My German Lover, Part 27 chapter 5

« Well, that’s what Paul said. Maybe they didn’t always live in Charlottenburg… Maybe they once live over there… in Hohenschonhausen… »

« Yes. That’s possible. If you want to go there, I have no problem with that… I live not too far from there. And after your visit to the cemetery, maybe you could drop me at my house. I’m getting a bit tired… and I think I should get some rest. Maybe we could continue our visit tomorrow… »

« Of course. But I wanted to invite you for dinner, at the Adlon Hotel… »

He smiled and said :

« That’s nice of you. You don’t have to. But not tonight. Thanks. I’ll have to get some rest… Maybe tomorrow night… »

« Sure. As you wish… »

We went to the cemetery and with the help we received from the Registrar over there, we were able to locate the graves we were looking for. The headstones were well maintained, and so were the graves. Paul had told me that Will and Ludwig… as well as Lutz and Hans had always paid so the graves would be well maintained. And they were.

Since I had bought flowers, Mike filmed me as I was laying them on the graves. I stood still for a few seconds, to pay my respects to the dead.

Then we left the cemetery and drop Herr Schwarzmann at his home. He was living in a very poor neighgbourhood… and I understood what Heinrich had tried to explained to me the night before, talking about his grandfather. The old man wasn’t rich, far from it.

« So… Do we continue tomorrow? », our old friend asked us…

« Of course. At what time do you want us to come to pick you up? »

« No no… I’ll join you at the Adlon. It’s not everyday that I get the chance to go there… I could be there at ten… »

« Perfect. Then we’ll have lunch… »

« Fine. I’ll be there… », he answered, with a nice smile on his face…

We drove back all the way to the Adlon, and parked the car. We were bushed. We went to our room, took a shower then took a nap. When we woke up, it was almost dinner time…

« … Hey sleepyhead.. get up. It’s almost time to go downstairs to have dinner… », I told Mike, trying to wake him up…

« Okay, okay… just give me a few minutes… »

« Oh no… you’ll go back to sleep… Come on, get up. », I said, laughing…

« Yes, master. Don’t beat me, master. Please master. I’m a good slave, master… » he answered…

« Ohhhhh you… », I shouted out, laughing, jumping on him… And… Well, I think you can imagine what happened. Hey, what can I say! It’s not my fault! Again, I was raped. Yeah. Against my will. Oh well! And by the time we finally made it to the dining room, the place was almost deserted. After dinner, we went to the bar for a nightcap and on our way there, we stopped at the « Boutique », where I found a nice illustrated book titled : « Berlin : Then and now ». Of course, I bought it.

There were lots of pictures in it of Berlin’s most important historic buildings and monuments. Some pictures had been taken before the war and others right after the war. And then there were recent pictures of the same buildings and monuments… Mike and I couldn’t believe our eyes. We could see that most of those buildings and monuments were almost completely destroyed in the war and were in ruin when the war ended. But since then, most of them had been restored or reconstructed according to their original desings.

The next day, as we were having lunch with Herr Schwarzmann, I showed him that book and, pointing to the old picture of a magnificent palace, I asked him :

« What about that building?»

« Oh, that was the Berliner Stadtschloss (Royal Palace). It was the residence of the Prussian royal families for centuries… It was damaged during the war, and the East German administration dynamited the building en the 1950s, not because the structural damage was irreparable, but for ideological reasons… »

« What? », I exclaimed. « But that’s silly… »

« Yes. They did it to « eradicate » all traces of what they considered the city’s « Bourgeois » past. That’s why Walter Ulbricht… the Communist East German leader at the time… ordered the palace to be blown up… and the « Schlossplatz », the square right in front of the palace… was renamed « Marx-Engels-Platz »… Fortunately, after the Berlin Wall came down, the old name « Schlossplatz » was restored…

« And what about that modern, ugly building there… »

Herr Schwarzmann grinned, looking at the picture and explained :

« That’s what they built where the old Royal Palace use to stand… »

« But it’s ugly… »

« Yes, it is. The East German leaders had very good taste, as you can see… », our old friend said, laughing. « That modern building you’re talking about was the « Palast der Republik » (Counsil of State)… It was the closest thing we, East Germans, had to a parliament. It was designed to showcase the « proud » vision of socialist East Germany. And as you say, it’s ugly. But the Communist regime was ugly, so… but anyway, look at the picture and tell me what you see… »

