Nathan Bates
Berlin has been center-stage for two world wars and the cold war. But aside from its obvious historical significance, Berlin also houses some of the finest art and antiquities collections, and it is a classical music powerhouse and the government seat of the strongest economy in the European Union. All of this in a city that was physically divided for nearly thirty years.
For one who has been fascinated since adolescence with the tremendous tragedy of twentieth-century German history, being set free on the streets of Berlin was like a weight watcher being turned loose in a chocolate factory. Many of these historical relics have begun to recede. Much of the infamous Berlin Wall can now be discerned only by a cement line on the sidewalk. Instead of barbed wire, skyscrapers stand at Potsdamer Platz, as if capitalism were decidedly gloating over the ruins of its spiteful nemesis, communism. There are few places like Berlin for coming to terms with the past.
A short distance east of Potsdamer Platz, one of the new city centers, are the scattered remains of the Nazi Regierungsviertel or “government quarters” from which the most devastating war in history was conducted and where countless thousands were tortured in the S.S. and Gestapo headquarters. In the opposite direction, one stumbles upon the Bendlerblock, where Colonel Claus von Staufenberg, organizer of the July 20 assassination plot against Hitler (immortalized by the Tom Cruise film, Valkryie) was executed. A few miles to the north lies Plötzensee Prison, where Helmuth Huebner, a young Mormon resistance fighter, was executed.
Berlin is a city haunted by its own history and we BYU students spent two and a half months right at the heart of it. In addition to our historical explorations and cultural experiences, we were able to study at the Goethe Institute, one of the finest German language institutes in the world. We stayed with native German families and attended local LDS wards on Sundays. Many of us also conducted ORCA-funded research and other student research projects. BYU Professor Hans Kelling was our guide, and one special adventure was our trip to Schwerin where Professor Kelling was born. As if he were once again a young schoolboy, he guided us through his hometown, telling us where his house used to be and where his family members lived.
After our adventures in Berlin, our group was privileged to take a whirlwind bus tour of middle Germany. We visited the cities of Dresden, Leipzig, Weimar, Eisenach, Nürnberg, Bamberg, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Heidelberg, Wetzlar, and Goslar, and drove along the castle-encrusted Rhein River Valley. For me and many others in the group, the highlight was the visit to the famous Wartburg castle near Eisenach. Following is an excerpt from my journal:
We are spending the night in Eisenach, where Johann Sebastian Bach was born and Martin Luther lived as a boy, attending Latin school in preparation for joining the ministry. Later in his life, Martin Luther was exiled to the hilltop castle here, the Wartburg, in order to be protected from the Pope and Kaiser who would have much liked this annoying little German monk just disappear. While imprisoned in the Wartburg, he translated the New Testament into German, making it available to the German people en mass. I got to see the room where Martin Luther lived and where his tremendous translation effort was carried out. You could feel a sacred spirit in that space, and the importance of that endeavor in the chain of events that led to the restoration of the gospel in these latter days was confirmed to me. Interestingly enough, it took him only 11 weeks to translate the New Testament; almost the exact same space of time in which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. Surely the hand of God was in both works.
Of course this is just one perspective on the tapes- try of educational enrichment that our group of about thirty-five students experienced in our study of a new people, culture, and land. Charlemagne said, “To have a second language is to possess a second soul.” Certainly the souls of our study abroad group were expanded greatly by our experiences in Berlin.