Berlin

“Berlin is a city condemned forever to becoming and never to being.” 

—Karl Scheffler (Berlin: Ein Stadtschicksal, 1910)

Berlin. According to Karl Scheffler, a city always struggling for a consistent identity, always aspiring to be more modern and grapple with its dark and twisted history. In terms of how history plays a role in Berlin’s personality, the evidence speaks for itself. The 20th century brought an onslaught of traumatizing political regimes, social conformity, and an adherence (feigned or not) to the Nazi party’s values. 

Before the Nazi party came into rule, however, the Weimar republic was the dominating political force in Berlin until 1933. The art and literature of the 20th century in Berlin echo Scheffler’s foreboding words above: there is an erraticism and misguidedness characteristic of Berlin in the early 20th century due to a constant weight of political uncertainty in the light of the industrial revolution. After Nazi Germany, it logically follows that Berlin would be “condemned forever to becoming” for the citizens of Berlin would forever be struggling to live around a past that is so blatantly a part of the city’s fabric, but one that brought a great deal of shame to the city of Berlin in the eyes of the world. 

Individuals like Adolf Hitler, and groups like the Nazi troops, as well as the German citizens living in Berlin, all contributed to the dark history of Berlin in World War II. Later in the 20th century, the fall of the Berlin Wall was also a tremendous achievement for the city, in terms of foregoing a visual and physical reminder of the city’s past. Without those people in Berlin’s history, it certainly would not be the city that world knows it as today.