As we began our day, we came up with a few more facts about Berlin. The entire city is built on sand and water, and so pipes are needed to pump out the groundwater before any building can take place. Since apartments are still being built in the DMZ between east and west, there are colorful pipes rigged above ground, over streets, and into a safe place for dumpling the water. This entire day and most of the rest of the trip will be in East Germany.

Another fact: There are actually two zoos in Berlin, the East Berlin Zoo and the West Berlin Zoo. Since the animals were treated better than the people, the East Berlin Zoo was named the better zoo because it had more land. When the war came, however, there was only the West Berlin Zoo— all the dangerous animals had to be shot because of the bombing. It was an added danger that they should escape.

1871, Otto Bismarck made Berlin look a bit like Paris, which he loved. Kusfsdamstrasse was built to look like the Champs-Élysées.

While we were listening to the lecture, I took notes on the books and movies about Germany, spies, and Berlin: 

Farewell Berlin by Christopher Isherwood. 

“Cabaret”

“Babylon Berlin” (movie about the roaring 20s)

The Spendid and the Vile Erik Larson (about Churchill’s early days as PM)

In the Garden of the Beast Erik Larson

“Bourne Identity” 

“The Bridge of Spies”

We are headed to Potsdam, a southern suburb south of Berlin. Lovely, quiet, and well-to-do area with a fabulous neighbor, the Sans Souci Palace. 

Potsdam is where the “Soldier King,” William Frederick, resided. His first son would inherit the throne, but was artistic and a reader, not a dictator like his father. They had a difficult relationship, especially since Frederick William I was gay and didn’t want to marry. He was forced into marriage, never had any children, and still became Frederick the Great because of his wonderful ruling powers. Everything he had went to his brother’s son, who was a philanderer and lesser king. 

More notes: The three big Allied Conferences took place at:

Tehran, Iran (Nov-Dec 1943)

Yalta, Crimea (Feb 1945) (I know all about this from The Daughters of Yalta.)

Potsdam, Germany (July-Aug 1945). By this time, Roosevelt was dead, and Churchill had lost power, so Stalin was dealing with newbies—Truman and Adley— which is why Stalin got everything he wanted, mostly a good portion of Germany and all the Baltic countries. 

We went through highly political territory that included going over the “The Bridge of Spies” over the Wannsee River. The Wannsee Conference in 1942 was where high-level Nazis met to decide “The Final Solution.” It took just 19 minutes to come to the decision to deport them to Poland and exterminate all of them. (Germany had concentration camps. Poland had extermination camps.)

There are many “mini” palaces in this area because, every king or prince wanted his own palace down here. Many of them became houses for the KGB.

We crossed the Bridge of Spies on foot, stopping in the middle of the road to take photos of each other with one foot in East Germany and one foot in West Germany. Then back to East Germany we went. 

Bridge of Spies (2015) is a Cold War spy thriller directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Tom Hanks as Brooklyn lawyer James Donovan, who is tasked with defending a captured Soviet spy, Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance), and later negotiates a prisoner exchange for an American U-2 pilot, Francis Gary Powers, in East Berlin.

Lots of Dutch architecture in Potsdam because Dutch craftsmen were hired to help build canals and drains for the groundwater, something the Dutch knew about.

Lots of walls were erected to keep the Prussian army from deserting. They got tall strong men to enlist by getting them very drunk— and when they woke up (wearing a uniform) they found that they had signed a contract promising 20 years of service. .

Short break for a few East German jokes:

How do you double the value of a (cheap East German car) Trabant? – Fill it with gas.

Four men were seen carrying a Trabant down the road. Somebody asks them Why are you carrying your car? Is it broken? They reply: “No, nothing is wrong with it; we’re just in a hurry.”

The palace was spectacular and small.

Our next stop was the ship—hooray! But bad news was waiting for us. The river levels are so low that our ship will be a floating hotel for two nights while we take a bus to the sights. Then we will change ships and stay on another floating hotel for a few nights. So at the orientation this evening, the man overboard drill and safety talk was about how to wear a life vest, but really just stand up in the water. It’s that shallow!

It turns out that we won’t be sailing at all on this river trip. Not enough water…

Viking is doing a great job, and the food is the best of the trip so far! Good night!`