Underground / overground

At work it happened that one person's hobby is learning and extolling the delights and history of the 'Berlin Underworld'. There is quite a vast assortment of air raid shelters, stores and goodness knows what hidden beneath the cobbles. I got the opportunity to visit some of the bunkers and pass on the photos to you!

Electrified steel beams put across the interconnecting subway tunnels during the Berlin separation to stop people escaping to West Berlin;

Underground dorms and ladies loos (hooks on wall above show where curtains once hung);

Map of one of the bunkers;

For more bunker info see http://www.berliner-unterwelten.de/

Nearby ('S' bahn station Nordbahnhof) is a section of Berlin wall complete with the hinterland ('behind') wall and a dividing strip in between. The main wall was on the West Berlin side and the hinterland wall on the East Berlin (Communist) side. Anyone caught attempting to cross from East to West would be shot and killed.

One stretch of 'The Wall', at the end is a large reflecting stainless stell plate to give the impression that the wall just went right on....

At a break in the wall (since re-unification!) is a cross to commerate those who died in the conflicts. In the background is an old cemetry, some coffins were reburied in the cemetry as the dividing strip was also once a put of it. Also in the picture are sections of the wall, now removed.

The Church of Reconciliation stands on the site of a former church that ended up caught in the divided zone and was pulled down to give the wall guards a clear line of sight to shoot would be escapees.

Berlin also has some remains of Flak towers that basically housed anti-aircraft guns. these towers are largely demolished/covered with large mounds of rubble, now well wooded. Consequently there was not much to take pictures of although in the adjoining park is a quite nice rose garden......

For more flak tower info see..... http://www.berliner-unterwelten.de/