Berlin Philharmonic

Johannes Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77. Performed by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Claudio Abbado. Recorded live at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Italy in 2002. Featuring soloist Gil Shaham. Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1833. His father taught him music as a young boy. At the age of 6, he started creating his own method of writing music. Brahms befriended many famous composers during his life, most notably the Schumanns. He composed over a 100 works during his lifetime. Most famous were his Symphonies, Violin Concerto, and Hungarian Dances. He died in 1897 of liver cancer. He was buried next to Beethoven and Franz Schubert. The first…

This summer, my family and I traveled to Berlin, Germany to learn about my Jewish great grandparents’ experience during the Holocaust. After visiting the Topography of Terror, I have become interested in understanding how the Nazis could turn a democracy into a dictatorship. This trip made me question not only government’s actions of the past, but also my government’s actions today. It has made me look at the U.S. 2016 election differently. Most of all, my trip made me want to learn more about…

In 1945 directly following the end of WWII, Nazi territory was separated into zones. Each Allie country (US, France and Great Britain) were given a zone during the Potsdam Conference. During this conference the Soviet Union’s assigned zone encompassed all of Germany, along with other European countries. This concerned the Allies as it was apparent the priority of the USSR was to spread communism and their idealistic views. Therefore the Allies divided the city of Berlin into East and West…

Although it did not intend to show Hitler’s caring and loving character, it was a direct propaganda and a fabrication of the reality. Like Fall of Berlin, Theresienstadt can be considered to be one of the greatest examples of indigestible propaganda. Its aim was to show everyone, especially the International Red Cross, that the Jews were not at all suffering at ghettos. In the film, we see a peaceful ghetto in Czechoslovakia. The film starts off showing a well-dressed girl and an old lady who is…

and moving on from its past. Establishing a country of “grey buildings, grey earth, grey birds and grey trees”, Funder presents Germany as being dull, dark and without hope, indicating her belief that it is unable to build over the impact of the GDR as it can be seen in the city but in the landscape as well. The cold and dark colors also reflect the utilitarian aspects of the GDR, and identifies that the former regime still lingers, despite Germany’s attempt to move forward and build a new…

history of the Berlin Wall was ignited by World War II. Germany plotted an attack on Poland, yet was intimidated by the fact that the Soviet Union might interfere. So, before raiding Poland, Hitler made sure to sign a non-aggression pact with the U.S.S.R. This pact secretly stated that Poland should be divided between Germany and the Soviet Union, with Germany receiving the western third, while the Soviets gained control of the remaining two-thirds. Germany began their attacks on Poland on…

many as The Berlin Wall. It became a significant symbol that represented all of those things depending on which side of the wall you were on. The events leading up to the building and destruction of the wall were very important to not only the Germans, but also to the whole world. The wall itself was a very complex security system and claimed many lives of those who tried to flee from East Berlin to West Berlin. When World War II was winding down, Russia claimed Berlin as a spoil of war. In…

During this time, 275,000 planes transported 1.5 million tons of supplies and a plane landed every three minutes at Berlin 's Templehof airport (BBC). The Russians saw that their allies were not going to give up. Russia called off the blockade. At this point is where East and West Germany became the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). They each then gained rights of their own portions of the city of Berlin. The Soviets were not happy about having to give…

A symbol of oppression for the German people, the Berlin Wall was a barrier that separated the city of Berlin in both the physical and metaphorical form of the word. Officially designated the “Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart” by the government of the German Democratic Republic, the wall split the city of Berlin into two segments. One half was controlled by the Soviet Union and the other half of Berlin was administered by an alliance of the three Western allied powers, comprised of the United…

The Berlin Wall On August 13, 1961 the Berlin Wall had been placed; Berlins demise was now imminent. The Berlin Wall was a major result of Cold War tensions. “From the 1940s on Germany itself had become a monster of the communist-capitalist conflict. It divided West Germany into the ‘Federal Republic of Germany’ and the smaller East Germany the ‘German Democratic Republic’.”(Taylor,1) It divided a city from the outer world and completely separated family and friends. At the end of World…