Destination Berlin

I’ve been fortunate in my life to have lived in Paris from 1979 to 1990, and visited other places, such as Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Bucharest, Romania, and several different places in Europe.  But one place in particular has eluded me thus far, and I do want to go there before I die (after, if that’s possible):  BERLIN.

[I actually covered this topic on March 2, 2012 with a blog titled simply "Berlin".  However, that mostly covers a fiction novel, The Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson, and a nonfiction book, Berlin At War, by Roger Moorhouse.  Fortunately most of the current blog does not repeat the prior one.]

Initially the capital of Prussia, and then the capital of unified, Imperial Germany (1871-1918), the Weimar Republic (1918-1933 – though my high school history professor, Mr. Mimmack, noted that since Adolf Hitler took power by legitimate means in January 1933, technically Nazi Germany qualifies as an extension of the Weimar Republic itself), and Nazi Germany (1933-45).  

After World War II, both Germany itself and Berlin were separated into East and West.  East Berlin was the capital of East Germany, more officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR in English, DDR in German), whereas the West German capital, of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublic Deutschland, in German) was Bonn, best known as the birthplace of Ludwig von Beethoven, though he moved to Vienna at 21.    

In 1961 the East Germans, fed up with their own people escaping from boring, oppressive East Berlin into West Berlin, built a WALL (no thanks to Roger Waters, though he did play a concert there) – eventually torn down in 1989 when the Soviet Union collapsed, bringing the East Bloc down with it as well.  Berlin finally became one city again.

Germany vs. Prussia vs. Brandenburg.   Brandenburg is a province of Prussia.  Up until 1871, Prussia was a sovereign state, a kingdom run by a king (konig).  Of the various different entities which collectively made up what became Germany in 1871, Prussia was the most important.  Bismarck, the architect of Prussia’s success against Denmark (1864), Austria (1866), and France (1870) orchestrated Prussia’s takeover of the rest of Germany to become the empire, and the King of Prussia, of the Hohenzollern dynasty, became the Emperor (Kaiser) of Germany.  Was Germany truly unified, or did Prussia simply take over the rest?  During WWI, the various different kingdoms and principalities supplied their own armies to the cause, with varying degrees of independence, Bavaria being the second-strongest after Prussia.  In any case, Brandenburg was a sub-part of Prussia, which itself was a sub-part of Germany. 

The fervent Germanophile I have been, I was obviously fascinated by Berlin, but so long as it was divided into West and East, with that pesky, inconvenient WALL, my interest was attenuated.  I wanted to experience the Berlin of the Kaiser, Weimar Republic, and Nazi-Town.  Since time travel still doesn’t exist, that’s not a realistic option, but maybe one day I can visit the current city, which has enjoyed reunification for the past 30 years. 

Unknown.  A recent film with Liam Neeson, January Jones, and Diane Kruger, taking place in modern Berlin.  Neeson plays a guy who winds up with amnesia after his cab plunges into the river.  He has to figure what is going on, while other considerably less polite people try to kill him.  The TV Tower and Brandenburg Gate feature prominently – and one character is a former Stasi (East Germany secret police) agent. 

Babylon Berlin.  I reviewed this series after its second season and watched the third when it came out.  Oddly, I don’t see much in the way of panoramic views of the city in this show.  For that matter, I don’t recall seeing Brandenburg Gate at any point in the series.  Although set in Berlin, I don’t see nearly enough of it to make a difference.  Likewise with “Gentlemen Comrades” taking place in Moscow in 1918.  My guess is that too much has changed in Berlin and Moscow to allow those cities, at the present time, to effectively portray their older selves.  I recall reading about “The Last Samurai”, that Tom Cruise movie from way back, taking place in Yokohama in the late nineteenth century but filmed on a soundstage somewhere because present day Yokohama is full of neon and skyscrapers and looks nothing like its late nineteenth century self.

That being the case, I’m on notice that if “Babylon Berlin” cannot show me old-timey Berlin, there’s a limit to how much I can enjoy.  However, the following appear to be the most famous Berlin landmarks: Brandenburg Gate (1788); the rebuilt Reichtag (no longer on fire); the TV Tower; Charlottenburg Palace, the Gendarmenmarkt; the Tiergarten & the Victory Column; the Kurfurstendam (commercial avenue, Berlin’s Champs Elysees), and Unter den Linden (fancy tree-lined avenue).  Needless to say, if I did visit, I would appreciate a tour.   

