Berlin's Search for a "Democratic" Architecture: Post-World War II and Post-unification
in German Politics and Society
Author:
Deborah Howell-Ardila
Deborah Howell-Ardila
University of California, Berkeley
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Berlin 1948 and the longest airlift in history simultaneously ushered
in the Cold War, with a divided Berlin its best-known symbol, and
transformed West Berliners in the eyes of the Allied world from
Nazis to victims of Soviet aggression. By 1950, with Germany officially
divided, political elites of the East (GDR) and West (FRG)
took up the task of convincing their citizens and each other of the
legitimacy of their own governments. In spite of the primacy of
Cold War rhetoric in the media of the day, however, the most
pressing challenge of postwar society for both sides lay in redefining—
in perception, if not in fact—political and social institutions in
opposition to the Nazi past.