3424 GERMANY (Berlin) - North East Antifa Berlin

The Antifa movement in Germany is a political current composed of multiple far-left, autonomous, militant anti-fascist groups and individuals. It has existed in different eras and incarnations, and takes its name from the historical Antifaschistische Aktion, an organisation affiliated with the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) that existed from 1932 to 1933. Antifa committees emerged across Germany after WWII with the involvement of trade unionist, socialist, communist and Christian groups; in the Soviet occupation zone and East Germany these were absorbed into the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany and became part of its official apparatus, ideology and language.

3209 GERMANY (Berlin) - Tramcar Class TM36 Number 3587 at Machnower Schleuse

The Berlin tramway is one of the oldest tram networks in the world having its origins in 1865 and is operated by Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG), which was founded in 1928. It is notable for being the third-largest tram system in the world, after Melbourne and St. Petersburg. Berlin's streetcar system is made up of 22 lines that operate across a standard gauge network, with almost 800 stops and measuring almost 190km in route length and 430km in line length.

3207 GERMANY (Berlin) - Berlin Cathedral after the bombing of May 25, 1944

Berlin Cathedral is located on Museum Island in the Mitte borough, and has never been a cathedral in the actual sense of that term since it has never been the seat of a bishop. The current building was finished in 1905 and is a main work of Historicist architecture of the "Kaiserzeit". At 114m long, 73m wide and 116m tall, it was much larger than any of the previous buildings and was considered a Protestant counterweight to St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City.

0428, 2488 GERMANY (Berlin) - Images of Berlin

2488 Berlin: 1. Siegessäule (Victory Column); 2. Art Deco stairs;
3. A view with new buildings; 4. Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate);
5. River Spree; 8. Reichstagsgebäude (Reichstag Building);

Posted on 24.12.2012, 25.04.2016
First documented in the 13th century, Berlin was the capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg (1417-1701), the Kingdom of Prussia (1701-1918), the German Empire (1871-1918), the Weimar Republic (1919-1933) and the Third Reich (1933-1945). After WWII was divided into East Berlin (the capital of East Germany) and West Berlin (a West German exclave), and following the German reunification in 1990 it regained the status as the capital of Germany. In the 1920s it was the third largest municipality in the world, and now, with a population of 3.5 million people, is the second most populous city in the  European Union, after London.

0428 Berlin: 1. Konzerthaus Berlin; 2. Unter den Linden;
3. Rotes Rathaus (Red Town Hall); 4. Schloss Bellevue (Bellevue Palace);
5 Reichstagsgebäude (Reichstag Building); 6. A view with new buildings;
7. Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral); 8. Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate).

Because is situated in an area of low-lying marshy woodlands with a mainly flat topography, on both sides of the River Spree, which empties into the River Havel in its westernmost borough, around one third of the Berlin's area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers and lakes. Of course that the history has left the city with a highly eclectic array of architecture and buildings, its appearance today being predominantly shaped by the key role it played in Germany's history in the 20th century.

2436 GERMANY (Berlin) - The Brandenburg Gate

2436 Berlin - Brandenburg Gate in 1930

The Brandenburg Gate (Brandenburger Tor) is an 18th-century neoclassical triumphal arch, one of the best-known landmarks of Germany. It is built on the site of a former city gate that marked the start of the road from Berlin to the town of Brandenburg an der Havel. Located in the western part of the city centre within Mitte, immediately west of the Pariser Platz, it is the monumental entry to Unter den Linden, which led directly to the royal City Palace of the Prussian monarchs.

0427, 2417 GERMANY (Berlin) - Reichstag building

2417 Reichstag building (1)

Posted on 24.12.2012, 28.03.2016
The Reichstag building (German: Reichstagsgebäude) is probably the most famous landmark in Berlin. Even though it was evident still since 1871, immediately after the unification of Germany, that there wasn't an appropriate building to house the Imperial Diet (German: Reichstag), its construction began only after more than 10 years. In 1882 was held an architectural contest, and the winner, the Frankfurt architect Paul Wallot, would actually see his Neo-Baroque project executed.

0427 Reichstag building (2)

The direct model for Wallot's design was Philadelphia's Memorial Hall, the main building of the 1876 Centennial Exhibition. The Reichstag's decorative sculptures, reliefs, and inscriptions were by sculptor Otto Lessing. In 1884, the foundation stone was finally laid by Kaiser Wilhelm I, at the east side of the Königsplatz, even if he didn't like the plans of the building. Before construction was completed in 1894, Wilhelm I died (in 1888, the Year of Three Emperors).

