Mainz (1N) Trier (1N) Aachen (1N) Cologne (2N) Siegen (en route) Eisenach (2N) Erfurt (en route) Naumberg (en route) Weimar (2N) Altenburg (en route) Dresden (3N) Meissen (en route) Leipzig (1N) Dessau (en route) Berlin (4N)
Once more the world is watching as Germany remakes itself. Since the 1990 reunification of West Germany and the DDR (German Democratic Republic), the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany) is slowly, sometimes painfully, emerging -- with all the attendant frictions and frustrations -- as a democratic, unified, prosperous and powerful country in the critical "Mitteleuropa" region. A nation of 16 Laender (federal states) and 82 million citizens, with its national capital in a united -- and architecturally transformed -- Berlin.
Here the visitor has a rare opportunity to see and feel, day by day, history in the making. And while the Wiedervereinigung (reunion) remains far from complete, with the eastern sector still lagging economically, an immediate and welcome benefit was to end the 45-year fragmentation of the nation's cultural legacy. The dramatic beauties of German art and architecture, restored to a new lustre, are now as accessible in Dresden, Potsdam and Weimar as in Cologne, Aachen or the former West Berlin.
DAY 1 LEAVE USA
Overnight transatlantic flight from USA to Frankfurt International Airport, Germany's busiest, for connection this morning to Mainz.
DAY 2 FRANKFURT / MAINZ
Short motorcoach drive southwest to the sun-dappled, cobblestone streets and cozy wine bars of Mainz, the 2000-year-old city on the Rhine which was once the northern defense of the Roman Empire in the Rhineland. Present-day headquarters of ZDF, Germany's second TV/radio network (Europe's largest), "Golden Mainz" is the attractive, lively capital -- especially festive during pre-Lent Karneval's "crazy days" in February -- of Rhineland-Pfalz (Rhineland Palatinate), which encompasses the southernmost end of the fabled, vineyard-rich Rhinegau where the limpid light inspired German Impressionists like Max Slevogt.
An important medieval trade center, Mainz was the birthplace of Johannes Gutenberg, inventor in the 1440s of a printing press using movable cast metal type which initiated the first modern communications revolution; his magnificent "42-line Bibles" are landmarks of 15th century art and technology. After a disaffected Augustinian monk took his stand in 1517, it was the printing press which propelled Martin Luther's explosive Reformation message across Germany in a flood of sermons, commentaries, addresses and woodcut illustrations as well as his magnum opus, the German Bible.
Near Mainz's fascinating Gutenberg Museum is the 6-tower red sandstone Dom or Cathedral which overlooks the pleasant market square. In its cloister is the Dom- and Dioezesanmuseum (impressive medieval sculpture , goldsmith artistry). Also visit Landes Museum (Roman works); modern Rathaus; St Stephan's Gothic Church (Chagall stained glass) and the Roman-Germanic Central Museum in an elegant Rococo building erected for the city's archbishops and Electors (Roman and medieval monuments and armaments plus a model of Charlemagne's palace complex at Aachen -- see Day 5). Time permitting, visit the Kupferberg Museum with its elegantly florid vine-motif Jugendstil Traubensaal of the renowned firm Kupferberg Sektkellerei, where you may sample varieties of "sekt" (sparkling wine), the pride of local viniculture.
DAY 3 TRIER
Morning drive southwest nearly to the Luxembourg border, past lush Mosel valley vineyards of this idyllic countryside. Trier is Germany's oldest city, an outdoor museum of Roman monuments -- and incidentally, birthplace of the originator of the materialist theory of art, one Karl Heinrich Marx. Originally a settlement of the Celtic Treveri, the city on the Mosel became a provincial capital "Augusta Treverorum" by decree of Caesar Augustus in 16 BC and a favored imperial residence in 3rd-4th cs. as well as Germany's first bishopric under the great emperor Constantine in 314 AD, one year after his Edict of Milan legalized Christianity and at one stroke changed the course of world history.
The big Dom here is an important mainly Romanesque cathedral next to the city's Liebfrauenkirche, one of Germany's earliest (1235-60) Gothic churches and a kind of update in that style of the Aachen Palatine Chapel you will see day after tomorrow. Nearby is the huge Konstantin-Basilika or "Aula Palatina" surviving from his palace; its enormous interior rivals Rome's Pantheon. See the Schatzkammer der Stadtbibliothek, Rheinisches Landesmuseum (largest German collection of Roman artifacts incl famous Mosel Ship sculpture) and Bischoefliches Museum (rare Roman frescoes, Carolingian, Gothic art). There are demonstrations of crafts like glasswork and etching at the Kunsthandwerkerhof, Simeonstiftplatz..
". . . the early fourth-century basilica at Trier was a simple brick-built wall, rectangular apart from the projecting apse and with little ornamentation other than the lines of arcading. It served . . . most probably as the audience hall of Contantine's palace in the city. The austerity of the building's design offset the elaborate court ceremonial which focused upon the person of the emperor, who would have appeared enthroned in the apse. . . . The marble paneling on the walls, mosaics and the generous supply of natural light through the windows must have served, as it were, to reflect his glory." (J. Huskinson)
DAY 4 TRIER / AACHEN
Morning tour begins with the 20,000 seat Roman amphitheater from c 100 AD -- the venue for "blood sports" of sensational spectacle and cruelty -- and Constantine's extensive Kaiserthermen (Imperial Baths) which, added to the earlier Barbarathermen, greatly furthered Trier's reputation as an aristocratic spa town. Even more famous is the massive Porta Nigra (early 4th c), the "Black Gate"of darkened limestone blocks symbolizing Rome's far-flung power. (Pevsner calls it among "the grandest creations of the Roman sense of power, mass and plastic body".) See also Staedtisches Museum Simeonstift, a collection of historical documents and artwork housed in the remains of the 11th c Simeonskirche named for this local hermit-saint.