I looked at the picture for a while then said :

« I see an ugly building… »

« Yes yes… but look at that part of the building there… »

« Oh… yes… it’s… »

« Yes… that’s the only part of the Royal palace which survived demolition… The portal you see there was integrated into the modern building. It’s a poor reminder of what once was… But do you know what? Recently the « Palast der Republik » was found to be contaminated with asbestos. It is schedule to be demolish, and funding for the planned reconstruction of the old Royal palace is being arranged… »

« That would be great! », I said…

« Yes. I can’t wait to see that ugly building torn down. We have suffered so much under the Communist regime… »

After our lunch, we walked out of the Adlon and found ourselves on the beautiful Pariser Platz (Paris square). From where we were standing, near the Brandenburg Gate, we walked the short distance over to the Reichstag building. As we were walking through the Gate, our old friend said :

« You see here… That’s where the Berlin Wall used to stand. During the Cold War, the Gate was located in East Berlin… and everything around here was sealed off. East German border guards were standing right here, to make sure we couldn’t come near the Wall… With the Wende (fall of the Wall), the Unter den Linden avenue was reopened and so now, it is again possible to drive down on « Strasse des 17. Juni », go through the Gate and continue driving down the Unter den Linden avenue… Oh, yesterday you talked about the « Charlottenburger Chaussee », remember?

« Yes… », I answered…

« Well after the war, it was renamed « Strasse des 17. Juni »… That’s the large avenue you see there, right in front of us…

Of course, all the time Herr Schwarzmann was talking… I was filming.

We went to visit the Reichstag building, and our old friend told us everything there is to know about that famous, historic building.

Then after our visit to the Reichstag, we walked back to the Adlon hotel. Again, we walked through the Brandenburg Gate. Herr Schwarzmann was explaining his emotions about the Gate when right in front of us on Unter den Linden, the tree-lined avenue that, in the ‘20s, was Berlin’s Champs-Élysées, a surrealistic scene was unfolding : Indians on horseback and a stagecoach driven by buckskin-clad cowboys, followed by a flatbed truck with a Dj playing harmonica-heavy Western music…

Herr Schwarzmann laughed and shook his head . Looking at the mini-Western parade, he said :

« …It is a promotional stunt for a new dance club. Just try to picture this happening during the Communist days, not so long ago… or during Hitler’s days, when he used to parade here, standing in his open car, saluting to SS soldiers that were standing at attention on each side of the avenue… I’m glad I’ve lived long enough to see this surrealistic parade… »

« Yes… », Mike answered, smiling… « I must admit that Berlin is really not at all what I expected. It’s exciting. In a very nice way… »

« Yes », our old friend replied. « Welcome to « Das Neue Berlin »…

A bit later, as we were having a light lunch at the Adlon, I told Herr Schwarzmann that it was in the very same hotel that Paul and his friend Franz had stayed during the war…

« Oh no. I don’t think so… », he answered, grinning…

« Well I mean… Paul told me the hotel had been damaged during the war, but… », I added…

« Yes well… luckily the hotel managed to survive the war without extreme damage. In 1945, it was transformed into a military hospital… and in the 1970s, it became a lodging house for apprentices. But in the 1980s, the Adlon was torn down to make way for another gray and very ugly East Berlin edifice. Very ugly! But after the reunification of Germany, that ugly building was torn down and the Adlon was rebuilt on the same location as the original hotel… and as you can see in your book, it now looks much like it used to, during the Golden Twenties… »

« Unbelievable », I answered… « How much money have you spent, building… demolishing… building again… I mean… »

« Yeah! Stupid, huh? », our old friend replied. « Sometimes, we humans act stupidly… »

A tad later, I looked at Herr Schwarzmann and said :

« I think I told you that the first fime Paul had come to Berlin, Will and Lutz had taken him on a walk… Here. Let me check my notes… Yes… They had walked down on Wilhelmstrasse to the Neue Reichskanzlei (New Reichs Chancellery) on Vossstrasse…

