Hi, I'm Rick Steves, back with more of the best of Europe.

This time we're in the fastest-changing big city in Europe.

It's young, it's vibrant, it's Berlin.

Thanks for joining us.

Zum Wohl!

After a tumultuous 20th century -- bombed flat in World War II, divided first by the victorious Allies and later by its notorious wall -- reunited Berlin has resumed its place as the capital of Germany, and Berlin has emerged as one of Europe's top destinations.

We'll climb the Reichstag dome and add color to the once deadly Berlin Wall before joining a giant karaoke party.

We'll ponder a Holocaust memorial, then we'll marvel at the astounding transformation of once gloomy East Berlin.

And we'll take a cruise through the heart of the city on the Spree River.

Berliners have a remarkable ability to embrace the present while surrounded by remnants of their tumultuous past, and for visitors, the city offers the delight of enjoying and learning from both.

Sightseeing through its turbulent 20th century is an enriching experience.

It's especially rewarding when you have a little historical context and an appreciation that many of the people on the streets actually lived this story.

Berlin, Hitler's capital during World War II, was essentially destroyed in 1945.

It then became the front line of the Cold War, when the infamous Iron Curtain was drawn and both Berlin and Germany were divided -- half-communist and half-capitalist.

After the wall fell in 1989, the two Germanies and the two Berlins officially became one, and since then, this once thoroughly divided city has tackled the challenge of reunification, and, after a massive and costly rebuild, has effectively woven itself back together.

The Brandenburg Gate is a glorious reminder that long before the birth of modern Germany in 1871, the country of Prussia was the leading German state and a European power.

Its capital was Berlin.

While it's seen plenty of war, the Brandenburg Gate was designed as an arch of peace, crowned by a majestic four-horse chariot with the Goddess of Peace at the reins.

Berlin is built around a historic axis.

500 years ago, this boulevard was just a carriageway connecting the Prussian emperor's palace in the city center with his hunting grounds, today's sprawling park -- the Tiergarten.

The home stretch of that axis leading to the palace was Unter den Linden.

This leafy boulevard, named for its Linden trees, was, in its day, the Champs-Elysées of Central Europe.

With the reign of Prussian emperor Frederick the Great in the 1700s, Berlin became a world-class capital.

Frederick was part of a dynasty which ruled Prussia and then Germany until the end of World War I.

In order to compete with Austria, France, and Russia, all of which had lots more people, Prussia became a virtual military boot camp.

It raised Europe's largest army, Berlin was a military metropolis, and goose-stepping was in.

Voltaire said, "Some countries have an army, and in Prussia, the army has a country."

Today, Frederick the Great looks out intently over grand buildings which symbolized his reign.

A man of the Enlightenment, his vision was to create not just a military power but a land of high culture -- a new Rome.

Under Frederick, Humboldt University was instituted as the leading German center of higher learning, where Marx and Lenin would study and Albert Einstein would teach.

To underline the focus on culture, an impressive ensemble of purpose-built museums filled Berlin's Museum Island.

Galleries here feature art through the ages, from Egypt and Ancient Greece to Romantic Age art that celebrates German nationalism.

Before 1871, Germany was fragmented, a disorganized collection of little German-speaking dukedoms and kingdoms, but a unification movement was growing and artists and intellectuals here were all about legitimizing the notion that Germany should be a single, independent nation.

The old National Gallery is filled with paintings from the Romantic 19th century which made that case powerfully.

Dreamy castles harken back to Germany's misty medieval roots.

Heroic struggles were waged for the Fatherland.

German cities were idealistic, God-fearing centers of high culture.

And Romantic patriots dreamed of a land where German-speaking people could raise their beautiful children true to their heritage.

The Berlin Cathedral, built in the exuberant generation after the creation of Germany, towers over those museums.

Stepping inside, you can see how the first German emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm, ordered up bombastic decor which seems to declare, "We're here to stay."

But like Berlin, it's definitively Protestant.

Under its inspiring dome, heroes of the Reformation -- like Calvin and Luther -- stand vigilant, fingers pointing to the scripture as if to guard their theology.

The square in front of the cathedral functions as a military parade ground or a people's park, depending upon the tenor of the times.

The tenor of the times these days, with the city rebuilt and thoroughly reunified, is peaceful, and that's the feeling here on a lazy summer afternoon.

Berlin is young, hip, and famously affordable.

