Day 29: Berlin

Wednesday, September 11

I was up at 8:30. I didn't go back to sleep. And yet, somehow, i still didn't get out of the hostel until noon.
    I have no idea.
    But i was determined to at least go experience a little bit of Berlin on my last day in the city. I know i've been pretty focused on the film festival, but i've only seen 1-2 movies a day, that shouldn't be consuming all of my time.
    It was chilly and a little drizzly outside, so i put the sleeves on my jacket and the legs on my pants. These pants were brand new when i left, literally i took the tags off and put them on for the very first time the morning i headed to Chicago. The shorts and the legs already do not match in the slightest. They look like two completely different pieces of clothing.
    Not to be too gross on main here, but i was packing extremely light, these are the only pants i have, and i've only washed them once. The shorts look grayish-brown now. The legs are still deep blue. But they're the only ones i've got. So i wore them out in public.
    What's the sense in being embarrassed about it? I'm never going to see a single one of these people again as long as we all shall live.
    I took the train out to see the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. I thought it was an important one to see while i was in Berlin.
    I kind of knew what i was in for, here. It's a full city block with 2711 unmarked concrete slabs, or "stelae," arranged in a grid. They all measure 7'10" long by 3'1" wide, the dimensions of a coffin, but at varying heights.
    As i approached, i could see the vastness of the collection. Students were sitting on some of the stelae near the corner i entered from, working on what i assume was homework. There's a list of rules set in the ground near the entrance, including to observe a respectful silence, to "enter slowly on foot only," and to obey any orders given from security. I was a little surprised that "don't sit on the stelae" was not a rule, but i guess, why not? They're concrete.

    I walked along the edge of the installation for a bit, before finally turning and moving down a row. When you're standing at the edge of the monument, it looks like the blocks will get to be about waist height. As you wade into it, you realize the ground is not level, and the stelae are rising up above you. Pretty soon, you're in so far over your head you can't see where you started from.
    The tallest of the stelae are 15 feet.
    There were several groups of obnoxious teenagers moving about. Running, yelling, generally being pretty disrespectful, screaming "penis" at each other as loud as they possibly could. You know, like we did when we were teenagers. Although i like to think my friends and i were not like this in hallowed spaces, at the very least. The mall, yes; places of remembrance for atrocities, no.
    Eventually i did hear an authoritative, adult voice stop some of them. Don't know if it was security or a teacher or what, but it ended. For a little bit.
    As i was leaving, i heard the calls of "PENIS!" PEENISSS!!!" resume.
    I can see why this monument is controversial.
    I do wonder what the significance of the heights of the stelae might be. There are 2711 of them, far short of the six million Jews killed in the holocaust, so i'm curious if the total height comes out to six million centimeters? Or inches? Something like that?
    As it turns out, some of the other monuments i'd be looking for later were very close by, but unfortunately, i didn't check the Atlas Obscura before leaving the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. I knew there was something else nearby that i wanted to see.
    I got quite lost on my way to the Theater am Potsdamer Platz. My GPS kept giving me very confusing directions, and recalculating after i had done exactly what it told me. I saw a delivery truck bringing fresh cases of beer into a restaurant, but the driver's hand cart had tipped while he was on his truck's lift gate, and there were smashed glass bottles of beer all over the sidewalk.
    Ooofff. Sorry buddy, that sucks a lot. I used to have your job, i can empathize. I hate to see it.
    GPS was trying to get me to go fully around a block, but instead i just followed the sidewalk through a mall, leading me to a park. It recalculated as i walked along the side of the park, realizing i had saved several minutes. In the middle of the park was a strange monument, several long white cylinders suspended by pylons. I felt sure that i had seen pictures of this monument somewhere, but i couldn't find it on the Atlas Obscura, so i'm not sure where i would have. It didn't pop up on Google Maps, and there were no plaques, so i'm still not really sure what it was.
    But from that monument, GPS wanted me to walk around the entire perimeter of this long, skinny park, just to come back to the exact point where i was standing, and then cross the street. Maps, buddy, you're drunk. Why are you like this.
    I did finally make it to the Potsdamer Platz Theater. I wasn't going to see any movies, so i didn't actually go in, but i wanted to see it and familiarize myself with the grounds, at least. And given how difficult it had been to locate the place, i'm glad i have that little heads up for the future. Because, you see, this is the theater where the main events of the Berlinale Film Festival take place.
    Berlinale is, by attendance, the largest film festival in Europe. By prestige, it's beaten only by Cannes. This one is a well-known hub for indie films to pick up European distributors. I'm aiming high with The Monster of Mud Lake, and as long as it turns out as well as i expect it to, i'm planning on submitting to Berlinale.
