This week we divided and conquered Germany. On Monday Doreen and Logan left for Frankfurt while Chad held down the fort in Berlin. Doreen wanted to attend the monthly dinner with her group of childhood friends that she hasn’t been able to attend for many years while Logan got to go to the local amusement park and play with Oma and Opa. Logan also got to see Alex and Peter’s farm where he took part in naming the cattle. By Friday everyone was reunited and we made plans for the weekend.

On Saturday we headed back to the Zoological Garten area of Berlin. A few months ago we went to this area and found a really unique mall named Bikini Berlin. Between the gourmet food court and the countless views of the zoo animals via the floor to celling windows, everyone found something of interest. The other reason that we wanted to head back this direction was to really take in the iconic Gedächtniskirche [Remembrance Church]. Back in February it was too cold to be outside for any length of time and therefore we couldn’t fully appreciate this awesome site. So, we found our second instalment for Churches of Berlin.

Churches of Berlin - Gedächtniskirche

If you come to Berlin and take a guided tour you will see three iconic churches on your tour - Gedächtniskirche is definitely on that list. It’s a rather young church by European standards but over time it’s place in history has elevated it to iconic status. The official and original name is Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche and it was built in the 1890’s not long after Germany became a country. Berliners have nicknamed it Der Hohle Zahn [The Hollow Tooth].

In the late 19th century, while Germany was experiencing a massive boom in the labor movement, there was a decline in traditional religious values. Marxism and other socialistic values were taking hold. The Zion movement was just getting started in Germany, Austria and Poland. The idea of nationalism as a call to arms over the notion of king and country was new and appealing. The traditional church was fighting to stay relevant and groups that were once perpetual peasants were beginning to look at the church as the main oppressor in their lives. It was with this backdrop that Kaiser Wilhelm II and Augusta Victoria commissioned Gedächtniskirche as a Protestant place of worship. The reason there are so many churches in Berlin is due to the Protestant Church-Building Program of the 19th century. Wilhelm II was known to commission, donate and champion the building of churches all around the city. Gedächtniskirche would end up being the pride of those projects.

Construction started on Gedächtniskirche in March of 1891 and was commissioned in September 1895 - full completion of the structure would not happen until 1906. When it was complete the church had nearly 30,000 sq ft of mosaic tile work and cost nearly 6.8 million Marks - which compared to historical prices of gold would be the equivalent to around $91 million in today’s money. This was a lot to spend for the time and the value can be seen in the tile and relief sculpture work.

Prior to The Great War, the church was the preferred location for weddings in the royal family and other official Kaiser events. Miraculously the church escaped the war without a scratch and continued to be a place of worship through the beginning of the 20th century. The location of the church was not far from several Nazi headquarter locations in the 1930-1940s and would be forced to endure many air raids during the war. With all the air raids Berlin experienced during the war it’s actually amazing that the church didn’t see a direct hit until November 23, 1943. Caretakers of the church would mutinously scour the ruble for each little piece of mosaic tile that fell from the celling and any piece from the marble relief carvings in hopes they could be repaired at a later date.

Hanging in the new building is a coal drawing done by Lieutenant Kurt Reuber, a physician and Protestant priest who served in the German army during the battle of Stalingrad. The striking beauty of the drawing juxtaposed with what it must have been like to live through some of the worst fighting during the war really sheds some light on just how resilient the victims of the war were. Reuber said of his drawing, “I wondered for a long while what I should paint, and in the end I decided on a Madonna, or mother and child. I have turned my hole in the frozen mud into a studio. The space is too small for me to be able to see the picture properly, so I climb on to a stool and look down at it from above, to get the perspective right. Everything is repeatedly knocked over, and my pencils vanish into the mud. There is nothing to lean my big picture of the madonna against, except a sloping, home-made table past which I can just manage to squeeze. There are no proper materials and I have used a Russian map for paper. But I wish I could tell you how absorbed I have been painting my madonna, and how much it means to me." Reuber would end up captured by the Russians in February of 1943 and wound not live through captivity. 90,000 Germans would eventually lose their lives during the battle of Stalingrad and the captivity after.

There are countless untold accounts similar to this priest’s story that have been lost to the shame of the events that unfolded. It wouldn’t be until the 1990s when Germans would be comfortable recounting their stories and by then many survivors would be lost to time.

In the 1950s it was finally decided that the church would be preserved as it stood. Some restoration of the mosaics would be done but in general the church would be preserved as a reminder of the devastation of the 1940s. Aside from the missing roof, there are still massive holes from tank shells and other explosives. Steel beams were erected around the structure to hold the broken stone in place and the old structure was retired from worship. In its place was built a new house of worship with a modern style and amazing organ. Additionally, a new bell tower was erected (it was under construction when we visited) and services continue to take place on a weekly basis.

Unfortunately that is not the end of the sadness this site would see. Last year this was the location of the mass casualty event where an Isis inspired attacker drove a truck through a crowed Christmas Market. At the foot of the stairs, memorials are kept for the victims of that day.

On Sunday we celebrated Mother’s day. Logan’s new bike seat has made it super easy to get around town on bikes as opposed to relying on the train. We took a nice ride through Tiergarten to get to our destination. We had a wonderful lunch in the garden along the river and then took a leisurely ride back through Tiergarten, along the path of the Spring blossoms, and through Brandenburg Gate. As the day wore on, Doreen got a welcomed mother’s day nap while Chad a Logan went for some ice cream. All and all, it was a good week.

Until Next Time,

The McNeills