go back and visit Berlin, this time I HAVE to catch the love parade.

I have been in Berlin only once, and that before the Wende (or the fall of the wall as it is called outside Germany). I am also not a German. East Berlin at the time was a ghosttown, but in that it was no different from cities in the USSR, which was the rolemodel for the DDR (GDR) party leadership. There was no need for museums about the Nazi era. All the people should know was told them through propaganda and the memorials of Soviet liberation you so despise but are a part of their culture just as much as those of the federal victories in the US civil war are for the US. If someone in the US proposes a memorial or museum about the Southern forces, he is chastised for being a white supremacist. The same works in Germany. Any interest in the Nazi era is seen as suspect because you may have fascist or general racist interests. In that German and US culture are remarkably similar. East German people at the time were cold and impersonal. When I was there it was fear of fraternising with foreigners, when you were there it was a combination of jealousy (they were low in German society. Menial jobs, low wages, high unemployment) of outsiders and general dislike of foreigners (who can blame them after seeing Soviets for 40 years). In my experience Germans are good and friendly people, most of whom speak passable English. I do usually speak German when in Germany, but they do seem more friendly when they notice you are from out of town so to speak.

On the previous comment: "who can blame them after seeing Soviets for 40 years"? Have you ever seen one? Germans got it easy, they weren't enslaved and exterminated(as they probably should have following their own logic). I think you totally misinterpreted Phil impressions of the memorials. The comparison is there, should fucking Hans have taken over Russia, Russians would have got it much worse than Hans got it after Soviet "occupation". Phil never claims that he went on an anthropological journey deep inside German soul(to find out what "magic" sparked the meticulously thought out "Final Solution" for instance). Just impressions, nothing more.

Phillip Greenspun has done his nation proud. Once more, he has shown up the common (mis)conception that all Americans are loud mouthed, ignorant, racist fools. I get the impression that Greenspun would have been better served by staying in the USA, instead of trying to chase skirt around the cultural hotspots of Europe.

I was particularly offended by the constant reference to German history under the third reich and how modern Germany attempts to air-brush it's past away. This is pretty rich coming from an American. Everytime there's a whiff of ethnic cleansing going on in an obscure part of the world the Americans send in Apache helicopters. Very Ironic.

Further more, complaining about european food is ridiculous. The Italians gave us fantastic food. French gastronomy is renouned throughout the world. The good old USofA's most succesful export is McDonalds - Hardly the greatest food that western cuisine has to offer! Perhaps you wanted to grab a tex/mex from Pizza Hut. I don't know.

I'm not trying to cause offence to American's here, but I think it's only fair to point out that in my travels I have found that regional differences are the most interesting thing in any country. People don't change from Afghanistan through to Zambia. People's living standards do. Thank god this world isn't one size fits all, or that everything all looks the same. It is the differences we try to photograph.

Remember Yoda "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter"

The author seems to have forgotten that the american settlers more or less wiped out the Native American race. All large nations, especially colonial ones, have dirt on their hands whether in this century or 2000 years ago. Please don't try and pretend that the Germans are more 'evil' than other nations.

I (German, but in Texas since 98) found Philip's views interesting.

I have met people of similar opinion at the Jewish community in Berlin. Every Jew in the US knows somebody, is related to, or is himself somebody who was tortured or killed by Nazis. The difference between a Nazi and a German is blurry to most.

Hardly any German knows somebody, is related or or is himself somebody who tortured or killed Jews.

For all those interested only in a Berlin trip that emphasizes the Nazi's mass murder of Jews and others, please contact the Jewish organizations in Berlin. (I had participated in semi-mandatory field trip to the Jewish community in Berlin in 10th grade.) You will get an (understandably) biased view, but you will find it very agreeable.

Similarly I would recommend to all those that like to bash the US because of slavery and native American wars, to find those US organizations which seek restitution for those unjustices.

The rest (most likely a very small minority) will find the USA fantastic, and German supberb as it is. Germans are still the largest ethnic group in the US and in 40 states (source: US Census 1990), and there is much more common ground than difference.

I lived in Berlin, when I was in my twenties. I remember her like an old girl-friend. Good times, but I wouldn't want to share all stories with the world, and some of it, I wouldn't do again.

I got married to Texas. The love of my life.