October 3rd is German Unity Day — and this year marks the thirtieth anniversary of Germany's reunification.
Celebrations are being held in Potsdam, the capital of the state of Brandenburg.
Potsdam’s city center has been turned into an open-air exhibition.
Each of the 16 German states is showcased in glass cubes like this one.
But central to this exhibition is the history of Germany's division
and eventual coming together as one, unified nation.
That fateful event in 1990 also paved the way Potsdam to recover some of its historical splendor.
In the 30 years since Germany's reunification, Potsdam hasn't aged a bit — quite the contrary, actually.
The city center has been completely revamped,
and the Prussian palaces and parks have received a thorough beauty treatment.
Most importantly, though, the days of walls and border fences
separating Potsdam and neighboring Berlin are long gone.
The Glienicke Bridge is one particularly famous symbol of German division and reunification.
The bridge connects Berlin and Brandenburg. The border between the states goes right through it.
Potsdam’s side of the bridge is painted in a light shade of green. Berlin’s side is slightly darker.
This line right here is where Potsdam and with it East Germany ended, and this right here was already West Berlin.
During the Cold War, the bridge was off limits to civilians.
And still, it was famous the world over as a bridge of spies.
It was used as a point of exchange of undercover agents between the US and the Soviet Union.
With the border now gone, the Havel has become quite lively.
Today it's a popular spot for boating and other water sports.
It wasn't for nothing that Potsdam was the favored residence of the Prussian Kings for two centuries.
Evidence of that can be still be seen in the cityscape to this day.
In the olden days, life in Potsdam buzzed all around the base of the obelisk on the old market square.
In the past 30 years, it has been remodeled to restore its pre-war appearance.
It would have probably been easier to modernize the square. Why did the city opt for historic reconstruction?
There was a time when the half constructed shell of the Hans-Otto-Theater stood here
— a big hulking block that was a prestige project for East Germany.
Then the Wall fell, the political situation changed, and eventually a decision was made to tear it down.
So then, the space was empty and open,
and there were plans to reconstruct Potsdam's city palace, that is, the state parliament.
And then someone thought:
Hey! We've got a great ensemble here with the Old City Hall and St. Nicholas' Church.
Let's construct the state parliament in the historic style.
And so, in 2014, Potsdam regained its majestic city palace.
The columns are old, bullet holes from the Second World War still clearly visible.
Bits of the old city palace were integrated into the new one in over a hundred places.
The reconstruction must have been very costly. Where did the money come from?
We got public funding, of course,
but there were also donations from private parties, wealthy people, sponsors, and patrons.
They were citizens of Potsdam and people who'd come to Potsdam and fallen in love with the city.
The historic facade of the state parliament, for instance, was paid for by one man. It cost twenty million euros.
And Potsdam’s classic skyline is not yet finished.
A number of new "old" buildings are still being planned.
One of the reasons Potsdam became a favorite among Prussian royalty
was the city’s location in the midst of a lush landscape, dotted with rivers and lakes.
They built beautiful palaces, gardens and castles and earned Potsdam the nickname 'Versailles of the North'.
The most well known and frequently visited palace is Sanssouci.
This summer residence was also the favorite of its builder, Prussian king Frederick II.
There are 16 palaces in Potsdam.
The Belvedere wasn’t a residential palace. Its purpose was to provide an overlook tower.
From up here you can get a great view of the landscape the royals loved so much.
During the Cold War, this entire landscape was fragmented by militarized zones
and fortified borders separating East and West.
In 1990, though, the palaces and parks of Potsdam were re-united
with those in Berlin on the other side of the River Havel.
And in that same year, UNESCO declared the ensemble to be the first all-German World Heritage site.
Until late 1989, the Berlin Wall cut right behind Cecilienhof Palace.
This is a very special place:
world history was quite literally written here in the summer of 1945.
After the Second World War, three of the victorious allied powers negotiated the new world order here.
The red star on the lawn was planted by Soviet soldiers for this historic meeting: The Potsdam Conference.
Until the end of 2020, visitors can learn more about these defining days in a special exhibition.
It was in this very room that the U.S., the UK and the Soviet Union
negotiated the future of post-war Germany and Europe.
On one hand, the decisions made during the Potsam Conference settled the end of the Second World War.
On the other, they marked the beginning of the Cold War,
a conflict that saw an iron curtain descend on the continent and led to the construction of the Wall.
The Potsdam Conference put Cecilienhof Palace squarely in the world spotlight.
After Sanssouci, it's the most frequently visited palace in the city.
Typically, well over a million visitors a year come to see Potsdam's gardens, parks and palaces.
Potsdam is one of the very few eastern German cities that's actually growing.
In 1990, it had around 140-thousand residents. Now, it has nearly 180-thousand.
Many prominent figures have bought or built homes here since reunification.
The reasons are obvious: where else can you live smack in the middle of a city
and at the same time be surrounded by water and nature as far as the eye can see?
I return to where I started, because I can't leave Potsdam without a souvenir.
Here snap-happy Instagrammers get the chance to stage their own daring escape on Glienicke Bridge.
Spying memories from Potsdam: those will go straight into my top-secret file.
It was truly remarkable to see what has become of Potsdam in these past decades,
and it'll certainly be interesting to keep tabs on the city's evolution.
I hope you enjoyed our journey today. Thanks for joining me once more.
And I'll see you next time... somewhere in Germany.