Conclude with 2 notable churches: St Matthias in South Trier, a Romanesque abbey and parish church with subterranean early Christian burial chambers; and North Trier's St Paulinus, the latter built 1734-51 according to design of Balthasar Neumann, Germany's greatest Rococo architect (and the almost exact contemporary of Bach and Handel, the only comparable German artists of the period.) Continue by motorcoach travelling north near the Belgian border into the populous, prosperous state of Nordrhein-Westfalen (North Rhein-Westphalia) to the beautiful old Carolingian city of Aachen, where rest of day is free.
DAY 5 AACHEN / COLOGNE
A city of pivotal importance in early European history, Aachen with its hot springs became the capital and chief residence in his old age of the legendary Charlemagne: Carolus Magnus or Karl der Grosse, King of the Franks, crowned by the Pope in Rome as "Roman Emperor" of the West on Christmas Day, 800 AD. As part of the intended Carolingian revival and transplanting of Roman civilization, traditions and prestige summarized by the legend on his seal, "Renovatio Romani imperii," Charlemagne built Aachen's most important surviving building, the octagonal Palatine Chapel (hence the city's French name Aix-la-Chapelle) 792-804. Designed by Odo of Metz, this key monument conveys an "assurance and urbanity" worthy of antiquity (K.J. Conant) while reflecting the inspiration of Byzantine Ravenna's famed 6th c church San Vitale, although the "spaciousness and airiness of the latter is completely lost in this solid little building." (D. Bullough)
In this setting lie the remains of this regal father-figure hailed as "Europae Pater" near his marble koenigsstuhl (throne) and the dazzling riches of the Pala d'Oro altar and Cathedral Treasury. See Barbarossa's chandelier, Shrine of Mary gold and silver reliquary and Charlemagne's golden bust with jewel-studded crown. Conclude this morning's tour with a visit to the 14th c Rathaus (Town Hall) built on the site of Charlemagne's palace. Here since 1950 the prestigious "Karlspreis" or International Charlemagne Prize has been awarded annually to an individual who has contributed to European unity.
Afternoon drive east to the largest city on the Rhine, Koeln (Cologne), with its sweeping embankments and distinctive silhouette of the massive twin-spired cathedral, a magical sight at night. After visiting the Diocesan Museum (Lochner's Virgin with Violets, Persian Sassanian silk, sacred art), go to the majestic Cathedral, Germany's biggest, most famous Gothic structure, with a breathtaking height of both interior nave and two west towers. Begun in 1248, the "Dom zu Koeln" was built over 6 centuries, completed 1880 and miraculously spared a major hit during the Allied bombing which destroyed so many of the city's Romanesque churches. Here you see the Treasury Room, magnificent Shrine of 3 Magi and by contrast, the sombre Gero Crucifix, a lifesize wood sculpture of the Ottonian period dated c 975-1000 presenting, says H.W. Janson, "an image of the crucified Saviour new to western art: monumental in scale, carved in powerfully rounded forms, and filled with a deep concern for the sufferings of the Lord."
Cologne Cathedral, "the most splendid of Rayonnant cathedrals. . . . the outcome of judicious study of the greatest achievements of French Gothic during the previous quarter century. . . . Independence from the inhibiting traditions of French Gothic facade design, allied to perfect mastery of the Rayonnant idiom, enabled the architect of the west front at Cologne to conjure a sublime vision of verticality unequalled in Gothic architecture." (C. Wilson)
DAY 6 COLOGNE
Today's tour examines the city's art and architecture reflecting Cologne's long evolution from classical times to the present. When a local noblewoman married Roman Emperor Claudius, he elevated her town in 50 AD to status of a Roman city with Latin name Colonia (well-preserved Roman tower not far from St Gereon catheral dates from this period). Charlemagne himself appointed first archbishop to this growing medieval town, a trading and ecclesiastical center which ultimately joined the prosperous Hanseatic League and became the most popular pilgrimage destination north of the Alps.
Morning tour of short visits to several churches, route depending on where hotel located: St Maria in Lys- kirchen (13th c frescoes); landmark St Maria im Kapitol (c 1040-65, characteristic Cologne Romanesque trefoil east end, cube-shaped block capitals, carved doors) and adjacent female statue mourning WWII civilian dead by onetime Bauhaus instructor Gerhard Marcks; St Peter (Rubens Crucifixion) and next door the St Caecilien church with its Schnuetgen Museum of Christian art; Antoniterkirche or Church of the Antonines (Barlach memorial angel); Museum fuer Angewandte Kunst (Jugendstil and a Memling); Kaethe Kollwitz Museum; and 11th-13th c St Gereon honoring city's patron saint with its early frescoes and delicately ribbed decagon. Then visit 2 major museums, the Roman-Germanic (floor-size Dionysos Mosaik) and the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum and Museum Ludwig complex, a striking l986 structure designed by Godfrid Haberer (German art medieval to modern, notably Die Bruecke and Der Blaue Reiter groups; Russian avant-garde; Picasso, American Pop and other international trends).
DAY 7 COLOGNE / SIEGEN / FREUDENBERG / EISENACH
Drive this morning due east, stopping at Siegen, birthplace and boyhood home (1577-87) of the great Northern Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens, whose parents had left Antwerp fleeing Spanish persecution in their native Flanders. His works are in the Siegerland Museum collection of the Oberes Schloss, one of the castles of the House of Nassau-Siegen founded in late 13th c by Graf (Count) Otto I. Also visit the 13th c Nikolaikirche in the Neumarkt: its galleried ambulatory with groined vaulting around the central hexagon is the only example of this design in northern Europe.
