In and Around Berlin

by Minerva Brace Norton

Grünewald, not far beyond Charlottenburg, is the seat of a royal hunting-lodge, and its fine old woods are most attractive. It may be reached by railway and steam-tram, and also, in summer, by water. The extensive forest occupies a great stretch of country below the junction of the Spree with the Havel, which here, on the west, loiters and meanders and turns upon itself; now spreading out into wide lakes, now narrowing to a thread, but finally reaching in its dubious course the wide-flowing Elbe. The great bay into which the Havel here expands has pretty islands and shores. Pichelsberg, at the northern extremity of the bay, is a place of popular resort, where observation of Nature is rather concentrated on that branch known as human nature. Wansee, at the southern extremity, is picturesque and rural,—a delightful place in which to spend a quiet day in early summer.

Spandau, eight miles west of Berlin, at the junction of the Spree with the Havel, has much historical and military interest. Here, surrounded by immense fortifications, is the workshop of the German army; and here in the citadel, or old "Julius tower," are kept "the sinews of war," in the form of a reserve military fund of from fifteen million to thirty million dollars.

The railway toward Hanover leads on from Spandau to the long-settled region near the crossing of the Elbe, which here flows northward between high banks. Not far from the Elbe is the railway station of Schönhausen, some two hours' ride from Berlin. The estate of Schönhausen had been in the Bismarck family two hundred and fifty years, when the Chancellor was born there in 1815. Later, this old family inheritance passed to other ownership; but the numerous friends and admirers of the great diplomatist repurchased it, and presented it to him on his seventieth birthday, April 1, 1885. The great gratification of possessing this ancient home hardly induces Prince von Bismarck to spend much time there. Possibly it is within too easy reach of his cares in the capital. The distant Friedrichsruh in the forest of Sachsenswald, within a dozen miles of Hamburg, and more than one hundred and fifty miles northwest of Berlin, is his favorite residence; and Varzin, upwards of two hundred miles to the northeast, in Baltic Pomerania, sometimes wins him to its still greater quiet and seclusion. Here Bismarck received our countryman, the historian Motley, and his daughter, with the delightful welcome to companionship and the simple and informal family life so charmingly portrayed in Motley's correspondence.

The whole region of Schönhausen was as early settled as Berlin itself. Fine old churches, castles, and mediæval town walls mark the neighboring towns of Stendal and Tangermünde, the latter the long-time seat of the Margraves of Brandenburg.

A short détour from the main line to the northwest of Berlin brings one to Fehrbellin, where the Great Elector defeated a Swedish army double the size of his own. In the same region are Neu Ruppin and Rheinsberg, each connected with many memories of the youth of Frederick the Great. At the Castle of Rheinsberg he spent the comparatively happy years of his unhappy married life. His neglected queen, who never saw his favorite palace at Sans Souci, and who was wife and queen only in name for many long years, said that the early days at Rheinsberg were her happiest. Though these places are hardly more than thirty miles northwest of Berlin, lack of railway connections renders it impracticable to visit them in a single day.

The most direct thoroughfare to Copenhagen, that by way of Rostock, passes, outside the elevated railway known as the Ringbahn, the village of Pankow, also reached by tramway, and also once the residence of the Queen of Frederick the Great. This road leads north from Berlin, at first through a country dotted with lakes. Our memory of these is of beautiful sheets of water, surrounded by the green of mid-June, and over-arched by the blue sky and the fleecy cumuli of a perfect summer day. The characteristic North German landscape was here seen to fine advantage. The color of the cottages and farm-houses harmonizes or contrasts beautifully with the landscape. Roofs of brown weather-beaten thatch or of dull red tiles, in the midst of embowering trees and shrubbery, formed for us pictures of beauty long to be remembered. Frienwalde, to the northeast, has mineral springs in the most attractive part of Brandenburg, and is growing as a place of summer resort. The fine old monastery, and the ruined early Gothic abbey-church of Chorin on the Stettin Railway, the burial-place of the Margraves of Brandenburg, are interesting to all students of architecture.

An eastern suburb of Berlin is Köpenick, in the château of which the youthful Frederick the Great was tried for his life by court-martial, by order of his tyrannical father; and in the same direction, an hour from Berlin by express-train, is Cüstrin, whose strong castle was the scene of his subsequent imprisonment, and where, in sight from his window, his noble friend, Lieutenant von Katte, was beheaded on the ramparts for no other crime than fidelity to his young master.

Another most interesting excursion is that to Frankfort-on-the-Oder, two hours eastward of Berlin. This largest city of Brandenburg outside the capital has a varied history, dating from before the time when this region was won from the heathen Slavs to Germany and Christianity. This old stronghold of the Wendish race saw many vicissitudes in the great wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, being the last important place on the great trading-route from Poland to Berlin. It has annual fairs which are relics of these olden times, interesting mediæval churches, and a town-house bearing on its gable the device of the Hanseatic League,—an oblique rod supported by a shorter perpendicular one.

To the southeast, a few miles out on the Görlitz Railway, is Wusterhausen, in the picturesque region of the frequented Müggelsberge,—itself made memorable by an episode in Carlyle's pages.

No more fascinating trip can be taken in summer, after Berlin and Potsdam have been visited, than to the wild and beautiful Spreewald,—a combination of forest and morass not yet wholly redeemed to the civilization of Europe, but holding in its remoter depths a genuine relic of the old barbarism. The Görlitz Railway skirts this forest for twenty-five miles before reaching Lübben, some two hours from Berlin in a southerly direction. This is the best point of departure from the train for a visit to the forest, which is cut by more than two hundred arms of the Spree, some parts of the wood only to be reached by boats or skates. Here, in their villages reclaimed from the swamps, live the descendants of the aboriginal Wends, who have preserved intact their language, their manners, and their modes of dress. This Venice of North-central Germany has for streets the water-ways of the Spree, and for palaces the log huts of the aboriginal race; but no views of Nature are more exquisite than some of those in the Upper and Lower Spreewald.