Some would point to the Brandenburg Gate as the most prominent Wahrzeichen (emblem or symbol) of Berlin, but in the post-Berlin Wall period, I think more and more people would point to the fantastically pointy Fernsehturm – or TV tower. Love it or hate it (I love it), this icon of the DDR-Zeit reigns supreme over Berlin's otherwise-modest skyline; like nearly every aspect of Berlin's landscape, it has an interesting history that begins with a 300-million-dollar mistake about 20 miles to the southeast. I decided last December that a little Ode an den Fernsehturm was in order, and over the past six months I had the perfect office window to compose it.
Starting in mid-December, with the sun merely skirting the horizon over the course of a day, I decided to take a picture from the same spot in my office window each work day (with a barely-noticeable move one room to the east about halfway through) between 11:30 AM and noon – admittedly I did take a few shots up to an hour late when I was forgetful. As it turns out, this winter was also one of Berlin's (and Germany's) greyest on record, with a grand total of 67.5 hours of sun for the entire winter season. April got a lot sunnier, and those trees absolutely exploded with green at the first opportunity. I particularly like to watch the sun migrate upward over the course of the video as we pass through the equinox toward the summer solstice. I first loop through slowly, then again much more quickly, and finally I end with those precious few days of sun between December and late May. There are 95 photos in total, and the music is "Murs Beat" from RJD2. You can also find the video here on YouTube.
There's a strange beauty in the simplicity of
the Fernsehturm. Maybe it's more beautiful
because of all the hideousness surrounding it.
Das Fehlgeburt auf dem Müggelberg
There is a subtle irony in the story of how the Fernsehturm ended up being built in the center of Alexanderplatz in the former East Berlin, and how it later became the icon of a modern and united Berlin. The DDR party leaders wanted to trumpet the architectural prowess and power of their Communist utopia, but also wanted to improve their miserable radio and television broadcasting reach (something something two birds, something something stones). They chose the highest point in East Berlin, the Müggelberg near the southeast corner of Groß-Berlin, so that their new tower would imposingly lord over the plains of Brandenburg and the plebs obediently working the sandy soil. At the same time, though, they wanted to bite their collective thumbs at the capitalist naysayers of the West. Alas, only after they had laid a 300 million dollar foundation did they think to consider whether the planned 160-meter spire might interfere with air traffic. Sure enough, it did. And it's a wonder they didn't think of it sooner given that Schönefeld Airport is well under 10 km away (as the plane flies) from Müggelberg. Apparently, foresight was about as abundant as luxury consumer goods in the DDR. So before anyone noticed, Walter Ulbricht and Co. dreamt up a much more grandiose plan...
A more typical, and greyer, view of the tower.
Berlin's Third City Center, and a Thumbed Nose to the West
The tower was to be placed at the center of Alexanderplatz, thus putting the finishing touch on the new center of East Berlin. As far as I'm aware, Berlin is the only world metropolis that has three distinct city centers pointing to three very distinct aspects of its history: the 800-odd-year-old city center in and around the Nikolaiviertel (which is now little more than a curiosity and secondary tourist destination), the center of the East at Alex, and the epicenter of West Berlin that was artificially established around Kurfürstendamm and the Gedächtniskirche. So Ulbricht's tower plans grew from 160 to over 300 meters, and they even threw in a rotating restaurant to impress the Muscovite Comrades during state visits. The West had the consumer mecca at the KaDeWe, but Ulbricht one-upped them with a massive silver ball that was visible to all Berliners, East and West. The game was far from over though, as the West soon thought it would have the last laugh: the Fernsehturm's architects formed the tower's sphere such that it reflected the sunlight perfectly into the sign of the cross, and it didn't take long before the more pious Westerners named it the Rache des Papstes ("the Pope's Revenge"), referencing the godlessness of the Eastern and Soviet regimes. Before Reagan single-handedly brought down the Wall with one simple turn of phrase in his famous speech, he jeered the East and their massive 'becrossed' sphere. Piety, however, was not destined to define the future Hauptstadt, though. Today, the Fernsehturm has become the symbol of a re-united, modern, increasingly cosmopolitan, and very much secular Berlin; in the end, the last laugh goes to the Fernsehturm itself, because it managed to transcend its builders, and later its detractors to represent a much better version of Berlin.
When I moved in Berlin for the first time in 2010, I met a guy who had set the lofty goal of visiting every Kino (movie theater) in Berlin at least once. An ambitious and time-intensive undertaking to say the least, given that there are no fewer than 275 movie theaters within the city limits (about 1 in 7 movie theaters in all of Germany is located in Berlin!). With this high number of theaters, along with the increasingly popular Berlinale Film Festival, the film business is alive and well in Berlin, and indeed in Germany at large.
