Berlin

by David Clay Large

Overview

In the political history of the past century, no city has played a more prominent-though often disastrous-role than Berlin. At the same time, Berlin has also been a dynamic center of artistic and intellectual innovation. If Paris was the "Capital of the Nineteenth Century," Berlin was to become the signature city for the next hundred years. Once a symbol of modernity, in the Thirties it became associated with injustice and the abuse of power. After 1945, it became the iconic City of the Cold War. Since the fall of the Wall, Berlin has again come to represent humanity's aspirations for a new beginning, tempered by caution deriving from the traumas of the recent past. David Clay Large's definitive history of Berlin is framed by the two German unifications of 1871 and 1990. Between these two events several themes run like a thread through the city's history: a persistent inferiority complex; a distrust among many ordinary Germans, and the national leadership of the "unloved city's" electric atmosphere, fast tempo, and tradition of unruliness; its status as a magnet for immigrants, artists, intellectuals, and the young; the opening up of social, economic, and ethnic divisions as sharp as the one created by the Wall.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780465026326
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	11/08/2001
Pages:	736
Sales rank:	650,617
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)
Lexile:	1340L (what's this?)

About the Author

David Clay Large, Professor of History at Montana State University, is a specialist in modern German history. He is the author of Where Ghosts Walked, Germans to the Front, Between Two Fires, and Berlin. He lives in Bozeman, Montana, and San Francisco, California.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix
Acknowledgments	xv
Introduction	xvii
1 Berlin Under Bismarck	1
2 World City?	47
3 Discord in the Castle	109
4 The Great Disorder	157
5 The World City of Order and Beauty	203
6 Hitler's Berlin	255
7 Now People, Arise, and Storm, Break Loose!	319
8 Coming into the Cold	369
9 The Divided City	445
10 From Bonn to Berlin	517
11 The Berlin Republic	585
Notes	649
Index	685

What People are Saying About This

Gordon A. Craig

Large's ability to summon up the physical appearance and feel of this vibrant capital-its streets and railway stations and hotels and nightclubs and department stores-is remarkable. As in his Munich book, Large demonstrates in these pages that he is as good a ranconteur as he is a historian.

Peter Fritzsche

A metropolis of astonishing subversion, horror, and ingenuity, a capital of ideological experimentation, racial injustice, and democratic new beginnings, Berlin is the audacious, craved city of modern times, and David Clay Large the star reporter at its city desk.

Peter Hayes

This book is an absorbing, penetrating, and-in the best sense of the word-entertaining exploration of Berlin's turbulent modern history. Both novice and specialist will learn much from it-and be delighted by the author's wide-ranging knowledge and stylistic gifts.

Fritz Stern

Drawing successfully on a wide range of sources David Clay Large's Berlin gives a vivid picture of a city alternating between dynamic growth and destruction, including views of its politics and culture, its urban landscape and its international setting. Admirably broad and informative.

Niall Ferguson

David Clay Large has written a vivid and compelling history of the city which was in many ways the fulcrum of the twentieth century. From German unification in 1871 to reunification in 1989, he captures the extraordinary vitality of the city and inimitable black humor of the Berliners. As Large leads you down those vice-ridden, history-strewn streets, you can almost smell the intoxicating - in both senses - 'Berliner Luft'.
— (Niall Ferguson, Oxford University, author of The Pity of War)

Peter Gay

There are several good books on modern Berlin, but none I know has quite the authority and flair of David Clay Large's Berlin. It shows not only an intimate acquaintance with the literature but with the city as well, and it speaks with equal felicity about politics and art, anti-Semitism and democratic forces. — (Peter Gay, Director, Center for Scholars and Writers, New York Public Library)