    That's one of the core parts of this trip, honestly, is scouting out the locations of some of the film festivals i'm expecting to travel to with my movie. I know i've lost a lot of time, with how badly things have gone in the last few years, but i'm still optimistic that we might shoot in 2025, do post-production in 2026, and hit the festival circuit in 2027.
    Most of the cities i've visited host film festivals that have been on my radar for Mud Lake. I'm not just exploring, and vacationing, i'm actively scouting these cities, so i can be prepared for the future.
    And that's how i found out about the film festivals i am attending. Once i realized i could scout the grounds on this trip, i said, "hey, how many of them are happening while i'm over there? That i could actually attend?"
    Some Berlinale events actually take place at the Zoo Palast theater, where i've been the last few days for Berlin Fantastic, as well. So i'm getting a good look at many relevant bits, here.
    Across the street from Potsdamer Platz, there's a tall building that says "BLUE MAN GROUP" on the top. There's an awning over the ground floor that says "BLUE MAN GROUP." And there are several mannequins painted to look like the Blue Man Group both in the windows, and out on the sidewalk.
    Is this the Blue Man Group's headquarters?
    They have a main office?
    I guess they're more of a business than a band, really.
    I made my way over to Hansa Studios, which was also very close by. This recording studio has hosted many of the world's greatest musicians over the last several decades, but is best known as the spot where David Bowie recorded most of his famous "Berlin Trilogy," the albums Low, Heroes, and Lodger. Heroes was recorded at Hansa in its entirety; the other two, partially. Iggy Pop's Lust for Life and The Idiot, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' The Firstborn is Dead and Your Funeral My Trial are also examples of their work.
    There's a sign on the door that says tours must be booked in advance through a third party. Unfortunately, i did not do that, so i was stuck just standing outside, taking selfies in front of the holographic David Bowie poster that changes facial expressions as you move by it.
    Next, i went after the last remaining DDR Watch Tower in Berlin. These towers were stationed along the Berlin Wall, with armed guards waiting to shoot anyone who tried to climb over it. Most of them were torn down with the wall, others fell from decay over the last few decades, so this one alone is left, now dedicated as a historical monument.
    I followed my GPS until i hit a dead end. The road was closed due to some massive construction. A whole block was cordoned off with a temporary wooden wall, and where the road would go through, there was a chain link gate. Through the gate, i could see a lot of construction equipment, but also a tall sheet metal warehouse that seemed to have a wall missing. The missing wall was covered in metal cross beams, though.
    I looked at the map. Maybe i could go around? Perhaps the tower is on the other side of the construction? GPS, why did you do this to me again??
    But then i realized, there was a big poster right where the sidewalk met the wall. I went to have a look.
    "Dear visitor, Today, you wanted to visit the former GDR watchtower on Erna-Berger-Strasse. Now, you are standing in front of a wooden fence. Beyond this fence, you can see a construction site and a watchtower enclosed in sheet metal. Of course, you are disappointed, perhaps we can still give you an idea of what this former GDR border watchtower is like. You are in the right place."
    The phrasing of that just strikes me as...so German.
    The poster goes on to briefly explain the history of the tower, and has pictures of what it looks like normally, plus a schematic blueprint. So that's something, at least. It explains that the tower has been encased in the metal to protect it during construction. That's fair.
    I gazed back through the gate. I realized that, through the missing wall, through the cross beams, i could actually see the tower! So at the very least, i can get some shots of it in its little holding cell.
    Kinda feels like that missing wall should be a big deal, though, right? If it's supposed to protect the thing from the construction?
    I was standing next to the German Espionage Museum.
    This wasn't on my radar at all. But it seemed fun.
    What the hell. It was 2:00, my first movie wasn't until 6:15. I only had a couple of other nearby monuments i wanted to see. Should be plenty of time.
    The Espionage Museum was quite a lot of fun. There are many secret agent devices from all eras of history represented. Of course, the WWII and Cold War stuff is the most fun. I was particularly taken with a camera built into a matchbox. Very tiny, incredible miniaturization for its time. But what got me is, no one knows where it came from. No one knows who made it, or what organization used it, and the one on display here is the only one that's ever been recovered. All of the other spy tech on display has plaques with facts like, "Only 7,000 of these were produced." Most of the gadgets originally had runs in the tens of thousands.
    But only this one matchbox camera. As far as anyone knows.