« Yes yes… », Her Schwarzmann answered… It’s a short distance from here. But I must tell you that the Neue Reichskanzlei doesn’t exist anymore… »

« Un-huh », I answered, nodding… « And from there, they had walked to the « Kaiser-Franz-Joseph-Platz » and…

Once again, our old friend interrupted me to say :

« The Kaiser-Franz-Joseph-Platz has been renamed after the war. Now, it’s call the « Bebelplatz »…

« Thanks… », I said, smiling at our old friend… « And Paul told me that from there, they had walked to the « Gendarmenmarkt »…

« It’s still there… », Herr Schwarzmann said…

« He told me about two cathedrals there… one of them called the « Französischer Dom »… with a staircase leading to an observation platform…

« Yes… it’s been rebuilt… », he answered, smiling…

« Do you think we could follow the same course as they did, so many years ago?

« But of course… But at the Französischer Dom don’t count on me to go up the stairs with you, to the observation platform… I’m too old for that. I’ll leave that to the two of you… and I’ll wait for you downstairs… »

« Yes », I answered, smiling…

So we left the Adlon and started walking down on Wilhelmstrasse, with me filming…

« …Not much left here for your friends to recognize, I’m afraid. Almost everything around here was destroyed during the war… », Herr Schwarzmann said…

We kept walking for a few minutes, then our old friend said :

« There we are… »

« Huh? », I asked…

« Yes. We are right on the corner of Wilhelmstrasse and Vossstrasse. This is where the Neue Reichskanzlei used to stand… »

We looked around. We were surrounded by ugly, concrete apartment blocks… and on the corner ot the two streets, there was a Chinese restaurant called « Pekin Ente ». 

« That’s exactly where Hitler’s New Reichs Chancellery was located… »

« What happened to the Chancellery building? », I asked our old friend…

« Well… parts of the building were badly damaged during the last days of the war. This is where Hitler killed himself you know. In his bunker… It was located under the garden of the New Reichs Chancellery. And after the war, the Neue Reichskanzlei was demolished by the Russians. They took the marble from the building to built the War Memorial they have built at the Treptower Park, to commemorate she Soviet soldiers who fell in the Battle of Berlin in April 1945… Leftover marble from the building was also used to line the interior of Mohrenstrasse station on the Berlin U-Bahn… That station is right over there… », he explained, pointing to the station…

« So… this is where Hitler died… », Mike said…

« Yes. Come with me », our friend said.

We followed him and took a street named « Kolmar Strasse » up to another street named « In der Ministergärten »…

« Those streets are recent you know. Of course they didn’t exist at the time of the war since we’re standing right were the Chancellery building used to stand. And you see that parking area over there? »

« Yes… »

« Well… Hitler’s bunkers are there, beneath the paved parking area you see there. That’s where he killed himself »

« But how come you know the exact location… »

Our old friend grinned and said :

« During the war, all we knew was that there was a bunker under the garden of the New Reichs Chancellery. We had all heard about the Führer bunker… but that’s all. After the war, nobody was talking about that… We didn’t care. We had enough on our hands to rebuilt the city, and we had the Russians on our back… A few years ago, in the 1980s, the East German Authorities decided to built the concrete apartment buildings you see there. And of course, when they dug to built the foundations, they found the bunkers. That’s when we heard a lot about them… »

« You mean there was more than just one bunker? »

«There were two of them. According to what I’ve read in the newspaper the first bunker was built before the war and was know as the « Vorbunker ». The second bunker was built during the war and was known as the «Führer Bunker ». They say it was 15 meters under the ground and protected by meters of concrete… The two bunkers were connected by a staircase, going from the Vorbunker to the Führer Bunker. Hitler’s accomodations were in the newer, lower section… the Führer Bunker… In the 1980s, the East German Authorities started to examine the remains of the Vorbunker and later, they destroyed it. They also tried to destroy the Führer Bunker, but couldn’t. In the late 1940s, the Soviets had tried bo blow it up, but to no avail. It seems it just can’t be destroyed. I’ve read that early in the 1990s, the bunker was reopened and photographs were taken of it. Then it was sealed off… »

