Kansas Snapshots by Gloria Freeland - May 30, 2025

They built it - and we came

In the 1989 movie, "Field of Dreams," an Iowa farmer, who is quite a baseball fan, hears a voice that tells him, "If you build it, he will come." The "it" is a baseball field and the "he" is the ghost of his father. The farmer builds the field and, not only does it entice the ghosts of long-ago players, it attracts many spectators as well. Today, the site where the movie was filmed still draws people.

When husband Art, "adopted German son" Tim, his sons Mats and Timo, and I recently visited the Beelitz-Heilstätten park southwest of Berlin, I felt like something similar had happened. Who in the world would consider building a walkway through a nature park filled with crumbling buildings? And if that isn't odd enough, the walkway is not on the forest floor, but at tree-top level, varying between 50 and 70 feet in the air.

But it was built ... and they do come!

For Tim's active youngsters, the "Baum & Zeit" - "Tree and Time" - park was all about climbing through metal "tunnels," walking across the rope "trampoline," trying the playground equipment, and capping it off with ice cream treats.

For the rest of us, the site was a strange combination of quirkiness and nostalgia, along with a dose of education. For example: Art and I were intrigued to learn how many of the 65-plus species of trees that are common in Europe are actually native to America. We Americans often think about how parts of Europe were transplanted to the New World when it was discovered, but we are much less aware of how many things were sent back, including potatoes, coffee, tobacco, tomatoes, and others.

The park's deteriorating buildings were once part of a large hospital complex built to address Berlin's huge late-1800s and early-1900s tuberculosis problem. Heino Schmieden and fellow architect Martin Gropius, who had the largest architectural firm in Berlin, designed the complex. Schmieden had planned concert halls, museums, and hospitals. He viewed the beauty of a design equally important as its function.

There were then no medications available to treat tuberculosis. So the beauty of the buildings was considered an important element of the patients' therapy. Rest in a stress-free environment, combined with a healthy pleasing setting, was the goal, so patients' invigorated immune systems could prevail. Long walks in the fresh air among gardens and walkways were included. The air of pine forests was considered particularly good.

Between 1902 and 1930, the complex of 60-some buildings served as a sanatorium for lung diseases. During World War I, it also served as a field hospital that treated those injured by new weapons, such as mustard gas. Adolf Hitler, who had been blinded by a British gas attack and wounded in the leg at the Battle of the Somme, was one of its patients.

The complex was again used as a military hospital during World War II. After, it was occupied by the Russians, serving as a hospital for Communist Party members and East German government officials. Then, in 1995 - six years after the fall of the Berlin Wall - it was largely abandoned. Remnants of Soviet occupation, such as "Entry prohibited" painted in Russian on one of the buildings, can still be seen here and there.

While a few sections of the campus are used for neurological rehabilitation and Parkinson's research, the majority of the complex was left to fade into the surrounding forest. In 2002, it was used as a set for the Roman Polanski film, "The Pianist."

The tree-top walkway dates to 2007. That was the year Georg and Beate Hoffmann first visited the grounds of the old sanatorium. Shortly after, during a trip to Hainich National Park - a UNESCO World Heritage site in Thuringia - they saw an aerial walkway and decided to replicate it at the sanatorium. With financial partners and the company that built the Hainich park, the Hoffmanns completed the Beelitz construction in 2015.

The nearly half-mile-long, seven-foot-wide wooden walkway is made of Siberian larch and supported by steel posts. It crosses the women's lung sanatorium, known as the "Alpenhaus" - Alpine House - which was destroyed by fire in 1945. Here, relics of old furnishings, remnants of the former roof structure, and the trees and vines that have been growing on the building's roof for more than 80 years seem almost within reach. Information panels along the walk explain the history of the various buildings and details about the plants.

A 120-foot-high three-sided steel viewing tower provides a great view of the extensive grounds. It weighs 170 tons and cost a million Euros (about $1.2 million) to build.

After a couple of hours of exploring, Tim said he questioned his choice of excursions. He has a fear of heights, but can handle it if the structures don't move. But when the wind picked up and they began to sway, he said he was done. It seemed a bit ironic, considering he is a manager at Berlin's Brandenburg Airport and loves to fly.

While Mats and Timo were contentedly downing their ice cream, we older folks had various "Spargel" - asparagus - specialties that the Beelitz area is noted for.

The Iowa baseball field was born of a writer's imagination, but the old park buildings and the people who came hoping for a cure were real. So it gave me a somewhat eerie feeling wandering the tree-top path, almost as if I were looking into the past lives of others. But it was certainly entertaining.

The Hoffmanns built it ... and we came!