What's this Ku'damm Thingie Anyway?

Posted by James

So some of you might be wondering what the heck is a Ku'damm? And how can notes come from it anyway? Well, as you can see in the picture above, the Kurfuerstendamm is a street. In fact, it is a street about three blocks from where we live, in the part of Berlin called Charlottenburg. In the 70's and '80's, when Berlin became the center of the Alternativ scene in Germany, the young people abberviated it as "Ku'damm". The screen shot below from Google Maps shows where the Ku'damm is located in Berlin, highlighted in yellow:

The street runs from the exchange with the Route 100 Autobahn in the west to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in the east where the name changes to Tauentzienstrasse.

The Kurfuerstendamm is named after the former "Kurfuersten", or prince electors, of Brandenburg, famous from Bach's "Brandenburg Concertos", the area of Germany in which Berlin is located. In the Middle Ages, the Holy Roman Emperor who ruled Germany (more or less, how much and where varied depending on when) was elected by a group of princes called Kurfuersten. The "damm" part of the name is a German name for a road on a raised mound like a leveee. In this case the road was corduroy road, a road paved with logs over swampy places thought first erected in 1542. During the 1920's, the Ku'damm was a center of nightlife and leisure in Berlin, but that ended in 1933 with the Depression and the Nazi takeover. During the Cold War, when Berlin was divided, it became the center for upscale shopping in West Berlin, and therefore for student protests against capitalism and consumerism. But after reunification, the Ku'damm had to compete with other areas in Berlin and many businesses moved out (more about the history here).

Today, the Ku'damm is considered the Champs-Elyees of Berlin because many fashion designers have their shops there:

Gucci, Armani, Hermes, you name it. A Silicon Valley favorite also has a shop:

although, the showroom only had one car, probably because Tesla only has one model, in contrast with BMW dealership down the block which had 3. And next door to Telsa was the Apple Store.

Further down the block, we get our first glimpse of the imposing steeple of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church:

 Well, Ok, maybe not so imposing. In fact, it looks like someone has chopped off the top. Hmmm.

Near the church is where the tourist buses leave from:

I took a walk down the Ku'damm on Easter Monday, and, this being Germany, the temperature was quite cool, in the high 30's and low 40's F at noon. As you can see from the trees, the leaves aren't out yet, and the number of tourists is only a fraction of its summer peak.

Behind us now we get a full view of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and we can see what the problem is:

The "church" is actually a bombed out ruin, left over from WWII. The only thing that works is the clock. So it's been turned into a clock tower.

We can get a better view from the other side of the street, then we can see what that honeycombed building on the left above is:

Although it looks like a computer center, that's actually the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial church, not the bombed out ruin. The Germans like to keep occasional buildings in a stabilized version of how they looked at the end of WWII to remind people today of Germany's fraught history. In fact, leaving the old 1890's Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial church as a bombed out ruin is fitting, because it was Kaiser Wilhelm's government that was responsible for starting Germany down the road of its tragic 20th century history as an aggressor, since his government started WWI exactly 100 years and 8 months ago.

Strolling back west on the Ku'damm, we come across another interesting sight:

I guess this must have been some kind of traffic control hangout for the police in the 50's or maybe even earlier. But it's been converted into a clock tower now too.

 Further west, we come across a store where it is Christmas 365 days a year:

Two years ago I was in Berlin right before Christmas and the decorations were spectacular. In contrast, the decorations in Stockholm, where I flew immediately after Berlin, were considerably more circumspect. So maybe its not surprising to find a store selling Christmas decorations and toys all here on the Ku'damm.

A short distance up the block we find this guy staring down at the passersby:

Next to him on the other side of the window is his twin. This kind of architecture was popular in the early part of the 20th century.

21st century art is less representational and best incorporates some kind of technology, like this wire grid cube outside of a store:

At the intersections of the wires are LEDs that are programmed to light up in various forms, like an electronic display. You can see them shining in the middle of the cube.

Finally, on the turnoff to Leibnezstrasse, these two black and white bears greet the passersby:

The bear is the symbol of Berlin and you find them literally everywhere, on the city coat of arms (shown in the initial post) and in statues around the city. Maybe the black one is a grizzly bear and the white one a polar bear, like Kunth the polar bear at the Berlin zoo who was rejected by his mother, raised by zookeepers, then later died from drowning.

That's about it for my Easter Monday stroll down the Ku'damm. Hope that gives you a better idea what it is. I'm sure we'll have more pictures of it as the summer progresses.