The division of
BERLIN into zones of occupation in 1945, although seemingly arbitrary, followed exisiting local government boundaries, and the dual profile which emerged was by no means solely a product of the Cold War. In his famous interwar collection of short stories,
Goodbye to Berlin , Christopher Isherwood wrote:
Berlin is a city with two centres - the cluster of expensive hotels, bars, cinemas, shops around the Memorial Church, a sparkling nucleus of light, like a sham diamond, in the shabby twilight of the town; and the self-conscious civic centre of buildings around the Unter den Linden, carefully arranged .
The latter, the political and cultural core of the Imperial German capital, duly became the heart of East Berlin and of the GDR, while the former quickly adapted itself to the makeshift role of city centre. Because of the decades of division, the reunited city found itself with two of almost everything, but the rationalization process has already reduced the duplication quite markedly, and will eliminate it almost entirely over the course of the next decade.
Berlin has much fine architecture, as well as an extraordinary spread of museums which collectively rank among the very richest on the planet. It also has a wide range of bars and restaurants , a vibrant nightlife and strong traditions in the performing arts . Because it occupies a vast geographical area, one interrupted by a plethora of parks, forests and lakes, Berlin is not a place that is appreciated easily or quickly.
Berlin is located in eastern Germany, about 70 kilometres (40 miles) west of the border with Poland. Berlin's landscape was shaped by ice sheets during the last Ice Age.
The city centre lies along the river Spree in the Berlin-Warsaw 'urstromtal' (ancient river valley), formed by water flowing from melting ice sheets at the end of the last Ice Age.
The urstromtal lies between the low plateaus of the Barnim, to the north, and the Teltow, to the south. In Berlin's westernmost borough, Spandau, the Spree meets the river Havel, which flows from north to south through western Berlin.
The course of the Havel is much like a chain of lakes. The largest lakes along the Havel are the Tegelsee and Großer Wannsee. A series of lakes also feeds into the upper Spree, which flows through eastern Berlin's largest lake, Großer Müggelsee.
The River Havel flows through a series of lakes in western Berlin. Substantial parts of present-day Berlin extend onto the low plateaus that line the Spree Valley.
Large parts of the boroughs Reinickendorf and Pankow lie on the Barnim, while most of the boroughs Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Tempelhof-Schöneberg, and Neukölln are on the Teltow. The borough of Spandau lies partly within the Berlin urstromtal and partly on the Nauen Plain, which stretches to the west of Berlin.
The highest elevations in Berlin are the Teufelsberg in the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf and the Müggelberge in the borough of Treptow-Köpenick. Both hills have an elevation of about 115 metres (377 feet), and are in fact artificial piles of rubble from the ruins of World War II.
Culture and sights
Berlin is noted for its numerous cultural institutions, some of which are famous even outside of Germany.
In addition, cultural diversity and tolerance remain from the time when West Berlin took pride in its role as a "free city" with the motto "something for everyone."
Its current situation and future prospects, however, are strongly influenced by the city's financial crisis, with talk of merging or closing opera companies and concerns about the cost of subsidies for cultural institutions.
Berlin offers one of the most diverse and vibrant nightlife scenes in Europe.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 many buildings in the former city centre of East Berlin (today the district Mitte) were renovated.
Many had not been rebuilt since World War II.
Illegally occupied by young people, they became a fertile ground for all sorts of underground and counter-culture gatherings. It was also home to many nightclubs, including Tacheles, Techno clubs Tresor, WMF, Ufo and E-Werk.
Digital art inspired by Berlin's LoveparadeBerlin's annual Carnival of Cultures, a multi-ethnic street parade, and Chistopher Street Day celebrations, Central Europe's largest gay-lesbian pride event, are openly supported by the city's government.
Berlin is also well-known for the techno carnival Loveparade.
Berlin has a rich art scene, and it is home to hundreds of art galleries.
The city is host to the Art Forum annual international art fair. Despite the city's high unemployment levels, many young Germans and artists continue to settle in the city, and Berlin has established itself as an important centre of youth and pop culture in Europe.
Signs of this expanding role were the 2003 announcement that the annual Popkomm, Europe's largest music industry convention, would move to Berlin after 15 years in Cologne. Shortly thereafter, German MTV also decided to move its headquarters and main studios from Munich to Berlin. Universal Music opened its European headquarters on the banks of the River Spree in an area known as the mediaspree.
Other tourist attractions
Potsdamer Platz in BerlinEven though Berlin does have a number of impressive buildings from earlier centuries, the city's appearance today is mainly shaped by the key role it played in Germany's history in the 20th century.
Each of the national governments based in Berlin — the 1871 German Empire, the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, East Germany, and now the reunified Germany — initiated ambitious construction programmes, each with its own distinctive character.
Berlin was devastated by bombing raids during World War II, and many of the old buildings that escaped the bombs were eradicated in the 1950s and 1960s in both West and East.
Much of this destruction was caused by overambitious architecture programmes, especially to build new residential or business quarters and main roads.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that no other city in the world offers Berlin's unusual mix of architecture, especially 20th-century architecture. The city's tense and unique recent history has left it with a distinctive array of sights.
Not much is left of the Berlin Wall. The East Side Gallery in Friedrichshain near the Oberbaumbrücke ("Upper Turnpike Bridge") over the Spree preserves a portion of the Wall.
Architectural styles still sometimes reveal whether one is in the former eastern or western part of the city. In the eastern part, many Plattenbauten can be found, reminders of Eastern Bloc ambitions to create complete residential areas with fixed ratios of shops, kindergartens and schools.
Another difference between former east and west is in the design of little red and green men on pedestrian crossing lights (Ampelmännchen in German); the eastern versions received an opt-out during the standardisation of road traffic signs after re-unification, and have survived to become a popular icon in tourist products.
They are however starting to appear in western Berlin too.
