Guided by Alexis Travelled in group - 05/01/2025
In summary:
The tour was planned down to every detail, well researched, and our stops were enriched by engaging explanations and materials from Alexis' tablet.
Yet, by trying to appeal to consumers of all political colours and revealing his own, Alexis forced some outlandish false equivalences between the totalitarian, one-party, police regime in the DDR and the West today and back then.
THE PROS:
By showing us pictures and pointing to
Historical artifacts and memorials around us, Alexis made it easy to visualize history in our surroundings and to link Berlin today to his history in relation to the Wall.
The chronological order of events was also well layed out and Alexis documented everything very well, providing us with historical details and data.
Finally, Alexis is fun and outgoing, and makes sure to engage with everyone and to 'quiz' participants in a light and fun way. You won't get bored with him.
THE CONS:
By providing us with detailed information and data, Alexis also told us the story of the Cold War and the clash between Communism and Capitalism. He told us about the political repressions and persecutions in east Germany, the many that lost their lives and freedoms in the DDR, as well as the role of women and tolerance of gay people there. After laying out these facts I think he should have left us be the judges of history. Instead, many attempts were made to get his political views and reading across, which got in the way of the participants' ability to form our own opinions and reason about the information provided.
Alexis also tried to depict 'both sides' as bad by making some poor or untasteful comparisons.
He compared the killing of a socialist political activist by a neo-nazi in (West) Germany and Julian Assange's jailing to the systemic political persecutions by the Stasi (that is, the government) in the DDR.
He claimed, justifying the mistification and propaganda of the SED and USSR, that the Wall was called 'anti-fascist protection wall' because of the involvement of former SS and Nazi officers in Nato and the US.
He claimed that Google only shows the number of those killed whilst crossing from the East to the West as evidence of bias (while we know, as he explained, that the Wall was build to keep east berliners from fleeing en masse, as they were doing up to '61).
He also told us of the strugglers of East Berliners faces with re-integration and competition from richer and better educated west berliners after the fall of the wall. Yet, he used unfortunate words such as 'colonozation' to describe a (possibly missmanaged) process of economic reunification.
Unfortunately, his political leanings finally took over as he delivered an ideological speech at the end of the tour that to me felt very out of place.
