Post Germany

Before our trip to Germany, I searched out some historic photographs of the cities where we would visit, with the aim to attempt to recreate some of the camera angles and to see what had changed over the last 70 odd years. This gave us a "mission" to complete while being tourists, and it provided some historical context for what we would be seeing. I recently went over some of my photos and finally pieced together a few composites. We appreciated the history we saw and this simple task made the views much more powerful for us.

The first one was in our first stop, Munich. After a busy morning touring the Munich Residence, we decided to see if we could find this old building somewhere near the Hofbrauhaus. That was all the information we had, but we were successful! Surprisingly, the cafe in the 1941 photo is still there and still a cafe! Having found it without any doubt, Wendy and I used the picture on my phone to attempt to position ourselves at just the right angle. I imagine this caused some chuckles from the many people sitting around this small busy square. The street cobblestones look similar, although the drain in front of Hitler was filled in sometime over the years. In 2019, to the right of the frame is the front door of the Hofbrauhaus beer hall (great beer!), and to the left of the frame is.... the Hard Rock Cafe! Go figure.  A little bit of Photoshop was all it took to bring this to life.

Just outside the Hofbrauhaus in Munich, 1941 and 2019.

In Berlin, the next mission was to find the Brandenburg Gate. OK, I agree that finding it is not a big stretch, but the angle was much more challenging for this location due to the number of people, bicycles, and street performers. We entered from the far side of the gate and the first thing Wendy said was, "Is that a nude man?". I had to agree that it appeared that way. On closer inspection, the 'nude dude' was actually wearing a thong but nothing else - he was demonstrating for some purpose, all of which was a mystery to us (and to most of the indifferent crowd). Not sure if this is a common occurrence in the area, but it certainly made us shake our head. Hope he had sunscreen.

Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, 1945 and 2019