The House of Hohenzollern

Fancy struck me at random, Germanophile that I definitely am – despite having zero German blood, except remotely by Anglo-Saxon in the one-quarter British ancestry I have.  Anyhow.  This is the ruling dynasty of Prussia (1701-1871) and Germany (1871-1918). 

Until Germany’s unification in 1871, Prussia was just one of many Germanic kingdoms, which gradually developed into the most important.  The unification itself consisted of 4 kingdoms (Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, and Wurttemburg), 6 grand duchies, 5 duchies, 7 principalities, 3 free cities, and Alsace-Lorraine.  Bismarck, the architect of this, was actually an opponent of German nationalism, and structured this as Prussia essentially taking over all of these smaller dominions.  The Kaiser – Emperor of unified Germany – was the King of Prussia. 

Here’s the line of succession:

Frederick I (1701-1713) First King of Prussia, beginning of the house of Hohenzollern.

Frederick Wilhelm I (1713-1740)

Frederick II (The Great) (1740-1786)

Frederick Wilhelm II (1786-1797)

Frederick Wilhelm III (1797-1840)

Frederick Wilhelm IV (1840-1861)

Wilhelm I (King of Prussia and First Emperor of Germany) (1861-1888).  Big mutton chops, like General Burnside and Austrian Emperor Franz Josef. 

Frederick III (1888).  Only reigned for a few weeks.

And then…

Wilhelm II (last Emperor of Germany) (1888-1918).  By far the most famous due to World War I.  He fired Bismarck, which was NOT a good idea.  He did not get along with his cousins King George V or Tsar Nicolas II, and even had a rough time with his grandmother, Queen Victoria; he was her first grandchild.  He spoke English fluently. 

Crown Prince Wilhelm.  The Kaiser’s oldest son, who only outlived him by ten years.   A French officer who met him during WWI (after having been taken prisoner) said the Prince spoke fluent French and was quite charming.  Before the war he was given command of the garrison at Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland) but had a reputation for playing tennis rather than taking care of military duties.  The papers made fun of him with a cartoon showing him in a tennis outfit, asking himself, “Danzig…Danzig…I’ve heard that name before!”  The Nazis courted him very early on, but even then he rejected their offers, claiming – quite astutely – that “nothing good will come of them.”  After WWII the French tried to prosecute him for war crimes during WWI.

Since then, there have been two heirs, though neither has served as King of Prussia or Emperor of Germany: Louis Ferdinand, and the current heir, Georg Friedrich.   Germany’s likelihood of reinstating the monarchy is fairly low, but then again we were surprised to see the Berlin Wall come down, East and West Germany reunited, and the Soviet Union collapse.  And how knows if the alternate realities hinted at in “The Man in the High Castle” might actually exist?  Whereas in Turtledove’s Timeline 191 (CSA wins Civil War), since Germany won WWI, the Hohenzollerns were never deposed and continued to reign through WWII. Kaiser Wilhelm II died just as WWII was beginning, and the Crown Prince became the Kaiser. 

FYI: notwithstanding the Hohenzollerns’ love of the name Frederick, the famous Frederick Barbarossa was NOT a Hohenzollern ruler.  He was a Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 to his death in 1190.  He famously drowned in the river during the Third Crusade. 

Bourbons.  While I’m on the topic of royalty, I’ll mention a few others.  The French royal family were the Bourbons, starting with Henry IV, who reigned from 1589-1610.  He’s followed by the famous Sun King, Louis XIV (1648-1715), and the ill-fated Louis XVI (1774-1791), who supported America’s cause in our Revolution and whose life ended with a guillotine during the French Revolution.  After Napoleon was dispatched to Devil’s Island in 1814, they brought back the French kings:  Louis XVIII (1814-24), Charles X (1824-30), and finally Louis Philippe (1830-48), who was deposed in the Revolutions of 1848, and who thus counts as the last reigning Bourbon king.  Since then there have been 4 Republics: Second 1848-52 (ended by Louis Napoleon, aka Napoleon III), Third 1870-1940, Fourth 1946-1958, and finally the current Fifth Republic, 1958-present.  The Brazilian royal family, whose reign ended in 1888 with Dom Pedro II, is an offshoot of the Bourbons.  Today’s living heir, Louis Alphonse, would be Louis XIX if the Fifth Republic were to somehow dissolve into a monarchy.  That looks unlikely.

