Mornings, Mercedes and Museums

Good morning from Berlin. We're off to an interview with a TIME magazine reporter, then a couple of museums - one features the history of the Mercedes Benz and another the works of Helmut Newton.

Just to catch you up on a little bit more of the city, much of my wandering has been through the former eastern half of Berlin. the Soviet influence is still felt, although with a much lighter touch.

The German people are a resilient lot with the past memorialized - perhaps as much an effort not to repeat it as to remember it. The Bebelplatz square is the place where Hitler ordered the burning of some 20,000 books by writers such as Einstein, Hemingway and Marx. The permanent memorial shows an underground room lined with empty bookshelves - enough to hold 20,000 books. The anniversary of the burning is marked each year with the erection of a temporary display commemorating the insanity that man is capable of. A small plaque laid in the granite quotes Heinrich Heine, a German poet and lyricist, with the eerily prescient words, "Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people." Heine was originally referring to the urning of the Quran during the Spanish Inquisition. However, as I said Berlin has a much lighter side also.
The bear is the symbol of Berlin and several bear houses are located throughout the city. Well, I'm off to find my next Mercedes. auf Wiedersehen