"Berlin - City of Shadows - Under ..." a Berlin Travel Page by dlandt

Berlin is not the Berlin it as when I was growing up. At that time, we thought the Wall could last forever, and the Cold War would extend beyond our grandchildren's time. The entire structure of the world, personified by Berlin, seemed as intransigent as the moon, but we were wrong. History and progress have changed the world, and Berlin. We witnessed happy crowds smashing the Wall with sledgehammers or pickaxes, and Trabbies driving through the gaps. The old Berlin is gone, the new Berlin has arrived.

Berlin has always been a city of shadows, long before the Cold War whose shadow still lies over Berlin. Before the Cold War you could feel the shadow of WWII and the Nazis, and before that, the shadow of failed revolution and years of dictatorship as Bismarck built the Prussian Empire into the German Empire through "blood and iron". Nor was Brandenburg a happy place prior to Bismarck, under the Junckers. Yet between these shadows youalways find a bright side to Berlin. The decadent but happy years of the Weimar Republic lived in Berlin, and in the 1960s hippies and artists lived and thrived in the West. Today, Berlin lives in such a time, a time of building and prosperity, living its life ot the fullest before the next shadow is cast on her.

I remember the first time I came to Berlin, I felt the shadow of the greatest war ever fought
I remember reading about Berlin in the Weimar days, and how the shadow of the Kaiser's dictatorship lay over the city
I remember looking out over a new Berlin, and seeing the long shadow of Russia and the Cold War
I remember many Berlins, a city of art and culture, a city of happiness
And I remember the shadows of Berlin, for they are Berlin