Habsburgs.  Actually Habsburgs-Lorraine, as the Habsburg house died out in the 1700s.  This group is extremely complicated but mainly associated with Austria-Hungary, which itself, as a country, only dates from 1867.  As such, there were only two rulers:  Franz Joseph, another of those mutton-chopped guys, who died in 1916 while WWI was going on, and his grand-nephew Charles I, who took over and only ruled until 1918, when A-H’s monarchy died and both countries split off into independent republics. 

Romanovs.  First off, the entire royal family of Nicolas II, his Empress, Tsarina Alexandria, four daughters (Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia) and Alexis, the son with hemophilia were murdered by Ermakov and the Bolsheviks in Ekaterinburg, Russia, in July 1918, when the city was surrounded and besieged by the White Armies.  The dynasty began with Michael I, who reigned from 1613-1645.  As of now, Maria Vladimirovna claims to be the heir apparent, but her claim is well disputed.  While Vladimir Putin appears conscientious about using Russian nationalism to promote himself, his regime, and his country, I see no evidence that he would be amenable to abdicating to any Romanov pretender and allowing a new Tsar – or Tsarina – to take power from him. 

House of Windsor, formerly Saxe-Coburg & Gotha.  Of these, the only ones still in power, though Britain’s government has made the Prime Minister and Parliament the effective rulers and the monarchy purely symbolic.  The current ruler is obviously Queen Elizabeth II.  This dynasty began with Edward VII (immediately after Queen Victoria), George V (king during WWI), Edward VIII (the one who abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson in the 1930s), George VI (played by Colin Firth in “The King’s Speech”), and of course QE2.  Her eldest son is Prince Charles (who would be King Charles III, though he says he would prefer to be known as George VII), her eldest grandson is Prince William (who would be King William V), and great-grandson George (who would be King George VII, though right now he’s only 3).   

The prior House of Hanover consisted of King George I, George II, George III (during the American Revolution), George IV (portrayed by Hugh Laurie in Season 3 of The Black Adder), William IV, and Queen Victoria.  

The Franco-Prussian War (1870-71)

[Note:  updated on 3/20/20 and 4/2/21.]

Ready for another installment of “obscure wars no one cares about”?  Let’s go backwards!  There are plenty of WWII veterans still around, and WWII was largely caused by…WWI!  I’ve reviewed WWI at length.  I would imagine that, had someone paid attention to Bismarck and not taken Alsace-Lorraine from the French, odds are that WWI is much less likely to have happened, which makes WWII that much less likely too.  And since taking Alsace-Lorraine was part of this wrap-up of this war, it means that to some extent it actually does have some very remote relevance in the present day, insofar as anyone still cares about WWII.  Anyhow.

 Years ago I was in the train station of St. Lazare, in Paris, and noticed a curious memorial, which referred to World War I as the “Second Franco-Prussian War”, and World War II as the “Third Franco-Prussian War”.  WTF?  And lo and behold, it referred to this as the FIRST “Franco-Prussian War”.  Remarkably, the last French veteran, Seraphin Pruvost, died in 1955, and the last German veteran, Karl Glockner, died in 1953 – both living to see both WWI and WWII.  

 Background.  France at this time was led by Napoleon III, aka Louis Napoleon, the son of Napoleon Bonaparte's older brother (i.e. his nephew), with most of his ambition but little of his talent.  Germany had not quite unified, but was rather a loose confederation of states dominated by Prussia.  Its effective leader was Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, an extremely shrewd statesman.  Ironically, Bismarck had little use for German nationalism, this idea that Germany should be unified.  What he preferred, and what he actually brought into being, was simply Prussia taking over the rest of Germany. 

            Aside from Prussia, the other German states were Baden, Bavaria, Brunswick, Hesse-Darmstadt, Mecklenburg, Saxony, and Wurttemberg.  Each of the others had its own army and uniforms, some appearing distinctly different than the Prussian uniform; and the leaders of these states likewise varied from eager to reluctant allies (some had even tried to weasel deals through back channels with the French).

            Bismarck orchestrated a series of nonaggression treaties with various different countries.  They basically said that these other countries would remain neutral if Prussia ended up in a war with a third country, provided Prussia was not the aggressor.  Then he tricked Denmark (1864), then Austria (1866), then France (1870) into attacking Prussia.  Deprived of allies, each of these countries was decisively defeated in turn by the upstart Prussians.  The war against Austria was definitely a David vs. Goliath contest.

