As Europe once again hurtled towards all-out war in the summer of 1939, a monster began terrorising the women of the Nazi capital city. Preying on his victims – lone females often on their way home from work – under cover of darkness for almost two years before being caught. His preference for hunting on Berlin’s train network earning him the sobriquet: the S-Bahn Murderer.
When viewed backwards, it is conceivable to see history as one straight line – twisting and turning through time but inevitably leading directly to the present day. The events that furnish this past, however, are not merely stations on a journey: but junctions – where the course of history is settled, as each new trajectory is plotted. The past, as we know it, is as much a matter of what is – as what could have been.
While for all intents and purposes, the German Democratic Republic – commonly referred to as East Germany – came to a ceremonious end on October 3rd 1990, there is a fringe theory that the workers’ and peasants’ state still lives on – in the form of a tiny island off the coast of Cuba.
The liberation of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in April 1945 would finally put an end to nine years of Nazi atrocities commited here – but usher in a further five years of Soviet vengeance; as the site was promptly transformed into an NKVD detention centre. At the behest of the East German government, this ensanguined location would eventually open as a place of remembrance in 1961. Today, the Sachsenhausen site continues is similarly maintained as a memorial – just 35km north of the German capital. A place of education and learning – of coming to terms with the past and overcoming it.
Earlier this year, we covered the anniversary of the British Victory Parade that took place on July 21st 1945 – this month we take a closer look at the Allied Victory Parade of September 1945 when the four Allied powers gathered their troops to celebrate the defeat of Nazi Germany.
The thump of the 3rd Royal Horse Artillery’s 25-pounder-guns at 10 am on Saturday, July 21st 1945 was intended to represent the last time that British artillery would be fired on the streets of Berlin – and the start of the British Victory Parade.
As the largest engagement of the Second World War to take place on German soil, the Battle of Berlin would prove to be the desperate last stand of Hitler’s regime; the bloody coda to a war long lost & ultimately the coup de grâce to National Socialism. Join us as we explore the bloody details of these important seventeen days in the spring of 1945 in our day-by-day coverage of the Soviet invasion of the Nazi capital.
Intended to establish the framework for lasting post-war peace it instead ensured the division of Europe for the next 50 years and set the stage for the coming Cold War. To learn more about the first – and final meeting – between the Big Three (Truman, Stalin, Churchill), check out our blow-by-blow coverage of the Potsdam Conference, held near Berlin over seventeen days in the summer of 1945.
In our ‘Mythbusting Berlin’ series we explore some of the most commonly asked – and most controversial – questions about the German capital; and the characters & events that have come to define the city’s unique history. Challenging popular misconceptions and exposing the unusual; the profound; and the strange along the way.
In our ‘Do You Know Berlin?’ series, we we give you the chance to test your knowledge of the topics we explore on our Berlin Experiences, a great way to prepare for any Berlin visit or just to check your skills against the experts.
The saying that ‘the devil is in the details’ applies to Berlin as much as anywhere else. There is little sense here in simply familiarizing yourself with the city’s landmarks, streets, and squares when you are exploring it. What these places disclose in their minor details is what makes them so fascinating. Our “Explore Berlin In Objects” series offers the chance to learn about the city’s history through its many quirks; the items and objects that make up the city’s orchestra also act as the notes in the greater symphony.
