Richard Carter | Journey to Berlin

You might remember from my explorations of the former death strip how the Berlin 'wall' was in fact quite a sophisticated double-layered border fortification. In some places the border exclusion zone extended even beyond the wall itself, into what they designated the 'Grenzgebiet' (frontier area).

These existed in areas where the border was more vulnerable for some reason, like when it was harder to watch over it, when the walls of buildings formed part of it or where the wall was vulnerable in some other way. The zone was then declared part of the Grenzgebiet and access heavily restricted.

Only people considered not at risk of trying to escape were allowed to live in any housing that remained within these areas and they were only allowed guests with the permission of the authorities. Similarly, where the Grenzgebiet included cemeteries, those visiting family graves were only allowed in if they had a 'Grabkarte' (grave card) which allowed them permission to do so.

This rail on Schönholzer Straße might at first seem like something purely to chain bikes to, or to stop pedestrians from wandering into the middle of the road, but it's actually connected with the Grenzgebiet here.

The 'Hintere Sicherungsmauer' or 'Hinterlandmauer' (the eastern side of the border fortification) ran along the northern side of the pavement here, where the grass is in the first picture. The poles served both to highlight to pedestrians that the area behind them was out of bounds and to remove any chances of cars straying off the road and hitting the wall. Signs reminded citizens that anyone entering the area could only do so with the correct permission (and, of course, papers to prove it).

Where there seemed to be more danger that a vehicle could be driven head-on into the wall, they often put out things like these:

While I can see how the plants might once have made these mildly more attractive, they don't go a long way towards disguising the fact that they're fairly brutal chunks of concrete. Certainly in their current overgrown state, I can't imagine many people being convinced of their decorative value.

Making them hollow would have made them lighter (and therefore easier to transport and manoeuvre) though, as well as cheaper - they could then just be filled with soil to bulk up their weight once they were in place. They're sometimes known as Blumenschalensperren (planter barriers). These particular ones are on the corner of Esplanade and Dolomitenstraße in Pankow.

The picture above is taken looking away from where the wall would have been. You can just see the road Esplanade leading into the distance to the left of the picture - the fact that both Esplanade and Dolomitenstraße led towards the wall here would have been the reason for these being put where they are. There's a third one, which you can see in the picture below, and I imagine there would have been a fourth one where there's now a gap for a cycle path.

This view - looking towards the former death strip - also gives you an idea of how thick the concrete in these planters is. The one in the foreground has a circular hole in it for the plants, so the corners are rather thicker than some of the others, which have square holes.

Either way, the concrete's a good 10cm thick even at its thinnest point. It would certainly take rather more than a daredevil driver in a speeding Trabant to break through these. The fact that your death as a result of that would have been reported as the result of criminal actions intended to harm the stability of the GDR rather than just that you rammed into an overgrown flowerpot would probably have been little consolation.

August 13th 2011. 50 years since the day in 1961 when East German troops began building what was to become the Berlin wall.

While the great and the good are all making their appearances in the city centre, I decide to head out to Eiskeller, a former exclave of West Berlin. It was the source of a curious story, of schoolboy Erwin Schabe who, in September 1961, came home complaining that he'd been sent back by East German border guards while on his way to school along a narrow path that was surrounded by East German territory. His complaints ended up having rather wider consequences than he imagined. Today, of all days, seems like a good day to visit the place where it all happened, as well as a good chance to tell the story of what happened next...

It's 2:30 in the afternoon when I arrive in Schönwalde, the village to the immediate north of Eiskeller. It's a warm day, with a blue sky punctuated by occasional fluffy white clouds. The village is so idyllic that it's hard to imagine the shock which must have rocked it on this day 30 years ago, when villagers awoke to find themselves separated from the West Berlin bezirk of Spandau.

I follow along the canal which formed the defensive border with West Berlin. The actual border was a few hundred metres away, but running the wall along the canal to leave a large 'no man's land' in between clearly made more sense to East German authorities.
The path is lined with yellow flowers and every now and then, a shiny black beetle scuttles out in front of me. On the other side of the canal, large fields stretch out towards the trees that mark the edges of Schönwalde village.

I'm hoping to be able to get through from here to Eiskeller but, seeing there's no easy way through, I turn back towards the main road.

Coming to the end of the path, I find that a number of cars have arrived and parked where the path meets the main road. A lot of people seem to be milling around and I get the feeling it's some sort of event, though I can't work out what. It becomes more clear as I turn the corner and see a podium has been erected next to a wall memorial. Even though I'd decided to avoid commemorative events today, it seems that one has found me.

I wander over to the information posts next to the memorial. A blond haired man in a suit comes over and shakes hands with the woman next to me. "Hi, good to see you" he says. I start to move away as they exchange a few more words, partly to carry on reading the post and partly to avoid being mistaken for this woman's entourage.
"Hallo" says the man, offering his hand as he turns to me.
"Hallo" I reply cautiously as we shake hands. I have no idea who this man is, but now we've shaken hands, I figure I ought to at least stick around to find out, plus it feels like joining in this village's commemorations might be an interesting way to mark the occasion.