« So it’s still here… right under our feet? », Mike asked, stunned…

« Yes. But do you know what? I’m glad they couldn’t destroy that bunker. That bunker was evil. You can’t destroy evil. I believe each human being has within himself the power to do both good and evil. That’s our nature. And the best we can do is to try to take control over our evil side. We do not always succeed. And some let their evil side take control… That’s what Hitler did. That’s what the Nazis did. With the results you know… They were not the first one to let that happen, and not the last. We must never forget about the dangers of letting our bad side take control. As hard as we try to deny we all have within ourselves such a bad side, it’s always there… waiting. Sometimes, we refuse to recognize that… and we do our best to burry our bad side. Just like we have tried to blow up Hitler’s bunker. But it is indestructible. So that’s why I say I’m glad they couldn’t destroy that bunker. Let it serves as a remainder of our nature… »

« I’m not sure Hitler was human. What he did was totally inhuman… », I said, thinking, and looking at the very spot where he had died…

« Yes. What he did was indeed totally inhuman », Herr Schwarzmann answered… « But you see, he was human alright. They say he loved children… and loved animals. He was kind to the people around him. We prefer not to recognize that, and picture him as the devil. It’s easier to do that than to question our nature, and to recognize we all have a good side and a bad side. We prefer to consider that Hitler was not « one of us ». A human being. (…) Hitler was not different than a guy I knew during the war. He was older than me… Anyway, during the war, this guy was married and had children. He was a very good father to his children and a loving husband to his wife. Each morning, before going to work, he would kiss them very tenderly. And do you know where he was working? In a concentration camp. At home, his good side was prevailing… but at work, he was killing people. Can you believe that? And he was not the only one like that, far from it. »

«I don’t know how that guy was doing to sleep well at night… », Mike said…

« Oh, I’m sure he had no problem with that… I’m sure he was convinced he was only doing his job. That he was following orders. He never stopped to ask himself if what he was doing was right or wrong. Never let that happen my young friends. Never. If you’re asked to do something, and you feel it’s bad or wrong, refuse to do it. Whatever the consequences. Otherwise, slowly, you’ll let your evil side take control over your good side. And once you let that happen, you have no way of knowing where it will all stop. You will find yourself caught in a cog-wheels… and you will have no other choice but to go with the motion… »

For a few minutes we stayed there in silence. Looking at that parking lot right there in front of us, knowing what was laying beneath it.

« Shall we go, gentlemen? », we suddenly heard our old friend ask…

« Sure », Mike and I answered.

We started walking and made our way to the Gendarmenmarkt… Once there, we looked all around us…

« This is a very beautiful square… », I said…

« Yes. They say it’s one of the most beautiful squares in Europe… », our friend answered. « That beautiful building right in front of us is the Schauspielhaus, also known as the Konzerthaus (Concert Hall…), and it is flanked by the French Cathedral on the north side and the German Cathedral on the south… Those buildings were severely damaged by Allied bombs during the war, but they have been restored since then. »

« Which one did you say is the Französisher Dom? » (French Cathedral), I asked our old friend…

« That one. Now, if you want to climb the circular staircase for a good view of the historic city center, feel free to do so. There’s a nice restaurant not far from here, and I will be waiting for you there… »

Of course, I was filming all the time… and I even filmed while Mike and I were going up the dizzying spiral staircase leading to the observation platform… Once there, we had a stunning view of the historic city center… just like Paul had said we would. While I was filming, Mike and I slowly walked our way around the domed tower.

« You see that massive building over there », I asked Mike… « I wonder what it is… »

« …Don’t know. It looks like a Cathedral to me… We’ll have to ask our friend, whatever is name is! I just can’t pronounce it… »

« Schwarzmann », I answered, laughing my heart out. « SCHWARZMANN »….

« Yeah. Whatever. He’s a very nice guy, but he should have his name changed », Mike answered, grinning…

« Could be worst, you know. How about « Von Tschammer und Osten » ?

« You must be kidding. That’s not a real family name, is it? »

« Yup! Will told me that’s the name of the guy who was the Reich Sports Minister before the war…

« Shit! Poor guy! »

We were still laughing as we were going down the stairs… At one point, I stopped and turned to look at Mike :

« Hey… if you think it’s hard to pronounce our old friend’s name, try this : « Reichssichereitshauptamt »…

« Are you crazy or what? You’re making that up… »

« No no… That’s the name for the Central Security Department of the Reich… I swear… »

« I think I will try to learn how to speak Zoulou before I even try to learn German… », Mike answered, laughing…

Later, we found our old friend at the restaurant and had a coffee with him there.

