Tracing the History of Berlin

April 13th 2015

During the first week of the Easter break Year 11 History students ventured to Germany to immerse themselves in the history of Berlin, from the Second Reich, through the Weimer Republic and Nazi Third Reich, the Cold War and finally reunification.

The girls, along with their teachers and a guide from Anglia Tours, enjoyed a 12 mile walking tour of the city which took in all the major landmarks including the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin Wall. The experience really brought what the girls have been learning about this year to life and they found it particularly interesting to gain an understanding of how the city came to terms with the events of the past with memorials to those who were persecuted by the Nazis.

On the second day the group visited Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. This camp was set up by the Nazis as a model camp in 1936 where new methods of control were trialled before they were utilised in other camps. Points of interest at the camp included a cell where Pastor Niemoller was imprisoned. Niemollew resisted the Nazi regime and is well known for his poem “First they came”. The girls also visited the site of the 1936 Olympics, where the traditions of the Olympic torch and village were set, and the Wannsee Conference Centre where the meeting of the “Final Solution” took place in 1942, where the Nazis discussed the extermination of the Jewish population.

The final day of the trip focused on the period following the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 and the on-set of the Cold War. At a site of one of the remaining sections of the Berlin Wall the girls listened to stories from people who lived through this time in 1961, finding out their feelings towards the wall, how one day they woke up to find they couldn’t travel outside Communist Berlin and that some houses on the border had their windows nailed shut. To understand this further, the girls’ final visit of the trip was to the DDR Museum, providing an insight into the lives of people living in East Germany at the time of the Communist regime.

Head of History, Mrs Tinnelly said “The trip was a great success which enabled us all to learn a huge amount about Berlin and how the city coped with the events leading up the Second World War and into the Cold War. I’m sure the experience will prove to be very valuable for the girls when they come to sit their History exams in the summer.”