The man turns out to be Bodo Oehme, mayor of Schönwalde, who gets up at the podium and introduces the event with some thoughts on the way Germany has changed since the days of the wall. Then hands over to the woman I'd been standing next to. She is Saskia Ludwig, the CDU leader of the opposition in the Brandenburg Landtag and she carries on in a similar vein. It seems to be as much political posturing as commemoration and I have to admit my eyes glaze over a little during both their speeches. Then the researcher Klaus Schröder gives a speech on the history of the wall.

At the end, Herr Oehme announces that they're going to the local pub, the Schwanenkrug, for a drink. It sounds strangely tempting, if only because I'm curious about what characters I might get to meet, but having come all this way, I really want to get to Eiskeller.

I go along the Berliner Mauerweg, trying to orient myself to where the path would have been that Erwin Schabe took to school. I turn onto a small track leading towards the woods, where a man is sitting on a large Peugeot scooter.

"A man with a camera!" he exclaims as I go past, "What are you going to photograph?" I start to explain about the path and the wall. He interrupts. "Yes, the wall came along here" he says as he gestures across the field, "The path is just in the woods there."

He munches on a half roast duck as he talks, picking at the flesh with his fingers.

"A lot of this land was exchanged, you know?" he says. I say how I'd read about it. "Yes, you're from the generation that reads these things," he says, "we saw them".

He asks how old I think he is. Not wanting to create an awkward situation, I hazard a guess that he might be in his 60s.
"71!" he says proudly, before returning to his reminiscences. "The farmer up there" he continues, pointing vaguely, "runs everything on oil. No electricity at all! There are a few around like that. His son," he adds, "used to be escorted to school by a tank for a long time, along the path there."

And so we come back to what brought me here. Erwin Schabe's complaints, it turned out, were taken very seriously. When news got round that the border guards had been blocking Eiskeller's children on their way to school, the British military decided that an example had to be made. Erwin Schabe found himself being made the poster boy for Western freedom of movement, with newsreels and papers the world over showing him on his way to school accompanied by heavily armoured vehicles (they were, in fact, not technically tanks).
At the time, Eiskeller was more like a pair of exclaves, connected together by tracks, with another track connecting them to nearby Spandau. Eventually, like with Steinstücken, territory was exchanged so that Eiskeller was more solidly part of West Berlin.

The man, meanwhile, drifts onto other subjects. He asks where I'm from then, on finding out, tells me of his travels in the UK, visiting family and sightseeing. "I know where the Queen's father is buried, that I know!" he says with pride.

A woman with a husky comes past. "Ah, a husky!" he says. He offers the dog a piece of his duck leg, but the owner thinks it's a bad idea. She walks off towards the woods. The man turns his attention back to me.

"Do you want anything to eat?" he asks. I say I'm ok. "Do you want an apple?" he asks, switching to English. I say I'm ok. He pulls one out and gives it to me anyway. "Or maybe you want a banana" he suggests, as he switches back to German. I say that the apple is plenty, but he pulls off a banana from a bunch and gives me one of them. "You like strawberries?" he continues, pulling out a punnet. "Fresh from the field!" he says with a smile. I've already started to eat the apple and I have the banana in my other hand. "Go on, please, have some!" he insists. I see that he's not going to be satisfied until I've had a strawberry too, so I put the banana in my pocket and take some strawberries with my free hand.

A couple come past us on the track. "Hallöchen!" he says as they pass.
"Hallöchen" they say in return, as they carry on down the path towards the woods.
They come back the other way a short while later.
"You weren't gone for long!" the man says.
It turns out they went for a smoke. A conversation about smoking ensues.
"I used to smoke 100 a day," the man reveals, "but I gave up! Nicotine patches, that's what helped me, couldn't have done it without them."
He goes on to talk about his diabetes and the huge syringe he carries on his bike for emergencies, so that the insulin can be administered through his clothes.

The woman with the husky comes back. The dog sniffs at the banana that's still in my hand.
"He'll eat anything" the woman comments.
"Would he like a strawberry?" the scooter man asks. He'd locked up his box in preparation to leave before the couple arrived, but now he opens it again and takes out a strawberry. The dog looks at him expectantly for a moment before the man feeds it to him.
"How about a banana?" he says, peeling a banana and breaking off a piece for the dog. The dog is not so impressed.
"He spat it out!" laughs the other man.

With that, both the husky woman and the couple make their getaway. The man closes the box on his scooter again and gets ready to head off.

"What is it they say in America - see you later alligator?" he says before continuing "I saw alligators, in the USA. Not in Florida, in South Carolina." It almost seems like he's going to launch into another story, but no, he's really going. He wishes me a pleasant trip home, then puts on his helmet, gets on his scooter and rides off down the track towards the road.

As for Erwin Schabe, boys will be boys. Years later, he admitted that he'd made up the story about being bothered by the guards because he didn't want to go to school. Of course, having a pair of armoured vehicles waiting for him every morning no doubt meant that skipping school suddenly got a whole lot harder. Fate works in funny ways sometimes.

To me, the atmosphere of Berlin's Imbißes is as important as the food. For all the heated debate over where to go for the 'best' currywurst, I have to say that I suspect a lot of it is as much to do with fashion as anything else. There's a lot of decent currywurst (or whatever else tickles your fancy) out there, if you look around.

