This Would Not Be the First Time the Olympics Were Cancelled or Delayed-- Part 1: Berlin (1916)

I am hearing that Japan will be delaying the 2020 Olympics until next year.  However, this will not be the first time that this has happened.  It has happened three times in history, all because of war.

One time it was because of World War I in 1916 and twice during World War II in 1940 and 1944.

I will be writing about the World War I cancellation here and the two times in World War II in my Tattooed On Your Soul: World War II blog.

From the March 22, 2020, Chicago Tribune  "Olympics: Groundswell build" by Eddie Pells, AP.

Berlin was set to host the 1916 Summer Olympics (the Winter Games weren't founded until 1924), beating bids by Alexandria, Amsterdam, Brussels, Budapest and Cleveland.

--CootPics

Tourists Find a Section of the Berlin Wall Under Vegetation

From the August 15, 2018, Chicago Tribune by Erik Kirschbaum LA Times.

Nearly 30 years after it was toppled, a 20-yard-long section of the Berlin Wall has been discovered, hidden behind bushes, weeds and overgrown trees that over the years obscured it.

The Berlin Wall is one of the Cold War's most divisive symbols.  (I personally never thought it would come down.)

It is 11-feet high cement slabs and was found in the heart of Berlin.  It had once been part of an interior security barrier to keep East Germans from getting close to the outer wall separating East Berlin from West Berlin.  It is covered with graffiti and is now under monument protection status.

The tourists discovered it in June but it was just determined to be authentic this week.

Another, longer piece of the wall, about a 260-foot section, was discovered in similar fashion in January in a northern district of East Berlin in a forest area.

This occurred just one day after Berliners marked the anniversary of the wall's construction in 1961.

I  have a very small piece of the wall.

--Cooter

10 Bizarre Cold War Tales-- Part 3: "Uncle Wiggly Wing"

3.  Joseph McCarthy's campaign against gays.  The Lavendar Scare.  Claimed there were gay government workers he gave away state secrets.  He forced the gay community underground.

2.  The United States dropped tons of candy on Berlin after the Berlin Blockade began which could have started World War III.  Pilots dropping the candy were called "The Candy Bomber" or "Uncle Wiggly Wing."

1.  Nikita Khruschev and Richard Nixon squared off inside an American kitchen in what is called "The Kitchen Debate.  Vice President Nixon was in Moscow on July 24, 1959 for the opening of the America Nation Exhibition.

Pas the Coffee.  --Cooter

Rosa Parks House Alive and Well in Berlin

From the April 13, 2017, Chicago Tribune by Stephanie Kirchner, Washington Post.

And, that is Berlin, as in Germany.  Definitely one of the last places I'd expect to find her house.

"To save the house of civil rights icon Rosa Parks from the wrecking ball, American artist Ryan M

Mendoza shipped it half way across the world.  Now it's on display in the German capital.  When he learned the house she lived in during the late 1950s was to be demolished by Detroit as part of its anti-blight campaign, he launched a rescue plan.

A team of local volunteers took the house apart piece by piece and re-erected it in Berlin a few weeks later.

Between 1957 and 1959, the house was Rosa Parks' temporary shelter from after her refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger.

Well-Worth Saving.

Five Myths About the Berlin Wall: Germans Are Enthusiastic As the Rest of the World in Celebrating the Wall's Fall

5.  Actually, Germans have been far more ambivalent about the wall.  Germans shot their own people and, as a result of the opening, there have been economic problems like high levels of unemployment

Another factor complicating the fall of the wall is that Nov. 9th was the date when Nazis attacked Jewish businesses, synagogues and homes on the Night of the Broken Glass, or Kristallnacht.

On Nov. 9th, Germans celebrated the 25th anniversary with 8,000 illuminated balloons forming a "Border of light" along the former path of the wall in central Berlin..

--DaCoot

Five Myths About the Berlin Wall: The Wall Fell Nov. 9, 1989

4.  That night and in the weeks following, East German officials removed pieces of the wall to create more crossing points between East and West.  Countless "wall peckers" with hammers and chisels came to take home their own pieces (some to be sold for profit.  I bought one of these little pieces for an exorbitant price, but a real, I hope, piece of history.).  But most of the wall was left standing.

Official demolition of the wall began in the summer of 1990.  It took almost two years to remove all of the border fortifications around Berlin and four years to dismantle them along the full length of East and West Germany's borders.

Even today, hundreds of mines have not been found.  In Berlin, a little over a mile of the wall remains, spread out over several sites.

But now, there are more segments of the wall on display in the United States than Berlin.