I haven't had a chance to meet up with my Kino enthusiast acquaintance since 2010, so I have no idea whether he's on the home stretch or whether he's given up on his Kino-quest (if I remember correctly he was working on his 40s when I met him), but I have had the chance to poke my head into a few of Berlin's many interesting film houses myself. Being a major European capital, Berlin of course has the typical massive and sterile theaters located at Potsdamerplatz and the Sony Center. These 15-plus screen behemoths often host major premiers and shamelessly bombard you with up to 45 minutes (!) of advertisements. This might be the one rare case where Germany actually trumps the U.S. in unabashed consumer capitalism – though the U.S. has ads at movies as well, they've never exceeded 15-20 minutes in my experience. Apparently the ad men and women at the Cinemaxx think that everyone who watches 007 films is obsessed with cars as well, because they were hawking everything from Fiat 500s to Fords to Porsche 911s until we were almost ready to walk out and waste our 12,50 entry fee and purchase any kind of transportation vehicle that wasn't a car. The most painful thing of all, though, is that you can generally forget about seeing an American or non-German movie in Germany without subtitles or dubbing, unless of course you want to support one of these behemoth cinemas.
Despite appearances and the prominent signage
suggesting otherwise, this is in fact a Kino.
Hippies and History in Berlin's Small Kinos
So once you've developed the advanced skill – as I have – to resist the temptation to verbally abuse the distracting subtitles gracing the bottom of the screen at your favorite film, you can begin to discover the best side of Berlin's film scene: the host of small venues that have fewer than 100 seats (and often fewer than 50) and fewer than 5 screens – places where Hollywood blockbusters live peacefully next to art-house and independent films in an interesting and organic environment. I remember in particular one of my earlier experiences with Berlin's small movie theaters. We cycled down to the self-styled "oldest Kino in Germany," Moviemento in Neukölln, to see Gaspar Noe's Into the Void (which ultimately turned out to be about 2 hours too long and a tick heavy on the gratuitous porn scenes but that's beside the point). The foyer and ticket counter reminded me more of my grandma's living room than a movie theater, and the pierced, tattooed and moderately medicated cashier sold us our organic colas and Gummibärchenwith a subdued smile. The screens aren't all that much bigger than the biggest flatscreens at your local electronics store, the plush 70's-style seats are bolted into carpeted concrete floors with a .003% grade, and I think my home speaker system just might be better than theirs. But I can say with full confidence that I enjoyed the experience far more than the impersonal, cavernous atmosphere at the commercial-happy Cinemaxx. You can find these little gems in virtually every district in Berlin if you're willing to wait a bit for the latest releases to come out. One of my other favorites is Central-Kino, nestled into a grungy alley near the otherwise-posh Hackescher Markt.
The DDR's Kino International, lording over the pavement
desert that is Karl-Marx Allee.
For a more palpable sense of history, though, Kino International might be the most interesting theater in Germany for my money. It was the movie theater of the GDR that hosted all of the glorious premiers jenseits der Mauer (although one would imagine famous east-of-the-Iron-Curtain stars strutting along a red carpet to be particularly fitting at Kino International, I personally imagine a more spartan and egalitarian grey one). All of these interesting old theaters in Berlin – and their continued success – just confirm for me though that the newest, most advanced theater technology (I'm looking at you, disappointing 3D-tech) isn't necessarily what movie-goers are always looking for. These quirky spots offer much more of a movie experience.
Randy Marsh, video rental entrepreneur.
Death of a German Movie Salesman?
At first glance, the home movie experience also seems to be alive and well in Germany, or at least in Berlin. As far as I'm aware there is no equivalent to Netflix or Blockbuster's online service in Germany that is killing the brick-and-mortar establishments. I've also heard from many that torrents and illegal downloading is pretty strictly monitored on German networks. As we strolled around the city, we also couldn't help but notice that Videotheke seemed to be on every corner and were often full of customers. This is starkly different from the U.S., where independent movie shops, Blockbusters, Hollywood Videos and Family Videos disappeared in a matter of months after online services and downloading exploded. Just ask Randy Marsh from Southpark: he bought a Blockbuster franchise in hopes of making it big, and instead promptly went insane while pacing the empty aisles in his rental shop. While Germany's shops seem to be hanging on a little longer than those in the States, a closer look at Berlin's video scene reveals that there really is only one major player (Video Center) in the city's rental market, and that the larger market is also experiencing an inexorable decline. In other words, I'm not looking to pull a Randy Marsh here in the Hauptstadt anytime soon.