A lack of fashionability is exactly what brings me here, to the perhaps not so snappily titled "Currywurst Berlin & Friends" on Bundesallee. Though it's not among the currently trendy ones, it does have a claim to fame, being the favourite Imbiß of film director Wim Wenders. In fact, he liked it so much that he used it as the location for a scene in Wings of Desire, where Peter Falk meets Marion (Solveig Dommartin). "If you come to Berlin, you should try a currywurst here," he says in his commentary to the film. That sounds like an excellent plan...

So, to answer the question that's probably on every reader's lips right now: the currywurst is good. The wurst isn't too salty (something which some places are guilty of) and the sauce has a nice tangy taste to it. Is it the best currywurst in Berlin? I find that harder to say without going on a huge currywurst binge and trying all of them one after another...but it's certainly good!

What happens after I order the currywurst is what's going to cement this Imbiß's place right at the top of my list of personal favourites, though...

An old woman comes up to the Imbiß, pushing a three wheeled walking frame. She wears a dark red jacket, her hair covered by an almost matching burgundy beret.

She asks for a beer, pauses for a moment, then adds that she'd like a currywurst too.

"A what?" asks the man serving.
"A currywurst" she replies.
"Do you want a roll with that?"
"No"

He hands her the beer and she sips, waiting while he prepares the currywurst. After a moment, he pushes it over to her and takes her money. She prods at it for a moment.

"Don't I get a roll or anything with this?" she asks.
"I asked if you wanted one and you said no!"
She mutters, adding "Well I want one"
He fetches her a roll and takes the extra money.

As she prods at the currywurst some more, the couple who are eating on the other side of the Imbiß finish their currywurst and walk away.

"You could throw your things away when you're finished!" he shouts after them.
"Are you getting angry because I've started complaining?" asks the woman with a grin.
"What?" he says, baffled by her false-teeth-inflected Berlin dialect.
"You're getting angry" she says, the remains of a cheeky smile still sparkling in her eyes.
He grunts.
"Could you pack all this up for me?" she continues.

With a surly flourish, he produces a bag and packs up the woman's currywurst and roll. He hands her the bag and she hangs it from the handles of her walking frame, before shuffling her beer ever so slowly along the Imbiß counter. She settles round the corner, looking through the glass at me and the man like an Edward Hopper figure. She sips her beer.

"Have you got a newspaper?" she asks him.
"What?" he asks again, his frustration growing.
"Have you got a newspaper?"
"No! This isn't a newsagent's!"
"I just wondered if there was a newspaper I could read"
"No, go and find a newagent's if you want a newspaper!" The woman returns to her beer.

It's only when I turn around to head off that I realise there was a newspaper on the counter behind me the whole time...

I walk away, my face carrying a smirk not too dissimilar to the woman's. If life in Berlin is a cabaret, it's places like this Imbiß which are its stages. Like Wim Wenders says, come here and try the currywurst...you might get some entertainment thrown in for free.

I first put this article up in 2010 and it's continued to be one of the most popular here, so I think people planning winter breaks to Berlin will appreciate an update for 2011!

When to go

The major Christmas markets in Berlin open in the last week of November and are open right up until Christmas itself, with some open until the end of December (Berlin's also a popular destination for New Year's Eve celebrations, though bear in mind that some accommodation prices go up quite a bit at that time).

December 6th in Germany is Nikolaus - St Nicholas's Day - when children traditionally put out their boots to be filled with goodies by St Nick...though if they've been bad, they may get a stick (called a Rute) for their parents to beat them with instead! If you're staying in a Berlin hotel on the night of the 5th, you may find you get a small gift, like a chocolate Weihnachtsmann (Father Christmas) left for you by your door. I've not noticed them giving out sticks, though...

What to expect

The Christmas markets have stalls selling a variety of traditional (and less traditional) gifts and decorations. Particularly common to see are wooden ornaments from the Erzgebirge in the east of Germany, like Nußknacker (nutcrackers, like the rather fearsome fellow in the picture up above - not things that are really designed for actually cracking nuts with) and Räuchermänner (smoking men - wooden men which you put an incense cone inside, making smoke come out the mouth). Also common to find is Glühwein (mulled wine), and its rum-laced cousin Feuerzangenbowle - perfect for the cold days!

There'll usually be food stalls too - you'll most likely find at least one selling Bratwurst, often alongside the Berlin speciality the Bulette (which you could either see as a big flat pork meatball, or a bunless pork burger). Gulaschsuppe (goulash soup) is worth looking out for, as is Berliner Kartoffelsuppe (Berlin potato soup), both of which are usually not particularly expensive, but very filling.
If you're after something more on the sweet side, you'll usually find a stall selling Schmalzkuchen, which could be literally translated as 'lard cake' which sounds disgusting. It's actually small squares of deep fried dough, almost like like little doughnuts. It's served in a cone of paper, covered with icing sugar, which means it can be hell to eat if you're wearing dark clothes (but very entertaining for the stallholder who's just emptied half his pot of icing sugar onto your Schmalzkuchen). Another thing you'll probably see are the round balls of deep fried dough known as Quarkkeulchen which, when they've been freshly fried and are still warm, are great on a cold night.