Leaving Siegen, you loop back northwest to pass through the attractive town of Freudenberg with its wonderful array of traditional "half-timbered" facades. Then continue eastward through Hessen (Hesse) and into the former Communist DDR Land of Thueringen (Thuringia) en route to the historic town of Eisenach.
DAY 8 EISENACH
A town richly endowed with names and monuments of German history and culture -- being the birthplace (1685) of J.S. Bach is but one of its distinctions -- Eisenach was the original seat of the Margraves of Thuringia at the Wartburg, the legendary 900-year-old castle perched atop the wooded hills overlooking the town. This is the northwest corner of the Thuringian forest (Thueringer Wald) running through the East German heartland.
The Wartburg served as the great hall for medieval minnesaenger contests of song and poetry as depicted in Schwind's fresco here (and dramatized in Wagner's "Tannhaeuser"). Most importantly, the castle provided a year's seclusion and security (1521-22) for Martin Luther's monumental translation of the New Testament. Goethe promoted the castle's preservation and restoration (by von Ritgen 1838-90) as a national architectural monument reflecting the Romanesque, Gothic and 19th century styles.
Morning tour of the Wartburg, with its famous Luther Room and Museum (incl portraits by friend Lucas Cranach the Elder, distinguished court painter to Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony and Luther's political protector), Minstrels' Hall and 13th c Apartments of St Elizabeth. Afternoon tour: Bachhaus with Donnbach's rugged statue of the composer erected on the Frauenplan for the bicentenary of his birth; Lutherhaus; Stadtschloss (porcelain, glass); Rococo banquet hall; Georgenkirche where young Luther was taught and Bach baptized; Predigerkirche, former Dominican monastery noted for outstanding wooden sculpture (perhaps early Germany's most characteristic sculptural mode).
DAY 9 EISENACH / ERFURT / NAUMBURG / WEIMAR
Morning drive east from Eisenach to Erfurt, Thuringia's capital and largest town, now over 1250 years old (founded 742 by English missionary St Boniface). As a point on the "via regia" (royal way) the town on the Gera river flourished as a medieval trade center and acquired an acclaimed university (founded 1392) where Luther was both student and teacher as well as becoming a monk, then priest, in the local Augustinian order. Known to churchmen and humanists as "Erfordia turrita" or Erfurt "rich in towers," the well-preserved old town is dominated above the Domplatz by the striking ensemble of the Cathedral with its 11-plus-ton "Gloriosa" bell and the three-spired Severi Church. You cross the Gera by Europe's longest elevated street, the Kraemerbruecke (a medieval bridge with 32 half-timbered houses) then tour the Anger museum (Cranach, Baldung, Feininger, Corinth).
Afternoon drive northeast into Sachsen-Anhalt (Saxony-Anhalt) to the town of Naumburg on a high terrace above the Saale's right bank at the confluence of the Unstrut. Besides the Gothic Wenzelkirche, the main attraction is SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral, particularly the stunning statues and reliefs from c 1240-50 by the anonymous genius known as the Naumburg Master. Here are the church's founders and patrons, men and women of varied pose and lifelike charm, distinguished by "the most beautiful young women that Western sculptors ever carved, women both vigorous and maidenly, around the choir of Naumburg Cathedral." (Pevsner) And here, by contrast, the central figure of the choir screen, climaxing a series of Passion scenes in a powerful Crucifixion: an exhausted Saviour flanked by an agonized Virgin and John the Baptist.
Return tonight to Thuringia and the very different world of a small (pop. 60,000), elegant city on the gentle River Ilm named Weimar, designated by the European Union as the continent's Cultural Capital for 1999.
"The theater building, free standing and palatial, is the visible center of any major German city -- as much so, or even more so, than the principal church or cathedral." (M. Esslin)
DAY 10 WEIMAR
Weimar is a haunted name, evoking the memory of a brief, brilliant avant-garde culture (symbolized by the Bauhaus movement) and the ill-fated Weimar Republic, an abortive democratic experiment followed by the Nazi nightmare and world war: Buchenwald concentration camp lies a few miles outside the town. Yet historically, Weimar before 1920 embodied the highest ideals of German humanism and intellectual aspiration, being the home of such luminaries as J.S. Bach (6 of his gifted sons born here); Goethe, Schiller, Herder and Wieland; Franz Liszt and Friedrich Nietzsche; visitors and sojourners included Hoelderlin, Jean Paul and Kleist.
Tour their monuments and memorabilia, beginning this morning with the Church of SS. Peter and Paul or "Herderkirche," the philosopher's burial site, adorned with the final painting (appropriately, a triptych of his lifelong friend Luther preaching) by Weimar's earliest artistic celebrity, Lucas Cranach the Elder. Also visit the baroque Wittumspalais or Widow's Palace of the cultured Duchess Anna Amalia, guiding spirit of Weimar's legendary "court of the muses," bibliophile benefactress of the magnificent 800,000 volume library bearing her name. Her son Herzog (Duke) Karl August was a model of Enlightened governance whose half-century reign (1775-1828) fostered the remarkable "Bluehtezeit" of cultural effluoresence spanning the Classic and early Romantic eras.
Adjacent to the palace is the stately German National Theater which has performed the classics for well over 2 centuries. Goethe, its longtime artistic director, is represented in bronze on the Theaterplatz standing shoulder to shoulder with Schiller jointly holding a laurel wreath: Rietchel's famous dual statues embody the noblest ideals of "das Land der Dichter und Denker" (land of poets and philosophers).