I've seen two in Missouri, one at a fort and the other at the town where Winston Churchill gave his "Iton Curtain" speech.

--Cooter

Five Myths About the Berlin Wall-- Part 2: Key Move in the Cold War?

2.  KEY MOVE IN THE COLD WAR?  In 1952, the Soviets closed the East-West German border, but since Berlin was still 3/4 under the control of the U.S., Britain and France, they left the city alone.  West Berlin became an escape hatch for East Germans.

East Germany and the Soviet Union argued for 8 years about closing off West Berlin.  The Soviet Union argued that such a move would would make them look bad.  During that time, East Germany began stockpiling barbed wire and cement posts and formed a top secret working group to build the wall.  Plans were made to do this.

In the summer of 1961, with more than 1,000 East Germans a day leaving to West Berlin, Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev gave the east Germans the go-ahead and were greatly surprised at how fast they acted.

--Cooter

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Hitler's Airport Update-- Part 2

Today, Berliners wander through the prairielike 950 acres.

During the war, Allied forces knew that one day they would need the airport after the war, so it was spared the bombing that destroyed so much of Berlin.

Tempelhof became the eastern end of President Harry Truman's famous air bridge during the 1948-49 Soviet blockade of West Berlin which was surrounded by Soviet East Germany. Today, there is an abstract monument bearing the names of 70 British and American "Candy Bombers" who died ferrying food and supplies to West Berlin. It's three fingers represent the three air routes into the city.

Tempelhoff became a major US base and the main civilian air link. As commercial airlines began using the other two airports, private planes carrying high-end travelers continued to use it.

The Story of an Airport. --DaCoot

Hitler's Airport Update-- Part 1

July 22nd Chicago Tribune "From Nazi icon to tranquil oasis" by Borzou Daraghal.


Tempelhof Airport shut down two years ago as more and more air traffic went to the more modern Tegel and Schoenfield airports. There were lots of plans for it, but today it is just essentially open park land.

This airport represents German history since the 1930s after being designed on a monumental scale to glorify Hitler's Third Reich by his top architect, Albert Speer. It was massive to say the least, at 950 acres, larger than New York City's Central Park and twice the size of Berlin's biggest park, the 19th century Tiergarten.

Nothing has essentially been done, other than city workers painting huge Xs on the runways so no planes will land there.

Hitler had Speer create "an ominous and imposing edifice, decorated with eagles that grasped swastikas which have long been scraped off."

The 4,000 foot long airport building is being left as is for now. Parts are sometimes rented out for events and the grounds are essentially left as they were.

Cold War Edifice Next, --Cooter

Quite an Anniversary-- The Berlin Wall

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall. I remember just looking at the TV in wonder of those East Berliners standing on top of the wall, a place wherethey would have been shot had they done it just 24-hours earlier.

I never thought I'd see this as the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union and fall of Communism.

Some friends of ours who ran the Black Bear Restaurant in Ingleside, Illinois, which featured German food, were returning home for a visit to Berlin and I asked if they would get me a piece of it, figuring this would be a way for my students to actually touch history. They came back with a small bag with a piece of it for $15.

It was a really small piece, but had paint on one flat piece which I figure must have faced the West Berlin side unless it had been painted on after the wall opened.

I understand there are some sections of the wall left in place.

I have also seen sections of the wall at a fort out in Kansas and at Westminister College in Fulton, Missouri, where Winston Churchill gave his Iron Curtain speech.

An Important Wall. --Cooter

Getting Nostalgic for the Cold War in Berlin

In these post-Cold War days in Germany, some people are getting nostalgic for those days according to an article in the September 29th Time Magazine by Stephanie Kirchner.

Hans-Holger, an East German border guard recalles thedays he was supposed to shoot fellow citizens for trying to escape to West Berlin. He had to serve a 17-month prison sentence for trying to escape himself.

Now, Zur Furma is open in East Berlin, close to the former Stasi headquarters. It's theme comes from East Germany's feared secret police. The place has a surveillance camera over the door, old wiretap devices and furnishings from a 1970s interrogation room. The name itself translates to "The Firm."

Some people do not like this taking light of a dark era. But, folks can buy G.D.R. souvenirs, stay at the Ostel, a G.D.R.-themed hostel, or take a "Trabi-safari" which involves taking a Trabi car sightseeing. Trabis were the notoriously poor-quality cars build in East Germany.

Tourists can also pose with actors dressed as US and Russian soldiers at Check Point Charlie, for years the only way to get from East to West Berlin.

Wail Long Enough, and Anything is Possible. --Cooter