Berlin by rail: a cold-war journey

Eagle-eyed soccer followers heading to Berlin’s Olympiastadion for the Euros could spot what appears like an deserted area station topped with 4 monumental white orbs on a hill a mile or so south of the bottom.

The stadium – which is able to host the Euro 2024 remaining – has a extra storied previous than maybe some other. Constructed by the Nazis for the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the nice African American sprinter Jesse Owens received 4 gold medals right here in entrance of a watching Adolf Hitler, single-handedly debunking the Führer’s fable of Aryan supremacy.

However the bizarre sci-fi-looking constructing close by has an much more fascinating historical past. Teufelsberg (Satan’s Mountain) is a artifical hill eight miles west of town centre, created from 25 million cubic metres of second world conflict Berlin rubble that was piled on prime of a Nazi army academy to type the best level within the metropolis. Then, on the top of the chilly conflict, US intelligence companies constructed a hilltop listening station on Teufelsberg to intercept East German and Soviet communication. The station’s towers and large antenna radomes – these white domes that resemble big golf balls which protected the radars – are nearly comically eerie.

I’m in Berlin with my 15-year-old son, George, and we take the S-Bahn out to Grunewald, then hike up via the forest to Teufelsberg. After German reunification, the hill fell into disrepair and is now a bizarre canvas for road artists.

We climb the listening station tower to soak up gorgeous views of the Berlin skyline and what is without doubt one of the world’s largest road artwork galleries, with greater than 400 murals by artists from everywhere in the world. It seems like an deserted set from Dr Strangelove that’s been reclaimed by graffiti artists. George thinks the entire place is “very cool however a bit bonkers”.

We’re in Berlin to discover town’s enthralling chilly conflict legacy. Like most youngsters, George needs to be dragged round historic landmarks, nevertheless momentous (on a latest journey to Pompeii he declared himself formally bored half-hour in), however loves exploring wherever with a extra relatable fashionable historical past. (Two of our greatest journeys have been on the Beatles’ path in Liverpool and a tour of political murals and the Bloody Sunday march in Northern Eire.)

So the place higher to take a teen than Berlin, epicentre of Twentieth-century European historical past? In addition to kid-friendly favourites just like the Wall and Checkpoint Charlie, there may be numerous “new” chilly conflict historical past to discover. And equally essential for a teen, it is without doubt one of the coolest cities on the planet, filled with nice retailers, markets and “edgy” neighbourhoods.

We’ve come on the practice from London, and because the in a single day sleeper pulls into Gesundbrunnen station, it’s nonetheless darkish, abandoned and shrouded in a pre-dawn mist – such a broodingly atmospheric welcome to town, it feels made to order for our chilly conflict journey.

The European Sleeper we’re on (it begins in Brussels and was lately prolonged to Dresden and Prague) seems like an Jap bloc relic, too. The carriages have been constructed within the Nineteen Fifties and 60s and are filled with Soviet period “quirks”: the doorways of the compartment don’t absolutely shut, the heating is on full-blast all evening, and the curtains look as in the event that they went up earlier than the Wall. However the duvets are tender, the berths snug and we’re rocked to sleep because the practice trundles via the evening from Amsterdam to Berlin. (For travellers who would fairly join in Paris, and journey in one thing much less retro, a brand new Nightjet sleeper route hyperlinks the French and German capitals.)

On our first day we take within the Reichstag and stroll via the mighty Brandenburg Gate on the way in which to the brand new Cold War Museum, which brings the period to life via a collection of gripping digital actuality excursions. The primary takes us again to the seminal second when Berlin was actually cut up in two, proper down the center of Bernauer Strasse, which we’re standing in right here. The story is advised via the eyes and phrases of a terrified East German soldier; we hear him agonising over his future in a divided Germany: ought to he keep or go? In a heart-stopping second, he deserts his put up and leaps from east to west over the barbed wire border and into one other nation.

Nowhere within the metropolis emanates historical past like Tempelhof airport. Designed by the Nazis to be the world’s largest airport and a showcase of energy, it was by no means accomplished, however nonetheless performed a pivotal function in each the second world conflict and the Berlin airlift within the late Nineteen Forties. If we’d stood right here in 1948, the air would have been thick with American, French and British plane (a aircraft landed right here each 45 seconds at instances) airlifting meals and gas into West Berlin after Stalin had blockaded the western outpost.

To rejoice the centenary of its 1923 opening, a chic picket terrace has been added, giving entry to the airport’s unique management tower and views of town centre. Because the airport closed in 2008, the runways have been become Tempelhofer Feld, one of many world’s largest metropolis parks, and we glance out from the management tower on a whole bunch of cyclists, skaters, runners, canine walkers, revellers and households having fun with picnics and barbecues.

Like Teufelsberg’s ever-evolving canvas, the unfinished airport nonetheless seems like a piece in progress. That is what makes Berlin so fascinating: what to do with all this dwelling historical past as town figures out the place its tough previous sits in relation to its unsure future? It’s why four-metre-tall sections of Berlin Wall are nonetheless strewn concerning the centre: some curated in outside galleries or left as they have been in 1989; different standalone sections at the moment are memorials or vacationer sights; we even spot one in a junkyard, awaiting a brand new dwelling.

Even our lodge has a chilly conflict legacy: you wouldn’t guess it now, however the beautiful Lux Eleven apart-hotel (double rooms and flats from €106), on vibrant Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse in Mitte, was as soon as dwelling to the Soviet secret service. From our window, we’ve got a neck-wrenching view of the well-known East German TV tower, a reminder that we’re within the former GDR.

However east Berlin isn’t all concerning the chilly conflict. On Karl-Marx-Allee, the showcase boulevard constructed by the communists after the conflict, the Computerspielemuseum paperwork the historical past of arcade pc video games. George joins the handfuls of different excited children discovering the communal pleasure of Twentieth-century video video games, together with classics akin to Asteroids, Area Invaders and the unique Ps.

There’s even an arcade machine developed within the GDR within the mid-80s: Poly-Play incorporates seven totally different video games, together with a Pac-Man clone. A number of the 300 video games that may be performed are housed in an unique Eighties video arcade. Just like the Berlin Wall, a Twentieth-century phenomenon that has been consigned to historical past.