What to wear

The weather in Berlin does get quite cold during winter. It's common for temperatures to drop to well below 0°C in December, so it's worth packing plenty of warm clothes...or buy some in Berlin - the Germans know a thing or two about winter clothes! Either one thick jacket or several layers is a good idea, and I always like to have a nice pair of gloves and a warm hat too.

Snow isn't unheard of either, especially later in the month, so you might get at least a small taste of a white Christmas on your visit...no guarantees, though! Beautiful though snow is, it does mean it can get a bit slippery underfoot, though pavements on larger roads tend to get swept and gritted quite regularly. Packing a nice warm pair of shoes or boots with good grips is a good idea!

On the flipside, in a milder winter, it can rain - I like to keep a small umbrella in my bag just in case.

The Christmas Markets (see Christmas markets map)

There are markets right across the city centre - amongst others, there's one on Alexanderplatz, one in front of the Rathaus, one by the Opernpalais on Unter den Linden, one on Potsdamer Platz and one on Breitscheidplatz (around the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche). Those ones are all free to visit; there's also one in Gendarmenmarkt which charges a small entry fee. They generally stay open until well after the shops have closed (often around 9 - 10 at night), so it can be a nice way to end the day, plus the atmosphere is just that bit more special (and the Glühwein seems that extra bit more warming) after dark.

Of course there are many more all over the city (between 50 and 70, depending on who you believe), but hopefully this small selection will serve as a taster (plus they're good if you're only going for a short time and want to see all the sights as well). If you're viewing this via the front page, you might want to click the article's title to take you to the single page view, where you'll be able to see a whole set of handy Google Maps links at the bottom to help you find these markets, of you can follow this link to see them all on one handy map.

The Alexanderplatz market has improved in recent years, I think - it's still not my personal favourite, but it feels much less tacky to me than it used to! It has the advantage of being very close to the station, as well as being close to the shops around Alexanderplatz, which you might find worth visiting for Christmas shopping (and I personally prefer the Galeria Kaufhof on Alexanderplatz to KaDeWe, if I'm wanting a big department store).
Almost blending into that is the 'Wintertraum am Alexa' (winter dream at Alexa), which stretches along Alexanderstraße to Jannowitzbrücke, along the side of the Alexa shopping centre (the bizarre pink building on the southern side of Alexanderplatz).

Alexanderplatz is a major transport hub, so there's a huge choice of ways to get there - S-Bahn (S3, S5, S7/75), U-Bahn (U2, U5, U8), tram (M2, M4, M5, M6, M8), bus (TXL, 100, 200, 248) and regional trains (RE1, RE2, RE7, RB14).

They're both open from November 21st - December 26th 2011.

The Christmas market at the Berliner Rathaus

The market by the Rathaus, known as Berliner Weihnachtszeit, is of course also close to Alexanderplatz, so you can always visit the two, plus take a wander through the nearby Nikolaiviertel, which you might also find good for gifts. Look out for the stall of my friends at Kleinbrennerei Fitzke (Fitzke small distillery; website in German only) if you're into spirits and liqueurs. They're a husband and wife team from the Black Forest who make a huge array of different fruit brandies, liqueurs and grain spirits, including Herr Fitzke's unique whiskies, which you really owe it to yourself to try if you're into whisky at all.

The Rathaus market also boasts a 50m high ferris wheel, which promises impressive views, though stood next to the 368m high Fernsehturm, it's hard not to think of it as rather small!

It's open from November 21st - December 26th 2011.

The Nostalgischer Weihnachtsmarkt at the Opernpalais

The Opernpalais market (branded the Nostalgischer Weihnachtsmarkt - nostalgic Christmas market) is, in turn, not all that far from the Rathaus. I like the atmosphere there, as the location between the buildings gives it a more cosy feel. There are usually some decent stalls there too, so I'd definitely recommend a wander round. It's open from November 23rd - December 26th 2011.

I've mentioned the Weihnachtszauber market in Gendarmenmarkt before. Unlike most markets, they charge an entry fee (though still only 1 euro) and a lot of the things on offer are more expensive, but I think it's worth a look. It's particularly good for arts and crafts, and a lot of the food stalls are run by nearby restaurants and hotels. Of course, it's within walking distance of the Opernpalais, so if you fancy doing a market crawl, you can go all the way from Alexanderplatz to Gendarmenmarkt and not be away from a Christmas market for more than about 5 minutes! If you don't fancy the walk, the U-Bahn stations Stadtmitte (U2, U6), Französische Straße (U6) and Hausvogteiplatz (U2) are all close by (the exit from the U2 platform at Stadtmitte is the closest of the lot).
It's open from November 21st - December 31st 2011 - they also hold a New Year's Eve event there.

I've never taken to the Potsdamer Platz Christmas market as a market particularly, but it does have an artificial snow slope which you can ride down in a large inner tube. It's free if you bring your own snowtube (I'm not sure they'd be too impressed if you turn up with any old inner tube, like one from a bike tyre...) or €1.50 to hire one. There's also a skating rink, plus you can try your hand at Eisstockschießen (similar to curling).
It's open from November 21st until December 26th 2011 (the snow slope and skating rink are open from November 5th 2011 - January 1st 2012)

I've never taken to the Breitscheidplatz Christmas market either, but that's no reason not to take a look at it if you're in the area anyway (perhaps shopping at KaDeWe, or stopping off for a Currywurst at Witty's). It's very close to Zoologischer Garten station, so like with Alexanderplatz, there are plenty of options for getting there.