Video rental is still hanging on – for now – in Berlin.
Rub-a-dub Dub, Dubbing is Rubbish
Though I've really enjoyed exploring some of these unique spots to see movies and am happy to see that rental shops are at least giving it the old college try at surviving, I don't view all aspects of the German Kino experience through rose-colored 3D glasses. The continuing scourge of movies (and television!) in Germany is Synchronisierung, or dubbing, whereby the original actors' voices are replaced with ill-fitting and vanilla German voice-overs. While I'm sure these are all very talented individuals, it is enormously frustrating to hear the same voices, accents, expressions applied to the vast variety of amazingly talented actors in world television and film. My latest scream of frustration came when watching the trailer for the latest Star Trek film, where the venerable Benedict Cumberbatch is reduced to an insipid Hochdeutsch (see video) that I swear I heard on the Simpsons at some point. I grew up thinking of dubbing as something of a joke, having been exposed to some of the classic kung fu films and their hilarious sound-video mismatches. However, when I saw my first television shows in Germany, I realized it was actually a serious way of watching foreign shows. In fact, most of the countries in central Europe – with the exception of the Netherlands and Scandanavia – still dub a large portion of their video entertainment, and Germany is king of them all.
Dubbing is a huge industry employing thousands, but the actual number of voice actors is surprisingly limited. The more prolific voices can be heard voicing a host of famous actors from all over the English-speaking world. For example, Gert Günther Hoffmann dubs Sean Connery, Paul Newman, Rock Hudson, Lex Barker and William Shatner. Even more ridiculously, Thomas Danneberg plays Sylvester Stallone (American), Arnold Schwarzenegger (Austrian-American), Dan Aykroyd (Canadian) and John Cleese (British). My immediate question was, what happens when two of these people happen to play in the same film, but fact is, I don't think people would necessarily even notice. Second thought is, how the hell do they choose the same guy to play the quintessentially American actor Paul Newman and the quintessentially Scottish actor Sean Connery?! John Cleese and Arnold Schwarzenegger, seriously?
I asked a German friend at one point how people can tolerate the mismatched mouth movements, poor translations and lack of variety in the voices. They replied that because they grew up with it, they barely even notice it. I've also met people who say they heard Bruce Willis' real voice and were quite disappointed because they had grown used to his German doppelgänger's voice. I'm no huge Bruce Willis fan, but it's all pretty sad, really. To boot, all this dubbing means that Germans always have to wait months before new releases make it to market. Seems like a lose-lose-lose-lose to me. Maybe I'm just being a selfish English native speaker by demanding less interference in my movie experience in a foreign country, but I think the case for subtitles over dubbing even for non-English-speaking Germans is a pretty strong one. The good news is that younger generations have had far more exposure to international languages and original versions of film and television via the Internet, so original versions (OV) and versions just with subtitles (Original mit Untertitel, OmU) are becoming more and more popular. Maybe those German-dubbed English language films will eventually be the jokes that dubbed kung fu movies have become in the U.S.
Update: Another topic that I consciously left out for brevity's sake – but had to tack on to the end here after stumbling across this great little movie blog – is the ridiculous translation and renaming of movies in the German market. I'll let the "Madmind" blog speak for itself, but basically, the Germans are obsessed with the "Title: this is a pointless phrase" movie title format. My favorite: American movie "Signs" becomes "Signs – Zeichen". In other words, "Signs – Signs" (!). Doing this in virtually every case results in some pretty solid (and tragic) comedy. Enjoy.
FKK, or Freikörperkultur (literally 'free body culture'), is a century-old German institution, and it has a very simple philosophy: 'nudity is normal'. Revel in it – in public, in a park, in the water, on a bicycle. Let your bits swing freely when you're sunbathing, sitting in the sauna, swatting a birdie around with some friends, reading a book, or grilling up a juicy bratwurst. So where does this German (and to some extent, European) openness to nudity really come from? I think a quick look at the difference between the U.S. and Europe is a good starting point...
Americans are prudes – at least from the perspective of the Germans and the Europeans. I think my favorite example of this on the continental scale is the fact that American children are vigilantly shielded from exposed nipples and buttocks, sexual innuendo, and the like, but are free to (or implicitly allowed to) bathe themselves in blood, guts, and torture in films and games. Now, the last thing I want to do here is start a debate about guns and violence – it's like arguing with somebody over the existence of god. This article is all about the nudity, folks.
