Berlin: Rising Again

As President Kennedy said in 1963, "Let them come to Berlin". So we did - although it was four decades later, well after the end of the Cold War. Actually, our trip to this marvelous city, the world's endearing symbol of the 50 years long schism between East and West, and its neighbor Potsdam was our third but we wanted to see how these cities had changed since the fall of the Wall in November 1989 and the 1990 unification of East and West Germany.

The first impression as one enters the city is of great growth with cranes dotting the sky as new buildings reach for the sky. The city's natural role as one of the world's great cities and newly restored capital of one of its great democratic nations is being made whole again. The most impressive change, though, as one reaches the center of the city is the removal from the area of the Reichstag and Brandenburg Gate of the ugly scar which was the Berlin Wall. In place for 28 years, the wall separated a city, families, and ideologies and too much blood was shed by those East Berliners risking all to be free. Its peaceful removal was a triumph of the spirit of a people wishing to be free!

The Berlin tourism office disseminates a pamphlet which lists 38 museums in the city, more than anyone could possibly visit in the normal stay in Berlin! Nevertheless, no visit to Berlin by an American can be complete without visiting the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, standing only a few feet from where the small guardshack for so long marked the exit from the American zone of divided Berlin. Although the shack has been removed from the center of a now bustling street carrying traffic through the undivided city, the museum reminds one of the heroism shown by so many in desperate attempts to escape tyranny and, proudly, the importance of commitment of the western Allies to West Berlin's freedom and the city's ultimate unification. One is proud to be an American in looking at the photos of smiling children in the middle of the Berlin Airlift and in remembering the American airmen who lost their lives in that determined effort. Berlin today is free and unified only because the free world stood firm.