Berlin: The Rough Guide(5th Edn) - Softcover

Holland, Jack; Gawthrop, John; Rough Guides

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1858283272 ISBN 13: 9781858283272

Publisher: Rough Guides, 1998

Synopsis

A new edition of the guide to Berlin, this text includes improved listings and is fully up-to-date on the renovation projects going on the city.

About this title

Review

Authoritative -- Business Life, London, UK

Captures the flavour of the new Berlin and includes thorough descriptions of trendy new haunts. -- The Times, 5 December 1998, London, UK

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Das gibts nur einmal
Das kehrt nicht wieder
Das ist zu schvn, um wahr zu sein!

It happens only once
It will not come again
It is too beautiful to be true!

Berlin is like no other city in Germany, or, indeed, the world, for over a century, its political climate has either mirrored or determined what has happened in the rest of Europe: heart of the Prussian kingdom, economic and cultural centre of the Weimar Republic, and, in the final days of Nazi Germany, the headquarters of Hitler's Third Reich, it is a weather vane of European history. After the war, the world's two most powerful military systems stood face to face here, sharing the spoils of a city later to be split by that most tangible object of the East-West divide, the Berlin Wall. As the Wall fell in November 1989, Berlin was once again pushed to the forefront of world events, ushering in a period of change as frantic, confusing and significant as any the city had yet experienced. It's this weight of history, the sense of living in a hothouse where all the dilemmas of contemporary Europe are nurtured, that gives Berlin its excitement and troubling fascination.

It was, of course, World War II that defined the shape of today's city. A seventh of all the buildings destroyed in Germany were in Berlin, Allied and Soviet bombing razing 92 percent of all the shops, houses and industry here. At the end of the war, the city was split into French, American, British and Soviet sectors, according to the agreement made at the Yalta Conference: the Allies took the western part of the city, traditionally an area of bars, hotels and shops fanning out from the Kurf|rstendamm and the Tiergarten park. The Soviet zone contained what remained of the pompous civic buildings, churches and grand museums around Unter den Linden. After the building of the Wall in 1961, which sealed the Soviet sector and consolidated its position as capital of the young German Democratic Republic, the divided sections of the city developed in different ways. The authorities in the West had a policy of demolition and rebuilding; the East restored wherever possible, preserving some of the nineteenth-century buildings that had once made Berlin magnificent. Even now, after so much massive destruction, it's indicative of just how great a city Berlin once was that enough remains to fill a guidebook.

Though Berlin is impossible to understand without some knowledge of its history, it is easy to enjoy. The unified city has a nightlife that ranks among the most energetic in Europe. Entrepreneurs have taken advantage of planning chaos in the east to move in on empty premises - anything from old fruit and vegetable shops to abandoned public toilets in defunct underground stations - and open up bars, cafes, clubs and galleries. Just as the pressure-cooker mentality of Wall-era West Berlin attracted a large and youthful contingent of would-be dropouts and alternative lifestylers, so the open city feel of the united Berlin has drawn people from all over Germany and Europe, all looking for a piece of the action - or the chance simply to join in the fun.

Now that the Wall has long gone and the two Germanys are unified, Berlin seems less sure of its identity. There's a perpetual atmosphere of exhausted excitement in the bars and streets of the city, with the next party or event always just around the corner. It's hard to escape the feeling that you're witnessing a legend in creation, that the Berlin of the late 1990s may one day rival the Berlin of the 1920s in popular mythology. But Berlin is a city with severe identity problems, an inescapable legacy of the past division. East Berliners haven't been able to discard the mental baggage of their forty years in the socialist camp as easily as they were able to bin the Trabant cars and tawdry consumer goods, the external trappings of the GDR era. Westerners, on the other hand, for years cosseted by subsidies and insulated from the outside world by the Wall, are finding it hard to come to terms with the gritty turmoil of post-1989 central Europe.

As a result, east and west Berliners don't really seem to mix. A kind of semi-voluntary cultural apartheid has descended: a lot of the new cafes, restaurants and shops that have opened up in the east are geared for west Berliners and tourists rather than locals, with many easterners more concerned with the daily problems of finding work or making enough money to make ends meet, than checking out the latest hip haunts. Another result of unification was that the huge subsidies that had poured into the city for decades suddenly stopped, along with the massive social support schemes of the former GDR. The unemployment and social problems this has caused, on top of the worldwide slump, has had ugly results, as Germans - particularly eastern Germans, already relegated to the status of second-class citizens - find scapegoats in the foreign communites. The attacks on Turks and Jews, which have resulted in several deaths, are too reminiscent of Nazism for comfort, and the rise of neo-Nazi groups is a frightening spectacle that many believe the government has done little to stop. Berlin has seen its crime levels rise dramatically, and has had a considerable increase in racially motivated violence.

Still, Berlin exhibits the expectant air of a boom town. Construction projects are a ubiquitous sight as the city expands to make room for the government - relocating here from Bonn - and prepares for a new role as central Europe's economic powerhouse. Museums and art collections are being shifted and reorganized in order to integrate east and west facilities. The long-placid streets of east Berlin are being gussied up to appeal to the tourist trade. Everywhere there is great energy and movement.

One great advantage of unification is that, for the first time since the 1930s, the area around Berlin can easily be visited. Potsdam and the magnificent palace of Sansoucci is the obvious day-trip, and it's easy to get into countryside dotted with small towns and villages that preserve a "lost in time" feel.

When to go

Lying in the heart of Europe, Berlin's climate is continental: winters are bitingly cold, summers hot. If you're hanging on for decent weather, April is the soonest you should go: any earlier and you9ll need to don winter clothing, earmuffs and a decent pair of waterproof shoes; this said, the city (especially the eastern part) does have a particular poignancy when it snows. Ideally, the best time to arrive is in May; June and July can be wearingly hot, though the famed Berlin air (Berliner Luft - there's a song about it) keeps things bracing. The weather stays good (if unpredictable) right up until October.

About this edition

• Publisher: Rough Guides
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1858283272
• ISBN 13: 9781858283272
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 5
• Number of pages: 368