Ever since the Berlin Wall came down, I’ve been pottering around eastern Germany, where my father’s family came from, and fled from at the end of the second world war. I thought my interest would fade as my father’s fatherland was absorbed by the Bundesrepublik — but for me, this strange hinterland grows more intriguing with each passing year. Take the historic heartland of Hitler’s Reich, subject it to 45 years of communism and then 25 years of capitalism. What do you end up with? A mad mishmash of past and present, the last century laid bare. Naturally, the former GDR isn’t uniformly pretty (indeed, large swaths of it are spectacularly ugly) but for anyone interested in history, it’s a fascinating place.
Most foreign visitors head for Berlin, and many venture no further. They don’t know what they’re missing.
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