It's open from November 21st 2011 - January 1st 2012.

If you want to venture ever so slightly further from the city centre, the Schloss Charlottenburg Christmas Market is nice. Like I mentioned last year, the setting is particularly atmospheric. Along with a nice selection of things to buy (there's even a second stall from Kleinbrennerei Fitzke...), it has three restaurant tents, one selling local dishes from Brandenburg, one selling Austrian specialities and one selling mainly duck and goose-based dishes.

It's open from 21st November - 26th December 2011.

Last year, I mentioned the Hanukkah market at the Jewish museum. In case you're searching for information on it and you've found this page, I thought I should add this note to say they're not holding it in 2011.

Other Christmas activities

If you want to enjoy the more religious side of Christmas in Berlin, the Berliner Dom has services and other events (including performances of Bach's Christmas Oratorio) throughout the period. For Catholic services, you may want to try St Hedwig's Cathedral.

You might also like to look out for the traditional Christmas meal of roast goose, something you'll find in a lot of the restaurants that serve more traditional German food.

December is really a lovely time to visit Berlin (if you like wintry weather, at least!), so if you like the sound of what you've read here, then now's a good time to start planning your trip - you can get some great deals by booking early, and some travel agents, hotels and airlines put on special Christmas offers.

Don't forget to take a look at the Christmas markets map if you want to see where they all are!

Tucked away in a corner of the Humboldt University's campus at Adlershof is a strange collection of sci-fi-like structures. So sci-fi, in fact, that parts of them were among the settings for the 2005 film Æon Flux. Of course, as you might have guessed from the university campus setting, they're actually part of science history rather than science fiction.

Right from the days of Otto Lilienthal Berlin played an important role in the history of aerodynamic research. As gliding gave way to powered aeroplanes, Berlin gained a new airfield dedicated to the new aircraft in 1909, out here at what was then known as Motorflugplatz Adlershof-Johannisthal (later just Flugplatz Johannisthal, with Flugplatz translating nicely as 'airfield' and Motorflugplatz perhaps best translating as 'airfield for powered flight').

In April 1912, the Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt (German Research Institute for Aviation) was established on the south side of the airfield. As the nature of experiments became more and more advanced, the site began to become populated with esoteric buildings to house the test facilities, the ones we're looking at here being the work of architects Hermann Brenner and Werner Deutschmann.

Now, four key structures are preserved as protected monuments and the area has been named the Aerodynamischer Park (aerodynamic park) in reference to the aerodynamic research which went on inside them.

The first of the structures you'll come to if you've walked up along Rudower Chaussee from Adlershof S-Bahn and turned onto Newtonstraße will be the Großer Windkanal (large wind tunnel).

Built between 1932 and 1934, the Windkanal was constructed using the Zeiss-Dywidag System - a thin shell reinforced concrete building process that had originally been developed for building lightweight planetarium domes. The thickness of the tunnel's walls is, as a result, only around 8cm thick.

The wind tunnel is folded into a rectangular space and the diameter gradually increases along its length, from 8.5 to 12m. An 8.5m fan would have been at the narrower end, driven by a 2000kW electric motor, generating wind speeds of over 200km/h (124mph). Aircraft parts were placed in a measuring chamber, in the path of the stream generated by the fan, to test their aerodynamic performance.

On the side of the Großer Windkanal is a small piece of graffiti, protected by a glass panel. In fairly large, capital cyrillic letters, it says "Проверено. Мин нет" - Tested. No Mines. This is a relic from the days when the Soviet army were beginning to capture Berlin in the final days of World War II in Germany. Important buildings were sometimes booby trapped, both to injure the forces capturing the facility and to render it useless to them afterwards. The hand painted note on the Windkanal assures Soviet soldiers it's safe to go inside.

The Soviets took extensive amounts of war reparations from their sector and the facilities at Adlershof were no exception. All of the equipment was taken to the Soviet Union to be used in aerodynamic research there, leaving only the structures behind in Adlershof.

The Trudelturm was built between 1934 and 1936, to research a type of stall phenomenon in aircraft known as a spin. In a spin, one wing stalls (that is, loses lift due to a too high angle of attack) more than the other, leading the aircraft to rotate as it falls, spinning out of control. Research into the phenomenon was vital, both to help improve aircraft designs to make them more resistant to and more recoverable from spins and to help improve understanding of how to bring aircraft out of a spin once they'd entered one.

The Trudelturm was essentially a wind tunnel turned on its end. A fan at the bottom blew air upwards and aircraft models could be placed into the resulting stream of air and allowed to enter a spin. The air speed could be adjusted to match the fall rate of the model, so that it would remain suspended at a point in front of an observation platform, allowing it to be filmed by high speed cameras to enable detailed observations of the model's behaviour.

A similar facility still in operation today is NASA's 20 Foot Vertical Spin Tunnel, which was opened in 1941. You can watch a video of a model being tested in it on YouTube which ought to give you an idea of what went on inside the Trudelturm.

