Hillerleiturgia - the Blog: Day 6 (29 April) - More than we wanted, or less, depending.

Our friend and photographer, Steven Savage, suggested that while we were in Berlin we might want to go see the Markisches Museum – a museum of Berlin history. So we make our there, and recognize the building as one that had caught our eye on our Spree cruise a couple of days ago. It is a striking building of brick, with intricate workmanship. It is closed. What to do?

Making our way to the Nikolai Vierteil (which was no mean trick having to cross one canal and the River Spree) we decide to have a quick coffee and a pflaumkuchen – very good. We go to Nikolaikirche, for which the quarter is named. Destroyed in the Weltkrieg, it was abandoned for several years and then given by the Evangelische Kirche to the government of East Berlin. Earlier it was a place where the state and church were mixed in prayer and prestige. The last Abendmahl was celebrated in 1920 or so, and then it was used as a museum.

The hymn writer, Paul Gerhardt, (Nun ruhen alle Waelder, O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden, Auf, auf mein Hertz mit Freuden, u.s.w.) was a pastor here. There is an interesting painting from the 17^th century of a Lutheran Eucharist celebrated with local nobility, and celebrant in chasuble, and other clergy in surplice and cassock. It’s a good picture of what the Lutheran Church was like before the forced union with the Reformed in the 19^th Century.

The church itself was built in the 13^th Century and earlier foundations are indicated in the flooring of the building. A baroque altar (now destroyed) is displayed in an interesting fashion (see the picture). There is an attempt to preserve all the various stages of the church’s use and decoration.

Time for Gulaschsuppe und Kirschennektar, at a restaurant we know around the corner. We want to drop by the Schinkel’s Friedrichswerder Kirche, but it is closed for renovation, so we walk down to St. Hedwig’s and I light candles for friends. We pass through Gendarmenmarkt on our way to Französischerstraße so that we can go on to our next big adventure.

We are bound for Templehof Flughafen again, this time for a four o’clock tour. We buy our tickets, but this is only a German language tour – so it will be a bit of a mind stretch. The tour guide used to work for the US Army so we are regaled with personal stories as well as facts and figures about the building itself. We get to see the tarmac and hanger areas with their amazing over-hang, and the main hall, which is quite awesome. What I really find amazing is when we are taken to the opening lobby, some two stories high, and then up several flights to see the remains of the foreshortened lobby below, which stretches several stories. Stripped of some of its stone it still retains a sense of grandeur.

Then its more mundane things: gymnasium, cafeteria, loading docks, and an underground bunker with paintings. At this point however, we are bored out of our skulls, and can’t wait to get away, which we do at the earliest opportunity.