    There's so many everyday items that had cameras built into them for spy shit during the Cold War. Gloves. Shaving kits. Bras. A lot of James Bond's gear is less farfetched than you'd expect.
    Guns also, of course. There's a very interesting one that's built into a glove on display. It fires a single shot, and the trigger is activated by pressing the gun up against the target's body. There's also the classic machine gun in a violin case. It's real, it's on display.
    The code transmission and interception devices probably make up the bulk of the museum, though. So many briefcase-sized transmitters from the World Wars. One interesting one from a bit later which is built into an excessively bulky belt, with an antenna running up the user's back. It's designed to be concealed under a tuxedo.
    The museum is also very interactive. A lot of it is geared toward kids. At the beginning, there are several codebreaking activities, which are fun for a minute. I created a "secret message" in Morse code, which printed out on a small slip of paper. It says, "falafel." Larry, from day one in Chicago, if you're still reading this, that's your legacy. It's been fifteen years and, to this day, whenever i need a random word, that's the only thing that comes to mind.
    Then there is an exhibit on espionage as portrayed in film. This section is, of course, dominated by James Bond; there is a wall with a cutout painted to look like the opening credits of any Bond movie, where he walks out into the gun sight, turns, and fires; at regular intervals, a projector bathes the scene in the blood dripping down from the top of the screen, and it goes red.
    It would have been impossible for me to get a proper video clip of myself in the thing without an accomplice (the perils of solo traveling), but also, there were many other people waiting to try the thing, so i didn't bother.
    Next to that, a monitor was playing the laser maze scene from the 2009 Get Smart reboot on, i assume, a loop. I feel like the laser maze scene from Entrapment is more iconic, but whatever, i guess. This is here because, just beyond it, they have an actual laser maze that you can try out. You've got two minutes to get through the hallway full of lasers before the "bomb" goes off, ie, you lose. If you break a laser beam, the bomb goes off. Spectators outside the laser chamber can watch your progress on an infrared monitor, which does not reveal the laser beams, so you just look kind of silly dancing around obstacles no one else can see.
    This room was packed, mostly with teenagers, so again, i did not spend the time to try it myself.
    The rest of the popular culture exhibit includes genuine props and costumes from some of the James Bond movies, as well as other spy thrillers, which is always cool to see. There's a big display about North By Northwest, but unfortunately, no props.
    Then there is a large book case spanning the whole back wall of this floor of the museum. It contains many books written about espionage, both fiction and non-fiction. There seems to be a reading nook in the middle of it, but all the books are behind plexiglas, so you can't actually read or touch them. Disappointing.
    Back downstairs, the last exhibit is on the modern era of security. They have a whole spy van setup that you can look into, but not enter. There are exhibits about modern techniques, and modern information security issues. One alcove is dedicated to bluetooth and wifi devices and their vulnerabilities, including a talking doll for children that was hacked and used to spy on said children, and three separate bluetooth sex toys that have been exploited in the last few years to steal personal data. All of these were real cases that happened. Someone got their butt plug hacked. All the products have been recalled.
    Another station has a simple computer game where you play a spy who knows one suspect of a five-person terrorist cell. You need to track them through a crowd, identify where and when they passed missile launch codes, who they passed them to, and who all the accomplices are. The game takes about two minutes, and at the end, you have to snipe all five of them in a crowd, without hitting bystanders. I played twice, the first time i only got two, the second, three.
    And then exit through the gift shop. I bought a postcard with the aforementioned bra camera. Someone will be receiving that in the mail soon. If i can find a place to send it from.
    I spent an inordinate amount of time from here trying to find a damn post office. The clerk at the spy museum said there was one in the mall across the street. All i could find was a fully-automated DHL package repository. I asked someone in an empty store, she said there was not a post office in the mall, but if i go outside, go past the subway, there's a yellow shop called Lotto that can do it.
    I could not find that shop.
    It was almost 5. I checked transit times. About 25 minutes to get to Zoo Palast. Movie's at 6:15. Do i still have time to hit those last couple monuments?
    I stood by the train station, debating, for far longer than i should have. Finally, fuck it, yeah, let's go. There's gonna be 15 minutes of trailers and introductions in German anyway.
    Walking toward the first one, i noticed there was some kind of Deutsch Post on the way.  I suspected it was just a drop box, but i figured i'd check. I walked past that location, couldn't see anything.
