The motivation for writing this book, its author suggests, is this: a Berliner born at the beginning of the 20th century and who survived into her nineties would have become an adult as the defeat in the Great War precipitated revolution and counter-revolution, in her twenties as the Weimar era of cultural experimentation and popular culture took off, her thirties when the Reichstag burned and Hitler’s dictatorship was established, her forties as her city was all but destroyed, her fifties when her country was divided, her sixties when a physical barrier was set up across the city and pressing 90 when that wall fell and Germany was reunited. And every one of these eras and events has left some kind of mark on the physical geography of the city and the psyches of its inhabitants.
Everyone — except that young chap on Clarkson’s Farm who once went to London, but stayed on the coach — has their favorite city. I’d list mine as New York for its pizzazz, Mumbai for its astonishing colors and smells, and Rome for its unmatched availability of classical and Renaissance history and art. But at the top I’d put Berlin, without quite being able to explain why. Now I have a better idea.
