After visiting the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe I knew I wanted to check out the Reichstag as it is nearby the memorial. As I walked to the Reichstag from the memorial, there was a large Fridays For Future (Student group that advocates for taking action to combat climate change) demonstration going on at the Brandenburg Gate, which is right next to the Reichstag. We had seen the actual full demonstration march earlier in the day and to see it was still going on a couple of hours later in the day was very impressive. I had already seen the Reichstag during my short trip to Berlin in 2015, but that did not make it any less impressive when I laid eyes on it again this time. It is a very large, interesting, and impressive building that can’t be missed. There were tourists everywhere around the building, and that came as no surprise. It is the second most visited attraction in Germany, trailing only the Cologne Cathedral.

Though one might guess that it is very old, it is actually relatively new compared to many other famous German and European landmarks. Completed in 1894, the building of the Reichstag was due to the recently unified Germany’s need to have a sufficiently sized place for their Parliament to meet. Having two architectural contests, one in 1872 and one in 1882, the winner of the 1882 contest, Paul Wallot, was the one whose design was used. Wallot’s design was directly modeled after Philadelphia’s Memorial Hall, which was the main building of the Centennial Exhibition (celebrated the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and was the first official World’s Fair to take place in the US) in Philadelphia in 1876. One major thing to note about the physical building is the inscription that it has at the top that was added in 1916, and reads “Dem Deutschen Volke” meaning to the German people, and thus is a symbol of democracy. Wilhelm II opposed its inclusion due to that symbol. The Reichstag housed Parliament until 1933 when the building caught fire and was nearly destroyed. It is important to note that the Nazi’s did not use the Reichstag for government purposes, but it gave rise to the power of Hitler and the Nazi’s. The fire happened four weeks after Hitler was named Chancellor. The Nazi’s blamed the fire on the Communists and stated that it was the Communists plotting against the German government. Hitler used this rhetoric to persuade President von Hindenberg to pass what would become known as the Reichstag Fire Decree, which suspended civil liberties and was the start to Hitler grabbing full power and control of Germany. The Reichstag remained generally unused from 1933 until 1999 when it once again became the meeting place for the German Parliament. It did undergo two long restorations though, one from 1961-1964, and one from 1992-1999. In the end, almost all of the inside was gutted and redone besides leaving some historical things such as some Soviet graffiti that was put there by Soviet soldiers when they captured Berlin in 1945, but the outside look remains the same. The dome on the top was added in 1999. The largest event to take place at the Reichstag was the ceremony for the reunification of Germany that took place on October 3rd 1990, and October 3rd is now German Unity Day celebrated annually.

Overall, though the Reichstag is not super old, it has seen an incredible amount of history during its time, and now stands as a symbol of a unified and democratic Germany.

By Kyle Hatten

The day we traveled from Berlin to Leipzig was DFB-Pokal Final day (final of the countrywide soccer tournament in Germany). The game was between Bayern Munich and the hometown RB Leipzig. We arrived in Leipzig in time to go to a local pool hall to watch the game take place. The pool hall was an amazing experience to watch a soccer game. Crowding into a chair and shifting into our seats, the tension and focus of the fans toward the screen could be felt in the air. Everyone around us was enjoying bar food and beer. After we ordered some drinks, the night seemed to coalesce into “Oh’s” and “Aw’s” coinciding with the action of the game.

Bayern’s leading scorer Robert Lewandowski kicked off the scoring in the 29th minute, and with it waned some people’s spirits, but there was certainly still a feeling from the crowd that Leipzig could come back and win it. Bayern however, would go on to add two more goals(78th and 85th minute), but the crowd was into it the whole time, and the atmosphere was great. In terms of watching sports, the German soccer fans are certainly reminiscent of sports fans back home in some ways. Some more obvious than others, such as the love for alcohol and salty snacks or the fun pestering against the other team, but don’t take the fun pestering as a sign that they’re just joking around. When those players are on the field, their fans ‘bleed’ alongside them. There wasn’t a voice in that pool hall that didn’t yell out a remark in either joy or irk. In Germany, soccer is the biggest sport, and for most fans, the only sport. This is evident by the level of passion they have for it. It is not like the US where many sports fans have a favorite team in three or even more sports leagues. We were lucky enough to be able to go the same pool hall for the Champions League Final(final of the tournament between the best club teams in Europe) as well, and in going we saw further evidence of their love of soccer. The final was between two English teams (Tottenham and Liverpool), and despite neither team having a single German player, the pool hall was filled with people interested in seeing how the game played out. The way that soccer can bring cities together in Germany and their dedication to their teams is reminiscent and mirrors quite well the way St. Louis came together recently for the St. Louis Blues’s recent Stanley Cup run. Overall, it seems that the intense passion for sports is something you will see no matter where you go. The kind of sport may be different, but the passion of the fans will not.

By Kyle Hatten and Ben Kohlhaas