Then, we went on with our tour… and walked over to the Bebelplatz…

« That’s the Staatsoper (Opera House) you see there », our friend explained. « It was completely destroyed in the war, but the building was reconstructed according to the original desing in the 1950s… now, look at the big square over there… »

« Yes… » I answered…

« Something very bad occured here, before the war… »

« Oh? »

« Yes. You see that beautiful building right over there… That building is part of the Humboldt Universität… It was from there that some 20,000 books by « degenerates » and opponents of the Nazis were taken to be burned here, on the Opernplatz… or Bebelplatz, as it has been known since the war. Among the authors whose books were burned were Thomas Mann, Albert Einstein, Jack London, Helen Keller, André Gide, Marcel Proust, Émile Zola, Sigmund Freud… »

« But why? », Mike asked…

« All of them were « degenerates », according to the Nazis. In fact if those books were burned it’s only because they had been written by Jewish or anti-Nazi authors. The Nazis enrolled young students tu burn the books. Many of them had no idea of what they were doing…They were just having a ball… They took all the books from the Alte Bibliothek over there and brought them to the center of the Platz where they were burned while Herr Joseph Goebbels, the Propaganda minister… was making a big speech about « culture »! The little rat... »

« That’s funny you call him the « Little rat »… because that’s exactly how Will and Paul and the others call him… As for Hermann Göring, well… they call him the « big swine »… », I said, laughing…

Herr Schwarzmann looked at me for a second then burst out laughing :

« Yes. The « big swine »… I remember… That’s how we used to call Göring… But Goebbels was worst than Göring was. Just to give you an idea, during the last days of the war, he and his family were living with Hitler in the Führer Bunker. Well, after Hitler committed suicide, he ordered his wife to kill their six young children with poison. And she did. And shortly after, both of them committed suicide outside the Bunker, right were we were standing earlier… »

« Shit! That’s terrible… », I said…

« Yes. »

We remained silent for a while, thinking about what Goebbels and his wife had done… then our old friend said :

« There’s a memorial over there, right in the middle of the square… Go see it… I’ll sit on the bench here and wait for you… »

« Um… there’s no memorial there, Sir… I mean… », I said, feeling a bit embarrassed…

« Oh yes, there is one. », our friend answered… walk to the middle of the square. You’ll find it… »

I looked at Mike, not knowing what to do. There was nothing in the middle of the square…

Mike looked back at me and said :

« Let’s go there… »

So the two of us slowly made our way to the middle of the square, with me saying :

« I wonder if our old friend didn’t lose his marbles… »

« I can see as well as you do that there’s nothing there… But anyway, we’ll stay there for a minute or two, then we’ll come back to him and will tell him the memorial is beautiful, what do you think? »

« Sure », I answered, grinning…

But I was not grinning anymore when we reached the center of the square.

Indeed, in the middle of the square an underground memorial was visible through a glass screen, baring testimony to the site where the Nazis had burned the books of their political and philosophical opponents in May 1933!

There was a glass panel opening onto an underground white room with empty shelf for 20,000 volumes and a plaque with two short texts, one right next to the other. The left one says:

« Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen »
« Heinrich Heine 1820 »

Mike looked at me and asked me what that meant…

« It means : « That was only a prelude; Where they burn books, they ultimately burn people »… It was written in 1820 by a guy named Heinrich Heine… »

« Unbelievable… How could that guy have forseen what was going to happen… »

« I don’t know. But he was right, wasn’t he? »

Both of us had goosebumps, and suddenly we were cold…

I looked at the other inscription and read it :

« In der mitte dieses platzes verbrannten am 10. Mai 1933
Nationalsozialistiche studenten die werke hunderter freier
Schriftsteller, publizisten, philosophen un wissenschaftler. »

« What does that mean? », Mike asked…

« Something like :

« In the middle of this square, on May 10, 1933, National Socialist students
burned selected works from a hundred free authors, publicists,
philosophers and scholars. »

We stood there for a few minutes, thinking about what had happened right here, so many years ago…