Today dawned sunny, making it feel much warmer than yesterday, which turned out to be a very good thing as we crisscrossed the city of Berlin throughout the day. After a leisurely breakfast, we left the hostel to go to the Brücke Museum, Elise’s project, which was in the western part of the city, near Zehlendorf. To get to the museum, we took the tram from Rosenthaler Platz to the Hackescher Markt, then transferred to the S-Bahn, which we rode to Westkreuz, which was farther west in Berlin than I had ever been before! At Westkreuz, we transferred to the outer S-Bahn ring, which makes a loop around the city; additionally, I believe that this outer ring may have been one of the lines of defense during the Battle for Berlin, as I seem to recall reading something about that during my research for a paper on postwar Berlin. If this is true, today’s trip allowed me to visit somewhere than I had only previously read about, which I always enjoy doing. From Westkreuz, we traveled south to Hohenzollerndamm, which made me smile, considering that my entire project is centered around the Hohenzollerns and one of their palaces, where we took a bus to the Brücke Museum. The museum is located on a quiet, leafy street in an area that appeared to be overwhelmingly residential. I must say, though, that this area of Berlin is one of my favorite parts of the city so far, as I hardly felt that I was in a city at all; the buildings were much shorter and more spread out than in the district of Mitte around our hostel. I even heard someone mowing their yard, a definite sign that there is just more space out in this western part of the city!
Overall, this very upscale quality of the area in which the Brücke Museum was located seemed rather ironic to me, as several members of Die Brücke, an expressionist art group of the early twentieth century, were dedicated to showing the grittiness and underside of the metropolis of Berlin, something that was very much not apparent in this area. As for the Brücke Museum itself, I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would, considering that expressionist art is not always my favorite. However, the exhibits were very well presented, allowing the visitor to experience the art and to get a good overview of the style of the two artists, Otto Mueller and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, whose work was on display. In contrast to other art museums that I have visited, in which the galleries were overcrowded, I did not walk away from the Brücke Museum feeling entirely overwhelmed. Rather, I believe that I got a glimpse into a particular style of art, one in which I could still remember individual works of art. One major reason why this was the case was the way in which the exhibits were presented. Rather than cover the walls with art from top to bottom, the paintings and drawings were arranged in one line across the wall at eye level, allowing for natural viewing of the art. Furthermore, the walls were all painted white so as not to detract from the art on display and the lighting was neither too dark nor too bright.
While I enjoyed the entire museum, two things in particular stood out to me. First, with regard to the art of Otto Mueller, I could see a definite progression from the late 1910 and early 1920s, when his paintings involved landscapes and color, to the mid-1920s, in which his style turned toward sketches of women done in dark colors, with bold strokes. However, by the late 1920s, he had turned to color once again, which seemed to me to represent the turn from the most chaotic days of Weimar Germany to a period of relative stability. In more general terms, this connected to Elise’s project, exploring the transitions that occurred in the style of Die Brücke, especially after their move to Berlin from Dresden. With regard to Schmidt-Rottluff, the painting of his that I found most interesting was one entitled Blockadestillleben, painted in 1948. I assumed that this was intended to be his depiction of life during the Berlin Blockade of 1948-1949, with an oil lamp on the table as a reference to the Soviets cutting off electricity to West Berlin.
From the Brücke Museum, we traveled back north via bus and U-Bahn to the Kurfürstendamm, the main commercial center of Charlottenburg and former West Berlin. Emerging from the Wittenbergplatz U-Bahn station, we immediately found ourselves in the shadow of the famous Kaufhaus des Westens, or KaDeWe, the largest department store in continental Europe. Rather than eat at their undoubtedly-expensive restaurant, I had lunch at an Imbiss across the street, where I got a Bratwurst sandwich: Bratwurst and a Brötchen! I very much enjoyed my first Bratwurst on this trip to Germany, and hope to eat many more soon. After lunch, we walked through KaDeWe, which gives me the same feeling as Harrods in London: that I don’t quite belong there in the middle of such a luxurious store. On the sixth floor, we explored the various gourmet foods on sale, including a bottle of wine that cost €4500! One of the most interesting parts of this floor was the international food section, where we learned that the culinary specialties of the US are apparently Pop-Tarts, peanut butter, Betty Crocker’s, Cheerios, instant Quaker oatmeal, and barbeque sauce. If that wasn’t appalling enough, the prices were! One box of instant oatmeal packets cost almost €15, and a jar of JIF peanut butter was around €10. Leaving behind the “gourmet” American food, we walked a little farther down the Kudamm to get a better view of the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche, which was damaged by bombing in World War II and left unrestored as a symbol of the destruction of war. One thing I definitely noticed about the Kudamm was the sheer number of people walking around and shopping; I was very much reminded of Michigan Avenue in Chicago.
After our sojourn on the Kudamm, we met up with Dr. Stehle and the rest of the group again to travel to the Schwules Museum, which is in the Tempelhof district, near Nollendorfplatz. The visit to this museum was connected to Zane’s project, as he studied ideas of masculinity in regard to Nazi propaganda, especially the films of Leni Riefenstahl. Unfortunately, the museum’s exhibition on the history of gay people in Berlin, especially the persecution of homosexuals by the Nazis, was not on display, as I would have been interested to view that exhibition in connection with our visit to the Jewish Museum and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. However, we were able to view the museum’s current exhibition on pornography, which, while admittedly rather shocking to a born and raised Southerner, was nonetheless interesting. One of the more interesting parts of the exhibition for me was the discussion of porn in East Germany, as I learned that the Stasi would film people having sex and then use it for purposes of blackmail. Having studied East Germany and the Stasi in a previous class on the history of communism, this did not necessarily surprise me, although it did show the lengths to which the Stasi was prepared to go to maintain its idea of order in the East German regime. Furthermore, the presence of this museum in Berlin seems to speak to Berlin’s character as a city and a metropolis, and connects to Berlin’s chaotic yet progressive culture during the 1920s. As we learned during the semester, Weimar Berlin was a center of gay culture, which the Schwules Museum seems to be paying homage to in a way, by reminding visitors that this is yet another one of the many “Berlins.” Truly, Berlin is a city that has many faces, in contrast to Potsdam (something that we will learn more about tomorrow).
Following the Schwules Museum, we came back to the hostel to relax for a while, before heading out for dinner. Tonight some of us ate at a Vietnamese restaurant on Alte Schönhauser Straße called Monsieur Vuong. I was not entirely sure what to expect, as this was my first introduction to Vietnamese cuisine, but I was very pleasantly surprised. I had Pho Hanoi, which included noodles, chicken, and greens, as well as the traditional, slightly-salty pho broth; I also had a delicious raspberry and lime fruit shake to drink. Following such a good dinner, I had equally good gelato at a small shop just up the street from the hostel, which was the perfect cap to a very good day! Tomorrow we are off to Potsdam and Schloss Cecilienhof, which is my project; I am excited to see what I have written about firsthand, and to introduce it to the rest of the group.
Making the Past Present 