The Schallgedämpfter Motorenprüfstand (soundproofed engine test bed) was built between 1933 and 1935. It was used for testing aircraft engines - in particular, the propellers, which were often pushed to the point of disintegration in efforts to find their true limits. Propellers of up to 5m in diameter could be tested within the safe confines of the soundproofed building, which proved resistant not just to noise but also the bits of propellers which occasionally came flying off into the walls when the parts being tested reached breaking point.

The construction of the main part of the building is actually similar to the Großer Windkanal (the temporary scaffolding in the picture hides its shape slightly), with the outside walls only around 8cm thick. Soundproofing was achieved by the clever direction of airflows around the inside of the building, along with the use of sound damping materials. A ventilation system driven by a 500kW electric motor helped prevent the tested engines from overheating.

It now serves as a meeting point for the university's students, centered around a student-run café.

The Motorenhöhenprüfstand (engine altitude test bed) was used to test how engines would perform at different altitudes. It allowed engines to be run under differing air pressures and temperatures. The information gleaned from this testing could be used to inform estimates of fuel consumption, and lubrication and cooling requirements. It was built between 1932 and 1936.

It now houses laboratories and offices belonging to the university.

Dotted around in the grass of the Aerodynamic Park are these odd UFO-like objects. Every now and then, they'll start making UFO-like noises too. They are in fact an art installation called AIR BORNE, created by Stefan Krüskemper, with sound by Karlheinz Essl. It uses sounds from the Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv (German Radio Archive) which have been processed using software programmed by Essl, to form a composition of what he and Krüskemper call 'remembrance images'. According to the project's website, because of both the distance between the ellipsoids (that is, the UFO-like objects) and the amount of silence between the sounds, hearing the entire composition would take many years. If you plan on staying to listen to the whole thing, it may be worth making a sizeable donation to the student café up front so they don't kick you out for hogging the chairs and taking all their coffee.

Whether on a warm summer's evening or a crisp winter night, there's something cosy and inviting about the Nikolaiviertel (Nicholas Quarter). What could be nicer than a stroll through Berlin's authentic old town? Well...old town...well...town anyway. The thing is that the Nikolaiviertel isn't quite what it seems...

The Nikolaiviertel was indeed right at the historic centre of Berlin, facing its twin town of Cölln on the other side of the river (on what's now known as Fischerinsel). At its heart is the Nikolaikirche, Berlin's oldest church, parts of which are thought to date back to around 1230.

It's worth taking a closer look at some of the other buildings, though, as they point to a rather different heritage. Look up above the shops and you'll see that the facades of many of the buildings are not the coloured stucco you might have expected but rather, painted concrete. The architectural curiosity that is the Nikolaiviertel was actually almost entirely constructed in the mid 1980s, completed in 1987 for the 750th anniversary of the founding of Berlin (the date being taken from the first written mention of Cölln in 1237; the settlement was likely founded quite a few years before that - current archaeology points back to at least 1183). The development included the restoration of the Nikolaikirche and the reconstruction of a number of historic buildings which had originally been found in other parts of Berlin.

If all this seems hard to believe, it's worth taking a look at this picture taken by Günter Bittner in around 1970, from the fairly recently opened Fernsehturm:

As you can see, there's not a whole lot there - there's still a small collection of buildings on the Spree side, plus the ruins of the Nikolaikirche, but a large amount of what's now filled by the Nikolaiviertel's shops, pubs and restaurants is just empty waste ground. This, looked at together with the following picture from 2009, shows just how much was built from scratch in the 1980s.

As with many of East Berlin's redevelopment projects, architects were invited to submit suggested plans for the redevelopment to a competition in 1979. The winner was the plan by Günter Stahn, who had previously been involved with the rebuilding of the Berliner Dom (which, it's interesting to note, also involved a combination of straight restoration and the introduction of modern elements).

His plans reflected a change in the attitudes to architecture and town planning in the GDR, a move towards greater acceptance of traditional town structures and building forms. Instead of being driven by a need to pave a new route into a socialist future, the building of the Nikolaiviertel was driven by a need to route the new socialist state in the German past.

At the same time, there were very real practical issues which had to be solved, not least the GDR's chronic housing shortage and its shortage of funds for addressing it. It was necessary for the new Nikolaiviertel to provide much needed housing, but it also needed to fit the state's budget.

The solution was to use the exact same technique that had been used to build much of East Germany's new housing: Plattenbau. Using pre-cast concrete parts, Plattenbau (otherwise known as large panel system building) meant buildings could be put together quickly and cheaply, the parts being produced in a factory and slotted together on site to form the finished buildings. Using this method, Stahn managed to build 780 flats in the Nikolaiviertel without breaking the budget. More than that, he seemed to be quite a fan of the technique, being quoted in a Spiegel article from March 24th 1986 saying that "Die Platte ist nun mal der Stein unserer Zeit" (the [concrete] panel is just the stone of our era). He wanted the development to contain elements of both modern and traditional, which he executed in a way that shows its most modern face on the side that looks out onto Marx-Engels-Forum, taking on more traditional elements as you work your way into its centre.

The word Plattenbau tends to be associated with the grey, angular developments which line streets like Leipziger Straße, but the buildings in the Nikolaiviertel used panels cast specially for the development. This helped them take on a more individual character, blending more readily with the reproduction and genuine old buildings which they rub shoulders with. Look closely at the facades, though, and you can quite easily spot the joins between the panels.

