Group 5 Reflection for Day 6

On day 6 of the Germany Trip, we visited the Cecileinhof Palace in Potsdam. The palace was built from 1914 to 1917 and it was built for Crown Prince William and his wife, Crown Princess Cecile. The prince did not live at the Palace for very long. In 1918, the Kaiser abdicated and the Palace was handed over to the date in 1926.

The 3 Allied powers; Stalin from Russia, Churchill from Britain and Truman from USA met at the Palace for the Potsdam Conference. Their aim was to resolve the problems arising at the end of the war and to discuss what to do with Germany   who had surrendered on 8^th May, nine weeks before the conference. During their stay at the Palace, Stalin overheard the conversation between Truman and Attlee about the use of atomic bomb. Stalin was angry as he was kept in the dark. USA and Britain were democratic countries while USSR was communist. Stalin was afraid that they would use the atomic bomb on them. From then on, Stalin became suspicious of the other two Allied Powers. This was one of the factors that started the Cold War and caused their relationship to strain.

This incident shows the lack of trust among them. Although we must beware of people around us, we should not get too suspicious of them or life will be miserable because we are very cautious about every single thing. It taught us not to trust people too easily as you would not know whether the person who is closets to you might betray you or not.

Next, we had a city tour around Bamberg. Bamberg is located in East Germany. It is a heritage city with many old buildings when compared to the West Germany. It was undamaged during the World War II. The old buildings in Bamberg were conserved and converted into museums. The government actually bothers to keep the buildings to remind its people of past history. From here, we learnt that it is important to conserve the buildings as they can tell us more about the history of the place. We should also take pride in what we have, for instance the buildings, as they were passed down from our forefather who worked very hard to construct them. In short, we must take pride in everything we do, be it for the country, people, family or ourselves.