From a distance, St. Michael's Church in Berlin's Kreuzberg neighborhood is a really beautiful building, as you can tell from the below photo.
Wait a second...something doesn't look right.
Hold on a second...something seems a little bit off, right? I thought so too, and walking around the corner I quickly discovered that something was indeed missing.
The building is, to say the least, missing a few parts.
Yep, the majority of the church's building is completely missing. Like many other buildings in Berlin, St. Michael's Church was heavily damaged during World War 2. Unfortunately for the church, it also happened to be located close to the East/West Berlin divide. As a result, in the post-war years it couldn't function effectively, and was essentially abandoned during the Cold War. This, coincidentally, was the same fate suffered by the Anhalter Bahnhof.
The Church was originally constructed between 1851 and 1856. The below right picture is St. Michael's Church as it appeared in 1880. It was considered at the time as one of the most beautiful churches in the city.
St. Michael's Church in 1880, not long after completion.
In my opinion, it still is one of Berlin's prettiest buildings, made more interesting by the enduring and visible imprint of history on its bricks and steeples. St. Michael's Church is a monument to 150 years of Berlin's history: the promise of the late 19th century; the destruction and division of the 20th century; and finally, the ad hoc process of reunification and remembrance during the 21st.