Berlin Thoughts
Sep. 23rd, 2004 05:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakBack from Berlin (and very grateful for the CDs & DVDs ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bimo and muffinmonster sent, so I can proceed in my research).
The rain remained with us for nearly all the rest of the time, but that allowed us to see some museums we always skipped before, notably the Kunstgewerbemuseum (jewelry and furniture from the middle ages until the present), the Alte Gemäldegalerie, about which more in a moment, and the cathedral which until the 90s hadn't been completely restored, the Berliner Dom. The cuppola offers a great view over Berlin, east and west, and there were no visitors there aside form ourselves, which is a great advantage over the Reichstag.
(Not that the Reichstag, the old and new parliament, isn't worth visiting if you're there for the first time. Especially the cuppola, which was designed by Norman Foster.)
It never ceases to amaze me how organic and and whole Berlin looks in this old center, divided for so long into two very different cities. The cathedral itself is a rather modern building, meaning it hails from the 18th century with classicism and the end of baroque mingling in surprising harmony. In the crypt you have the coffins of nearly the entire Hohenzollern dynasty, from early princes in the 16th century to a granddaughter of Wilhelm II who died as a child in 1915. Considering I never had much use for the Hohenzollern - with one period excepted: they had some interesting and tragic psychodrama going with Frederick the Great and his father - who had Frederick's best friend executed in front of Frederick's eyes), I always liked Frederick's sister Wilhelmine, and I can understand why Dr. Johnson thought Frederick was "the only true king in Europe" (I mean, look at the competition at the time - mad George in England, and Louis Quinze in France, who did his share to make the French monarchy well and truly hated by the population - this lacked much emotional resonance, but was of interest to me as a historian. The coffins were mostly protestant sternness, except for that big Hohenzollern spenddrift, Frederick I. (grandfather of Frederick the Great), who went into baroque excesss like nothing I've seen this side of the alps (meaning some of the popes in St. Peter were more elaborate, but only some).
The Gemäldegallery, a collection concentrating on Renaissance and Baroque paintings, is far less famous than other Berlin Museums, and after having been there, I can't quite understand why. The room devoted to Rembrandt alone is worth the visit. Those Rembrandts were all in top condition, not behind glass, could be regarded without masses of tourists at one's leisure, and were all extremely beautiful. My old art teacher once quoted what someone (Zola?) had said about Monet - "he has only one eye, but by God, what an eye!". I'd paraphrase that about Rembrandt - he only knows one colour, but by God, what a spectrum in that colour. (Which I'm sure is a staggeringly unoriginal observation.) All those different shades of brown, and all the faces of the men look as if they deserve to be played by Charles Laughton (who played Rembrandt in a biopic scripted by Carl Zuckmayer as I recall). In art galleries, certain periods or painters let you believe after a while there is only one type of face, and that the inviduals don't vary save for their costumes, but every Rembrandt face, male or female, cannot be repeated.
That night, doing the RL stuff I had partly come to Berlin for involved meeting A Former Government Official again, whom I had encountered a couple of years ago and had in remained in very loose correspondance with. He had always been nice, and very helpful in 2002 when arranging a conversation between yours truly and Henry Kissinger. Which was a very surreal and bizarre experience, but that's another story. The short version is that all was benign exchanges about the region in Germany we both (meaning Kissinger & self) hail from and various cities in the US and Europe, with the occasional non sequitur thrown in ("I was always against the use of nuclear weapons" - which I hadn't asked about, and which is profoundly untrue as ample documentation of the Nixon era proves, but okay) , right until the International Criminal Court had come up. Which led to Pinochet. Which led to me asking Henry K. whether he'd be ready to testify as a witness in a trial against Pinochet in Chile. Quoth he: "Why should I do that?" Said I: "Because the American Government at the time, of which you were a part, supported Pinochet's coup, did it not?" End of conversation and meeting.
Anyway, the only reason why I had felt vaguely guilty about said 2002 conversation was because The Former Government Official had asked Kissinger to see me, and I hadn't wanted to embarrass him. Yesterday was the first time I saw the FGO face to face again since years, as the contact in between had consisted of christmas cards and birthday greetings, mostly. So I was quite relieved when he smiled upon spotting me, came over, and remained for about two hours chatting. During which time the Kissinger encounter did come up. "By the way," he said, "he did mention you to me afterwards. He said: 'She talked to me in an aggressive manner.'"
My inner liberal was pleased. (And thought something like "Hah!") My inner polite girl felt vaguely guilty again. So I said: "During the last ten minutes, the conversation turned to the International Criminal Court." "Oh dear," said the FGO. "Quite," said I, and explained again. "But you see," I finished, "I couldn't not bring it up at that point. I mean, he did do it. That wasn't some invention on my part." "Well, my dear," said the FGO, "foreign policy isn't a midwife service."
