Ein Jahr später — A Year Later

The Landwehrkanal

The Landwehrkanal runs for about ten kilometers through the south of central Berlin, through Kreuzberg and along the border of Neukölln, linking two stretches of the Spree. It was built in the mid-nineteenth century, partly to the plans of the landscape architect Peter Joseph Lenné, as a route for freight barges, and for decades it carried building materials into the growing city. Today it carries mostly tour boats, swans and paddleboarders, and its banks are among the most popular places in the city to sit. Tree-lined paths run along both sides; in summer people gather on the bridges and the steps down to the water, and twice a week a large street market sets up along the Maybachufer. Benches by the canal are where many Berliners go to think, to talk, or to do nothing at all. The canal also carries history. In January 1919, the socialist politician Rosa Luxemburg was murdered by soldiers of a Freikorps unit, and her body was thrown into the Landwehrkanal; a memorial near the Lichtensteinbrücke marks the place. Like much of Berlin, the canal is at once an everyday place and a place of memory, and those who sit on its banks often know both.