Since in 1945 I first saw Berlin in utter ruins, I have revisited the
German metropolis at least a dozen times, usually with groups of American
college students. Nowhere else could one find so many historic places
so close to each other to demonstrate Germany's disastrous course in
the 20th century, specifically the rise and fall of the Wilhelmian monarchy,
the Weimar Republic, the Nazi dictatorship, and the Soviet satellite
regime, as well as the slow and expensive reunification of what is left
of Germany.
Six weeks ago, the head of Berlin's urban planning department (who happens
to be a nephew of mine) gave me an extended tour of Berlin's rebuilding
efforts. For many hours we walked through the old inner city that had
been largely obliterated by bombs and artillery and remained blighted
until the fall of the Wall.
It is there where today rich and famous corporations display the glitter
of capitalism in high-rising futuristic glass towers. Berlin again seems
to be in the avant-garde of modern architecture, just as it was in the
formative years of the Bauhaus school before 1933. Now, as then, the
critics of unfamiliar and quixotic designs have a field day.
In spite of the upheavals that pounded Berlin over the course of 72
years (from 1918 to 1990), its people (presently 3.5 million) and its
planners did not turn their backs on the city's troubled past.
No more bullet-riddled, the Brandenburg Gate with the sculpture of the
Goddess of Peace, remains the entrance to one of Europe's historic boulevards,
Unter den Linden. Berlin invited Sir Norman Fisher, a British architect,
to cap the building of the Reichstag--Germany's national legislature,
which the Nazis scuttled--with a 130-foot high glass dome. Something
new to revitalize the old, that seems to be a guiding principle in the
remaking of German society today, as reflected in the rebuilding of
its capital.
Key reminders of Nazi ideology and savagery remain well preserved, from
the Olympia Stadium to the Army Office at Bendler Street where the plot
on Hitler's life began and ended, from the conference center at Wannsee,
where the Gestapo planned the extermination of Jews, to the Plötzensee
prison where scores of Hitler's opponents were hanged.
Yet, the same city where for twelve long years (1933 to 1945) totalitarian
madness reigned continues to display its outstanding reputation as champion
of the arts and humanities. Dozens of publicly and privately run museums
and galleries, eight orchestras, three opera companies, and lots of
little theaters. Some of them were founded in East Berlin and owe their
existence not only to unusually generous public funding but also to
the devotion of its performers and fans.
By and large, classical music maintains a much stronger hold on German
society than on American society. There is, moreover, on Berlin's operatic
stages an air of innovative freedom of expression. Their daring experiments
with new interpretations would be unthinkable, for example, at New York's
Metropolitan Opera, under its present direction.
In spite of severe financial constraints upon all levels of German government,
public expenditures for a very broad range of cultural activities continue
to rank high among the budgetary priorities. Between 2001 and 2004,
the Federal Government gave Berlin alone some $370 million in annual
aid for what it includes under the German term "Kultur," such
as Berlin's state orchestra and state opera house, Berlin's radio orchestra
and radio choirs, all five classical museums on Museum Island, the Jewish
Museum, the Memorial to Europe's murdered Jews, and the House of World
Cultures. Substantial additional funds are flowing in from the state--Berlin
is a city-state--and from private sources.
Libertarians argue that the state should not be in the business of promoting
the arts and humanities. Socialists insist that the people's social
welfare should take precedence over opera houses and museums.
The promotion of the arts and humanities serves Berlin well, however.
It is making this metropolis once again one of the world's leading cultural
showplaces.