'It has to go away, but at the same time it has to be kept': The Berlin Wall and the making of an urban icon

Urban History

Volumn 33, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 85-105

  Schlör, Joachim ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF POTSDAM   (Germany)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

POLITICAL BORDER; POLITICAL HISTORY; URBAN HISTORY;

BERLIN; CENTRAL EUROPE; EURASIA; EUROPE; GERMANY;

EID: 33749363278     PISSN: 09639268     EISSN: 14698706     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0963926806003531     Document Type: Article

References (30)

1. Recent English publications about the history of Berlin include Alexandra Richie, Faust's Metropolis. A History of Berlin (New York, 1998)
2. and David Clay Large, Berlin (New York, 2000).
3. For the immediate post-war period see Wolfgang Benz, Potsdam 1945. Besatzungsherrschaft und Neuaufbau im Vier-Zonen-Deutschland (Munich, 1986).
4. For a reliable history of the early years see Alan S. Milward, The Reconstruction of Western Europe. 1945-51 (Berkeley, 1984)
5. Norman M. Naimark, The Russians in Germany. A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation. 1945-1949 (Cambridge, 1995).
6. For the later period, see Ann Tusa, The Last Division. A History of Berlin 1945-1989 (Reading, MA, 1997)
7. Peter Wyden, Wall. The Inside Story of Divided Berlin (New York, 1989).
8. Numbers differ, the 'Arbeitsgemeinschaft 13. August' estimates that in total 957 people died because of the wall regime, including those who were killed before 13 Aug. 1961, at the inner-German border, on the Baltic Sea or in an attempt to cross the borders from Hungary, Bulgaria or Poland, including also border troops and Soviet soldiers who attempted to escape. Alexandra Hildebrandt, Die Mauer. Zahlen. Daten (Berlin, 2001), 75.
9. There is a huge amount of scholarly literature on Berlin's memorial culture. The most detailed reference book is Holger Hübner's Das Gedächtnis der Stadt: Gedenktafeln in Berlin (Berlin, 1997).
10. James E. Young has dealt extensively with Germany's and Berlin's 'culture of memory' in The Texture of Memory. Holocaust Memorials and Meaning (New Haven and London, 1993).
11. Professor Young was appointed by the Berlin Senate to the five-member Findungskommission for Germany's national 'Memorial to Europe's Murdered Jews', under construction in Berlin. A general assessment of Germany's lieux de mémoire has been rendered by Etienne François and Hagen Schulze (eds.), Deutsche Erinnerungsorte, 3 vols. (Munich, 2001).
12. Information about the place, the institution and related literature can be found on the website of the foundation 'Topographie des Terrors', http://www.topographie.de.
13. Heinrich Gottfried Gengler, Deutsche Stadtrechts-Alterthümer (Erlangen, 1882).
14. For Berlin, see Dieter Hoffmann-Axthelm, Ludovica Scarpa: Berliner Mauern und Durchbrüche, Berliner Topografien 7 (Berlin, 1987).
15. See Ezra Mendelsohn (ed), People of the City. Jews and the Urban Challenge (New York and Oxford, 1999)
16. Joachim Schlör, 'Siedlungsformen', in Elke-Vera Kotowski, Julius H. Schoeps and Hiltrud Wallenborn (eds.), Juden in Europa. Ein Handbuch (Darmstadt, 2002).
17. Billy Wilder in his wonderful movie 'One, Two, Three' recreated the atmosphere of these days and weeks shortly before 13 August in a very fine way: So well, indeed, that the movie was not shown in Germany before 1989 because Wilder seemed to make fun of the separation (which indeed was also an absurd situation but you were not supposed to say so).
18. Andreas Hoffmann, Verschwundene Orte: Prominente Abrisse in Berlin (Berlin, 1997).
19. Documented on www.chronik-der-mauer.de.
20. This is discussed in Joachim Schlör, Nights in the Big City. Paris, Berlin, London 1840-1930 (London, 1998).
21. The term 'Insulaner' for the inhabitants of West Berlin was made popular by Günther Neumann and his cabaret of the same name. For those who understand German: 'Der Insulaner verliert die Ruhe nicht/Der Insulaner liebt keen Jetue nicht/Der Insulaner hofft unbeirrt/Daß seine Insel wieder 'n schönes Festland wird.'
22. Raimo Gareis, Berliner Mauer: Die längste Leinwand der Welt (Leichlingen, 1998).
23. Leonhard Wawrzyn, 'Berlin Ostwest', Freibeuter (Jan. 1979), 73.
24. Ibid., 78.
25. Edgar Wolfrum, 'Die Mauer', in Francois and Schulze (eds.), Deutsche Erinnerungsorte, vol. I, 552-68.
26. Polly Feversham and Leo Schmidt, Die Berliner Mauer heute. Denkmalwert und Umgang (Berlin, 1999), 105.
27. Axel Klausmeier and Leo Schmidt, Mauerreste - Mauerspuren (Bad Münstereifel, 2004).
28. Martina Nußbaumer (Graz), Bericht über die Tagung 'Kulturerbe. Repräsentation, Fabrikation, Vermarktung' der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Kommission für Kulturwissenschaften und Theatergeschichte, in Kooperation mit der österreichischen UNESCO-Kommission vom 6.-8.11.2003
29. Petra Ahne: Der Mauerläufer, Berliner Zeitung, 19 Aug. 2003, S. 18.
30. Mark Siemons, 'Grenzfall', in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 13 Aug. 2003, 31.