Our first ship had a very talented musician. He was self taught and played the piano and guitar and he could sing. After a couple of drinks three of us passengers were allowed to join him. We had great fun!! The wives just shook their heads
We had to do a ship transfer after 2 days because a bridge in Dresden collapsed and ships couldn’t get thru the mess. Bridge won’t be totally removed until next summer at low water! Viking made the most of it by getting us off the ship quickly and we made an unplanned stop at a local vineyard and winery.
We board the Viking River ship, The Astrild. Astrild means goddess of love in Norse mythology. The ship was built specifically for the Elbe River, which is extremely shallow. It was built in 2015, is 361 feet long, and can carry 98 passengers and has a crew of 33. It has a draft of only 3 feet!
We arrived in Wittenberg, Germany to start our river cruise portion of the trip. We walked thru the same streets that Martin Luther walked. We saw the door of All Saints Church where he nailed his 95 Theses.
But first we had a bus ride. It was a few hours with some stops along the way. Our first stop was the Glienicke Bridge over the Havel River. The bridge divided East Germany with West Berlin. It was the site of many prisoner/spy exchanges during the Cold War. It was made more famous with the movie “Bridge of Spies” starring Tom Hanks. We got to walk across the bridge like the spies that were exchanged during the Cold War.
We also stopped and walked the grounds of Cecilienhof Palace. This is the site of the Potsdam conference which was from July 17 to August 2, 1945. The most famous attendees were Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, and Joseph Stalin. This conference planned the post World War Two peace agreement.
After World War Two the Russians and EST German Stasi police had control of East Germany and East Berlin. To keep the people under communist control the Berlin Wall was built in 1961 and stayed up until 1989. From 1950 to 1990 the Stasi police arrested approx 250,000 citizens. The Russian KGB over saw the Stasi police force.
Museums like this keep the memory alive, in hope that man kind won’t repeat these atrocities.
Cut away view of the wall. It was well built with steel reinforcement and thick enough concrete at its base to defend against automobiles attempting to drive thru it.
The first new camp to be established by SS Heinrich Himmler as Chief of the German Police in 1936. It is located about 45 minutes from the center of Berlin. The complex was a model for all the future concentration camps.
More than 200,000 people were imprisoned here from 1936 to 1945. The Nazi regime first imprisoned political dissidents and then people they felt were racially or biologically inferior. Tens of thousands were put to death here by firing squads, gas chambers, an unethical medical research. And many died of malnutrition and decease.
And as they say the rest is history.
This excursion for us was a 4 hour history lesson. A very sobering history lesson! Much of the camp was destroyed after the Russians liberated the prisoners on April 22, 1945.
From 1961 to 1993 the camp was turned into a memorial and museum.
We as mankind, should never forget the atrocities of these times.
If we don’t study history and pass these lessons down to future generations we may be doomed to repeat the past! May this never happen again.
MAY WE NEVER FORGET!
One of the few East Berlin communist symbols remains in East Berlin. The ‘Walk’, ‘Wait’ pedestrian lights are unique. Karl Peglau, a medical traffic psychologist, spent 8 years developing the little men displayed on cross walk signals. He started design work in 1961 and they were implemented in 1969 and are still in use today.
But our bags didn’t 😬
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