Interdisciplinary Trip to Berlin

November’s interdisciplinary trip to Berlin raised a question as old as time – how do you top meeting Anton du Beke in the departure lounge? The answer, of course, begins with bratwurst and ends with kinderpunsch, but is punctuated by a healthy dose of Weimar history, Cold War kitsch, and dizzying 90s architecture.

Forty students of Religion & Philosophy, History and Modern Foreign Languages travelled to Germany’s capital primed to spot the city’s many paradoxes. They found them in the idyllic lakeside setting of the Wannsee Conference, the house in which the horrifying logistics of the so-called “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” were agreed. They found them in the charming retro chic of the DDR museum and the manipulation and oppression of the Stasi. They found them in the marble exterior of the Reichstag - still bullet-ridden from the Battle of Berlin in 1945 - and it’s spiralling, Norman Foster designed glass roof, which they climbed on our final evening.

The students navigated these tonal and historical shifts – not to mention the U-Bahn - with unfailing sensitivity, energy and good humour. Berlin was at its frosty, wide, blue-skied best on our last morning, but it was their company which was the true highlight. Frohe Weihnachten!