After the Wall was torn down, a long wasteland ran through the city. Many historic buildings had been demolished, and mending the two halves of the city back together was a difficult task. Many grand projects were initiated, the rebuilding of Potsdamer Platz being arguably the most spectacular. An entire new city centre mushroomed here within seven years, now frequented mostly by tourists. Much of the disconnected infrastructure needed to be redeveloped, and the entire eastern half of the city required considerable modernisation.
But like the rest of the country, the reconstruction of east Berlin took longer than expected and eventually stalled, causing much social misery in many of the eastern boroughs. Obviously, the west was also affected and started to descend into poverty. The high-profile Mitte borough has been mostly reconstructed now and has grown back together, once more being the seat of the German government. But in other places, the former partition is still apparent by empty land. Many predictions for the city’s future, such as a huge wave of migration that would boost its population turned out to be false, and some building projects that were initiated with these predictions in mind now seem needlessly large, and the attempt to develop a new city centre is eyed critically by many.
Today, Berlin is a thriving city that has been labelled by its mayor, Klaus Wowereit, to be “poor but sexy”. The visible scars of the division are being gradually removed, with only a few pieces of the Wall preserved as monuments, but many spaces within the city remain empty. There is some animosity between former West and East Berliners, who each feel misunderstood by the other, and like the rest of the country, Berlin is struggling hard to tear down the walls in the heads of people.
But like the rest of the country, the reconstruction of east Berlin took longer than expected and eventually stalled, causing much social misery in many of the eastern boroughs. Obviously, the west was also affected and started to descend into poverty. The high-profile Mitte borough has been mostly reconstructed now and has grown back together, once more being the seat of the German government. But in other places, the former partition is still apparent by empty land. Many predictions for the city’s future, such as a huge wave of migration that would boost its population turned out to be false, and some building projects that were initiated with these predictions in mind now seem needlessly large, and the attempt to develop a new city centre is eyed critically by many.
Today, Berlin is a thriving city that has been labelled by its mayor, Klaus Wowereit, to be “poor but sexy”. The visible scars of the division are being gradually removed, with only a few pieces of the Wall preserved as monuments, but many spaces within the city remain empty. There is some animosity between former West and East Berliners, who each feel misunderstood by the other, and like the rest of the country, Berlin is struggling hard to tear down the walls in the heads of people.
I really enjoyed reading this, Perun. All we ever really learn about the fall of the Berlin Wall here is "and then the Berlin Wall fell and the world was all hearts and rainbows". It's not terribly useful, is it?
ReplyDeleteSo, we never think about how unlikely unification seemed for a long time. And we never think about how it must have felt to be there.
I would have liked to see more opinion on the piece, I think. This isn't History 101, it's Perunology, where we get the opinion of Perun on Historology. I just made that last word up.
Overall, though, I like reading your thoughts on history.