1671 GERMANY (Berlin) - DR electric multiple unit 276.1-5 on March 27th, 1991, near Lehrter Stadtbahnhof

An electric multiple unit or EMU is a multiple unit train consisting of self-propelled carriages, using electricity as the motive power. An EMU requires no separate locomotive, as electric traction motors are incorporated within one or a number of the carriages. EMUs are popular on commuter and suburban rail networks around the world due to their fast acceleration and pollution-free operation. Being quieter than diesel multiple units and locomotive-drawn trains, EMUs can operate later at night and more frequently without disturbing residents living near the railway lines. In addition, tunnel design for EMU trains is simpler as provisions do not need to be made for diesel exhaust fumes.

1334, 1335, 1603 GERMANY (Berlin) - The Berlin Wall

1334 Berlin - Conrad Shumann overcoming,
on 08.15.1961, the barbed wire at the Bernauer Strasse

Posted on 15.11.2014, 23.05.2015
The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was undoubtedly the most powerful symbol of the Iron Curtain, that separated the Western Bloc (the United States and its NATO allies) and the powers in the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its allies in the Warsaw Pact) during the Cold War. It was constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, and completely cut off (by land) West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin until it was opened in 1989. The Eastern Bloc claimed that the wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a socialist state in East Germany, but in practice it served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that marked East Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-WWII period. Before the Wall's erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, but between 1961 and 1989, the wall prevented almost all such emigration. During this period, around 5,000 people attempted to escape over the wall, with an estimated death toll of from 136 to more than 200 in and around Berlin.

1335 The fall of the Berlin Wall, 9 November 1989

In the first postcard is an East German soldier, named Conrad Schumann, leaping over barbed wire into West Berlin. Born in Saxony in 1942, Schumann enlisted in the East German police following his 18th birthday. After a training in Dresden, he was posted to a non-commissioned officers' college in Potsdam, after which he volunteered for service in Berlin. On 15 August 1961, he was sent to the corner of Ruppiner Strasse and Bernauer Strasse to guard the Berlin Wall on its third day of construction. From the other side, West Germans shouted to him, "Komm' rüber!" (Come over!), and a police car pulled up to wait for him. Schumann jumped over the barbed wire fence and was promptly driven away by the West Berlin police. The photo made by Peter Leibing has since become an iconic image of the Cold War era, and was inducted into the UNESCO Memory of the World programme. Schumann settled in Bavaria, where it was married, but his life has never been normal. On 20 June 1998, suffering from depression, he committed suicide by hanging himself.

Berlin - East Side Gallery
(the postcard contains a capsule with a fragment of the Berlin Wall)

The Revolutions of 1989, part of the revolutionary wave that resulted in the Fall of Communism in the states of Central and Eastern Europe, have led to radical political changes in the Eastern Bloc. After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere (in the second postcard). Over the next few weeks, euphoric public and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the wall; the governments later used industrial equipment to remove most of what was left. Contrary to popular belief, the wall's demolition didn't begin until Summer 1990 and was not completed until 1992. The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, which was formally concluded on 3 October 1990.

0430 GERMANY (Berlin) - Scheunenviertel in Berlin

Scheunenviertel (Barn Quarter) is a neighborhood of Mitte, in the centre of Berlin, to the north of the medieval Altberlin area, east of the Rosenthaler Straße and Hackescher Markt. Until the WWII it was regarded as a slum district and had a substantial Jewish population, with a high proportion of migrants from Eastern Europe. The name derives from several barns erected here outside the city walls in 1672, used to store hay in connection to a large cattle market at nearby Alexanderplatz. In 1737 King Frederick William I of Prussia required Berlin Jews to settle here.

0429 GERMANY (Berlin) - Unter den Linden in Berlin in 1910

Unter den Linden (under the linden trees) is a boulevard in the Mitte district, the heart of the historic section of Berlin, and was named so for its linden trees that line the grassed pedestrian mall between two carriageways. It runs the east-west from the site of the Stadtschloss royal palace at the Lustgarten park, to Pariser Platz and Brandenburg Gate. Eastward the boulevard crosses the Spree river at Berlin Cathedral and continues as Karl-Liebknecht-Straße. Major north-south streets crossing Unter den Linden are Friedrichstraße and Wilhelmstrasse.