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| About that header picture in East Berlin http://www.yesterdaysweapons.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=12174 |
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| Author: | gschwertley [ Wed Dec 11, 2013 2:14 am ] |
| Post subject: | About that header picture in East Berlin |
That picture was taken in front of the Neue Wache. This building was a guardhouse for the Prussian Army and was reconfigured in 1931 to be a memorial to WW1 dead. During the Hitler era, it was the centerpiece of Heroes Day ceremonies. Under the Communists, it was converted to a memorial for the "Victims of Fascism and Militarism" which was kind of a joke, the way it was presided over by the DDR military in a way that show-cased the same drill and ceremony that was celebrated by the Prussians. In the picture, you can see the guard from the Wachtregiment standing on a little platform. There were two of these, one on each side of the entrance. Every so often, they would go through the drill of changing which side they would have their rifle shouldered on. They would go through the drill with exact matched precision. However, if you were standing close, you cold hear a soft buzzer in the background that would time their movements. During certain times of the year (read, "good weather"), they would have a full ceremonial changing of the guard at a certain time of the day, like noon. The Wachtregiment "Friedrich Engels" (WR-1) would march up and have a formation out in front, the band would be there playing (many old military songs of the Prussian era), the guards would goose step back and forth during the changing, etc. So much for Commie anti-militarism. This was a tourist attraction for US Army soldiers sight-seeing in East Berlin. The post WW2 occupied status of Berlin was never resolved until the reunification in 1990 and the soldiers of the four "Allied" powers could (more or less) cross freely back and forth between the sectors. That is, western Allied soldiers could go east but ordinary Russian soldiers normally did not go west due to restrictions placed upon them by their army. I got to see the ceremony during its closing days in 1989. I imagined it to be about as close to the real deal as one could get to the bad old pre-1945 days. |
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