At which point someone else asked him something, which gave me a chance to catch a breath before he turned to me again. Thereafter, we talked of other things. Now I wonder whether I'm a hypocrite. Because "not a midwife service" is one hell of a euphemism for the Nixon administration's policy in regards to Chile, which included financing the assassination (or if you want to believe them, "only" the kidnapping, with the assassination a mere accident) of General Schneider and repeatet attempts to overthrow the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende which finally succeeded in the form of a bloody dictatorship. And yet I didn't argue this with the FGO, because he had been nice to me a couple of times and because I like him. (As opposed to Henry K.)
There was one other point where I wondered about my difference in reaction. The FGO was, among other things, for a time the boss of the West German secret service. As chance would have it, his father and the father of his East German counterpart, Markus Wolf, both came from the same town. (That's something no novelist would have dared to invent.) He had told me this before and now added that Mr. Wolf had been trying to arrange for the two of them to meet in said hometown of their fathers, which the FGO so far has refused to agree to.
"Because I know what he wants to imply with such a meeting," he said to me. "That we both did the same thing, that it was the same thing. Now we both knew exactly what we were doing, but there is a difference whether you do it for a democracy, or whether you do it for a dictatorship."
John Le Carré (who supposedly modelled the character Karla in the Smiley novels on Markus Wolf) would debate the point. And it is of course the big topic of the year, if you think about Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Now I'm not surprised the FGO believes there is a difference - he has to, otherwise how could he live with himself? (Insert appropriate DS9 association and Sisko's "I can live with it" here). It's just that I didn't even say "Are you sure about that?", instead going just "hm", and discussing how to be more efficient in Third World support. Manners? Sympathy? Cowardice?
bimo and muffinmonster sent, so I can proceed in my research).The rain remained with us for nearly all the rest of the time, but that allowed us to see some museums we always skipped before, notably the Kunstgewerbemuseum (jewelry and furniture from the middle ages until the present), the Alte Gemäldegalerie, about which more in a moment, and the cathedral which until the 90s hadn't been completely restored, the Berliner Dom. The cuppola offers a great view over Berlin, east and west, and there were no visitors there aside form ourselves, which is a great advantage over the Reichstag.
(Not that the Reichstag, the old and new parliament, isn't worth visiting if you're there for the first time. Especially the cuppola, which was designed by Norman Foster.)
It never ceases to amaze me how organic and and whole Berlin looks in this old center, divided for so long into two very different cities. The cathedral itself is a rather modern building, meaning it hails from the 18th century with classicism and the end of baroque mingling in surprising harmony. In the crypt you have the coffins of nearly the entire Hohenzollern dynasty, from early princes in the 16th century to a granddaughter of Wilhelm II who died as a child in 1915. Considering I never had much use for the Hohenzollern - with one period excepted: they had some interesting and tragic psychodrama going with Frederick the Great and his father - who had Frederick's best friend executed in front of Frederick's eyes), I always liked Frederick's sister Wilhelmine, and I can understand why Dr. Johnson thought Frederick was "the only true king in Europe" (I mean, look at the competition at the time - mad George in England, and Louis Quinze in France, who did his share to make the French monarchy well and truly hated by the population - this lacked much emotional resonance, but was of interest to me as a historian. The coffins were mostly protestant sternness, except for that big Hohenzollern spenddrift, Frederick I. (grandfather of Frederick the Great), who went into baroque excesss like nothing I've seen this side of the alps (meaning some of the popes in St. Peter were more elaborate, but only some).
The Gemäldegallery, a collection concentrating on Renaissance and Baroque paintings, is far less famous than other Berlin Museums, and after having been there, I can't quite understand why. The room devoted to Rembrandt alone is worth the visit. Those Rembrandts were all in top condition, not behind glass, could be regarded without masses of tourists at one's leisure, and were all extremely beautiful. My old art teacher once quoted what someone (Zola?) had said about Monet - "he has only one eye, but by God, what an eye!". I'd paraphrase that about Rembrandt - he only knows one colour, but by God, what a spectrum in that colour. (Which I'm sure is a staggeringly unoriginal observation.) All those different shades of brown, and all the faces of the men look as if they deserve to be played by Charles Laughton (who played Rembrandt in a biopic scripted by Carl Zuckmayer as I recall). In art galleries, certain periods or painters let you believe after a while there is only one type of face, and that the inviduals don't vary save for their costumes, but every Rembrandt face, male or female, cannot be repeated.