Afternoon tour: the Goethehaus, where Germany's greatest author and polymath lived over 5 decades l782-1832, also his simple Gartenhaus amidst the bucolic scenery of the Park an der Ilm; the Schillerhaus, last residence of the father of German drama and author of "An die Freude," Beethoven's 9th Symphony finale; also see the handsome Cranachhaus and Chateau Belvedere. Finally, across from Liszthaus is Henry van de Velde's original Bauhaus: begun under the Belgian painter-designer in the form of a school of arts and crafts in 1906, it was taken over in 1919 and reorganized by his successor, the gifted, energetic architect and former cavalry officer Walter Gropius who named it the Bauhaus, working with Klee, Kandinsky and Feininger for 6 history-making years before moving to Dessau.
"I firmly believe that Weimar, precisely because it is world-famous, is the best place to lay the foundation-stone of a republic of intellects." (Gropius, 1919)
"THE ULTIMATE AIM OF ALL CREATIVE ACTIVITY IS THE BUILDING! The decoration of buildings was once the noblest function of the fine arts, and the fine arts were indispensable to great architecture. . . . ARCHITECTS, PAINTERS, SCULPTORS, WE MUST ALL RETURN TO THE CRAFTS! . . . . Let us therefore create a NEW GUILD OF CRAFTSMEN . . . . and create the new building of the future, which will combine everything -- architecture AND sculpture AND painting -- in a SINGLE FORM which will one day rise toward the heavens from the hands of a million workers as the crystalline symbol of a new and coming faith." (Manifesto of the Bauhaus, 1919, illustrated with Feininger's woodcut of Gothic cathedral)
DAY 11 WEIMAR / ALTENBURG / DRESDEN
Depart Weimar, heading due east to Dresden. Stop en route in Altenburg, perhaps the most characteristic of Thuringia's old court towns, where you see Lindenau Museum (porcelain and state rooms) plus Rathaus and Alter Markt.
Then continue into the culturally privileged, economically vital state of Sachsen (Saxony) to beautiful, tragic Dresden, the "Florenz des Nordens" (Florence of the North ), home to a great orchestra, the rich Saxon State Library and from 1905 to 1911, the vital young "Kuenstler-Gruppe Bruecke" or Artists' Group of The Bridge (later transplanted to Berlin) of among others Heckel, Schmidt-Rotluff, Pechstein and esp Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.
Dresden was ruled by the Dukes of Saxony from the 15th century to the empire's breakup in 1918. Their greatest exemplar, the energetic Elector Friedrich August I der Starke (Augustus the Strong, 1670-1733), took time off from his amazing number of concubines to proclaim true greatness: "princes gain immortality from what they build" and projected his edifice complex, so to speak, across the city, putting a glorious Rococo stamp on Dresden in the early 18th century. Monuments like the Zwinger Palace and the beloved Frauenkirche stood as serene civic landmarks for more than two centuries. . . .
DAY 12 DRESDEN
On the night of February 13-14 1945, wave upon wave of British Lancaster bombers and American Flying Fortresses passed over an unprepared, lightly defended target, methodically releasing the napalm bombs which ignited the Elbe into a river of fire as the cascading, roaring inferno consumed at least 35,000 (mostly civilian) victims and destroyed 80% of the historic center of one of Europe's loveliest cities. Ordered by Bomber Command at least partly as revenge for the Luftwaffe's savage assaults on London and Coventry in the Battle of Britain, the saturation firebombing of Dresden remains controversial -- with emotional partisans on both sides -- a half-century later, even after most of the city was preciously rebuilt.
This morning's tour begins on the Theaterplatz with Gottfried and Manfred Semper's 19th century neo-Renaissance Opera House, scene of historic Wagner and Richard Strauss premieres -- and reopened by the then Communist authorities 40 years to the day after that devastating air raid. Across the square is the Katholische Hofkirche where 49 Saxon rulers are entombed; in the Neumarkt stand the sombre symbolic ruins of Georg Baehr's famous Frauenkirche -- only now after reunification being painstakingly rebuilt for the city's 800th anniversary in 2006. Take in the view from the Bruehlsche Terrasse, dubbed "Europe's Balcony" by Goethe; cross the Augustus Bridge to view the "Goldener Reiter" statue of Augustus II and the Neustadt's original buildings like the Kuegelgen House; Dreikoenigenkirche and Japanische Palais. Afternoon excursion to delightful Schloss Pillnitz and its park.
"Everone who directly and authentically conveys what drives him to creation, belongs to us." (E.L. Kirchner, Manifesto of Die Bruecke, 1905) "One of the aims of Die Bruecke is to attract all of the revolutionary and fermenting elements to itself -- that is the meaning of the name Bruecke." (Karl Schmidt-Rottluff)
"Thus arose a group called Bruecke quite automatically, with each person inspiring the other. Kirchner introduced the woodcutting technique from southern Germany, having taken it up again after he had been inspired by old woodcuts in Nuremburg. Heckel started carving wooden figures again; . . . . Schmidt-Rottluff produced the first lithographs on stone. The group's first exhibition took place on their premises in Dresden; it received no recognition. However, much inspiration came from Dresden itself due to its scenic beauty and ancient culture. Here also the Bruecke group found their foundation in art history with the works of Cranach, Beham and other German masters of the Middle Ages." (E.L. Kirchner, Chronik K G Bruecke, Chronicle of the Artists' Group The Bridge, 1915)
DAY 13 DRESDEN
Morning tour of the magnificent Zwinger palace, Matthaeus Daniel Poeppelmann's early 18th c masterpiece for Augustus as both ruler of Saxony and "Rex Poloniae" (hence initials "ARP" on the facades). Original in conception, its massive brilliance enhanced by Permoser's superb sculptural decoration, the Zwinger ranks at the top of Germany's Rococo monuments even though only one section was completed. In 1847 Gottfried Semper added the northeast wing which became the Gemaeldegalerie der Alter Meister, an elite gallery containing some of the world's most fabulous Old Master canvases by Duerer, Holbein, Raphael ("Sistine Madonna" bought by Augustus directly from San Sisto), Titian, Giorgione, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Velazquez, Watteau. Also see Porzellansammlung (esp Dresden and Meissen china) and Historisches Museum. Afternoon tour of the Albertinum's Gruenes Gewoelbe (Green Vault) of objets d'art, jewelry and precious stones and the Gemaeldegalerie Neue Meister, 19th and 20th c artists from Caspar David Friedrich (dreamlike "The Cross in the Mountain," one of Romanticism's supreme images ) to Lovis Corinth, Expressionists like Beckmann and Die Bruecke painters as well as French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.
