{"id":1733,"date":"2010-04-21T17:32:59","date_gmt":"2010-04-21T17:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hub-dev.bates.edu\/magazine\/?page_id=1733"},"modified":"2017-09-06T11:40:50","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T15:40:50","slug":"abgeordnetenhaus","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/back-issues\/y2005\/spring05\/features\/uncovering-berlin\/abgeordnetenhaus\/","title":{"rendered":"Berlin Abgeordnetenhaus"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Berlin Abgeordnetenhaus <em>\u2014 by\u00a0John Mulligan &#8217;06<\/em><\/h3>\n<p>I was intimidated by the prospect of interviewing people at my project site. I didn\u2019t know if my German lessons would carry me through the free-form conversations that I (half) hoped to have about the Berlin <em>Abgeordnetenhaus<\/em> (House of Representatives).<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 4px\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/Images\/Bates_Magazine\/spring05\/features\/berlin\/Mulligan-1737WEB.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" hspace=\"4\" vspace=\"4\" align=\"middle\" \/><\/p>\n<p>During World War II, the building was a social venue for Luftwaffe pilots. When the Berlin Wall went up, the <em>Abgeordnetenhaus<\/em> fronted part of the Death Strip, a no-man\u2019s land designed to both reveal and trap those who might try to escape over the wall. An important East German symbol, the <em>Abgeordnetenhaus<\/em> almost became a communist monument.<\/p>\n<p>I had a Gordian knot of histories before me, and little history myself with German. Perhaps my interviewees would do the work for me. \u201cWhat does this building mean to you?\u201d I asked, hoping for a penetrating answer to a cop-out question. \u201cIt\u2019s the building for politicians,\u201d offered one. \u201cA pretty building,\u201d ventured a pair, before giggling at me. It was a rocky start. It took better questions from me to gain more understanding of this building\u2019s meaning, and I soon met helpful, kind, and, most importantly, talkative people.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 8px\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/Images\/Bates_Magazine\/spring05\/features\/berlin\/Mulligan-1704WEB.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" hspace=\"8\" vspace=\"8\" align=\"left\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In the end, understanding their place in Berlin was my real goal. The building was a mere gateway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Berlin Abgeordnetenhaus \u2014 by\u00a0John Mulligan &#8217;06 I was intimidated by the prospect&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"parent":1728,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_dimp_site_id":"","_dimp_override_contact":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-1733","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1733"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12238,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1733\/revisions\/12238"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}