If you walk into the Nikolaiviertel from Spandauer Straße, along Am Nußbaum, you'll find a gateway on the right hand side which leads into a courtyard behind the shops. Here, you can really see the buildings' Plattenbau heritage in all its undecorated glory:

Critics tend to not have many kind things to say about the Nikolaiviertel - the word 'Disneyland' tends to pop up quite often. Looking at tourists' comments reveals a different view, though. Some don't even realise that they're not walking through Berlin's old town (or at least a restored or rebuilt version of it), let alone that they're walking through what's partly a 1980s Plattenbau development. Even some of the reconstructed historic buildings are ones which wouldn't actually have been there before World War II (though that's another topic in itself).

It was Stahn's intention to create a "vibrant central area with high experiential value". The majority of tourists' comments seem to suggest he succeeded with that, though it does seem to be tourists who are most drawn by its 'experiential value'.

The Nikolaiviertel has a definite tranquil air about it, sheltered from the bustle of the nearby main roads. Entering it does feel a little bit like you're stepping into a bygone age...even if that age is more 1987 than 1897.

"Hat die Menschheit einmal ihren Erzähler verloren so hat sie auch ihre Kindschaft verloren" - "Once humanity has lost its storyteller, it's also lost its childhood."

When I wander Berlin's Holocaust memorial, I can't get these words - spoken by the character Homer in Wim Wenders's film Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin) - out of my head. Homer, played by German-Jewish actor Curt Bois, wanders the city lamenting the state of storytelling and wanders Potsdamer Platz searching for the Berlin he once knew, before "the people were no longer friendly".

The memorial - more properly known as the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas) - is just a short walk from Potsdamer Platz, built in one of the gaps left in the city by the wall's death strip. Through these empty spaces, Berlin seemed to enjoy a kind of second childhood in the early post-wall years, a time of boundless possibilities, when areas left or forcibly made empty by the city's division suddenly became usable again. Berlin became known as Europe's biggest building site and began the process of capitalising on the potential of its empty spaces.

Designed by American-Jewish architect Peter Eisenman and opened in May 2005, the memorial consists of 2,711 concrete pillars - or stelae, as they're often referred to - arranged in a grid pattern. The heights of the stelae vary between 0.2m and 4.7m and the ground level also undulates, making it generally deeper in the middle. In his explanation of the memorial, Eisenman says that "The project manifests the instability inherent in what seems to be a system" - that it reveals the potential for chaos in what seems to be something orderly.

The Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, famed for his eccentric architectural design work, once said "An uneven and animated floor is the recovery of man's mental equilibrium, of the dignity of man which has been violated in our levelling, unnatural and hostile urban grid system." Rather than the memorial's uneven floor destroying the "illusion of order and security in the internal grid and the frame of the street grid" I find that it actually brings a sense of freedom and a desire to explore. To me, the uneven floor, like Hundertwasser's work, feels playful.

In a 2005 interview, Eisenman said that "I think people will eat their lunch on the pillars [...] I'm sure skateboarders will use it. People will dance on top of the pillars. All kinds of unexpected things are going to happen."

People do dance on top of the pillars. Skateboarders use it too. Just they get shouted at by one of the guards employed to make sure that the atmosphere remains as solemn and rigid as the concrete pillars themselves. Eating your lunch on the pillars might just about be ok, as long as you don't do it on the tall ones, though I can imagine the guards' tolerance for that being fairly low too.

Eisenman's comment there seems to suggest that he knew how the chaotic element of his design would make visitors behave, that he was aware of the playful edge which it would lend the memorial.

Before the Nazis came to power, Berlin's Jewish population was at the centre of its entertainment industry - writers, musicians, composers, artists, actors and cabaret performers, people who observed and commented on the city's daily life. During the Holocaust, Berlin lost many of its storytellers, and perhaps, for a while at least, it lost its childhood too. The Holocaust memorial, in having its playful side suppressed by its guardians, then becomes a lament for this lost childhood. The playful elements of the design end up jarring with the imposed order of the society which guards it.

How much freedom should visitors be allowed, though? It's clear from Eisenman's explanation of the memorial that his concept is something rather deeper than commemorating the Holocaust with an adventure playground, which is what it could be in danger of becoming if people are allowed to run, climb and jump their way through the memorial as they fancy. There have been times when I've been in there when it's been filled with shrieking teenagers - the atmosphere is certainly far from reflective then.

Interestingly, Eisenman also states that the memorial represents "the idea that all closed systems of a closed order are bound to fail." Interesting because the ordered part of the memorial, represented by the stelae, is itself becoming disordered; some of the stelae are starting to develop tiny weather cracks. Very slowly, the sharp, orderly corners are becoming notched and jagged as pieces flake away.

What's ultimately intriguing is the way that the very play between order and chaos which Eisenman eludes to is what plays out within the memorial, that the system it seems to present does reveal itself to be unstable, even if visitors might not always stop to ask what position in this system they might be occupying.

Reading the horror-toned reports of snow chaos at London's Heathrow airport, I wasn't all that confident I'd make it back before Christmas. As it nears time to leave, nothing on bmi's website or their Twitter stream seems to indicate my flight has been cancelled though, so I head off to Tegel hopefully.