DAY 14 DRESDEN / MEISSEN / LEIPZIG
Short drive this morning up the Elbe to Meissen, passing through some lovely wine country (the cultivation area is small but the white wines of Saxony such as Mueller Thurgau and Traminer, are select and highly prized). Also en route is Radebeul, birthplace and museum site of writer Karl May, 19th century creator of the noble American Indian Winnetou and his honest white friend Old Shatterhand, durable best sellers and staples of German TV embodying this country's romantic fascination with the Wild West.
Meissen is where in 1710 the alchemist J.F.Boettger, working for financially strapped August the Strong, discovered the technique of making the hard-paste porcelain of outstanding quality and beauty for which this city has become world renowned. Visit the large modern factory with its demonstration workshop, showroom and historical collection; the Frauenkirche with its porcelain bells; and Nikolaikirche containing world's largest porcelain figures. Afternoon city tour includes the Albrechtsburg hilltop castle and cathedral. In the attractively restored Markt there is a Renaissance brewery of 1571; even earlier is the charming restaurant/weinstube (wine tavern) "Vincenz Richter." Then continue on to Leipzig, driving through much delightful, history-filled countryside dotted with the wonderful old towns of Saxony.
DAY 15 LEIPZIG / DESSAU / BERLIN
Leipzig, Eastern Germany's largest (pop. 550,000) city after Berlin, a historic center of trade and trade fairs since 1165, book publishing (over 20 million volumes annually), music, science and scholarship, has been struggling to rebuild itself since reunification -- just as many Leipzigers themselves courageously took the lead in the dramatic internal protests of 1989 which led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
City tour includes Hauptbanhof, Europe's largest railway station and a massive example of fin de siecle industrial architecture; Maedler Passage shopping arcade with its Faustian associations; Nikolaikirche, where nightly demonstrations peacefully brought the regime to its knees; Leipzig University tower; Neues Gewandhaus concert hall with its famous Beethoven sculpture, home of the historic Gewandhaus orchestra (its former "dirigent" Kurt Masur, now leading the New York Philharmonic, was a pivotal civic figure in the 1989 crisis). Leipzig's other pride musically is the Thomaskirche, burial site of J.S. Bach, composer and choirmaster here for his last 27 years. Also visit the Museum der bildenden Kuenste (esp German moderns like Kollwitz, Lehmbruck) and the gargantuan "Voelkerschlachtdenkmal" ("Battle of the Nations Monument") commemorating the 1813 Battle of Leipzig victory over the hated Napoleon.
Late morning drive to Dessau, home (1925-32) of the Bauhaus ("house of building," Gropius's inversion of "Hausbau," "building a house," the name itself incorporating the philosophy underlying the school's curriculum which included all visual arts linked by the key concept of "Bau" or "structure"). As the single most influential architecture and design movement of the century, the diaspora of its leading lights in the 1930s -- Hitler railed they were "un-German," debased specimens of "entartete Kunst," "degenerate Art" -- meant not only European architecture but the skylines of New York and Chicago were transformed forever.
Visit the Dessau buildings erected 1925-26, notably the archetypal "glass box" Shop Block (Gropius's masterpiece and one of the now classic monuments of the International Modern Style) and the Meisterhaeuser built for senior staff. In city center see the former Arbeitsamt, a 1920s employment office also by Gropius; then drive a few kilometers south of town to Bauhaus Seidlung, his suburb for the proletariat. Experimental Stahlhaus on Toerten estate by Georg Muche and Richard Paulick and futuristic house by Carl Fieger. Drive this evening to Berlin.
"The students were to be trained as both designers and craftsmen and imbued with the democratic collectivity of teamwork. Use, not cultural content or meaning, was to be their guide, and forms were to be derived from what the program and the industrial methods of production dictated. The new campus at Dessau . . . is the built manifesto of the Bauhaus system. In the main building we see the radically simplified cubic masses relieved only by balconies and projecting stairs, connected by bridges, the asymmetrical grouping, the emphasis on clinical, machine-pure surfaces and accessories." (Kostof)
DAY 16 BERLIN
Rapidly expanding capital of a newly united, puissant German Empire under the shrewd "Iron Chancellor" Bismarck and the willful, overreaching Kaiser Wilhelm II, Berlin became after the Weimar interregnum the projected architectural showpiece for Hitler, whose boast that the city would be unrecognizable in 10 years came to grim fruition on May 2 1945 as the Red Army's hammer and sickle flew from the Reichstag over a capital reduced to more tons of smouldering rubble than all of Germany's other cities combined. Rebuilt in the western sector following this "Stunde Null" (Zero Hour) as capitalism's consumer showplace, divided Berlin and the post-1961 Wall remained the tension-ridden symbols and flashpoints of the Cold War right up to the stunning events of November 1989. Formal reunification (3 October 1990) ignited an energetic campaign of reintegration, urban planning and massive construction projects (eg Potsdamer Platz) to transform Berlin into a 21st century "Weltstadt" and the predicted largest megalopolis -- pop. 3.5 million, expected to double within the decade -- between London and the Urals.
