Travel: Berlin's Nostalgia Boom

With the twentieth anniversary of the wall coming down, WideWorld discovers the few untouched remnants of the old GDR

The toothpick watches over East Berlin. It’s the German nickname for the Fernesehtrum; a colossal, socialist-era TV tower, futuristic enough to pass for a parked spaceship. When it was built in 1969 it towered over the divided city as a symbol of communist order. Now it unites the city, and it’s just the place to spot the last few untouched remnants of Warsaw Pact Berlin.

In a lobby that resembles the volcanic lair of a Bond villain, managing director Christina Aue tells me that 4000 people a day visit the revolving restaurant and viewing platform in the bulbous pinnacle, even in winter. It gives an untrammeled view across East and West, in a city where high-rises have yet to dominate.

“This is the new centre,” she explains. “For years, this was the border; now people come here because the centre is shifting. It has taken time, but it is here now.” The industrial east is still not much prettier for twenty years of change, but its grandeur is clear from up here, especially in the 90m-wide Stalinist masterpiece of Karl Marx-Allee, a processional avenue that runs for 2 kilometers.

Massive, brutalist apartments stretch away on either side, but in the mass of crumbling flats, a few gems remain. The looming Kino International, whose second storey juts out above the entrance is a cinema that would surely be listed if it were found in Hackney or Shoreditch. Instead, they chase you out for taking photos. A few hundred metres on, there’s the Karl Marx Buchhandlung (book shop) as seen in the recent Stasi-themed movie The Lives of Others.

The road leads to a grim complex of offices whose central block remains as it was twenty years ago. This was once the heart of the secret police: the Stasi. When the police disappeared in 1989, fearing reprisals, Berliners moved in and established a privately run museum. It’s a living exhibition of the dictatorship, which the imposing curator, Steffan Leide, takes me through. Darkly fascinating, there are hundreds of artifacts of the regime that people like Steffan have saved from destruction: Trabant car doors housing infra-red cameras; recreated cells; straitjackets and uniforms; gifts to Stasi chiefs from the Soviet KGB.

Upstairs are the original offices of the top brass, left exactly as they were when the regime crumbled. From these plainly decorated and symmetrical rooms 91,000 Stasi officers in the dictatorship’s 41 regional offices were controlled with ruthless efficiency. The technology inside is dated even by 1989 standards: imagine the underground bunkers of the fictional island in TV’s Lost and you’re somewhere close.

“Of the 91000 Stasi, only three were ever convicted of crimes after the dictatorship fell,” Steffan explains. “Of them, two were for murder committed off-duty, one for collaborating in terrorism. It’s incredible. We have records of the Stasi deciding to indict 17-year old heavy metal fans for subversion, just because they liked Iron Maiden. It’s important that people know this exists here. If they want to learn about just what it was like, they can visit.”

Just a short hop away you can see the more public side of the GDR at a small shop called Mondos Arts. Selling a mixture of genuine GDR pop culture goods and repro versions, it’s a cornucopia of socialist imagery, from slogans on medals, board games about protecting borders, military hats and helmets – even socialist egg-cups. For a city so newly transformed, it’s surprising how few of these outlets actually exist.

Of course, everyone expects to see the infamous Berlin Wall when they visit. But where is it these days? The only large remaining stretch of the wall is at Muhlenstrasse, along the river by the Ostbahnhof station. A few other, tiny fragments survive, but it’s here that you can see and touch 1.2km of the legendary graffiti dedicated to those who suffered – and were shot – for denying the 3m-tall concrete divide’s authority. At the eastern end of this, there’s even a gift shop where you can still buy certified chunks of the wall, complete with pictures of the original painting that it came from.

To the south in the tatty neighborhood of the Ostbahnhof, is my hotel. The Ostel is a gaudy celebration of the old state; a concrete block of apartments that’s been transformed back into a snapshot of 1980s socialist chic. Portraits of Stasi chiefs line the walls, and huge wooden televisions show loops of Cuban revolutionaries. The wallpaper is violently loud, the furniture functional. The place is rammed. “It’s a great place to work,” the manager tells me as she leads me to my room. “People come from all over the world to see what this place is like.” In the morning, I’m accosted in reception by a German TV crew who are running a news story on the place. “It’s exactly as our friends remember the city before reunification – and a great way to live in the past without the bad memories.”

Stay at

Ostel Wriezener Karee 5, tel. 030 25768660 www.ostel.eu

Look at

Stasi Museum Ruschestraße 103, 10365 (030) 553 68 54 www.stasi-museum.de

Kino International cinema Karl Marx Allee 33

Gedenkstätte Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Stasi state prison. Genslerstr. 66
13055, (030) 98608230

Schlesischer Busch Command Post The last remaining Berlin Wall guard tower. Am Flutgraben 3 – 12435, open Thursday to Sunday, 2 pm to 7 pm (May-Oct). (030) 5321-9658 www.kunstfabrik.org

Shop at

Mondos Arts Schreinerstr. 6 10247 030 42020225

Shoot at

Soviet War Memorial Treptower Park www.treptowerpark.de

East Side Gallery Mühlenstraße, www.eastsidegallery.com