![\"Berlin](\"http:\/\/www.conedm.nl\/denald\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/dd53316f95e28448707cc6f8c4821750.jpg\")
Berlin after 1945 Source: Pinterest<\/p><\/div>\n
As you can see from this image West Berlin was fully enclosed by East Germany. For me travelling by train from the Netherlands this meant I had to cross West and East Germany before arriving and staying in West Berlin. In those days there was a hostile relationship between the two countries, comparable to the situation nowadays in Korea. This hostility was mainly due\u00a0to the difficult living situation in East Germany. East Germany was governed by the rule of dictatorship and the economic situation was becoming more and more deplorable.The East German government already feared since a long time that citizens would massively flee to West Germany and East Germany became more and more a fortress\u00a0and\u00a0the Berlin Wall,\u00a0built in the early 60s was obviously the most prominent edifice of this isolation from the West. Travelling\u00a0through East Germany I immediately felt the impact of this. When the train left the Netherlands into West Germany\u00a0all doors of the train were automatically sealed,\u00a0the train only had one destination on the programme: West Berlin. Soldiers and police were on the train and did intensive inspection of the bags that the travellers had with them. I vividly remember the border between West and East Germany: it was build not to let anyone pass it alive without permission.<\/p>\n
I must admit that my memories of the West Berlin visit are a bit less clear than my one day visit of East Berlin. In West Berlin I remember visiting Spandau and the Kurf\u00fcrstendamm, with its impressive KaDeWe shopping mall.\u00a0Because of the Wall it was complex\u00a0to travel from West to East and vice versa, there were however a few spots that would allow\u00a0you to\u00a0go from West to East. I think I passed East to West\u00a0through a checkpoint at the Friedrichstrasse. There was an intensive inspection and you had to exchange money and everything that was left at the end of the day you had to return to the East German border control (of course I could not resist to take\u00a0some East German money back into West Germany).<\/p>\n
I can conclude my East Berlin visit shortly as: depressing yet\u00a0fascinating. At the border just behind the Wall most houses were empty and guarded by soldiers. I remember visiting\u00a0the Palast der Republik<\/a> (Palace of the Republic) where the East German parliament was seated and the Fernsehturm<\/a> a\u00a0huge television tower in the city center. The Palast der Republik was dismantled in 2006, but the television tower is still present. Already in those days the tower had the rotating restaurant in the top of the building. The weather that day was dark and foggy so the promised beautiful view was absent. The food served in the restaurant was of terrible quality, which forced me to do a second meal later that night\u00a0when I arrived\u00a0back in West Berlin.<\/p>\n It was a strange situation, you could easily see that the East Berliners\u00a0had a lower living standard than their Western counterparts that only lived a few\u00a0blocks away on\u00a0the other side of the Wall. Also the difficult situation of living under a communist dictatorship was\u00a0a heavy burden for the East Berliners. I can recommend you the movie ‘Live of Others<\/a>‘ that gives an adequate view on how life was in East Germany.<\/p>\n So at the end of the day I left with mixed feelings East Berlin and went back through the inspection point and walked back to the comfort and luxury of West Berlin. Not long after my visit there would be\u00a0some dramatic changes in the situation in Berlin and East Germany. Due to upheaval in other communist states like Hungary, the East German people revolted against their government and as a result the Wall was broken down by\u00a0the end of 1989.\u00a0By the end of 1990 West and East Germany were reunited and Berlin became the capital for the reunited nations.<\/p>\n I am curious how Berlin is now in 2016 and am sure that Deny will share\u00a0her experiences soon!<\/p>\n -Den Haag, 31\u00a0Juli 2016-<\/p>\n