Berlin,Germany.
The
capital of Germany – is Berlin, it is not only the largest city in the country,
but also the largest according population, about 3.4 million people live in the
city. Berlin existed in the late XII early XIII centuries as a small trade
settlement on the river Spree. Primarily there were two settlements in place of
modern Berlin - Cologne and Berlin. In 1307 the cities united and formed the
general city council. Since unification, Berlin population increased to 8,000
people. Even in those days Berlin was the capital of the Electorate of
Brandenburg in 1417, and after German unification in 1871, Berlin became the
capital of the German Empire, in 1919-33 - the capital of the republic.
There are several versions of the name of the city. The first – is from
the German word «Bär» - bear, and the other goes to a Slavic word «berl», which
means «swamp». Berlin has a long and interesting history. But we want to
observe, that exactly a bear is situated on the City Emblem of Berlin. It is
considered that the bear has direct coincidence with the name of the city,
because he says the first syllable of the name of the city (Bär). Another
interesting fact is that the bear symbolizes courage, strength, endurance,
courage, resurrection and new life.
And if we look through the history of the XX century, we will find out that the
resurrection of the city really happened, after the Second World War. The main
part of Berlin was destroyed, almost 100% of the center of the city was ruined,
and only the suburb of the city escaped destructions. It is known, that Adolf
Hitler and his followers had their own far-reaching plans and political
purposes after the Second World War. Hitler and his architect Albert Speer
planned to rebuild the whole city and gave it a new name - Welthauptstadt
Germania (the world capital of Germany). But in real, that wasn’t meant to be. Countries, which won the war, took
Berlin’s destiny according to their own discretion.
Independent and new life Berlin started in the late XX century, after the
fall of the Berlin Wall, which divided the city into sectors of the Western
Allies (U.S., UK and France), in the western part of the city, and the sector
of the Soviet Union in the east. In June 1991, it was decided after the voting
of the parliament to return «the status of the capital» to the city.
Unfortunately, many historical monuments were destroyed during the war, and
only some of them were rebuilt. But it doesn’t reflect on tourist attitude
towards this beautiful city, and now Berlin still remains one of the most popular
cities for people from all over the world. Only in 2012 for the first seven
months, about 17.2 million tourists visited Germany and according to the
Federal Statistics Office, every third tourist visited the German capital.
