Berlin: "A New City Coming to Terms with Its Past"

I like the theme that Berlin has always been a new city just trying to figure out where to go. As sociology major, I find it fitting to begin with Karl Marx who is considered one of the fathers of my field of study. There’s an interesting juxtaposition which they touch on in the film. On the one hand, Marx’s ideas were where the conflict in Berlin began. He laid down the principles for communism, urged rebellion against the elite. Yet there are streets named after him, monuments idolizing him and can be connected to the reason the wall fell. I wish they would have gone more in depth on Marx’s influence and what his exact teachings were in the film, but they did hit the main points. He wanted a “Red Berlin” and urged the proletariat or working class to rebel against those above them. Hitler forced his way in to power that way, and the government post-WWI had to work very hard to keep the people from protesting as well. But in the end, it is Marx’s idea of the lower class overcoming the upper class that caused the fall of the GDR and the wall. It began with the government losing its grip on the people as they emphasized in the last part of the film, and then the people finally rising up against their leaders and reclaiming their community. So perhaps it is not ironic after all that they memorialize Marx for being such a beginner of war and as well as the initiator of freedom.

The women’s role in Berlin was also especially interesting. I did not realize they really were the ones that held down the fort in all the bad times. When the city was bombed, of course they were the only ones around while the men fought to protect them. Therefore they were left to clean up and try to maintain the sense of community in a city that wasn’t more than a pile of bricks and dust. Yet in spite of being heroes of their city, they were also victims of war crimes. I was surprised at the brutality of the Russians in their acts of rape but then again, it was war, wasn’t it? The story that touched me the most was the man who spent his life thinking he was American and when he finally set out to find his father found out his mother was raped by a group of Russian soldiers. No longer did he feel like the son of a hero but the son of the criminal. Yet his mother gave him up in an effort to continue her own life with the shame of the war. It absolutely amazes me that these women could go through such horrible day to day fear and violence and continue to work to try to make some normalcy in their lives.

The relationship between the East and the West compared to modern day Berlin is strange and ironic. The film mentioned that the West did not exist according to the East, yet they built a wall around it. They destroyed any remains that were reflections of the ideals of the West which basically is admitting that it is there. Then after the wall the West destroyed the structures of the East. I think it is just a little funny that the goal of the Nazis in the East was to make everything huge and better than anything else around it. The airport that is now deserted is one of the biggest buildings in Europe. The TV tower loomed over everything else in the state. Doesn’t this sound a little like America? “Everything is bigger in Texas!” supersize French fries, enormous mansions, obesity! Things we in America are all used to and look for in our TVs, homes, and cars. Now that does not make us like the Nazis but it sure sounds like we are trying to be better than everyone else just as they were. When it comes to East Berlin though, I think the most interesting question was posed by Matt Frei, can we appreciate the buildings and art left by the Nazis? Should we? I think Berlin may be past the wall and the Nazi regime but after all these years they still are trying to answer that question. I expect we will see these all over the city when we are there.

Let's All Learn from Luther

Martin Luther is one of the underappreciated great leaders of history. Of course everyone knows him for creating a new faith, but not many knew how much deeper his story went—I included until I started taking German.

Martin Luther

Culturally he created a new way of thinking. He made a huge impact in German speaking areas because he brought everything that was going on in the Holy Roman Empire down to their level. As they said in the movie he showed them how to “believe freely” by attacking the Empire and the Pope and showed everyday Christians that they could stand up to Rome. We talked about this in my Landmark Discoveries in Science last year. Before revolutionaries like Luther, most printed items were written in the “elite” languages like Latin and Greek which uneducated peasants could not understand. Luther brought the elite problems to those average people and gave them a sense of empowerment that lead to the eventual break away from the Empire and Church.

The printing press helped Luther communicate to everyone in a language they understood

As a leader I think Luther was a genius. Like I said, he brought the problems of the elite down to peasant level, but he did so with humor and wit so that he attracted an enormous audience of followers. He was incredibly effective when it came to getting people interested in his movement. I believe if he were around in the present-day he would be outcast not only for saying such caustic and crude things about high-up people, but also for refusing to apologize and insisting more people listen to him. With things like the “Occupy Movement” and the protestors of current issues, I think leaders should take some political advice from Martin Luther in how to attract and appeal to larger audiences to actually make their movements happen. They mentioned near the end of the film that his movement spread to the world including the pilgrims in America who moved for religious freedom. If only we could go back to his ideals and use them to make a difference in the things that matter today.

Maybe if they read up on Luther they could learn how to be effective so they don't have to!

At the end of the day, Luther was quite the mover and shaker. But like many things, his ideas were twisted and he got far too involved with his own cause. I think it’s sad he became depressed and even a little crazy after he was excommunicated and even sadder that his movement was twisted into something violent and out of hand. While his building blocks were great for the rest of the world to begin with, he spent the end of his life trying to fix something he was not even responsible for and had to watch his dream turn into a war between those in charge and those being ruled over—kind of a funny ending for a theologian who just wanted people to be allowed to live more freely, but under a religion more fitting to average people.