I love museums. I always find one or two history museums to visit wherever I go. To me it is fascinating to see what brought today’s modern cities to their present form a how different politics of individual countries help formulate what is today each country in the world.
In the USA we have from the beginning fought for freedom. Freedom of religion, freedom of government, freedom from other people telling us what we can and should do.
In Germany, that was not the case, and the German History Museum in Berlin is perhaps one of the finest museums in the world to illustrate what can go wrong in history.
From its feudal inception, Germany was ruled by lords and Prussian kings and queens who shared incalculable wealth. In other museums, there are statues of religious figures and Madonna’s with the baby Jesus depicted in paintings as well. In the Museum in Berlin, I was struck by huge replicas of royalty mounted on their horses complete with suits of armor not only for the royals and lords, but also for the horses. Horses and men as well were fitted with chain mail, or a mesh of metal links that covered their bodies and those of their horses as well which fit under these heavy clad pieces of metal. It is a wonder that man or horse could move let alone joust of fight off foes.
The peasants just farmed or took care of the nobles in those early days and throughout the museum, the workers just followed instruction so that they could be given food and a roof over their heads which was given them from the nobles.
Walking through the history of Germany in this museum, it is no wonder that when Adolf Hitler came along with his promises of work and good standard of living, that the people fell in line to listen to his speeches and scream in adoration at their “Feurr”. Those screams of adoration, turned to screams of terror as the Nazi’ under Hitler’s direction, started to concur Europe one country after another. Not only did he create the Hitler Youth (where one had to have only Arian blood to belong), but if anyone showed opposition…it was off to the gas chambers along with those of Jewish descent whom Hitler deemed evil. His propaganda machine throughout Europe depicted anyone with a swarthy completion as a person not to be trusted. Millions of people, Jews, Polish, Turks, Greeks, Gypsys from Hungry…all were sent to the gas chambers to purify Hitler’s view of the Arian race. No one dared oppose him. As long as he was creating jobs and putting food on their table…no matter how horrific he proved to be…there was no opposition. Finally in 1945, Hitler committed suicide, knowing that the allies were going to kill him as world opposition to what was happening in Europe grew. He preferred ending his life as a martyr rather than being belittled in war crimes trials like so many of his generals.
It took another year to clear Europe of the Nazi forces and as in many wars, “carpetbaggers” took advantage of the downtrodden by supplying a steady stream of necessary things at high prices.
Throughout the museum, you can trace this feudal society and most likely understand why Germany is such a strong nation today. The attitude of most Germans is that they will not be weak again and not let anything of the kind happen. I asked my driver if there had been incidences of Isis terrorism in Berlin or anywhere else in Germany and his answer was. “This will never happen in Germany. We are not afraid to fight!”
I could have spent more time in this museum learning about life and how one country could go so horribly astray by having a very rich leadership and a very poor populace. As it was I spent four hours in this magnificent museum with its wonderful displays, historic treasures and films and photos of how Germany went the wrong way in its history. Perhaps it was the lack of freedom, lack of religion, or lack of common sense that brought Germany to its knees before the 21st century. We could all learn what not to do by a visit to this amazing museum in the center of Berlin.
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