FAUST’S METROPOLIS
A HISTORY OF BERLIN
ALEXANDRA RICHIE
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers in 1998
Ebook edition published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2013
Copyright © Alexandra Richie 1998
Alexandra Richie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780002158961
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780007455492
Version: 2017-04-25
For Władysław Bartoszewski
CONTENTS
I: History, Myth, and the Birth of Berlin
IV: From Revolution to Realpolitik
VII: The Road to the First World War
VIII: The Bitter Aftermath of War
XI: Nazi Berlin – Life Before the Storm
XIV: The Berlin Crisis and the Cold War
XVII: The Walled City – West Berlin
From the moment I first set foot in the city as a young student I became fascinated by Berlin. Like Faust, Berlin can be said to have two spirits in the same breast; it is both a terrible and a wonderful city, a place which has created and destroyed and whose name is both acclaimed and blackened. It is not without reason that Berlin has been called everything from the ‘symbol of German destiny’ to the ‘city of the twenty-first century’. Above all, it is a place where history could not and still cannot be hidden away.
When I first went to live there Berlin was the ultimate border city, representing nothing less than the Cold War division between the ‘Communist’ and the ‘Free’ world. It was a capital city and a strange backwater, a centre and a borderland at the same time. The revolution which erupted in 1989 and led to the destruction of the Berlin Wall made it once again the focus of world attention. As I watched the Wall being reduced to rubble I realised that the dramatic changes would raise very disturbing questions about Berlin’s role in Germany and its function as a symbol in the creation of German identity. Now more than ever it is imperative for us to be aware of the triumphs and the mistakes of its past, as the decisions made in Berlin in years to come will affect us all.
I have tried to write a book that addresses the city’s crucial role in world events. It is not a local history, although it has elements of this, but is a history