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So far on this blog we've looked at all those museums and memorials in Berlin, as well as the German Unity exhibits in neighboring Potsdam. Now, finally, we'll get to the actual experience of backpacking in Berlin on a four-day weekend.

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One goal I had while living in Germany was to visit somewhere, anywhere in the former East, other than East Berlin. With it becoming increasingly unlikely that I'd have time to hit up Leipzig or Dresden that year, I decided to spend some time in Potsdam, which was a half-hour S-Bahn ride away from the center of Berlin. Potsdam was the site of a pivotal conference at the end of World War II, where Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met to make plans for the future of postwar Europe. During the 41 years when there were two Germanies, Potsdam was part of East Germany, though right next to the walled-off West Berlin. Today it's practically a suburb of Berlin, and is the capital of the state of Brandenburg, which completely surrounds Berlin. Before WWII, Brandenburg included Berlin which was its historical capital.

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Through most of the 20th century, Berlin was at the center of many of the horrific events that unfolded: the Nazis and their atrocities, as well as those committed by the Communists. Numerous monuments and memorials to all the victims can be found near the city center.

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So far we've taken a close look at the Cold War occupation of Berlin, as well as the most hated symbol of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall. Now what was life like outside that Wall, in Communist East Germany? We all know that people in the East were worse off than those in the West and had to live with heavy restrictions on their personal freedoms. Here we're going to see how ordinary East Germans lived their daily lives, thanks to Berlin's DDR Museum.

  1. Berlin: Walking in the Shadow of the Past, Part 2
  2. Berlin: Walking in the Shadow of the Past, Part 1
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