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# Berlin

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Berlin is the capital of Germany and the biggest city in this country with 3.5 mil. inhabitants.

Newsblitz: The famous Loveparade will be held this year too, but on July 21.

Geography

Berlin is located at the river Spree, its biggest forest is the Grunewald

Sights

- Tiergarten: Berlin's biggest park
- Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche: stands for Emperor Wilhelm Memorial Church. The church was bombed out in World War II and its ruin is still standing unchanged.
- Potsdamer Platz: the center of the new Berlin. It contains the Sony Center and the Daimler-Chrysler? Quartier, both of which are outstanding eyamples of modern Architecture. In the 1920s, this was the busiest spot in whole Europe, during the Cold War, it lay in the middle of the death strip. After that, it was Europe's biggest construction site and now is the place to go if you are into Film. It has three cinemas with more than fourty screens, a film academy and a film museum.
- Reichstag: The old and new seat of German parliament, rebuilt by [Sir Norman Foster]?

Culture

When the city was still divided, its center was the end of world, as it was the place where you would be closest to the Cold War enemy, so it was pretty abandoned when the Wall came down. The availability of many cheap old houses in the middle of the city became a fertile ground for all sorts of underground and off-culture as well as many nightclubs, like the world-famous Tresor, which is one of the most important Techno clubs on earth. Berlin has a rich art scene, but it is increasingly coming under pressure, because since the government moved in, the rents went up considerably.

  Important Theaters:

- Schaubuehne
- Volksbuehne
- Deutsches Theater
- Berliner Ensemble

  Large Opera Houses:

- Deutsche Oper
- Staatsoper Unter den Linden
- Komische Oper

  Large Universities:

- Freie Universitaet Berlin
- Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin
- Technische Universitaet Berlin

History see also: History of Germany

During the Cold War of the 20th Century the east part of Berlin was the capital of East Germany, while the western part of the city, in spite of being geographically divided from West Germany, continued to belong to West Germany. In 1962 the Berlin Wall was built, dividing the city into West Berlin and East Berlin. This was undertaken by the East German government for economic and political reasons. According to most Westerners, the reason for it was to prevent East Germans from immigrating to the West. So, up to 1999, the capital of West Germany was a small town in Nordrhein-Westfalen called Bonn.

After the breakdown of Communism in Europe the city, like the whole country, was united and soon became capital of all of Germany once again.

John F. Kennedy gave a speech about the Berlin Wall in which he said, with a bad accent, "Ich bin ein Berliner" -- something Germans now find hilarious, since it means he's a kind of doughnut, although at that time it meant much to a city that was an island in enemy territory. Much of the Cold War was fought in Berlin, with espionage, counter-espionage and all sorts of evils, like Stalin's blockade of the city.

In 1968 and the following years, Berlin became one of the centers of the student revolt, especially its district Kreuzberg was the center of lots of riots.

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Last edited July 3, 2001 11:45 am (diff)
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