Why a Booktrail?
Various times: The changing landscape of Germany, from the period before the fall of the Wall to the present.
Roads to Berlin
What you need to know before your trail
Roads to Berlin maps the changing landscape of Germany, from the period before the fall of the Wall to the present. Written and updated over the course of several decades, an eyewitness account of the pivotal events of 1989 gives way to a perceptive appreciation of its difficult passage to reunification. Nooteboom’s writings on politics, people, architecture and culture are as digressive as they are eloquent; his innate curiosity takes him through the landscapes of Heine and Goethe, steeped in Romanticism and mythology, and to Germany’s baroque cities. With an outsider’s objectivity he has crafted an intimate portrait of the country to its present day.
Travel Guide
Berlin
A divided Berlin to united Berlin. How did this change affect the rest of Germany?
Nooteboom spent a while living in Berlin, and his arrival in 1989 meant that he got to see some of the biggest changes Germany had ever faced such as the fall of the Berlin wall and the first steps towards German reunification.
Nooteboom is a Dutch outsider who remembers the Germans invading his country but who wants to make sense of the view from the other side of the wall.
In 1963, the story starts on the Autobahn Germany down the “Most unreal road in Europe” The author describes it as “Driving across the face of the Earth, not through a nation.”
Helmstedt
This is where past and politics finally make a ppaearnce with guards and guardposts. It is a checkpoint of course
West Berlin 1963
The West has its own ruins
The only crossing point for non-German non-military personal is in Frierichstasse, but the author ends up at the Brandbergate by mistake. Russian sentries stand amidst the marble
“Germany is no longer the most westerly socialist country in the wold, That is Cuba now.”
The Wall stands as a document of war to many
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Roads to Berlin
Destination: Germany, Berlin Author/Guide: Cees Nooteboom Departure Time: 1963 onwards
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