The New Berlin
in German Politics and Society
National and world events shape all cities, but in Berlin they have a
physical presence. For Berliners, the Cold War was tangible, manifested
as a wall and death strip guarded by armed soldiers and attack
dogs. Today that wall is gone and, if national power brokers and the
real estate development community have their way, Berlin will soon
be a “normal” European city and German capital. Not only will the
ghosts of the Nazi past be exorcised, but any tangible inheritance of
the postwar period—in East Berlin the legacies of state socialism, in
West Berlin the strange fruits of a subsidized economy—will disappear.
