A Street In Berlin

I am going to go with a little, somewhat obscure, history note here. I was in Berlin for almost a week in the mid 1980s. Back then it was still a divided city, with West Berlin being democratic and East Berlin being communist. I stayed at a "Pension" (see "Word History") on Bleibtreustrasse, which means "Remain True (or Loyal or Faithful) Street"),^ which was off of one of Berlin's main, and most famous, streets, Kurfürstendamm,^^ often known by its abbreviated form "Ku'damm," and I was staying not far from the ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, a Lutheran church most of which was destroyed during World War Two, but it's ruins were left as a monument to that terrible war. I don't recall everything about the Pension (it is "Pension," as all German nouns are capitalized), as it has been too long ago, and nothing really remarkable happened to cause me to remember much about the place or the surroundings, although it seems to me there was a Chinese restaurant maybe next door or nearby (yes, Germans eat Chinese food, too), and the hotel elevator was creaky, undoubtedly dating from the war era, or even before. I really hadn't thought much about the place for years, but fairly recently, maybe when I was researching some of the information about "The German Question" series here, I came across "Bleibtreustrasse." Here's why, World War Two buffs will probably recognize the name Hermann Fegelein. He was an SS general who was married to the sister of Eva Braun (Hitler's mistress). Just a couple of days before Hitler committed suicide, Fegelein left Hitler's bunker, without permission (although some say Hitler gave everyone permission to leave during a despondent mood shortly before), in an effort to save himself. He hid out on Bleibtreustrasse, in either an apartment or in a hotel room, accounts differ, but I believe he stayed further up the street from where I stayed. When I read that information, the little Pension I stayed in popped into my mind. By the way, Fegelein didn't hide well enough, as Hitler dispatched SS men, who arrested him and returned him to Hitler's bunker, where he was tried and executed, even though Eva Braun pleaded for her brother-in-law to be spared (her sister was pregnant). Such was the Nazi mentality as the Soviets closed in on them and were only a couple of blocks away.

^ The three components of "Bleib-treu-strasse" all have relatives in English, although "Strasse" and English "street" are not original Germanic words, as the ancestor of these words was borrowed by Germanic from Latin. German "bleib" (the verb infinitive is "bleiben") is related to English "leave," a form of which, "belifan," in Old English, meant "remain, be left behind." The modern meaning of leave, "to move from a place," comes from the idea of "leaving behind." The modern German word "bleiben" is a contraction from an earlier "beliban." German "treu" and English "true" are from Old Germanic "trewwiz," which meant "true, faithful." 
   
^^ "Kurfürstendamm" roughly means "Avenue of the Electors," and the "fürst" part is really the same word as English "first;" in fact, it is pretty much pronounced the same, too, but in German it took on the meaning "prince," from the notion of "first among the nobility," as the upper German nobles were collectively called "princes," regardless of the actual title of each individual, such as "king" or "archduke." The "kur" part is an Old Germanic word for "election, choice," and English once had "corenes" and "gecorenes," with similar meanings. A German "Kurfürst" was a title given to a prince who also had a vote in the election of the German emperor. "Damm" is English "dam," and means the same as the English word, except the dialects in northeastern Germany also used it for "street, avenue," with the idea of a dam providing a means to cross water or marshy ground, something more like English "causeway" in meaning.
  
WORD HISTORY:
Pension-This word traces back to the Indo European root "pen," which had the notion of "pull." This gave its Latin offspring "pendere," which initially meant "to weigh," apparently from the idea of the ropes or chains used on a weighing device "pulling" against one another to determine weight. Payments were often weighed; thus, the further idea of "to pay" came along. "Pendere's" participle form was "pensus," which then produced the noun "pensio," meaning "payment." Old French, a Latin-based language, inherited a form of the word as "pension," meaning "payment," but also "rent" ('payment' for boarding), and "pension" was then borrowed by English in the mid 1300s. By the early 1500s, the word was being applied to "payments made for former services," which led to the most common English meaning, "monthly allotment for retirement." German too borrowed the word from French in the early 1400s, but besides the "retirement payment" meaning, the "rent" idea had developed into the extended meaning "small hotel," which spread from France to Germany and Austria, where in German it is still often used for "small private hotel." So German carries both meanings.