Frankfurt am Main

The D&O Diary’s European travels continued last week with two stops in Germany — first, a stop in Frankfurt, the country’s business and financial center, and with a further stop over the weekend in Berlin, the country’s capital and largest city.

The primary purpose of my Frankfurt visit was to participate as a speaker and panelist at the DRRT law firm’s annual Global Securities Litigation conference. The event is held at the beautiful Sofitel hotel, which is adjacent to the Alte Oper (Old Opera) and overlooking the Wallanlagen, the park built on the former location of the city walls.

The event opened with a panel discussion in which Alexander Reus and I discussed current Hot Topics in securities litigation. I always enjoy the opportunity to discuss ideas and observations with Alexander, and this year’s panel was no exception.
This annual event is always well-attended. It attracts participants from around the world. My thanks to Alexander Reus and his DRRT colleagues for inviting me to be a part of this event again. It is always a pleasure to be a part of this excellent conference.
This is the central fountain and reconstructed eastern section of the Römerberg, the historic heart of the city’s Aldstadt (Old Town).
One of the interesting features of Frankfurt’s Old Town is the Kleinmarkethalle, an indoor market with over 150 stalls selling fresh produce, cheese, bread, plants, wine, and much else. I enjoyed a very pleasant lunch at a stall in the market on my arrival day.
The weather was particularly nice while I was in Frankfurt. I took this picture at a small pond in the Wallanlagen, near my hotel. The pond is overlooked by some of the tall buildings of Frankfurt’s famous Bankenviertel, the city’s financial district. The presence of the tall buildings in the city center is unusual among European cities; the locals, referring to their ambitious skyline and playing on the name of the city’s major water feature — that is, the Main (pronounced “Mine”) — refer to their city as “Main-hatan.”
Blooming irises in the Wallanlagen. The weather was so pleasant while I was in Frankfurt.
A grey heron looking for some dinner.
The Brandenburg Gate, Berlin’s iconic landmark.

For the final stop on my European tour, I traveled from Frankfurt to Berlin for a weekend visit. I wanted to go to Berlin to fulfill a long-standing but much deferred goal to return to the city. I has set the goal during a January 2020 visit to the city with my wife. During that prior visit, we discovered the Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood in the former East Berlin. We were only there briefly during that prior visit, but I left Berlin with a plan to return to explore Prenzlauer Berg more extensively. The pandemic intervened, and so it turned out to be more than five years before I was able to return to see more of Prenzlauer Berg.

Prenzlauer Berg was once known primarily for its gritty counterculture feel. It is now known for its leafy residential boulevards, trendy cafes and restaurants, and its restored pre-war altbau.

What attracted me on my prior visit to the neighborhood was its cool vibe, its quiet treelined streets, and the interesting architecture of its residential buildings. After the Wall fell, the area’s attractive streets and close location to central city led to rapid gentrification. The area now has a lively street scene, with its busy central avenues lined with cafes and restaurants.

One of Prenzlauer Berg’s attractive features is its many parks. One of its parks is the Volkspark Friedrichshain, the city’s oldest park and one of its largest, as well. The park was badly damaged in World War II, but amazingly the Märchenbrunnen (Fairy Tale Fountain) managed to survive. The park itself was transformed after the war, as the Soviet authorities created artificial hills within the park by dumping rubble from the bombed-out city there. The artificial hills now blend in as if they were a natural part of the topography.