    The Monument to Georg Elser is a thin outline of the profile of the man who attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1939. His whole story is longer than i want to recount here, but it's a fascinating testament to patience, perseverance, and commitment to principle. It took him two years, but he finally planted a bomb right behind where Hitler would give his speech at the anniversary of the beer hall putsch. The timer worked perfectly, but unfortunately, Hitler had left the event 13 minutes early, because his flight had been canceled, so he needed extra time to travel by train. The bomb still killed 8 high-ranking Nazi officials and injured 63 others.
    Elser was arrested at the Swiss border, trying to find asylum there. He was interrogated and imprisoned until Hitler personally ordered him killed in 1945, just before the end of the war. An inscription plaque on the monument contains quotes from Elser's interrogations, including, "I wanted to prevent the war."
    I wasn't originally planning on going to this next one, it was rendered into obscurity on purpose, but people found out anyway. And it was just the next block over from Elser's statue, in the direction i needed to go anyway.
    I took a moment to stand in the parking lot built over the Führerbunker where Hitler had killed himself.
    For decades, the German government concealed this location for fear that it would become a gathering place for neo-Nazis. Of course, that information would leak out eventually, but it did take until 2006. A plaque including historical information and a schematic of the bunker was quietly placed at the site.
    When i got there, three separate tour groups were standing about the site, each with its own guide using an amplifier to disseminate their information. The crosstalk was unbearable. Maybe one of you could, like, walk to the other end of the parking lot? No? Everyone needs to crowd the sign? Alright.
    I ignored all of that and walked straight into the lot, alone, unsure if i was supposed to do that. There are logs laid down around the perimeter, and there's an arm preventing cars from driving in without authorization, but it's not like it's a fence or anything. Just step over the log, and you're in.
    I took just a minute to appreciate the history of the spot, and then i moved on.
    Last stop was the Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted Under Nazism.
    As i was getting closer, i realized exactly where i was.
    This one is directly across the street from the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. I definitely should have done these last three items right after that, and worked my way to the theater after. Would have been much more efficient. Now i'm gonna be scrambling after that train and i still haven't mailed my postcard.
    The Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted Under Nazism is in a park, behind a tree line, so it's not visible from the street. The dedication plaque is before the tree line, though, for some reason, about twenty meters away from the monument itself.
    The monument is another unmarked concrete block, this one much taller and wider. When i first saw it, i thought it might be a small building, like a public restroom, or a coffee shop. Because i hadn't seen the plaque. Because it's nowhere near the monument.

    This concrete box has a single window in it, though. It's roughly one foot by one foot, and if you look inside, video clips are being projected onto the back wall inside. As i approached, it was a shot of two men kissing. The camera circles around them, revealing several other men standing against the wall behind them with nooses around their necks. The camera continues, and beyond the edge of that wall, there's a large protest going on, with banners advocating for gay rights.
    The Nazi campaign against homosexuals is largely underreported among the other atrocities of the holocaust, but between 1933 and 1945, they convicted roughly 50,000 gay men under Paragraph 175, a statute which banned sexual relations between men. It's unknown how many of these convicted men were sent to the concentration camps, but the estimate is between 5,000 and 15,000.
    These victims were not officially recognized after the war. Paragraph 175 wasn't reformed until the early 70s, and abolished in 1994. The monument was unveiled in 2008.
    Now, i have to book it back to the train station.
    I was successful. On the train, i tried looking up post offices near Zoo Palast. A lot of things come up when you search for "post office" on Maps, but most of them are just drop boxes. It seems that full-service post offices are difficult to come by in the major European cities, for some reason.
    The first turned out to be another drop box. The second was one of those yellow Lotto stores that the clerk at the mall had told me about. The clerk at this one said they don't do that, but there's a post office that might still be open the next block over.
    I pulled it up on Maps. The hours were confusing, it was either 24 hours, or it closed at 6:15, but had mail pickups at 8 and 9:30 yet. Either way, i did not have the time. If it's 6:15 they'll be closed by the time i get there, plus that's when my movie starts, and if it's 24 hours, i can deal with it after the movie.
    It was 6:05. I wasn't hungry yet, the breakfasts at this hostel have been deceptively heavy, but i also didn't think i'd be comfortable through two movies without some food. I stopped at the same currywurst stand i had the first day i was at the festival. This time, i got it with fries, which was both much more satisfying, and much more food that i now had to cram into my face while walking to the theater, before the movie starts, in 10 minutes.
    It worked out, although the man at the counter put a preposterous amount of mayonnaise on those fries. I feel like i ended up throwing away as much as i had eaten. Just a huge glob of it right there in the paper boat.
    Here i was. The final day of the Berlin Fantasy Filmfest. The last two movies to screen this year. The two movies i was most excited about in the whole festival.