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

by Brian Ladd

Proponents of reconstruction cited many examples of projects they saw as comparable. Their favorite was postwar Warsaw, a city much more thoroughly destroyed than Berlin. Although (or because) there was virtually nothing left standing in the center of their capital, the Polish leadership decided soon after the war to undertake a careful restoration of the royal palace and the adjoining Old Town, returning it as closely as possible to its prewar appearance. The reconstructed buildings represented an obvious statement of national pride and defiance in the face of near obliteration. Statements of what might appear to be German national pride, however, make many people nervous—not least many Germans. Moreover, it is a different matter to envisage the reconstruction of a building gone for nearly half a century, one remembered firsthand by relatively few Berliners.