This morning's tour begins at Berlin's first neoclassical monument (modeled on the Acropolis), the Brandenburger Tor of 1788-91, landmark gate by C.G. Langhans surmounted by J.G. Schadow's celebrated quadriga of Nike. Flanking it is the new American embassy designed by the California firm of Moore Ruble Yudell in collaboration with Gruen Associates and, on the Platz der Republik, the famous Reichstag with its tersely evocative inscription ("Dem Deutschen Volke"-- "To the German People") built 1884-94 on Paul Wallot's design, burned in 1933, heavily damaged in the Battle of Berlin, rebuilt 1957-71 by an architectural team led by Paul Baumgarten and "wrapped" in l million square feet of silver wove n polypropylene fabric by the artist Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude in their 1995 "Verhuellter Reichstag"project.
Along the historic boulevard Unter den Linden extending into former East Berlin, old pre-war heart of the city, are Rauch's equestrian statue of Frederick the Great, Bebelplatz, formerly Opera Square -- scene of the notorious 1933 Verbrennung or burning of proscribed books -- and the Altes Palais, Alte Bibliothek, St Hedwig's (1st post-Reformation Catholic church) and Deutsche Staatsoper by G. W. von Knobelsdorff . The elegant Gendarmenmarkt is graced by the Deutscher Dom, Franzoesischer Dom and beautiful Schauspielhaus by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, painter, stage designer and Germany's greatest 19th c architect. Opposite Bebelplatz stand Humboldt University, founded 1810 as University of Berlin by Wilhelm von Humboldt, and Schinkel's Neue Wache (new guardhouse) monument dedicated by DDR to fascism's victims, now to "victims of war and authoritarianism." At the eastern end is Baroque Zeughaus (Arsenal) with Schlueter's martial decorative sculptures and housing Museum of German History; opposite is Schinkel's neo-Gothic Friedrichswerdersche church (exhibit of his life and work).
Cross the bridge to the fabulous Museumsinsel (Museum island), one of the world's greatest concentrations of artistic masterpieces. The Altes Museum, an outstanding Schinkel design, was Berlin's first museum in 1830 when W. Humboldt helped select the collection (German art plus enormous engravings and drawings collection of unsurpassed richness, esp Duerer and Botticelli illustrations of Dante's Divina Commedia). The Alte Nationalgalerie features 19th and 20th c art (incl the internationally under-recognized Adolph Menzel, famous in Germany for giant historical canvases like Frederick the Great's Flute Concert at Sanssouci; modern masters Kokoschka, Kirchner, Nolde, Pechstein, Dix, Grosz, Kolbe). The amazing Pergamon museum would alone be worth a trip to Berlin to view the dramatic Pergamon altar to Zeus from Asia Minor-- a stunning achievement of 2nd c AD Hellinistic sculpture and an almost equal feat of 19th c German archaeological excavation, transcontinental transportation and reassembly. The same technique was used to bring the Roman market gate of Miletus and the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, two stupendous wonders of the ancient world, to the Pergamon. Behind the Pergamon stands the island's fourth world class museum, the Bodemuseum; it holds priceless Egyptian, Byzantine and Early Christian artifacts.
Afternoon is free; you may wish to continue eastward to explore the vast Alexanderplatz with its revolving Fernsehturm or TV tower, a traditional hub of the city's life (memorably depicted in Alfred Doeblin's gritty 1929 novel "Berlin Alexanderplatz"). On the square's southwest are two 1930s buildings by the modernist Peter Behrens, founder of the Deutsche Werkbund, factory architect and industrial designer for the giant AEG electric company. In front of the town hall housing the municipal government of this new Berlin stand two sculpted figures of a "Truemmerfrau" and "Aufbauhelfer"-- silent reminders of the endurance of the city's women during the capital's darkest days of ruin and rebuilding.
DAY 17 BERLIN
Turning to western Berlin, this morning visit Schloss Charlottenburg (Charlottenburg Palace), built 1695 by elector Friedrich III of Brandenburg for his accomplished second wife Sofia Charlotte, for whom he named this initially modest-sized, Versailles-influenced structure. Six years later, crowned Friedrich I of Prussia, he honored his legendary father "der grosse Kurfuerst" Friedrich-Wilhelm of Brandenburg with Schlueter's powerful equestrian bronze commemorating the Great Elector's 48-year reign establishing Hohenzollern dynastic power.
Friedrich I's even more Francophile grandson, King Friedrich II of Prussia -- whose achievements as a tireless army- and state-builder, field general, accomplished flutist, amateur composer, historian, essayist and connoisseur earned him the name Friedrich der Grosse -- greatly expanded and beautified this chateau, adding an eastern wing by the aristocratic architect G.W. von Knobelsdorff decorated with marvelous rococo stucco and gilt ornament, tapestries, chandeliers and porcelain; it contains Frederick's personally chosen gallery of contemporaneous French artworks, esp Bouchers, Chardins and Watteaus (incl the "second version" of the latter's incomparable "Embarkation for Cythera"; Watteau was a favorite of the king along with lesser lights like Pater and Pesne). Badly damaged in the WW II bombardment of Berlin, the palace has been meticulously restored.
An equal attraction is the beautifully landscaped Schlosspark, laid out for Sophia Charlotte by Godeau, pupil of Versailles master Le Notre, later expanded and adapted in the English garden style. Visit the Belvedere by Langhans displaying Frederick II's Koenigliche Porzellan Manufaktur products.. Also the Schinkel Pavilion displaying furniture he designed and C.D. Friedrich paintings incl the extraordinary "Monk by the Sea" (1808-10) -- called his "most radical picture" (W. Schmied) -- and Schinkel's Mausoleum in Greek temple style with Hohenzollern tombs of kings, kaisers and their spouses.
