Women and children gather to protest the arrest of 1,800 Jewish men in "Rosenstraße", a 2003 German film recounting the 1943 protests. (Margarethe von Trotta) On this day in 1943, officials from the Gestapo secret police arrested over 1,800 Jewish men in Berlin. The men had been allowed to remain in Berlin because of their…
Tag: Berlin
02/18 The Nazi Sportpalast Speech
One of the few surviving images of the Sportpalast (or, Totaler Krieg) speech of 1943. Goebbels' audience had been handpicked for their fanaticism and ability to produce noise. (Wikimedia Commons) On this day in 1943, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels delivered a speech to an attentive crowd at the Sportpalast arena in Berlin. Prior to…
11/10 – The Berlin Wall Falls
Potsdamer Platz, Berlin: Berliners and tourists gather in disbelief at the new opening in the "Wall of Shame". (source: Wikimedia Commons) On this day in 1989 Germans began to tear down the Berlin Wall. The 155 km (96 mile) wall had split East and West Germany in two through Berlin since 1961. Prior to the…