Berlin 9-11

[rivertext]

This DUer is taking his first trip through Europe. This look back at America from the Reichstag was produced on my first evening in Berlin (my first stop in Europe). I thought that DU readers might be interested in controversial, but concise and profusely illustrated account.



The Reichstag, which was restored in 1999, was burned in 1933. They still don't know for sure who torched it.


As with 9-11, what isn't in doubt is that the destruction gave an ambitious politician the opportunity to seize unprecedented power.


According to internet law, the first person in an argument to refer to Hitler loses -- I lost while still in the elevator.


As an American who on his first night in Europe exited that elevator (the square entrance in the rear) into this extraordinary mix of Germany's past and future, I ask for your understanding.


In the restored Reichstag, the German Parliament meets beneath the dome and a circular display of the building's history.


In one photo Nazi legislators caucus. How I wish it were just the Nazis that we Americans have to place outside of our history -- i.e. in any movie, but in no analogy.


Imagine, beneath our Capital's rotunda, a display of the facts about how the Bush family fortune was made financing Hitler, the JFK assassination, the Reagan campaign's secret deal with Iran, and the presidential selection of 2000.


Imagine replacing the idealistic inscriptions on the Supreme Court with the realistic, "Steal a little and we put you in jail, steal a lot and we make you king."


Outside of America for the first time, I worried about the future of a country in which a significant portion of the ruling class adheres to Big Crime Think -- to the thought that if the crime you commit is big enough...


...the government and media will cover up, not investigate seriously. Looking out from the Reichstag dome you can see the Brandenburg Gate near where the Berlin wall stood. Ah, that moment when the inconceivable became the inevitable -- when European Communism crumbled.


Then the American right-wing spun the myth that it was Russian exasperation at the expense of Reagan's Star Wars defense plan that brought down the Soviet economy and the wall that divided this city. Those who don't fake their past are condemned to confront it. Just to the right of the construction site is Berlin's new Holocaust museum.


I stopped here before I toured the Reichstag. The first words in the museum's display read, "It happened, therefore it can happen again..." However, due to the honesty with which the German people have faced their past, I don't believe it will happen here.


------------

Brian Thomas

http://rivertext.com/

[leveymg]

1. Wow. I hope you make it to Rome soon. They have some lessons for us, too

Terrific photos and chilling political history lesson. Thank you! K&R.

[Nostradammit]

2. Wow! - Thanks!

I enjoyed that very much. Great photography.

Got me to picturing the museum that will one day show all the Bush cabal crimes. It's gonna have to be huge.

[Kellanved]

3. well,

I don't agree with the drawn parallel, but the pictures are great. Thanks for posting.

You could have mentioned that the construction site next to the Brandenburg Gate (between the memorial and the gate) is the new American Embassy ;-).

[yurbud]

4. great photos of the warp drive

[bobbieinok]

5. great photos...anyone know what happened to the history museum

that was in the Reichstage building before the capitol was moved to Berlin and the building was redesigned for the Bundestag???? I saw it in 1991 and learned a lot.

[Kellanved]

6. It was moved

It moved into the German cathedral (Deutscher Dom) at the Gendarmenmarkt.

[bobbieinok]

8. glad it's still around...but from what I remember from the Dom, there's

not near enuff space there for everything that was in the Reichstag....please correct me if I'm wrong

[Taxloss]

7. Beautiful photos.

I tried to recommend, but too late.

Regarding your last comment - the important thing to remember is that it could happen again anywhere, even Germany. Even the USA. I personally think the USA is pretty far from fascism - but not far enough.