This is a postcard I received from California! What we have here is a card from the Wende Museum of the Cold War, located in Culver City, CA (that’s right near Los Angeles in the southwest-ish part of the state). The Wende (pronounced “VEN-da”) Museum is devoted to “preserving the past” and “informing the present”. “Wende” is a German word meaning “transformation”, and it bears that name based on the transformative period leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall that separated East and West Germany. To shortly summarize, post-WWII Germany was divided into these blocs, with the Soviet Union occupying the East and the US/Allied forces occupying the West. The East faced quite the ordeal as the lives of its constituents were very heavily controlled, to the point where they could not even seek refuge in West Germany due to the Berlin Wall. The duration of the Cold War Era is often identified by this time period. Eventually, control of the East weakened, and the Berlin Wall was toppled in 1989. This museum preserves artifacts from this time period, with items such as large pieces of the Berlin Wall and documentation of the secret police, or “Stasi”. Another example of what’s kept here is this East German plate (the Fernsehturm Plate), which is a piece of Meissen porcelain. I don’t remember if I shared this before, but I do actually have a piece of the Berlin Wall that my parents gave me. Not something I’d exactly flaunt around irreverently given the nature in which it comes from, but certainly an interesting relic to keep. Thank you so much for all the history-rich postcards you’ve sent me, Steve!
