Berlin is the capital of Germany, a city that was divided into East and West from 1945 to 1989 and brutally severed by the Berlin Wall from 1961 to 1989. But Berlin is also the name of a well-known sculpture, the Berlin Sculpture, located in the median of the Tauentzienstrasse, not far from the famous Kaiser Wilhelm Gedaechtniskirche. http://www.walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/iconic-kaiser-wilhelm-memorial-church/. If you are positioned just right, the sculpture will frame the church perfectly.
Berlin Sculpture in the median of Tauentzienstrasse with the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedaechtniskirche in the background. Photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2017. www.walled-in-berlin.com
How the Berlin Sculpture came about
In 1987, two years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the city celebrated its 750th anniversary http://www.walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/berlins-long-history/ To commemorate the occasion, the city of West Berlin commissioned a group of artists to create artistic sculptures for its main boulevard, the Kurfuerstendamm. The eight winning sculptures went on display. Husband-and-wife team, Brigitte Matschinsky-Denninghoff and Martin Matschinsky, created one of these eight sculptures and placed their creation within close proximity of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, the house of worship that was so heavily damaged during the bombing of Berlin during World War II. http://www.walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/the-battle-of-berlin-ended-wwII/
The Berlin sculpture consists of four chromed nickel steel tubes, shooting up into the sky, seemingly courting each other without touching. By placing the cylinders in close proximity, yet inaccessible to one another, the Matschinsky-Denninghoff sculpting team tried to represent Berlin’s situation in a symbolic way. From a certain angle, the Berlin Sculpture looks like a broken chain whose links are severed, which symbolizes the division of East and West.
To everyone’s surprise, only two years after the Berlin sculpture was created, the Berlin Wall fell quite unexpectedly. http://www.walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/the-day-the-berlin-wall-fell/ Today, the sculpture is a reminder of Berlin’s history during the Cold War.
For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, click “Download a free excerpt” on my home page and feel free to follow my blog about anything German: historic and current events, people, places and food.
Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.
