Last evening Mark and I returned from Berlin, where the German/American Fulbright Foundation was hosting a seminar. We visited nine museums, attended three lectures (where we listened to both the current and former American Ambassador to Germany inveigh against unilateralism and hail international cooperation as evidenced by the UN sanctioned no-fly zone in Libya), and visited John and Colleen's friends, Jonathan and Molly and their two children.
I was particularly interested in the history of fascism because of my current research, so we spent a lot of time in Berlin's Topography of Terror and German History museum. What struck me as I read the exhibits at the Topography of Terror Museum is how Hitler built popular support by creating a powerful sense of the Volk, work and charity programs combined with shaming public rituals for those who challenged his regime. What particularly moved me was the film footage of Jewish women carefully and lovingly preparing their children for the deportation to concentration camps where they would soon be killed. A little girl with long braids, looking up at her mother; her mother helping her affix the Jewish star to her coat.
Museumsinsel in Berlin, a UNESCO world heritage site.
Neues Museum, part of the Museumsinsel in Berlin, Mark and Collosal statue of Helios
Mark with a copy of the first computer designed by Konrad Zuse, Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin. The original was destroyed during the Allied bombing.
House Altar, Akhenaten, Nefertiti and three of their daughters, Neues Museum
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The bust of Nefertiti, Neues Museum (image from Wiki. No photos allowed of this, the museum's most famous artifact). I was tempted to buy a poster of this lovely artwork, but the caption annoyed me. Something to the effect of "Even though this woman is old she is still beautiful..." Ugh!
Photo taken from the Topographie des Terrors Museum. Berlin Wall and remnants of Gestapo Headquarters are in the foreground.
Statue of Bach, in front of Thomaskirche (St. Thomas Church) where all of Bach's children were baptized, where Bach is buried and where he served as a cantor. Leipzig
From Mendelssohn home, Leipzig. Wagner, another Leipzig resident, had disparaged Mendelssohn as Jewish composer, and Mendelssohn's reputation suffered for it.
"In a tractate, Das Judenthum in der Musik, first published in 1850 under a pseudonym in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Wagner wrote that Jewish music is bereft of all expression, characterized by coldness and indifference, triviality and nonsense. The Jew, he claimed, has no true passion to impel him to artistic creation. The Jewish composer, according to Wagner, makes a confused heap of the forms and styles of all ages and masters. To admit a Jew into the world of art results in pernicious consequences. In Deutsche Kunst und Deutsche Politik, Wagner spoke of the "harmful influence of Jewry on the morality of the nation," adding that the subversive power of Jewry stands in contrast to the German psyche." Lili Eylon http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Wagner.html
Oldest hammer-action piano, Bartolomeo Cristofori, Florenz, 1726, Museum of Musical Instruments in the University of Leipzig. Bach played on this piano, which, he found both intriguing and lacking.
Deutsches Historisches Museum, photo album of the Nazi invasion of Narvik, Norway
Poster celebrating the Norwegian fascist party, the Nasjonal Samling (or NS), Vidkun Quisling its party head. As I recall the display noted that 50,000 Norwegians were members of this party during the Nazi era.
Gate of Ishtar, Pergamon Museum, Berlin
from Gate of Ishtar, Pergamon Museum, Berlin
Pergamon temple, Pergamon Museum, Berlin
Pair of hands from an Akhenaten, Nefertiti statue
We had a wonderful visit in Berlin, although it was punctuated by an "I've lost my wallet scare" at the airport on the way home. Fortunately, the employees of Norwegian Air found it and returned it to Lost and Found where I retrieved it.