Another of the district’s parks is Kollwitzplatz, a city square that was located near my hotel. The park is named for the 20th century German graphic artist and sculptor, Käthe Kollwitz. The park is best known for street market — Kollwitzmarkt — which is held weekly, on Saturdays. The street market, which features stalls selling crafts, home goods, baked goods, and other foods, is one of the best of its type. It was in fact a visit to the street market back in 2020 that made me want to return to Prenzlauer Berg.
Kollwitz is such an interesting figure. Many of her works have a deep psychological power, expressing the suffering caused by poverty and hunger. Her works depicting the loss and suffering caused by war are both powerful and haunting.
One of Kollwitz’s most well-known and most moving works is the statue Mother with Her Dead Son, which is housed in the Neue Wache, a war memorial building on Unter den Linden, the main boulevard in central Berlin. The statue is both a very different sort of war memorial and representative of Kollwitz’s work.
Though Prenzlauer Berg is now convincingly gentrified, there are still some remnants of the squatters’ movement that filled the district in the immediate aftermath of reunification. (There were squatters’ movements in other Berlin districts too, as well as in other German cities.) Squatters occupied nearly 40 buildings in the district, many serving as bases for collectivist projects such as bicycle workshops and neighborhood soup kitchens. Most of the occupied buildings were eventually cleared, but a few still remain, such as this building on Kastanienallee, which is known as Tuntenhaus. There are stories that its days as a squatters’ haven may be coming to an end.
This is the Prater Biergarten, which is also located on Kastanienallee, not far from the squatters’ building depicted above. I confess that another important reason I wanted to return to Prenzlauer Berg was to visit the Prater. It was January when I saw it before. It was empty then, but I thought to myself, I bet that on a warm evening this place would be extraordinarily pleasant, just to sit in the shade of huge chestnut trees and drink some excellent German beer. Turns out, I was right. What a great place. The Prater Garten alone would justify a visit to Prenzlauer Berg.
Berlin is located on the Spree River, and I spent the better part of one afternoon walking along the riverbank. The scenery along the river is remarkably varied — encompassing residential neighborhoods, industrial sites, low-rise office buildings, and iconic landmarks — in a way that is quite representative of the city itself. Anyway, a pleasant place to walk on a sunny, spring day.
One of Berlin’s quieter permanent residents.
A wild rose, seen blooming along the river. As I walked along, I also heard a nightingale singing. (Tip for travelers: I knew it was a nightingale because I have the Merlin app downloaded on my phone, which is a great resource for birdsong identification, and I can confirm that it works well around the world.)
This is a view from the Siegessäule (Victory Column) of the Tiergarten, the huge park in Berlin’s city center. The view depicted here is toward the east. You can just see the Reichtstag Building on the far left and just to the right of that the tall Fernsehturm (TV tower) in Alexanderplatz. To the right of the tower, you can just see the blue dome of the Berlin Cathedral. You can’t quite see it in this picture but at the far end of the radial boulevard is the Brandenberg Gate. For me, at least, what is most interesting about this pictures is that just about all of buildings you can see — other than the Reichstag building — are located in the former East Berlin.
On my last day in Berlin, I made some time to see one of the remaining stretches of the Wall. This particular stretch is now part of the Berlin Wall Memorial. It was quite something for me to reflect that the Wall has now been down for longer (that is, more than 35 years) than it was actually standing (not quite 28 years). I am sure that in some ways the scars from the division will never heal. But — and I freely acknowledge I could be entirely wrong about this — it feels to me that with the passage of time the Wall is moving to a more historical, less emotional context. On my first full day in Berlin, I walked from my hotel in Prenzlauer Berg to the Brandenberg Gate. The walk took me about 40 minutes or so. It struck me that everything I saw on my walk, including even the Brandenberg Gate itself, was entirely within the former East Berlin. Indeed, I spent most of my time on this visit in the former East Berlin. Not only did this feel fine to me, there really was little in my experience to differentiate between the city’s two previously divided parts. If there are readers whose experience is different, or if you have a different view of the continuing meaning of the Wall in the 21st century, I encourage you to post your thoughts on this post using the site’s comment feature.

For anyone traveling to Berlin anytime soon, I have a hotel recommendation. For the reasons noted above, on this trip I deliberately chose to stay in Prenzlauer Berg. I was fortunate to stay at the Myer’s Hotel, on Metzer Strasse, a tree-lined street within a couple of blocks of both Kollwitz Platz and Volkspark Friedrichshain. The hotel, which is top-rated on Trip Advisor, is also just an 8-minute tram ride from Alexanderplatz. The staff was extraordinarily helpful and friendly. I had made a mistake in my reservation (I booked myself for a day later than the day on which I actually planned to arrive), and they cheerfully and efficiently took care of the problem. This is a really pleasant hotel, in a great neighborhood.

The hotel has a charming old-fashioned feel. The rooms were comfortable and quiet.
The hotel has a calm. atmospheric interior courtyard. Both the courtyard and the hotel lobby have interesting sculptures. The overall effect is of a remarkably civilized urban oasis.

One final note. For anyone planning a visit to Berlin any time soon, particularly for anyone planning a first-time visit, I highly recommend the Canadian author Rory Maclean’s excellent book Berlin: Portrait of a City Through the Centuries. It not only provides an excellent history of the city but it also does well to analyze the city’s complicated 20th century history, including its devastating Cold War division. It is also extraordinarily well-written, arguably worth a read even if you are not planning on visiting Berlin any time soon. Even though I do highly recommend visiting the city.