Is this Zerrmat? Is it Zillertal? No, this is Berlin. Berlin-Treptow, to be exact: we are in Treptower Park.

It was there that on 1 May, 1896 Berlin celebrated the opening of its Trade and Industrial Exhibition – an event which went down in history as “The World Fair That Never Was”…

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Online and in the press, this great photo has never lost its great popularity. Now, with the 81th anniversary of the end of the Second World War nigh, it re-appears again.

However, the caption you often see underneath - “Children bathing in the Spree at the Reichstag in 1945” - contains four facts and one misconception. Here is why.

When in 1945 Boris Pushkin, Soviet photographer, took this picture, it was not the Spree that his camera captured. Those girls and boys were swimming not in the river but in a massive basin that was created between the river and Königsplatz (now Platz der Republik) before the Reichstag building. It served as a tank barrier and was in fact, partly a flooded U-Bahn (Berlin Tube or Subway) tunnel of line which had been planned still before the war but was never built, and partly (and luckily!) another never realised project: changing the course of the river Spree in preparation for, among others, the construction of the giant new “People’s Hall”, the Volkshalle (thank you, , for kindly reminding it about the fact!).

Here you can see in Hein Gorny's photo (Gorny was a brilliant self-taught German photographer, by the way, whose Neue Sachlichkeit - New Subjectivity - images are worth looking up online).

In this photo the arrow is pointing at the Reichstag building. South of the basin you can exactly see the flooded line of the never-built underground railway line.

It pays to be critical of photo captions, especially with time working against us - with the Internet spreading information at the current speed and with fewer and fewer people will be able to recognise inaccurate descriptions, it is not unlikely that one day history will be partly re-written by a simple act of persistent repetition. Which does not imply any willing disinformation - just our battered but still very much alive instinct to believe what we read.

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“When I was ten years old, our maid - who was supposed to go for a walk with me on Sunday afternoons - would take me to the Hasenheide instead.

Then she would g…

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This part of the vanished Berlin is further north than our time-travelling hunting grounds so far.

You are standing at the northern end of the t…

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What forty years, one world war, fall of the monarchy and massive financial crisis triggered by raging hyperinflation can do: behold Berlin's “Grand Hotel Alexanderplatz”, designed by Martens, von Ho…

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Von Stephan’s name might not ring many bells today, but the man was a household brand in the second half of the nineteenth century. And not without a reason…

He was actively involved in the development of pneumatic post, almost singlehandedly pioneered the introduction of the postcard (he is often called its inventor but one should always remember that no invention has just one father/morher); he was the main power behind the establishing of Berlin’s first telephone network as well as the standardisation of postage prices, also worldwide.

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On top of everything else (meaning the city in ruins, the Red Army practically ante portas and the Nazi-in-Chief, Adolf Hitler, hiding in his bunker since January that year together with many of his closest helpers and supporters), Berlin was witnessing recurring bouts of both foot and mouth disease among its remaining cattle, hog cholera among its pigs and various unpleasant viral infections of its remaining horses.

The frightening prospect of famine could no longer be ignored…

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In fact, the flight nearly ended even before it began: the start of the LZ 127 was planned for 9 AM, but shortly before that a massive storm and rainfall hit the area of the Bodensee (“Lake Constance” for our British readers). Capitan Lehmann, in charge of the airship, decided to dare the elements…

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Until eleven years ago, when a new cupola had been installed on top of Berlin’s Stadtschloß replica, this view would have been a tough one to place on the map.

You could have passed this place a hund…

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On March 30, 1821 – on the seventh anniversary of the Prussian charge of the Montmartre and of the conquest of Paris, which unavoidably triggered Napoleon's demise – King Friedrich Wilhelm III arrived on top of the Tempelhofer Berg (then still known as the Weinberg or the Runder Berg). The highest natural elevation in what is now central Berlin but back in the days belonged to a district outside the city known as Tempelhofer Vorstadt.

Accompanied by an illustrious guest, Russian Tsar Alexander I (Friedrich Wilhelm’s brother-in-arms in the conflict with Napoleon Bonaparte), the king came to witness the unveiling of a monument commemorating their mutual victories in the Wars of Liberation.

A monument that remains one of Berlin’s most recognisable sights until this day…

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Lorenz Adlon, a man with ambitions, a plan and Kaiser Wilhelm II’s ear, was the founder of what must be Berlin’s best-known hotel. The “Adlon”, even though a replica, stands for elegance, quiet but honed to perfection service and discreet air of celebration.

The hotel has seen them all: Tsar Nicholas II, Enrico Caruso, Josephine Baker, Thomas Mann, Charlie Chaplin, Marie Queen of Romania, brilliant US reporter to Berlin Dorothy Thompson, and Michael Jackson (his waving that poor baby out of the window is something most of us, including the “Adlon” itself, would wish to be able to unsee).

Unsurprisingly, the hotel’s reputation has always been highly treasured - it is the make-it-or-break-it of such institutions.

So when in 1922, of all people, it was Lorenz’s son, Louis Adlon, the hotel’s new director, who caused one of the greatest scandals of the 1920s Berlin, all eyes turned onto the “Adlon” again…

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Here is part of Berlin which on one side hardly changed at all (relatively speaking, of course - we are in Berlin after all), while the other became practically unrecognisable. You are looking at th…

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The caution is necessary as - unlike with the book burning of May 1933 - hardly any physical evidence exists today proving the fate of the artworks. Could some of them have been appropriated by high-rank Nazi officials? Quite possibly. Could all of them have been thrown into flames? This, too, is a strong option so both are uncertain.

What is certain, however, is the will of the Third Reich to annihilate everything that did not fall into the party line. Including the artists themselves…

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