The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape

by Brian Ladd

On the old Potsdamer Platz, many buildings and businesses had developed in close proximity and had jostled for attention. No one has figured out how to plan that kind of unplanned liveliness, and many critics thought the Berlin government was not even trying. It moved quickly to sell large wedges of land bordering Potsdamer Platz to four major companies. The first, receiving the largest parcel, was Stuttgart-based Daimler-Benz, Germany’s largest corporation (best known for its Mercedes automobiles, but also an electronics and aerospace conglomerate). The city government jumped at the chance to secure a high-profile Daimler-Benz presence in central Berlin, selling it fifteen acres of land cheaply. Next came Sony, proposing to build its European headquarters just across the street. The other parcels went to the Hertie department store chain (the successor to Hermann Tietz, with its “Aryanized” name from the 1930s) and the multinational engineering company Asea Brown Boveri (ABB).