Berlin, the capital of Nazi
Germany, was subjected to one of the longest
bombing campaigns in history. From 1940 through 1945, 363 air raids by the
British RAF and the American Air Force devastated the city
and its inhabitants. The death toll lay between
20,000 and 50,000, probably more than were killed in the fire-bombing of
Dresden. Much of the city was reduced to rubble.
As in other European cities
where wartime destruction was nearly total, some people suggested in 1945 that
Berlin be abandoned. Behind that idea lay a particular architectural and
political ideology: old buildings and old cityscapes were outdated and should
be replaced with modern architecture and more efficient urban designs.Those who valued locality,
who connected their identity with built history, favored recovery of the old. No former cities were
abandoned, but the modernizers and the reconstructionists argued
for decades, both influencing the eventual rebuilding of European cities.
Discussions about demolition
and reconstruction inevitably touched political ideologies of all kinds. Two
Berlin sites, one east and one west, show the variety of architectural politics
which determined the process of rebuilding.
The City Palace,built
in the 15th century, rebuilt and expanded many times for the rulers
of Prussia, became the home of the German Emperors after 1871. In February
1945, Allied bombers damaged the walls and burned out the whole interior. When
Berlin was divided, the site ended up in the Russian zone, then in East
Germany.
Although the Stadtschloss
could have been saved, the East German government declared that the building
represented hated values of Prussian militarism and monarchical rule, and
decided in 1950 to get rid of it. 19 tons of dynamite leveled the walls and
created an open space named Marx-Engels-Platz. During the 1970s, the Palace of
the Republic was erected in its place, a new modernist building with
bronze-mirrored windows, which served as the seat of the East German
parliament, but also contained a bowling alley, a discotheque, and 13
restaurants, symbolic of the alleged connection between citizens and their
government.
One of the final acts of the
East German government after the fall of the Berlin Wall was the closing of the
building to the public because of asbestos contamination. Removing the asbestos
took more than decade. By that time, a new debate had broken out about whether
this symbol of communism should be replaced by a rebuilt Stadtschloss.
Both sides argued that
history should not be erased, but disagreed
about which history ought to be respected: the more recent and still existing
Palace of the Republic or the more distant and now only imaginary City Palace. In
2003, the German parliament decided to tear down the Palace of the Republic and
rebuild the outer walls of the City Palace to house a new cultural center.
Today construction is underway.
A different kind of symbolism
is attached to a church in the center of former West Berlin. The Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kirche
was built in the 1890s by Emperor Wilhelm II in honor of
his grandfather, Wilhelm I, the first emperor of the newly united Germany.
Gerhard Justus Eduard
Jacobi, who had earned two Iron Crosses in World War I and spent a year as
a prisoner of war, became the Lutheran pastor of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kirche in
1930. He gathered a circle of young pastors around him, which after 1933 became
a center
of opposition to the Nazi efforts to assert control over the German church
and to propagate their racist ideology. Jacobi became the Berlin leader of the
newly founded Confessing
Church, working closely with Dietrich
Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemöller. He was beaten up and hounded by the Nazis,
but continued his opposition.
On November 23, 1943, the
church was badly damaged during a British air raid, and further devastated by
raids in 1945. After the war’s end, little was done to keep the ruins from
further collapse. The church represented to some the German nationalism which had
ended so badly in the 20th century. The modernist architect Egon Eiermann won the
competition to rebuild a church on the site, and decided to tear the remains
down and start again. That plan sparked public outrage, which resulted in a
compromise: the ruins would remain as a monument for peace, and Eiermann would
build the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church next to them.
The very modern
Gedächtniskirche was consecrated the same day as the rebuilt Coventry
Cathedral, which had been burned out in the German air raid of November 14,
1940. Coventry Cathedral is also a combination
of a destroyed and a new building. Three medieval nails from the ruins,
fashioned into a cross, have become an international symbol of peace and
reconciliation, which is prominently displayed at the Gedächtniskirche. Its
prewar and postwar pastor Jacobi was discussed as a candidate for President of
West Germany, but declined.
The Gedächtniskirche is an
emotionally powerful reminder of the senseless material destruction caused by
war. Its pastor Jacobi personifies courageous opposition to evil authority.The
Stadtschloss is a monumental reminder of the historic power of German monarchs.
These contrasting symbols coexist in modern rebuilt Berlin, representations of
its complicated history and its potential lessons.
Steve Hochstadt
Berlin, Germany
Published in the Jacksonville
Journal-Courier, September 6, 2016
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