Year 11 History Trip to Berlin: Friday 18th October to Monday 21st October 2024

Friday 18th October

Early on Friday the group met, bleary-eyed, at Stansted Airport at 5am ready to commence the trip. As soon as we landed we were transferred to the hotel to quickly turn around again to go into the centre of Berlin to meet with our guides for a brief walking tour. Some of the sites included: Courtyard of German Resistance Museum, the site of the Von Stauffenberg Bomb Plot, Rosa Luxemburg Memorial and the Victory Column.

Some of our route was cordoned off due to the unexpected visit of President Joe Biden of the USA. However, the weather was kind and the students were getting used to the geography and transport system of Berlin. Eventually we made it back to the hotel for dinner and well-earned rest after a very early start.

Saturday 19th October

After a fulfilling breakfast and a good night’s rest the group departed the hotel for a full day in the centre of Berlin with Miss Workman as the tour guide. Visits included the following:

Unguided visit to Topography of Terror.

External View of Reichstag Dome.

Soviet War Memorial, Brandenburg Gate, Holocaust Memorial, Site of Hitlers Bunker, External View of Checkpoint Charlie, Bebelplatz.

Unguided visit to German History Museum.

After having walked some 10 miles or so, we trudged back to the hotel for a rest before going to the Cinema in the evening. We went to see Beetlejuice 2.

Sunday 20th October

Today was a somber day and one of reflection in terms of the level of persecution and murder committed by the Nazis. Ploetzensee Memorial – our first visit was to a now youth offenders’ prison but the site of the execution of any people who opposed the Nazi regime and in particular those who were implicated in the attempted assassination of Hitler in July 1944. Afterwards we then ventured to the site of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, situated in the former British sector during the Cold War, and we had a very informative tour led by volunteers who work at the stadium. We then had lunch at Remus Restaurant. This would have been in the former Soviet zone and some of the decor resembled what it might have looked like during the GDR. After lunch we were then met by our guides who gave us a tour of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. The guides were very informative and interesting and were keen to tell us that the Concentration camp was mostly for political prisoners during the Nazi regime and not a death camp, although there was a site of a furnace used to burn some Jews who died or were killed there. To finish off the day we ended at Platform 17 or the Deportation Memorial Track – the site of where trains left Berlin destined for concentration camps and death camps in the East.

We returned to the hotel for a rest, dinner and then we went bowling.

Monday 21st October

After checking out of the hotel we ventured to Bernauer Strasse, a memorial to the Berlin Wall and its construction in August 1961. From there we then travelled across Berlin to the site of a Stasi Prison – in operation in the GDR and part of our Cold War study. The tour was chilling and demonstrated how prisoners were treated by East German secret police. To end our tour we had lunch and free time for shopping before heading back to the airport to catch our flight home.

In sum total we walked a mere 37 miles and we saw so many historical sites that have brought our study of the past, and Germany in particular, to life. It was certainly a memorable tour.

Thank you to the History department for organising it.