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After seeing the bleak and lonely streets of East
Berlin in the award-winning German movie The Lives of Others (Der
leben anderen), I decided to see Berlin today myself.
Surprise—there were no bleak streets with hardly any traffic
except for the occasional rattletrap East German car (now a
collector’s item, I understand). There was no East Berlin or West
Berlin, just Berlin, the city that came in from the Cold War to
become one of the vibrant, unorthodox and self-defined cities of
Europe. It has again become the capital of a united Germany. Not
that Berlin has erased its immediate past, it simply rectified what
called for rectification. It had always been one city built from an
isle of fisherfolk on the River Spree, Berlin’s geographical
marker.
In World War II, the Russian Army
was the first of the allied armies to reach Berlin. The Cold War
started shortly thereafter with the city divided into four zones,
one for each of the four allied powers—Russia, Britain, US and
France. With the three allies against Russia, the Russians ratcheted
pressure up by closing all land borders in a bid to break the shaky
impasse between the allies and themselves. Berlin survived through
the allied efforts via The Big Lift (airplanes brining in the
supplies to the city) and its own citizens’ indomitable will on
the West Berlin side.
Divided Berlin represented the
two Germanys—the Communist German Democratic Republic (East
Berlin) and the democratic German Federal Republic (West Berlin).
Both divisions of Germany in their own way according to their
governments and the quality of their economies started picking up
the pieces in their territories after World War II. In the West, the
economy was the wonder of the age while in the East it receded into
stagnation. So much so that the impetus in the East was to flee to
the West for better opportunity, more hope, a life of liberty. Thus,
in time was the Berlin Wall constructed to stop the mass exodus. It
did not, but became a saga of escapes, executions and a symbol of
repression.
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989
through a people power demonstration (with due respect to our own
People Power uprising of 1987), the German dream for reunification,
alive after more than four decades of division was realized. Berlin
is now as it was the capital of one country.
The city that as divided into
East and West today seems seamless except to those who knew where
East and West Berlin began and ended. The inner city where the
German Parliament (Reichstag), the Unter den Linden (a major iconic
avenue evocative of Berlin of old) and the Museum Island (an isle on
the Spree River with five major museums), the Brandenburg Gate,
were part of East Germany but are today the center of Berlin. This
part of Berlin which was the Communist capital and experienced less
change and construction than the other side is now the center of a
major building phase that is in full mount. The Reichstag has been
rehabilitated by the renowned British architect, Norman Foster, who
kept its 19th-century shell and added a transparent dome on top
which is a city landmark. The Imperial Palace, which was razed to
the ground by the Communist regime to locate its own parliament
building, will soon rise again through public and private funding.
Old government buildings like the old post office have been adapted
for other uses. With respect for the past and its material heritage,
even some buildings of Socialist architecture have been preserved
together with the pre World War II buildings that were
reconstructed. The Unter den Linden has put back its old addresses
through new or reconstructed buildings and its Linden trees that
give the street its name are kept healthy and well after the trauma
of war. However, the recent Nazi past seems to have been exorcised
aside from some buildings that were former office or headquarters
sites. For example, Hitler’s Bunker which is somewhere near the
city center is not marked or mentioned.
(Concluded tomorrow)
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