But so the point is, Americans view being naked as something fiercely private, while violence is and was historically a part of everyday (and public) life. I have a hunch that this contrast with Europe can be traced all the way back to America's prudish, Protestant roots, which were combined with an often lawless, vigilante-type justice as the U.S. expanded into an ever-westward-moving frontier with no discernable governmental structures. I've read many theories about Europe's relative lack of a culture of violence (a sort of counter-movement to the long history of wars, the fact that violence was exclusively the instrument of the nation rather than a part of individual volition, etc.); but I think the rise of FKK – in the sense of nudity being a completely normal thing, even in public – could perhaps be connected to Europe's secularization, which is often accompanied or replaced by a certain naturalism.
Two East-Berliners enjoying a little naked time.
In any case, the concept of FKK as a movement ('nudism') really could only come about as a nudity taboo emerged in 18th century Europe. Indeed, when society or the powers that be tell you you can't do something, it only serves to strengthen your resolve. The German FKK movement begins in earnest around the turn of the 20th century, and seems to be at its strongest when it's forbidden or verpönt (frowned upon).
A very quick aside: the birth of the FKK movement in Germany coincided with a nudism movement in the U.S., which never really blossomed into the mass movement seen in Germany.
So in 1954, GDR culture minister Johannes R. Becher declared: 'Schont den Augen der Nation!' (Spare the eyes of the nation!') as he closed down over 50 designated nude bathing spots throughout the country. Too many wrinkles, too much hair, too many body parts where they shouldn't necessarily be, too much...you get the idea. So FKK continued to gain popularity in the East after this declaration, to the point that it became one of the major defining aspects of East German culture. By the time the Wall came down, the Wessi (West German) was amused, and sometimes apalled, by the Ossi's (East German) penchant for not just sunbathing naked, but playing sports and hanging out in the nude. A 'Höschenkrieg' ('War of the Knickers') ensued on Baltic Sea beaches as the knicker-ful Wessis encountered the knicker-less Ossis. But why so popular in the East?? According to an article from NDR, some have blamed the lack of stylish bathing attire, some say Ossis were trying to carve out a bit of freedom in an otherwise oppressive regime. I'll let you decide, but I personally think that without the official ban in 1954, there is no mass movement.
FKK-themed clothing: so itchy, you'll instantly want to disrobe. (Photo: Amazon.com)
Anyway, this 'Knicker War' has in fact had a strong and long-term detrimental effect on the FKK movement in general. The ranks today are dwindling and aging (check out this video in German – at your own risk – interviewing real live FKK-enthusiasts), and I think we can all see that the latter isn't doing any favors for the former. I mean, let's just say, purely hypothetically, that a 26-year-old American male were to arrive at an Austrian FKK beach in Austria's Salzkammergut for a little skinny dip, in hopes of curing his societally conditioned prudishness, only to find he is the sole swimmer/sunbather/reader/badminton player born after the Berlin Wall was built. Suffice it to say that even if said wrinkly nudists were the hippest, friendliest 55-plussers around, I still wouldn't have felt compelled to return, much less visit the official website and pay to membership fee.
The Sternfahrt: an event for cycling awareness, or a perfect opportunity for an FKK demonstration?
I had one more recent first-hand encounter with the FKKers that underscores the continuing marginalization of a once-proud mass movement. I spontaneously decided to take part in the largest group cycling event in the world, called the Sternfahrt ('Star Ride'), in 2010 in Berlin. Some 150,000 people meet at 19 different starting points and converge on the Brandenburg Gate, where beer-drinking, sausage-eating, and chaos ensue. The point is to raise awareness for cyclists, despite the fact that Berlin, along with Copenhagen, already has one of the best bike infrastructures in the world. Anyway, I had big designs on the 90-mile Frankfurt/Oder starting point, but had had a long night and slept through the starting time, so Potsdam it was. Little did I know, this meant that I would get a little 'show' (see photo), as about 150 FKKers decided they would hijack the bike demonstration to raise awareness about FKK. A group of some 7,000 clothed bikers were physically blocked by the Polizei for 45 minutes while the FKKers debated with the police about the legitimacy of 'free'-riding. 'Das hier ist eine Familienveranstaltung' ('this is a family event'), said the police. Words were exchanged as meticulously uniformed officers conversed seriously with naked bikers in baseball caps. The FKKers finally relented, dressed (I have no idea where they had the clothes stashed because I didn't see any panniers), and on we rode, family-friendly, toward the Brandenburg Gate.
In the end, I think FKK as a movement will more or less die out with the current generation, but the underlying perspective of Europeans toward sex and nudity remains worlds 'ahead' of the U.S. I at least like to think that I'm not nearly as prude as I was when I first set foot in Germany and had my first FKK experience.