Cross Spandauer Damm to the other Charlottenburg museums, the Antikenmuseum of Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities and its resplendent Schatzkammer (ancient Mediterranean jewelry, Scythian gold and the Hildesheim collection of Roman silver) the Aegyptisches Museum displaying the legendary bust of Queen Nefertiti (Nofretete to the Germans); the Broehan Museum (Jugendstil and Art Deco) and the Museum fuer Vor- und Fruehegeschichte (Pre- and Early History) incl remnants of Schliemann's fabulous Trojan excavations -- long believed lost in World War II, the bulk of them was revealed in 1995 and put on display by the Russians in Moscow.
"It is glorious to gaze out at an infinite expanseof water under a lowering sky in complete solitude at the edge of the sea. Part of it, to be sure, is that one has chosen to go there, that one must go back, that one would like to cross over, but that one cannot, that one has nothing of what it takes to live on and nevertheless hears the voice of life in the rush of the tide, in the blowing of the wind, in the sweep of the clouds, in the lonely cries of the birds. . . . Never is one more wretched and forlorn than when faced with the world in such a way: the only spark of life in the endless realm of death, the solitary centerof an empty circle. The picture, with its two or three mysterious objects, lies before us like the Apocalypse . . . and since in its uniformity and boundlessness it has nothing but the frame as foreground, one stares at it as if one had no eyelids." (Heinrich von Kleist, "Sensations on Viewing Friedrich's Seascape," 1810)
DAY 18 BERLIN
Tour the glittering Kurfuerstendamm (the "Ku'damm") around Breitscheidplatz with its famous World War II memorial, the fin de siecle Kaiser Wilhelm Gedaechtniskirche bombed out in 1943 and the Memorial Church and Tower (1959-61), a slim octagon by Egon Eiermann utilizing 10,001 blocks of brilliant blue stained glass from Chartres. The labyrinthine Europa Center, designed in the 1960s by K.H. Pepper, is topped by a universally recognized symbol of engineering excellence, the Mercedes 3-pointed star. Continue along Tauentzienstrasse to the famous Kaufhaus des Westens or KaDeWe ("Kah-Day-Vay"), Europe's most colossal department store and west Berlin's temple of consumerism; its legendary sixth floor, the Feinschmecker Etage, offers an infinite variety of delectable foodstuffs, delicacies and potables you may sample at a score of lunch counters, restaurants and champagne bars.
For the Bauhaus tour of Berlin, begin near the 1990s-rebuilt Potsdamer Platz with its DM 3 billion Daimler Benz office-residential-retailing complex in the "Kulturforum" (the west's 1980s answer to the eastern Berlin Museuminsel), passing the dramatic Philharmonie concert hall (1956-63) by Hans Scharoun for the late Herbert von Karajan's sleek powerhouse Berlin Philharmonic Orchester (Berliners dubbed the tent-like structure "Zirkus Karajani," a pun on the Sarassani touring circus). Opposite is the Kunstgewerbemuseum (decorative arts eg 16th c Welfenschatz ); also visit collection of nearby Neue Nationalgalerie, classic International Style glass and steel building (1963-68) by Mies van der Rohe completed the year before his death; it stands opposite Scharoun's posthumous Staatsbibliothek (1978) housing one of the world's greatest libraries. Here too is the Wissenschaftscentrum (Academic Center) of 1987 by James Stirling and Michael Wilford, sponsored by the IBA (see Day 19). Nearby at Stauffenbergstrasse 14 is the Gedenkstaette Deutscher Widerstand (German Resistance Memorial) a brutally plain, somber testimonial to the officers who conspired to assassinate Hitler in July 1944, then tortured and killed in this same building.
Af ternoon trip to the rich Bauhaus Archive designed by Gropius near the Landwehrkanal on Klingelhoefferstrasse to see displays of the movement's multifaceted creativity and farflung influence in a variety of media with works, models and sketches by Mies, Breuer, Klee, Kandinsky, and others. Then go north through the idyllic Tiergarten park (originally an 18th c deer park) to intersection of Klingelhoeffer and Street of 17 June (the West Berlin extension of Unter den Linden, named for the date of the East Berlin workers' uprising in 1953) at the Sieggessaeule (Victory Column) celebrating the military campaigns which forged German unity under Prussian leadership in 1871; the column was moved here by Hitler from its original, more logical position in front of the Reichstag. Continue to park's northwest area where the Hansa-Viertel (Hansa Quarter) was rebuilt 1953-57 during a time of East-West tensions for the Interbau Exhibition of 1957 which included -- among contributions by Aalto, Le Corbusier, Niemeyer et al -- Gropius's block of apartments at Handelallee 1-9 in this international project lauded as a model "design of the Free World in all the variety of its forms."
"Perhaps the best laboratory for recent thought concerning urban structure is, once again, Berlin. Its 1984 International Building Exhibition began as a redevelopment project to upgrade a single district with new offices and luxury housing. But opposition . . . shifted the IBA's emphasis to long-term urban repair, socially integrated housing, and ecological responsibility. . . . whereas the Hansaviertel was an isolated collection of blocks executed in a single style, here we have new construction introduced around the city, with concepts like 'integrative architecture' and 'critical reconstruction' prompting as many stylistic responses as there are participants." (S. Kostof)
DAY 19 BERLIN
Survey of contemporary, post-Bauhaus Berlin architectural scene focuses on Internationale Bauaustellung (International Building Exhibition) or IBA projects of 1977-87 and the big Potsdamer Platz projects (and controversies) of the 90s involved in filling that no-man's land. Among IBA's stimulating, stylistically varied responses to challenges of new building in Berlin (IBA director J.P.Kleihues gave his 1987 program on "citybuilding with future" the title "Das NEUE Berlin" The NEW Berlin) are South Tiergarten's Rauchstrasse housing development master-planned by German-trained anti-modernist Rob Krier incl apartments by Krier, Aldo Rossi and Hans Hollein; on Ritterstrasse Krier also incorporated a reconstruction of K.F. Schinkel's Feilnerhaus.
