In Berlin, my husband and I visited in early July. For accommodation booked Guest House Bigus, located in East Berlin in a sleeping quiet area of Pankov. We moved by public transport, using travel tickets for AB zones (within the city) and ABC (city plus his suburbs, for example, such as Potsdam or Oranienburg). For these tickets, you can use trams, buses, metro and electric trams all day without restrictions.
The main purpose of the trip was to visit the Bundestag, as the husband had already dreamed of watching the inscriptions of Soviet soldiers left on the walls of this building. To get to the Bundestag, it was necessary to sign an excursion from Russia. This is done online, in principle, it does not cause any special difficulties (although the translation into Russian on this site is very clumby), but we have faced with one serious problem - the dates of our stay in Berlin did not have the opportunity to sign up for a tour, which is held in Russian or At least English. I had to be recorded on the excursion, which is held in German, while neither I nor the husband of this language know at all.
To get to the Bundestag, it is necessary to undergo control, which is comparable by rigor to control at the airport. Metal detectors, checking bags, passports - all this was. Then all visitors are broken by groups, give a guide and starting a tour. As far as I can judge, we got a very good guide, with an excellent sense of humor, a very passionate man who loves his job and tries to perform her perfectly. Our group laughed, answered his questions, Ohala and Ahala, and my husband and I were because of the language barrier, did not understand anything and diligently did the look that we were insanely interesting. The inscriptions of soldiers saw them a lot, the Germans gently store them as a reminder that it was terribly terribly and repeatedly should not repeat.
As it seemed to me, in Berlin, in general, they generally belong to everything connected with the Great Patriotic War. There are not trying to silence the role of Germany in what happened, I did not notice and the desire to scold yourself. Rather, I saw the desire to redeem the deed. All monuments and monuments to Soviet soldiers (for example, a warrior memorial to the liberator in Trepps Park and the memorial to the fallen Soviet soldiers in Tiergarten Park) are maintained in excellent condition, purity, they lay flowers. Entrance to museums and memorials of military topics, in which we visited, free. In the photo Memorial to the fallen Soviet soldiers:
A lot about that terrible war was found out in the German-Russian Museum "Berlin-Karlhorst". The building in which this museum is located dedicated to the history of the Second World War is famous primarily by the fact that it was in him at night from May 8 to 9, 1945 a war was officially completed and the act on the capitulation of the German Armed Forces was officially completed. We have visited the hall where this important document was signed and where the end of the war was celebrated, watched video chronicles, inspected the exposition of the museum, somewhere admired the courage of our soldiers, somewhere we swallowed tears, reading the atrocities that were committed at that time. There are many photos, video, from which simply shiver takes, for example, frames from concentration camps.
An indelible impression left a visit to the memorial on the site of the Zakshenhausen concentration camp in the suburbs of Berlin in the town of Oranienburg. The first thing shocked, it is a terrible contrast - beautiful nature, pines, birds sing, and a deaf fence with barbed wire, guarding tower, gravestone. The kingdom of death, because about 100 thousand prisoners died here or otherwise. Someone was shot, someone died, not withstanding severe conditions. For example, there you can see the remains of a strip for testing shoes. For the one who was appointed to this work, it meant practically faithful death, because there were many kilometers to run in shoes on this strip, holding a bag with a cargo on the shoulders. Sooner or later, the body simply could not withstand this load.
Most buildings on the territory of this concentration camp are demolished and only the remaining contours fall asleep with gravel resemble their existence. But the fact that it remains with more than enough to feel all the nightmare, which has experienced prisoners. There you can still see the "Hospital" building with Morgom, where people were experimed; walk along the shot Rive, where many of our officers and simple soldiers died; inspect the residues of the Kremitatorium furnaces; Ploy to the preserved Barak prisoners. A terrible place with so hard energy that I after visiting it a few more days, and then weeks, went literally the patient. In the photo, the gate of the concentration camp with the inscription "Labor frees".
From places not related to war, only the area with the Brandenburg Gate and the Memorial of the Berlin Wall were visited in Berlin. With surprise, he learned that this wall consisted of two walls, between which there was a routine border zone, stood watching tower. I did not know that because of this wall, many people died trying to move from one part of Berlin to another. And after all, people fled not only for the best life, this wall for many years has divided many families, for example, parents stayed in West Berlin, and children - in East, separated from the family, people just wanted to reunite. This is how some sites of the Berlin Wall looked like, if you look at them from above:
In conclusion, I want to note that I have never previously considered Berlin as a city attractive for tourists. It seemed to me that he was not too beautiful, rather business than excursion. But I was mistaken, and in the very capital of Germany and in its surroundings a lot of things, which certainly deserves attention and worthy of visits.