Our last day.  Our last great breakfast and a bus ride to Check Point Charlie, the best known Berlin Wall crossing point between East and West Berlin.  I have seen this in old cold war movies and it always looked depressing.  The hated wall was built in 1961 by the Soviets to stop Eastern Bloc emigration and defection.  Pretty bad when you have to build a wall to keep your citizens IN.  Soviet and American tanks briefly faced each other during the Berlin Crisis of 1961.  Seems we were always on the brink in those day. The wall stood until 1989 when it was torn down making the unification of Germany possible.  The two distinct philisophies (democratic vs communisim)of life has made the blending of East/West a challenge and 29 years laters there is still some  friction and work to do to make the country one.

Touring the Wall museum we saw exhibits on the clever ways desperate East Berliners had tried to escape across the border. Folding them selves up in suitcases, stuffed in vw beetle trunks, zip lines, tunnels and the likes. It is estimated that around 5,000 made it across while many were shot trying.
Imagine one day you can’t visit your family who just lives across the street.

Nearby was the Museum of Terror (let the good times roll right?) This was the first time I have seen a swastica since I have been in Germany. I see more of them randomly at home.

The museum chronicled the Nazi beginnings up to the disastrous ending.
Very carefully done with such a horrible subject matter to try and show.

Our last lunch was guess what, pork based again! It was good but I really am ready for something else when I get home. We had a few minutes to shop but I am over the souvenir thing.

Our last stop of the trip was the Resistance Museum in the old Wehrmacht Headquarters building across the street from our hotel. I couldn’t miss that because I knew it would have great stuff on the White Rose Resistance Group and Sophie Scholl, my personal hero.

The White Rose was a secret group of intellectual, medical students who, at risk of death, printed and distributed anti Hitler/Nazi literature in Munich. The literature denounced the ways Jews and gays were being persecuted and general Nazi tyranny. They snuck around in the night leaving the pamphlets all around towns. A brother and sister, Sophie and Hans Scholl (a former member of Hitler Youth) were part of the group who were arrested by the Gestapo when a suitcase full of pamphlets traced back to them was found in 1943. Sophie, Hans and their friend Christoph were sentenced to execution. They were beheaded. They knew what the consequences of their dissent could bring and they did it anyway. True heroes.

We need them today.

And there it is.  When I came here my mission was to try and figure out how a nation of “good” people could condone the evils of Hitlerism.  I get it now.

Tell the people what they want to hear, feed off their fears and predjuices.  Tell them they are being attacked.  Disguise racism as patriotism.  Mock and insult people.  Lie to the people on a daily basis.  Denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Does any of this sound familiar?

The Germany I have seen is moving forward like a rocket while we are in decay and moving backwards.  I am so thankful for this experience and the wonderful “good Americans” who traveled with me.