Editorial Reviews

David Clay Large, one of the world's foremost authorities on contemporary German history, presents a sweeping and dramatic look at the history of Berlin, a city both celebrated and reviled. Berlin has always seemed to be at the center of political history -- as a cultural mecca as well as the hub of Hitler's regime. It has since been seen as a crucible of the Cold War and -- most recently -- as a symbol of humanity's need for unification and rebirth. Large adroitly weaves all these disparate views of Berlin into a rich tapestry.

bn.com

"This book is a narrative history of the city of Berlin framed by the two German unifications--Germany's unification by `blood and iron' in 1871," and that of 1990, "which of course was achieved not by war but by the disintegration of the Soviet empire and the implosion of East Germany." Large (Where Ghosts Walked: Munich's Road to the Third Reich), professor of history at Montana State University, has written a lively, rich and engaging work, full of his passion for his subject, that puts the question of Berlin's future in the context not only of its past but also of the past of the entire nation of which it has long been an ill-fitting part. As he explains, Berlin has suffered for most of the last 100 years from a "municipal inferiority complex," but with the most recent reunification, Berliners are hopeful that their city "will finally make the grade" as a world-class city. Likewise, Germans outside the capital have long maintained a love-hate relationship with Berlin, which Large equates with most Americans' "wonderful, terrible" opinion of New York City. But while its political history during the last century has been tumultuous and dangerous, the city's ability to influence the world in positive ways has been sustained by Berliners' adaptability in embracing the new, intellectually, artistically and culturally. Large cites examples including efforts to get rid of "the ghosts of Berlin" such as the Reichstag, "the war-scarred fossil... so laden with conflicting, mainly depressing, historical associations"--which was accomplished when the artist Christo was given permission to "wrap" the building completely. Large claims that the city's hosting of the April 1999 European Union summit marked Berlin's "debut on the stage of international diplomacy," and that a renewed Berlin may be among the world's leaders in embracing an era of globalization. Readers interested in the history of Germany or of European culture in general will find much to enlighten them. Agent, Agnes Krup. (Nov.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This history of Berlin reflects the love-hate relationship the world has had with a city that many tout as hot metropolis of today's Europe. Large (history, Montana State U.) examines the city's complex political, social, economic, and cultural strands from Bismark to post-Wall Berlin. Includes b&w photos of its leaders, popular stars, monuments, and architecture old and new. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

A witty and occasionally caustic history of that city since 1871.
—New York Times

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

An encompassing account of the political, social, and cultural highs and lows experienced by the metropolis on the Spree, from a specialist in modern German history (Where Ghosts Walked, 1997, etc.). Berlin has been a particularly troubled and troubling place since modern Germany was contrived in 1871. Large (History/Montana State Univ.) neatly describes the life of the city from Bismarck's era to its present-day status as reemerging capital of a reunified nation. Often alienated from the rest of Germany, Berlin is a comparatively young municipality with a uniquely nasty history. Under the truly autocratic Kaiser, during the Great War and the Great Inflation, whether wallowing in Weimar decadence or Nazi evil, ruled by Communist dictatorship or Bonn's elected representatives, the city has been prone to social disorder. (In an act of sabotage after WWI, one group simply nabbed the government's essential rubber stamps.) Berlin has been home, often temporary, to diverse people, from Hohenzollerns to Turkish guest workers. Spies, artists, informers, musicians, whores, and intellectuals populate this lively history. We learn of the organization of Kristallnacht (during which one synagogue was not torched because it stood next to a valued brewery), of the Berlin Airlift, of the erection of the Wall and its fall, and of John Kennedy's famous"Ich bin ein Berliner!" (which can be taken to mean"I am a doughnut!"). The single pervasive thread, shamefully consistent throughout the changeable city's history, is blatant anti-Semitism long predating the Nazi horror and still evident today. Parts of the story, of course, can be found elsewhere (in Otto Friedrich's Before the Deluge or William L.Shirer'sBerlin Diary, for example), but Large presents the complete story with remarkable clarity. Vivid narrative history of a city like no other, related with power and style.

Kirkus Reviews