My trip to Berlin, part 2: I visit the relics of communism

As I promised yesterday, here is my second of three posts about Berlin. This post is about my visits to historical sites around Berlin that date from the time when part of the city was under communist rule. This meant that Berlin was under the control of the communist regime of the Soviet Union.

As I told you yesterday, Berlin is the capital of Germany and is located in the eastern part of that country. When Germany was defeated in 1945 at the end of World War II, the whole country was occupied by American, British, French, and Soviet troops. Because the Soviet Union did not get along with the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, Germany was divided. Three quarters of the country became a democratic country called "West Germany." The remaining quarter, which had been occupied by the Soviet Union, became a communist country called "East Germany."

When Germany was divided, so was the city of Berlin. Three quarters in the western part of the city were part of "West Germany," even though the city was fully surrounded by East Germany on all sides.

The Soviets went and put up lots of monuments in the part of Berlin that they controlled. One of them was this monument to Soviet soldiers killed during World War II. Can you see what symbol is on the monument? It is a hammer and a sickle, which was the emblem of the Soviet Union. It represented the workers who worked in the factories and the fields.

Here I am in front of the main part of the Soviet war memorial in Berlin. 

Here's a close-up of the hammer and sickle emblem on the Soviet war memorial.

Here is another part of the Soviet memorial.

Yet another part of the Soviet memorial.

Life in East Germany under communism was very difficult. The government was very cruel toward many of its own citizens. It set up a secret police organization called the Stasi, which spied on almost every person in the country. I got to see the building where the Stasi used to have their headquarters.

I pose in front of the old Stasi headquarters.

As you might imagine, many people in East Germany wanted to leave and go to West Germany, where they would have had much more freedom. In August 1961, virtually overnight, the Soviet and East German governments put up a huge wall. The wall divided West Berlin -- which was part of West Germany -- from East Berlin, the capital of East Germany. The wall was patrolled with armed guards to prevent people from climbing it. Here's a photo of the largest part of the Berlin Wall that is still standing today.

The largest extant portion of the Berlin Wall.

In 1989, the communist governments in Eastern Europe began to collapse. All the East Germans and the West Germans got together on both sides of the wall and tore it down. Before they did, they spray-painted much of the wall with graffiti. I got to see a lot of chunks that used to be part of the wall. Today, they are monuments to a time when the city of Berlin was artificially divided.

Part of the Berlin Wall. 

Part of the Berlin Wall.

Part of the Berlin Wall.

Part of the Berlin Wall. 

Part of the Berlin Wall.

Do you want to see part of the Berlin Wall without having to fly all the way to Berlin? You can! There is a beautiful spray-painted chunk of it on display in Seattle in the food court of the Center House at Seattle Center. You should ask your parents to take you to see it; I think it is very important that everybody understands what the Wall was and what it meant.

Now, many of the places where the Berlin Wall used to stand have been turned into parks. I got to go to one and have a good time.

The park had a bear statue, so I sat on it.

Everybody in the park was having a great time!