Just strolling through delightful parks and neighborhoods gives a fun glimpse into today's good times.

Life here, especially in what was dreary East Berlin, is a poignant, even jarring mix of tragic history, hedonism, and a now-thriving economy.

On this street, a venerable synagogue, once destroyed and now rebuilt, stands as a memorial to the Holocaust while police stand guard.

And on either side a trendy strip of restaurants and bars is jam-packed.

Just around the corner, a still-ramshackle courtyard that's changed little physically since communist times creates a Bohemian-chic vibe as an in-the-know crowd dines al fresco.

Enjoying the moment they're seemingly oblivious to how dramatically this neighborhood has changed since the wall came down.

Getting to and from Berlin is easy.

The Hauptbahnhof, the city's huge and thundering main train station, is one of Europe's mightiest, with several levels of tracks serving over a thousand trains a day all encased in a vast shopping mall of commercial activity.

While a massive public expense, Germans consider this a smart investment for both business and the people.

And the city's subway is also highly developed.

As in any big European city, when you commit to using public transit, you get around quicker and cheaper.

The underground takes us to Berlin's governmental quarter.

Germany dominates the European Union in part because of its effective government.

The grandiose Chancellery is the official residence of the prime minister.

It faces Germany's parliament building, or Reichstag.

With its motto, "To the German People," it's the symbolic heart of German democracy.

The Reichstag has a short yet dramatic history.

When inaugurated in the 1890s, the emperor dismissed the new parliament building as a "house for chatting."

But after World War I, the German Republic was proclaimed from right here.

Then, in 1933, a mysterious fire gutted the building, giving Hitler a convenient opportunity to blame the communists for the blaze in order to consolidate his hold on power.

As World War II drew to a close, the Nazis made their last stand here.

Imagine, Germans fighting Russians on its rooftop.

After 1945, the bombed-out building stood like a ghost through the Cold War.

Then, with reunification, the parliament moved back to Berlin.

This historic ruin was rebuilt with a modern element, this striking glass dome.

A walkway winds all the way to the top and a cone of mirrors reflects natural light into the legislative chamber far below.

As you spiral up, survey the city.

The views are marvelous.

But for Germans, with their dark recent history, the view that matters most is inward, looking down literally over the shoulders of their legislators.

The architecture comes with a message -- the people are determined to keep a wary eye on their government.

Berlin is dotted with memorials and reminders of its troubled 20th century history.

For a man with such megalomaniac ambitions, it's striking how little survives of the world Hitler created.

The former headquarters of the Nazi air force, or Luftwaffe, now houses the German Finance Ministry.

It's the only major Hitler-era building that somehow survived the war's bombs.

Notice how the Fascist architecture is monumental, making the average person feel small and powerless.

Just down the street, an exhibition called The Topography of Terror is built upon the bombed-out remains of the notorious SS and Gestapo buildings.

This spot, once the most feared address in Berlin, documents the methods and evils of the Nazi regime.

Nearby is a site with nothing to see: a parking lot, vacant, yet thought-provoking.

It's the site of Hitler's vast underground bunker.

In early 1945, as Allied armies advanced on Berlin and Nazi Germany lay in ruins, Hitler and his inner circle retreated here.

It was right here, deep in his underground bunker, that Hitler committed suicide April 30, 1945.

A week later, the war in Europe was over.

In their attempt to exterminate the Jewish race, the Nazis killed six million Jews.

Berlin's Holocaust memorial is a poignant and evocative field of gravestone-like pillars.

Called "The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe," it was the first formal German government-sponsored Holocaust memorial.

When Germany called this a memorial to the murdered Jews, it was a big step.

They admitted to a crime.

They did it.

The design of this memorial has no explicit meaning.

It's hoped that each visitor will find their own.

There's no central gathering point.

It's for individuals, like death.

Once you enter the memorial, people seem to appear and then disappear.

Is it a labyrinth?

A symbolic cemetery?

Intentionally disorienting?

It's entirely up to you to derive the meaning while pondering this horrible chapter in human history.

A couple blocks away is another poignant memorial.

Marking the Tombs of the Unknown Soldier and the Unknown Concentration Camp Victim, it's dedicated to all victims of war and tyranny.

The statue of a pietà, Mother with her Dead Son, is by Kathe Kollwitz, a Berlin artist who lived through both World Wars.