It seems to be business as usual at the airport and the flight's still showing on the board, so before I go any further, I check myself in on one of Lufthansa's quick check in machines.

I'd like to be able to say that I headed off in search of Lufthansa's business class lounge next, but I want to drop off my suitcase first and, by the time the baggage drop off point has opened, it's time to go through to the gate anyway. The Lufthansa lounge at Tegel is before check in and security, rather than after like bmi's lounge in Heathrow - I think it being after makes a whole lot more sense (no need to guess at how long you'll have to queue for baggage drop and security while you relax with your coffee and cakes), but Tegel's terminal design doesn't allow for it. A shame they don't open the baggage drop earlier, though - something bmi seems to have well sorted out at Heathrow (though they also guarantee that business class passengers at Heathrow can turn up just 30 minutes before their flight leaves and still make their flight).

On the plus side, though, Tegel's design does mean a whole lot less wandering around - in the picture above, the taxi rank is on the right and the entrance to the gate is on the left (the exit, if you're arriving at Tegel, is in practically the same place) - that's it, about 10 seconds' walk!

On the other side of security, there's a nice view out onto the terminal ramp, where another airline's plane is being de-iced before departure. There's something very sci-fi about the way the nozzles scan backwards and forwards across the wing, with white clouds of deicing fluid filling the air.

It's not long before it's time to board our own flight. I'd expected that, with some of the day's flights having been cancelled because of runway closures at Heathrow, this flight might be packed. Far from it - it seems like most of the evening's travellers have decided to stay at home, and it turns out I'm the only person sat in business class.

The de-icing machine comes over and gives our plane a good spray, then we push back and head off down the taxiway...and stop. The captain's voice comes over the PA system. "Ladies and gentlemen, we're experiencing a minor technical problem..."

Oh dear. It turns out they've lost steering on the nose wheel, which means we have to wait for a tug to pull the plane back to a stand. The flight attendant comes over to apologise and offers a drink. I ask for a cup of coffee, which he brings, shortly followed by a pack of almond biscotti to dunk in it. Very civilised.

Once we've been pulled back to a stand, the captain comes to the front to explain the problem further. He's been trying to steer, but "the computer isn't agreeing." The words "computer says nooo!" come into my head, but I resist shouting it out in case he doesn't appreciate Little Britain references (and besides, the look on his face suggests he might not currently be in the mood to see the funny side of things).

Shortly afterwards, some stairs are pushed up to the plane and a Lufthansa Technik van arrives. An army of men comes on board, armed with a laptop. Meanwhile, the flight attendants from economy class come through to fetch water and cups. They come past on their way back offering blankets and pillows.

After a lot of prodding around, the plane is given the all clear, the engineers head back to their van and we head off towards the runway. Then we're off into the air. After the initial climb, the plane banks slightly, revealing a spectacular view of Berlin out of my window.

As we were waiting on the tarmac at Tegel, I could see the timer on one of the ovens in the plane's galley ticking slowly down from 30. As the timer continued to tick, the smell of meat and vegetables started to fill the air. Of course things went a little bit awry when the plane ended up not leaving the ground, but having got in the air, the timer begins ticking away again. I know they're hiding something in there!

A while later, the flight attendant comes over and asks if I'd like to have dinner. "We've got Christmas dinner or gnocchi with spinach," he says. Aha! So that's what it is...and, yes, Christmas dinner sounds like an excellent idea (even if I did already have one yesterday).

Let's see now...

There's turkey, roast potatoes, brussels sprouts, cubed sweet carrot and swede, a bowl of Waldorf salad (it's hiding under a lid in the picture), a nice warm bread roll and...a pair of chocolate reindeer (one of them took cover underneath the plate when I took the picture, but trust me, it's there). Not a bad spread! I'm not sure that its unplanned extended encounter with the oven has left it at its succulent best, but it tastes pretty good (I particularly like the spicing of the carrot and swede cubes).

When I'm finished, the flight attendant offers another drink. I choose coffee again, which he brings promptly, and I recline back to enjoy the rest of the flight. As we near London, the helpful flight attendant comes over again to say we might get a nice view of Windsor Castle out of my side if the cloud's not too low. Unfortunately there's not a whole lot to be seen as the plane comes in to land, but it was nice to be told anyway.

After all the stories I've heard about Heathrow, I expect to see piles of snow like there were in Berlin. Instead, there's a thin dusting on the ground, with blades of grass showing through. While it's clear that people have been clearing the runways and taxiways, it doesn't look like London's been quite the giant ice cube Berlin was.

Still, we've landed and I have to say, it's been nice flying with bmi. A big thanks to their staff for all their support and for making me feel so well looked after!

Disclosure: this trip has been sponsored by bmi. Opinions remain my own, palms lightly greased with business class tickets and chocolate reindeer. If you want to book your own trip to Berlin from the UK, have a look at bmi's flights to Berlin page.

Grenzgebiet! The border that protected the border

The tank boy and the scooter man - encounters in Eiskeller

Currywurst Berlin & Friends, Bundesallee

Christmas markets in Berlin

The Aerodynamischer Park in Adlershof

The Nikolaiviertel - Adventures in Plattenbau

Thoughts on the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe (the Holocaust memorial)

Another Christmas dinner - Berlin Tegel to London Heathrow with bmi