Berlin Wasserturm11: Dahlem

Fichtenberg Wasserturm, 1886, anchors Steglitz's highest peak.  It's designer, Otto Techow, lived on a neighbouring plot. And probably the tower cast long, jagged shadows in the path of nearby resident Erich Pommer- producer of the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Metropolis, Blue Angel.

Today, Techow's creation is outfitted with the the most modern of instrumentation.  It peers skyward on behalf of the Institute of Meteorology, Freie Universität Berlin, and affords a running account of Berlin's northwest horizon.

Saxony Anhalt Wasserturm1: Reinsdorf

Activities in Reinsdorf offered still more evidence of the Nazi's drive to war.  So wrote Maria Leitner, jew, radical, and clandestine journalist in her 1936 dispatch.

Leitner had travelled to Reinsdorf to investigate a 1935 explosion at the nearby TNT production facility.  The explosion, she wrote, occurred at an underground facility that had expanded at a breakneck pace.  Whereas it had employed 2000-3000 workers in 1933, now it took on 12,000.

According to official reports, 78-90 good german workers perished in the conflagration.  Hitler and Göring descended on Reinsdorf to pay respects- an archival photo shows the former extending a hand to seated grievers.  Foreigners, and former socialists and communists were rounded up as suspected saboteurs.

Generous reconstruction benefits followed.  That year, the first bricks were set for this simple, octagonal water tower.  It rests between a clean athletic field, a cluster of homes, and the local fire house.  On an early March Sunday just minutes before noon, the only suggestion of habitation is the whining of screws being driven by a power tool.

Berlin Water Towers10: Jungfernheide

"They ruined this historical monument by installing that shitwood [scheisholz] at the base." So says an older man as he hobbles by, supported by two walking sticks.

The Jungfernheide water tower was always less of a facility, more a centerpiece for this finely landscaped, Weimer era park.  The park's planner, Erwin Barth- envisioned the tower as a viewing prospect and concession. Barth designed many of Charlottenberg's parks of this era, and went on to become parks director of Berlin 1926-1929.  Unable to continue his work owing to failing vision, dejected by the rise of the Nazi's, he committed suicide in 1933.

The tower itself- a Walter Helmcke creation-- is pure brick expressionist.  It was almost unscathed by World War II- restored to spendor in 1980- and in warmer weather, it continues to serve the ambulatory coffee economy of this urban territory.