Berlin...! (Part 1) The train gasped and panted like an old asthmatic patient. One could hardly imagine that this monster would be capable of taking us anywhere, and - after all we had heard and been taught about our destination, one wondered why it would even want to take us there - to Berlin! Prussian capital, with a charged history, going back much further than Napoleon's occupation, but more recently the capital of a more sinister group - the NDSP - also known as the "Nazi" party. The Capital was currently split into 4 zones, American, British, French and - the largest - Russian. Sounds so simple, 4 zones, just like four counties or Federal States - but it wasn't quite like that. There was a construction built to fulfill an impossible function - split a country completely in two. Hadrian had tried it centuries before and it hadn't worked - Chinese Emperors had tried it even longer ago, and it hadn't worked, now something called...

Berlin - Part 2 This is the Berlin Bear, city emblem, but in the past, travelling to Berlin, through Eastern German corridors was a real live adventure. To control the cars, and their contents, the Eastern German authorities went to certain extremes, even (as we now know) scanning them with radio active machines, not X Ray, but real nuclear stuff! They found people hidden regularly with the help of these machines. The East German Border Guards and the "Vopos" (Volks police) were a particular type. People unhappy with everything and everyone - even themselves, and they were aided and abetted by a whole army of military and civilians who enjoyed putting obstacles in the way - of everybody! On the transit road route, I recall a railway level crossing which became famous in the West, everytime the little functionaire reponsible for raising and lowering the barrier saw that holiday traffic was coming heavyily from or to West Berlin, he closed th...

Berlin - part 3 and last! Berlin West didn't exist of course at the end of the War, and that part of the City which became West Berlin , was just as badly destroyed by Russians, Americans, British and other armed forces as the rest was. When the so called " cold war " got under way, it became rapidly obvious that the best way of showing differences had to be by example, and excessive ones! West Berlin had to have everything, and in its best and biggest form. The photo shows a look into East Berlin, from the West, and if you had been able to look in the other direction, you would probably have seen a few of the following: This was in the 1960's, and there was still land left to build on...! The church steeple shown is called the "Gedaechniskirche" and no - it hasn't just been bombed, it was left like that as a memorial and protest against war. Th...

Mr.Ian Mitchell.....writes: "'Allo Ian...!" I promised not to mention a certain festival....!  J'ai promis de ne pas faire référence a une certaine fête....! So-   Donc........................."Allo Ian" 31 octobre 2009.