In 1996 there were some 300 building sites simultaneously in Berlin, much of their ubiquitous giant cranes, scaffolding, machines and mounds of earth concentrated around the downtown stretch of the Berlin Wall and the previously destitute Potsdamer Platz area, historically very sensitive because major Nazi organizations and administrations from the Air Ministry and Chancellery to the SS and Gestapo were headquartered here (including the latter's prisons and torture chambers); the challenge of filling the territory from Potsdamer Platz to Leipziger Platz led to a series of Berlin Senate-sponsored hearings, forums and congresses, intensive sometimes acrimonious media debate and controversial, radically differing solutions in master plans submitted by Duesseldorf architect O.M. Ungers and the Munich/Berlin firm of H. Hilmer and C.Sattler -- to say nothing of the recurrent vexing problem of museums, monuments and memorials to Nazi victims here and elsewhere in the city.
More recent historical associations may be found in the South Friedrichstadt area, another prominent IBA residential and office project in 1980s, at Checkpoint Charlie where America's Peter Eisenman and Jaquelin Robertson (tour's 1st female architect) designed Block 5 building, corner Friedrichstrasse/ Kochstrasse near big Springer Verlag building; while here visit Museumhaus am Checkpoint Charlie to recall the history of the Wall. See also Zenghelis and Sauerbruch's Block 4 also on Friedrichstrasse and in same Friedrichstadt neighborhood the attractively versatile apartments on Lindenstrasse by Dutch architect Herman Hertzberger.
Afternoon is free. On your own you may wish to visit other IBA 87 areas like Tegeler Hafen (Tegel Harbor) with contributions by the Los Angeles firm of Moore Ruble Yudell and Nagel, the 1996 US Embassy competition winners; or IBA rehabilitation/add-on projects in Berlin neighborhoods of Luisenstadt and Kreuzberg. Earlier Berlin structures of interest includeWerner March's Olympic Stadium for Hitler's 1936 Games and nearby Strahlende Stadt, the enormous Corbusier House of 530 apartments designed for the 1957 Interbau; the Bruecke Museum on Bussardsteig near Dahlem Museums; the Martin Gropius Bau Gallery (designed by Walter's uncle and a forum for stimulating exhibits like 1996's "Marianne und Germania" on 2 centuries of French-German cultural symbolism and antagonism) on Stresemannstrasse near the Tiergarten; or Dorotheenstaedtischer Cemetery where K.F. Schinkel and J.G. Schadow are buried along with Hegel, Brecht and Heinrich Mann.
DAY 20 BERLIN / POTSDAM
Morning visit to the pleasant, fashionable southwestern residential quarter of Dahlem, home of the Freie Universitaet and the major museum complex Museum Dahlem, notably the Gemaeldegalerie (13th-18th c, esp Duerer, Cranach, Holbein; Italian Renaissance; Flemish and Dutch masters esp Rembrandt); Skulpturensammlung (Riemenschneider, Donatello); also Museum of Indian Art and Ethnographic Museum.
This afternoon continue southwest out of Berlin to unforgettable Potsdam, a fitting climax. After Frederick the Great selected Potsdam as his permanent residence in 1744, the town grew into one of Europe's greatest and most cultured imperial seats, its court visited by Voltaire, Bach and other savants who insured its reputation as Europe's leading center of the Aufklaerung was unsurpassed. The 600-acre Sanssouci Park alone houses four palaces -- Schloss Sanssouci, Neues Palais, Schloss Charlottenhof, Schloss Cecilienhof (now a hotel), the latter the locale of July 1945 Potsdam Conference between Truman, Stalin and Attlee -- and countless pavilions, notably the 1757 Chinesisches Teehaus, an exquisitely fantastical example of the "chinoiserie" craze which overran 18th c Europe. Best of all is Schloss Sanssouci ("without care") reckoned one of the most superb Rococo buildings ever created. Designed and built 1745-48 by Friedrich der Grosse's aristocratic architect Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff under the monarch's close oversight -- Friedrich sketched the general design, then dismissed the architect after a quarrel midway through construction -- the palace rises impressively above the lake, fountains and wonderful garden. The elaborate, richly decorated interior includes a white and pale blue music room one can imagine echoing with the sounds of flute, strings and harpsichord performing "Ein Musikalisches Opfer," the intricate, subtle variations Bach wrote as "a musical offering" for the king on a melody Friedrich himself composed. This cultivated monarch had decreed for himself a simple "philosopher's funeral" and burial with his beloved hunting greyhounds -- an edict carried out two centuries later, in 1991 after Potsdam joined a reunited Germany, whereupon Friedrich's remains were brought from Burg Hohenzollern near Stuttgart and reinterred at Sanssouci on the 205th anniversary of his death in 1786.
The palace remains Knobelsdorff's last masterpiece; and on his death shortly thereafter in 1753, Friedrich had the grace to overlook their recent estrangement and wrote (in French, naturally) a eulogy for the Berlin Academy.
DAY 21 RETURN TO USA
Fly from Berlin back to the USA.
Webmaster@diatravel.com
Copyright 1995-1996 DIA International Travel, Incorporated