Berlin

And I do mean the city in Germany.

I'm thinking Berlin is going to be the next project/adventure.  Obviously, London will always have my heart and soul, but right now, Berlin has my curiosity.  It keeps popping up in art/literature/my life, and I've come to realize I know very few facts about Berlin.  Of course, I've read a little non-fiction on the matter, but Eric Larson's In the Garden of Beasts focused on a very narrow window of time, and Berlin is more than that.  I feel like Berlin in the 20th century was it's own person, with it's own cracked out, off the wall, unbelievable story to tell.

I saw this painting the other day.  The artist is Karl Hofer.  I was wandering around the museums in hopes of catching a glimpse of a Caravaggio or a Van Gogh (there are never enough of those works... or just any of those works), and stumbled along this.  This was painted in Berlin in 1935.  Do you know what Berlin was like in 1935?  Nor do I.  Books like Ken Follett's Fall of Giants and Winter of the World give me a fictionalized account, and the two Berlin graphic novels by Jason Lutes lent some illustrations, but, I'll be honest, when I was hitting the history books hard, I kind of skimmed over Berlin.  All I wanted was to read accounts of Concentration Camps or heroic tales of Allied troops.  Closed mind?  Yes.  Oh, and don't get me started about post World War II.  For a very long time, I believed that there was one perfect decade.  1939 (which was when The Wizard of Oz was released) to 1949.  World War I was okay, but it had nothing on WWII.  Please.  Where was I?  OH.  Okay.  This picture.  Artists no longer created because the Church was writing them a paycheck.  They created what they wanted, when they wanted.  What about Berlin made Hofer want to create this?  And what was going on in the nightclubs and the streets and the meeting rooms?  To live in Berlin in the 1920's or the '60's or in '89/'90 when the Wall came down?  I've touched part of the Wall.  I've listened to Cabaret.  But now I think it's time Berlin and I got a little more acquainted.  Then, when I have neither the time nor the money, I will go and see what Berlin is.  Now.