Vibrant Berlin has been reborn from the horrors of its Nazi past

The German capital is strangely quiet as 70th anniversary of war’s end nears

Seventy years ago, the linden trees were gone from this city that’s stood at the centre of world affairs for the past century.

The beautiful Unter den Linden thoroughfare in the very heart of Berlin was a shambles back then, thanks to Allied bombing that was soon to be replaced with artillery fire from the advancing Soviet Red Army.

Any of those famous linden trees — first planted 300 years earlier — that had somehow survived the bombs, couldn’t stand against the axes of the natives Berliners, desperate for any fuel to keep warm in a once beautiful city that had collapsed around them.

Ten years earlier, they’d even forced Hitler himself to relent and agree to replace the linden he’d ordered destroyed to make way for a wider, faster freeway. But in April 1945, there was no room left for sentiment, pride or history. After all, trees were just wood and wood could keep you alive.

But the lovely trees are back now; having been replanted in the 1950s, they once again make Unter den Linden the Germanic answer to Paris’s Champs- Elysees.

Germany, too, has been reborn from the horrors of that war it started and which, eventually, brought it close to self- destruction. The Berlin Wall that divided this city for so long was brought down a quarter century ago. East and West met and came together again and the remarkable economic resurgence of the reunited country has made Europe sit up and notice.

Yet, there’s a strange quiet in Berlin as the 70th anniversary of those final days creeps ever closer. It’s odd, because of all the countries in history that have abused their power, few have atoned so publicly and honestly as Germany. But ask about the location of Hitler’s bunker or question the fate of the 70- yearolds who were pressed into service as the Russians came closer, and you’re met with a wariness that doesn’t quite spill into hostility.

Search long enough, however, and you can find it — that awful yet still potent past.

Fittingly, the exhibition The Last Months Of The War is housed in the former headquarters of the Gestapo and the SS from 1933- 45. Today, it’s called the Topography of Terror Museum — appropriately the longest section of the Berlin Wall still standing runs alongside. There’s wisdom here, but it doesn’t come with neon or signposts.

As the exhibit shows, in those final months, few Germans had any illusion the definitive victory Der Fuhrer had vehemently promised would come to fruition. Quite the contrary. The total war released by the Nazis was about to finally consume Berliners themselves and the vast majority knew that only too well.

It depicts how Nazi propaganda changed from exhorting pride in victory to spreading fear about the oncoming Russian hordes. For perhaps the first time, there was truth in those broadcasts.

The savagery and death toll on the Eastern front was staggering. What the German war machine had done to the Russian people was frightening in its scale, and now, in April 1945, retribution was on hand. So much so, that 70 years ago, the most sought- after item in Berlin was a cyanide pill. Thousands were handed out by authorities before the Red Army inevitably and brutally took over the remnants of a city.

Wander from that display of fear and hatred into the sunshine of Berlin today and it is, in its own imitable way, an affirmation of humanity and progress. Once again, this is a city akin to what it became in the 1920s — a vibrant magnet for artists of all types, faiths and beliefs.

It’s a place where lovely trees grow. Call them what you will — lime or linden — they are the true and potent symbol of a city where hate and death won too many battles. But never, thank goodness, did they win the war.