World War TwoRism - Third Reich Walking Tour, Berlin

2013.  My trip to Berlin was the first time I specifically travelled somewhere for the sole purpose of seeking out key sites from World War 2. If there's not an official name for that kind of travelling, then there should be.

World War TwoRism.

Prior to going, I knew that there was a Third Reich Tour running from outside of Potsdamer Platz and I thought that it would be a great way to get shown around in a few hours and then return to the key sites in the days after properly and spend more time there looking around.

This tour was one of the best things I have ever done. Such an energetic and informative four hours and we covered a lot of ground. The tour guide was a New Zealander called Mike who had a degree in German history and had lived in Germany for over a decade. He really knew his stuff. It was only 12 Euro too.

I put together a bit of a video 'VLOG' of the tour and my return to one of the sites that evening. I tried the VLOG thing out for a few days just to get used to new editing software I was using. I kept this one on my YouTube channel as a bit of a reminder.

Click here for video on YouTube page

Cardiff's Nazi Link.

Early last year (2014), I caught the end of a story on a BBC Wales News segment. News I never watch with any interest as not a lot happens in Wales. It's either rugby related or one of the Royals has gone to another obscure and unpronounceable village to feign an interest in the worlds largest Welsh cake.

Out of nowhere, I heard the words Hermann Goering and Cardiff. In the same sentence.

Goering, Hitler's Deputy and head of the Luftwaffe. He liked art. He had an impressive private collection. He took interest in a 16th Century Welsh Noblewoman, Catrin of Berain. The portrait was hung for centuries in family homes in North Wales but made it's way to Berlin and Goering in 1940.

In 1938, the owners decided to sell the painting and contacted a dealer in London. Somewhere along the line, it was offered to the National Museum of Wales but that transaction failed to happen. The London dealer had connections with the art market in Amsterdam and the painting was eventually bought by Walter Andreas Hofer, the advisor on art to Hermann Goering.

The painting became part of Hermann Goering's private collection.

Eventually, the art was rescued by a team which protect cultural treasures from damage during the war. A film called 'Monuments Men' (2014) was based on these guys.

The painting eventually found it's way into the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff. I went to visit it.

The painting is so unassuming and there was no indication to its link with Goering and the Nazi party which is not surprising.

Hitler Liked Paris

June 23rd, 1940. Hitler makes his first and only visit to Paris. On his brief visit he was taken around the notable sites, immediately ordering the destruction of two World War One memorial sites. Anything that celebrates any defeat of Germany in the now occupied France is not cool with Hitler.

"This was the greatest and finest moment of my life" is how Hitler described his visit to Paris, impressed by the beauty of the city but still confident that his elaborate plans for Berlin and its architecture would make Paris look like a nice steering wheel cover in the driving force that is Berlin.

Hitler had a thing for Opera Houses and had studied the plans so well that on a brief visit to the one in Paris, he pointed out a discrepancy in the floor plan where something had been changed.

Paris was my first visit to mainland Europe and equally the first place that I could be where Hitler stood. When I saw the spot, it kind of impressed me. Adolf Hitler was here and so was I. He seemed such an insignificant man and at the same time, like the head teacher of school. All powerful and to be feared. Tourists standing in the same spot as he did, blissfully unaware of who had done so before.

Jewish Stumbling Stones - Munich is not a fan

Scattered along the floor of German cities in no real structure, like some elaborate dot-to-dot puzzle, are little brass plaques on the pavements outside the former homes of those murdered or deported by the Nazis. Each one bears the name of a single victim.

These are referred to as 'Stumbling Stones' (Solpersteine) and there are apparently over 50, 000 of these in cities all over Europe claiming to be the largest memorial of any kind in the world.

Munich has a tight ban on these as the elected leader of the cities Jewish community, a Holocaust survivor herself, protests that the victims deserve more than a plaque "in the dust and street dirt". I don't agree with that. There's no disrespect here, just another way to remember those lost.

I think they are great and I cannot go by one without reading it.

Berlin

Cologne

I'd told my brother Andrew to look out for these things as we went along. Here he is  taking a closer look at the first ones we spotted in Cologne.

About me and this Blog

As a kid, I unwillingly sat through war documentaries. My Dad used to watch them a lot. I liked the German uniforms and I really wanted a Luger pistol but other than that the names, dates and places didn't really interest me. I couldn't relate to it at all. It felt so old and separated from me that it almost felt like I was watching an old film that I had seen a few times but didn't much like.

History GCSE. I studied Hitler's Germany for two years. I had the names, dates and places rammed down my throat. As I learned I became more interested in certain aspects. I didn't agree with the Nazi Party, or what they stood for but I always admired their 'Conquer the world at all costs' attitude and found their military and Third Reich architecture impressive. I got a good grade with that stuff but there is only so much you can enjoy a subject that you are forced to read about and so on.

Years later, I watched the box set of 'Band Of Brothers' that I bought my Dad for Christmas a few years previous. Although I knew that it was a Hollywoodised and somewhat biased recreation of events, it did peak my interest. I went on to watch 'Downfall' then went through every episode of 'World At War' (which I also bought my Dad for Christmas). I was more than interested. 

I had turned into my Dad.

For the next couple of years, I felt that I had saturated what I could watch and read about the war. The pictures and footage of places that I had seen a million times onscreen and in books were real, and they were out there. I wanted to be where it happened.

2013. I went to Berlin. It seemed like an obvious choice for me. I went on a Third Reich Tour. This was a turning point for me. Seeing where everything happened, with my own eyes was fascinating. I had found a new way of feeding my interest.

This blog is basically about myself travelling to all of the key sites around Europe that hold some significance to World War Two, mostly focussing on the Third Reich, an area which fascinates me the most. I am no expert and i'm using this blog and my travels to help me learn more as I go along.

My name is Chris Lloyd and I am a film student at University of South Wales in the UK.