a lot of stuff happened in berlin

Berlin has been at the center of European history since 1871. Between 1871 and 1945, the Prussian-led German governments started two wars, the results of which were horrific beyond imagination. Between 1945 and 1989, Berlin was a divided city, the western half part of a West German democratic government, and the east under a Soviet-controlled one. You don't have to go looking far and deep to see the scars of this history here; they are all out in the open.

Some months ago, a friend's family member recommended to us Gabriel Fawcett as a tour guide in Berlin. Gabe is on the expensive end, and a day spent on a Gabe tour is going to wear you out but, if you are are interested in learning and seeing the history of this city then he's totally worth every penny. Gabe shared with us many things -- his deep and abiding knowledge of European history, German culture, modern politics and all manner of Mediterranean cuisine (which he believes is the source of all good cuisine).

Gabe is an early 40's Englishman with a large hat and a blue backpack stuffed with notebooks that are, in turn filled with photographs and maps that he uses as visual aides to show what particular spots in Berlin looked like in 1930 and 1945 and 1989. We started at Potsdamer Platz, near our flat. Potsdam Plaza was, before the Second World War, the center of Berlin. After the war, it was right on the border between east and west Berlin.

Gabe pointed out the Soviet bullet holes shot into the building where our flat is -- which can be said about pretty much every building that was here and east of Potsdam in April 1945. We walked east on  Niederkirchnerstraße, which divided east and west after 1954. On our left was the massive-former headquarters for the Luftwaffe, (German Air Force) and on the right Gropius Bau (19th Century hall for art and culture), next to the Reich Main Security Office, which housed the Gestapo and the Waffen-SS. It is notable, but not at all surprising, the number of different quasi-law enforcement entities the Nazis created and used to intimate and arrest their political enemies.

We continued our walk, stopping at Checkpoint Charlie, the one legal crossing point between east and west between 1961 and 1989. I am pretty sure we won the cold war, because we have Americanized the crap out of that place, right down to the fake U.S. Soldier standing in front of a faux 1960's guard box, both surrounded by a bevy of fast food restaurants. Owen did his part for the homeland, sampling the McDonald's fries (rating: good, but the worst of the McDonald's fries so far on his grand tour).

We headed north, and saw the North Korean Embassy. Apparently, the ironically named Democratic People's Republic of Korea signed a long-term lease with the East Germans pre-1989 and the unified German government feels bound by that. They have a propaganda glass booth in front, featuring photos of the Dear Leader and Vladimir Putin in various forms of embrace. There is also an NBA-logo'd basketball hoop in the back. Gabe says it was donated by Dennis Rodman. The North Koreans also run the hostel next door, which they have used to launder money in violation of international sanctions.

About a block away sits the former location of the Reich Chancellery, Hitler's home and office. Gabe showed us a number of photos of crowds assembled in the square below, with buildings that still frame the plaza today. The one building that is not there is the chancellery. It has been replaced by a series of apartment buildings, the ground floors of which include Chinese and Mexican restaurants. Yep.

We walked back into a small park behind one of the buildings, as Gabe showed us the outline of where Hitler's bunker stood, underneath his private gardens. Gabe described for us Hitler's final weeks and hours, sharing Hitler's enlightened view of his wife of 40 hours, Eva Braun, and the murder of the six Goebbels children by their mother before she took her own life. (The tree pictured here is at one corner of the bunker.)

Just on the other side of the street sits the Holocaust Memorial, which opened in 2005, and includes 2,711 concrete slabs, set into the ground to allow people to walk between them in a way that is both disconcerting, and focuses you on each individual person you see.

We kept going north, to the Reichstag (Germany's parliament), where there is a large viewing deck and restaurant on top. After filling our bellies and taking in the wonderful views of the city, we came back down and headed due east, through the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin's most iconic landmark, that until 1989 was behind a concrete wall.

We continued east, past the truly massive Russian embassy. Apparently, when you conquer a city and set up a puppet government, you get to knock down a couple city blocks for your embassy, daring the next, non-puppet government to come and knock it down.

We continued on through Gendarmenmarkt, a large square flanked by two 18th Century churches, one for the local Lutheran community and the other for recently immigrated French protestants, to the Bebelplatz, a large plaza that sits between the opera house, a library, Humboldt University and the Hotel de Rome. This plaza is most famous as serving in May 1933 as a sight where the Nazi German Student Union burned 40,000 books they deemed unworthy by ethnically or nationally-inferior authors or questionable subject matter or viewpoint. In the middle of the square is an underground memorial, a set of white book shelves sufficient to hold all the burnt books, with a viewing window made of several planes of transparent material, causing the reflection of everything above ground to appear hazy and as if in a fire. Extremely powerful, as are the eerily prescient words Henrich Heine that wrote in 1820 that are inscribed on the site: "That was but a prelude; where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people as well."

We continued east, on to Museum Island, which served from 1870 until 1939 as the home of several important museums of art and antiquity. As with everything else in East Berlin, after 1945, the Soviets took back to Mother Russia what was not bolted down and let the place fall apart. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and before the rise of Vladimir Putin, there was a brief period of semi-democracy in Russia, at which time many of the stolen items were returned. We will return later this week to see for ourselves.

Finishing our history tour, we walked east into the Hackescher Markt, vibrant district that has been largely revitalized since the fall of the wall. Gabe showed us the Hackescher Hofe, a network of colorfully-tiled courtyards filled with artisan boutiques and cafes. Gabe pointed out a few restaurant recommendations and, seeing the clock at 6:15 and an exhausted but happy group of Ecksteins, he helped us board the train bound for Potsdamer Platz.

Gabe moved to Berlin 20 years ago, he says, because he wanted to figure out the Germans. He began our tour by asking the semi-rhetorical question whether the Germans were unique in some way that can explain their role in history, in particular the Holocaust, or, if we could all have found ourselves doing the same atrocious things, given the circumstances. After I mumbled something about human nature being consistent but German sociology and culture being different, Gabe responded with his thesis: "Humor. Germans lack a sense of humor. And only a people lacking a sense of humor could have done this."

We have several days left in this fascinating city to test Gabe's thesis.