 War.  At the eastern frontier of France, a series of battles took place: Wissembourg (August 4, 1870), Spicheren (August 5), Wörth (August 6), Marnes-la-Tour (August 16), Gravelotte (August 18), and Sedan (September 1) in which the French armies were repeatedly outmaneuvered.  The excellent French chassepot rifle, though superior to the Prussian Dreyse (“needle gun”) design, could not compensate for the Prussians’ massive Krupp artillery.  Metz was encircled and besieged; at the defeat at Sedan, 104,000 French soldiers were captured, along with Napoleon III himself.

 Siege of Paris.  Having defeated the French Army at Sedan in September, the Prussians proceeded to besiege Paris, avoiding a street war, beginning September 19.  Various attempts to relieve Paris by substantial leftover forces marshaled by the French Republic – one army totaled 500,000 soldiers - were ultimately unsuccessful.  On January 28, 1871, the French finally surrendered, and the Prussians occupied Paris for all of…48 hours.  Then they withdrew to the outskirts of the city.

 Hall of Mirrors.  January 18, 1871, Germany was unified under Kaiser (Emperor) Wilhelm I of Prussia, in the Hall of Mirrors at the French royal palace at Versailles.  Of course, the country ended up being truncated after WWI (1919), the treaty also being signed at the same Hall of Mirrors, losing substantial territory to Poland; and then after WWII when Poland was shifted west.  One of the conditions on the re-unification of Germany – West + East – was that any claims on territory now owned by Poland, were waived.  Also, Austria was not part of this unification, though Austria was finally annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938.

 Paris Commune.  I’ve already covered this in my much earlier blog, “Paris Is Burning”.  It lasted from March to May 1871, at which point French government forces coming back from a brief rehabilitative exile in Versailles re-entered the city from the southwest and gradually subdued the National Guard and Communist forces.  The city, having been spared violence and war due to the Prussians’ siege and brief occupation, now suffered street fighting and fires as a result of this brief, urban civil war – the French themselves inflicted far more pain and damage on Paris than the Prussians did.

 Alsace-Lorraine.  These are the two provinces of France which border on Germany to the far east.  Due to the crossover effect, people from this area have an identity crisis.  Are we French?  Are we German?  In Forgotten Soldier, a Franco-German soldier, Guy Sajer, describes fellow German soldiers in WWII dismissing him as “an Alsatian who thinks he’s German” – he speaks better French than German, and speaks German with a French accent.  These provinces are also heavy in coal and iron, and were a prize the Germans could not resist taking from the French, despite Bismarck’s advice to leave it alone – for that exact reason.  Sure enough, just as Bismarck warned, the French burned with passion for revenge over the next 44 years, not only to avenge their shame of 1871, but also to retake these two provinces.  And so we got… World War I.

Uniforms.  Fairly similar to early WWI.  The French wore kepis, dark blue double breasted coats, and red pants.  The "Prussian" side varied, as each nominally independent entity had its own army wearing its own uniforms.  The Prussian uniform resembled the 1914 German uniform except that the jacket was dark blue instead of field grey.  The pickelhaube (leather spiked helmet) was here, albeit with an early tall version and a later short version, the latter we're familiar with from WWI.  

 Books.  I’m not aware of any movies made about this war, but there are two excellent books.  The Fall of France, by Alistair Horne, covers not only the leadup to the war (starting the “story” in 1867), but also the Paris Commune.  And a historical fiction novel by Robert Chambers, Romance in the Red Republic, written in 1895, tells the story of fictional characters who were on the government (anti-communist) side, although during the Paris Commune and not the war.   

April & the Extraordinary World.  This is a recent French steampunk animated movie (2015, well after this blog was originally written in 2009).  In this story, immediately before the war would have begun, Napoleon III dies suddenly, his son resolves matters with the Prussians amicably, and there is no Franco-Prussian War.  This means there is also no WWI and no WWII, and no Nazi Germany.  I'd recommend the movie in and of itself, but this is about the extent of the relevance thereof to the current topic.

Pigeon Post.  Carrier pigeons are remarkably reliable and effective as messengers, in this context allowing Paris to communicate with the rest of France during the four month siege of the city by the Prussians (late September 1870 through late January 1871), who had cut all the telegraph lines in and out of the city.  The lessons learned resulted in pigeons used later (e.g. WWI) but the Franco-Prussian War was the major conflict in which they were employed.