With the end of World War II, Berlin was divided between the victorious Allies.

Eventually the French, British, and American sectors became West Berlin and the Soviet sector became communist East Berlin.

For the next four decades, the people of East Berlin were subjected to lots of propaganda, and that included art.

Socialist Realism, the art of the communist era, actually went beyond censorship.

Art was legitimate only if it actively promoted the state.

This mural, Building the Republic, dates from 1952.

It's a classic example of Socialist Realism, showing the entire society delighted to work together toward the Marxist utopia.

Industrial workers, farm laborers, women and children, all singing the same patriotic song.

The communists also built Berlin's 1,200-foot-tall TV Tower, quite an impressive erection back in the 1960s.

Its purpose, along with better TV reception, to show the power of the atheistic state at a time when East German leaders were having the crosses removed from churches.

But when the sun beamed on their tower, a huge cross reflected on the mirrored ball, high on the grandest spire in East Berlin.

Cynics called it the "Pope's Revenge."

This boulevard has long been a main drag.

Destroyed during World War II, Stalin decided this street should become a showcase for communist East Berlin.

In the 1950s, he had it rebuilt with lavish Soviet aid and named it Stalin Boulevard.

Today, this street, built in the bold Stalin Gothic style so common in Moscow back then, has been restored and renamed for Karl Marx.

It's actually becoming en vogue and gives us yet another glimpse at what was communist Berlin.

But even with massive housing projects and lots of clever propaganda, it took a wall to keep the people of East Berlin from leaving.

"The Anti-Fascist Protective Rampart."

That's what the East German government called this Wall.

They built it almost overnight in 1961 to stop their people from fleeing to freedom in the West.

Over two million East Germans escaped before this Wall was built.

The Berlin Wall Memorial is a stark reminder of the millions trapped behind this Wall before it came down.

Within its park-like grounds which were once a no-man's land are information posts and photos of people who died trying to cross the Wall.

The Wall was actually a complex of two walls.

The outer one was a 12-foot-high concrete barrier.

The round top was designed to discourage grappling hooks.

Sandwiched between the outer wall and an inner wall was a no-man's land, or "death strip."

The complex circled what was West Berlin, stretching about a hundred miles it effectively made the Western sector of the city an island in the middle of communist East Germany.

And always vigilant were many look-out towers.

East German guards manned about 300 towers like this to stop anyone attempting to escape.

Only a couple of these still stand.

Checkpoint Charlie, the most famous border crossing between the East and West, stood about here.

Once a tense and foreboding place, its now a garish, commercial free-for-all.

Where serious military guards once stood, today actors pose playfully with tourists.

Symbolizing the nerve-wracking standoff of the Cold War, a young American soldier faces East, and on the flip side, his Soviet counterpart faces West.

The adjacent museum, the House at Checkpoint Charlie, shows how desperation drove East Berliners to all kinds of creative escape attempts over, under, and through the Wall.

Escapees would hide, crammed into tiny cars.

This one drove six people to freedom before finally being discovered.

In another car, a person was actually hidden in a false gas tank.

And this vehicle, armored with concrete and iron plates, simply blasted through under a hail of bullets.

Exhibits show how tunnels were used for transporting people to freedom.

Rooms recall the artful diplomacy of the age, including President Reagan's famous speech.

REAGAN: Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate.

[Cheering] Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

[Cheering] STEVES: And the last room celebrates the happy ending, the euphoric days in 1989 when people-power literally tore down the Wall.

With the Wall gone, the two Berlins were mended together and the scars of the Cold War began to fade.

Potsdamer Platz is a symbol of Berlin's rebirth.

Before World War II, it was the Times Square of Berlin, famously one of the busiest squares in Europe.

It's hard to believe, but during the Cold War, as recent as the 1980s, this entire area was a desolate and deadly no-man's land.

This line marks where the infamous Berlin Wall once stood.

That was East, that was West, and back then, standing here, I'd be dead.

Now big business has moved back in, turning this area into a towering office park and shopping mall.

Eastern Berlin has become a bustling part of the city.

This huge square, Alexanderplatz, was a commercial center of East Berlin in the communist days.

Today it's an explosion of capitalism, with a relaxed and fun-loving atmosphere.

But to really feel the vibrancy of the new Berlin, I enjoy exploring residential neighborhoods deeper into the former Eastern Zone.