That night, doing the RL stuff I had partly come to Berlin for involved meeting A Former Government Official again, whom I had encountered a couple of years ago and had in remained in very loose correspondance with. He had always been nice, and very helpful in 2002 when arranging a conversation between yours truly and Henry Kissinger. Which was a very surreal and bizarre experience, but that's another story. The short version is that all was benign exchanges about the region in Germany we both (meaning Kissinger & self) hail from and various cities in the US and Europe, with the occasional non sequitur thrown in ("I was always against the use of nuclear weapons" - which I hadn't asked about, and which is profoundly untrue as ample documentation of the Nixon era proves, but okay) , right until the International Criminal Court had come up. Which led to Pinochet. Which led to me asking Henry K. whether he'd be ready to testify as a witness in a trial against Pinochet in Chile. Quoth he: "Why should I do that?" Said I: "Because the American Government at the time, of which you were a part, supported Pinochet's coup, did it not?" End of conversation and meeting.
Anyway, the only reason why I had felt vaguely guilty about said 2002 conversation was because The Former Government Official had asked Kissinger to see me, and I hadn't wanted to embarrass him. Yesterday was the first time I saw the FGO face to face again since years, as the contact in between had consisted of christmas cards and birthday greetings, mostly. So I was quite relieved when he smiled upon spotting me, came over, and remained for about two hours chatting. During which time the Kissinger encounter did come up. "By the way," he said, "he did mention you to me afterwards. He said: 'She talked to me in an aggressive manner.'"
My inner liberal was pleased. (And thought something like "Hah!") My inner polite girl felt vaguely guilty again. So I said: "During the last ten minutes, the conversation turned to the International Criminal Court." "Oh dear," said the FGO. "Quite," said I, and explained again. "But you see," I finished, "I couldn't not bring it up at that point. I mean, he did do it. That wasn't some invention on my part." "Well, my dear," said the FGO, "foreign policy isn't a midwife service."
At which point someone else asked him something, which gave me a chance to catch a breath before he turned to me again. Thereafter, we talked of other things. Now I wonder whether I'm a hypocrite. Because "not a midwife service" is one hell of a euphemism for the Nixon administration's policy in regards to Chile, which included financing the assassination (or if you want to believe them, "only" the kidnapping, with the assassination a mere accident) of General Schneider and repeatet attempts to overthrow the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende which finally succeeded in the form of a bloody dictatorship. And yet I didn't argue this with the FGO, because he had been nice to me a couple of times and because I like him. (As opposed to Henry K.)
There was one other point where I wondered about my difference in reaction. The FGO was, among other things, for a time the boss of the West German secret service. As chance would have it, his father and the father of his East German counterpart, Markus Wolf, both came from the same town. (That's something no novelist would have dared to invent.) He had told me this before and now added that Mr. Wolf had been trying to arrange for the two of them to meet in said hometown of their fathers, which the FGO so far has refused to agree to.
"Because I know what he wants to imply with such a meeting," he said to me. "That we both did the same thing, that it was the same thing. Now we both knew exactly what we were doing, but there is a difference whether you do it for a democracy, or whether you do it for a dictatorship."
John Le Carré (who supposedly modelled the character Karla in the Smiley novels on Markus Wolf) would debate the point. And it is of course the big topic of the year, if you think about Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Now I'm not surprised the FGO believes there is a difference - he has to, otherwise how could he live with himself? (Insert appropriate DS9 association and Sisko's "I can live with it" here). It's just that I didn't even say "Are you sure about that?", instead going just "hm", and discussing how to be more efficient in Third World support. Manners? Sympathy? Cowardice?
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-23 09:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-23 10:14 am (UTC)I am afraid that I am with Sisko -- I'll go part way there, but not the whole way. But, unlike Joseph, I'll go part way there. Which is why I am, as
no subject
Date: 2004-09-23 01:41 pm (UTC)Quite. Unfortunately.
I guess most of us would go part way there. The question is, where do you draw the line? How far do you go? And who decides? (Plus with a view to present politics, who decides the line isn't there anymore in your name?)
no subject
Date: 2004-09-23 12:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-23 01:55 pm (UTC)(Which obviously doesn't mean that I approve of the foreign policies of the current or former US governments. Maybe I'm just playing devil's advocate...)
no subject
Date: 2004-09-23 02:45 pm (UTC)I think it is part of our spirit that we must consider it and decide what is the cvost we are willing to pay. For freedom. For liberty. For our country. For peace of mind.
What is the line and where do we draw it is something that changesd for every person and is almost a thing of soul as much as reason.
A lot of good sci fi stories have been spent on this topic. Star Trek adn Star Wars and B-5 and DS-9 and Voy and Next gen and many many more...
The character and the heart of a man or woman in the situation where you are responsible for more than yourself. Where your decisions carry the weight we normally call 'the power of life and death'... in that moment, in that startling light of unreason, a choice has to be made, and lines are drawn. Some call them black and white, some shades of Grey. But in the end it is more of a question of "Who am I?"