Young, in-the-know locals agree that Prenzlauer Berg is one of Berlin's most colorful neighborhoods.

It's a classic case of an old workers' quarter becoming trendy.

Prenzlauer Berg was bordered by the Berlin Wall.

Today, what was once a former death strip along the Wall is a fun-loving park.

The remains of the hated wall are now a showcase for counter-culture graffiti artists, a canvas for free-spirited spray-painters.

The Mauerpark, or Wall Park, hosts a parade of alternative lifestyles.

It's a youthful culture of people with no living memory of communism.

There's plenty of picnicking and lots of entertainment.

♪♪ And each summer Sunday, the park hosts a giant karaoke free-for-all.

♪ Let's do the Time Warp again ♪ ♪ Let's do the Time Warp again ♪ [Cheering] To better understand this dynamic city, I'm joined by my fellow tour guide and local journalist, Holger Zimmer.

ZIMMER: Well, this is Prenzlauer Berg.

This is my neighborhood, really, you know?

And I've been living here since the end of communism and I've seen a lot of changes here.

It's a fine example of how Berlin developed.

Back in the 1850s, '70s, Industrial Revolution comes along, the population of Berlin doubled within the space of 30 years, from one to two million, so people needed apartments, people needed space to live, so that's why all these buildings were built.

STEVES: A huge building project.

Look at this, lots of workers' accommodation.

ZIMMER: And we were lucky that we can still see it, because they haven't been destroyed in the Second World War.

So that's pretty much survived here.

And then after '45, this is East Berlin here, this is communism, so people don't pay rent, so the buildings actually collapse.

STEVES: So it got really run-down during communism.

ZIMMER: But that means when '89 comes along, the Wall falls, people move in, young people, students, creative people move in here, and they basically take these old buildings that no one else wanted to live there anymore, with coal heating, with like a toilet that's just kind of like half a floor down, and they come and live there, you know, and they doll it up and they change the place completely.

STEVES: Must have been a very creative time.

ZIMMER: Absolutely, lots and lots of vibe, lots of people out on the rooftops playing guitar, playing music, just meeting on the street, and, I mean, the artists, let's face it, they have gone, but -- STEVES: So that's gentrification.

It's cool, people come in with money, the creative people move out, and now you've got comfortable, desirable apartments.

ZIMMER: And like me, like, I came here as a student.

Now I have kids and I enjoy living here.

STEVES: So you don't have to go downstairs for the toilet.

ZIMMER: Absolutely, yes.

And I don't need to bring up my bucket of coal anymore.

STEVES: Nice.

I love these happy little crossing signals.

-They're so jaunty.

-Yeah, that's one thing people here really kept from the communist times, and they really fought for them.

It's a popular demand.

And we call them Ampelmannchen.

-Ampelmannchen.

-Little light man.

STEVES: Okay, Ampelmannchen.

ZIMMER: So here's a place where the old spirit still survives.

STEVES: Let's take a peek in.

So this was originally squatters.

ZIMMER: This was a squatter place, yes.

STEVES: And today, today they're paying rent?

ZIMMER: Today they're paying rent and they still care for their house, they still do something.

They don't have much money, but they still keep it up.

Former squatters now have a place to stay.

STEVES: The Spree River, which cuts through the heart of the city, has taken on new life.

A relaxing hour-long boat tour which comes with an interesting narration is time and money well spent.

It's a poignant cruise, because this river was once a symbol of division.

But today, Berlin is thoughtfully incorporating the river into a people-friendly cityscape.

Cruising along a delightful riverside path, you'll pass the impressive new buildings housing the German government, fine bridges symbolizing the new connection of East and West, and inviting beach cafes.

Berlin.

Visitors here are understandably fascinated by the Nazi sites, communism, and the Wall.

But for today's young Berliners, that's history.

In their city, former military parade grounds are where you go for a tan and the Wall is simply a backdrop for a party For any Berliner under 30, their world has always been capitalistic, democratic, free, and peaceful.

Reflecting on its past while energized by a promising future, Berlin's an old city with a new spirit.

I'm Rick Steves.

Until next time, keep on travelin'.

Auf Wiedersehen.

[Woman speaking German] To stop their people from freeing to fleedom in the West.

Freeing to fleedom.

Fleeing to freedom in the West.

Berlin's an old city with a young past.

Until next time... Keep on travelin'.

[Woman speaking German] [Sneeze]