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SOLVING THE STADTSCHLOSS DILEMMA:
WHAT AN OLD FACADE WILL SAY ABOUT NEW BERLIN

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STEPHEN PAUL NAUMANN

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ABSTRACT

SOLVING THE STADTSCHLOSS DILEMMA:
WHAT AN OLD FACADE WILL SAY ABOUT NEW BERLIN

By

Stephen Paul Naumann

Berlin’s plan for a reconstructed facade on the original site of its Stadtschloss has
been a hotly debated topic for almost two decades. East German authorities tore down the
war-damaged Stadtschloss in 1950, and in 1976 erected the Palast der Republik in its
place. Following German reunification, advocates of each building have claimed rights to
Berlin’s most hallowed ground. In 2002, the German Parliament decided in favor of a
Schloss facade reconstruction.

The reason Berliners are so emphatic about what happens on this historical site is
that architecture can speak volumes. The interest of citizens, scholars and critics has been
fueled as much ideologically as it has aesthetically. The facade will add to the
surrounding architectural kaleidoscope in the unique German capital, no doubt impacting
a nation’s memory and German identity. While quickly advancing as a European capital,
Berlin also maintains a connection to its past. The Stadtschloss facade will bridge the

city’s past and future, while contributing to its unity and diversity.

Copyright by
STEPHEN PAUL NAUMANN
2006

To my grandparents:
Oscar and Dorothy Naumann
Elmer and Charlotte Frank

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would first like to thank my parents and four brothers for all their love and
support in everything I have ever done.

I am sincerely grateful to my committee chair, Dr. George Peters, for his patience
and insight throughout the past eight months. This thesis would not have been what it is
without him. Likewise, I would like to thank both Dr. Elizabeth Mittman and Dr. Thomas
Lovik for all their knowledge, insightfulness and suggestions as members of a very
helpful and cooperative committee.

I wish to extend my sincere gratitude also to Dr. Karin Wurst for her insight in the
area of visual culture; to Mr. Gunther Kammerer at the Infocenter Wiederaufbau Berliner
Schloss for his informative interview and kindness in providing me with historical
information; and to Dr. Susanne Schamowski and Dr. Frank Stucke for their engaging
courses on Berlin history at the F reie Universitéit Berlin in 2004-05, which inspired my
interest in this exciting topic.

I offer my sincere thanks to Dr. Patricia Paulsell at Michigan State University’s
College of Arts & Letters, and to Dr. Antonio Nunez at the Graduate School for
providing fimding for my research in Berlin in June of 2006.

Finally, I wish to thank Paulina Muszalska, Marko Andric, Christian Kerpal,
Johannes Ehrmann, Levin Amsperger, Dr. Olivia Gabor, Professor Paul Koelpin, as well
as my dear friends and colleagues in German Studies at MSU for the wealth of invaluable
opinions, reactions, conversations and suggestions they have offered throughout the past

yean

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Introduction:

The Berlin Stadtschloss and the Role of Visual Culture ................................. 1
11. History ofthe Berlin Stadtschloss to 19509
111. The Schlossplatz in the GDR:

From Vacancy to Palast der Republik ................................................... 17
IV. The Post-Wall Debate and 2002 Decision ............................................... 30
V. The Old Facade in New Berlin ............................................................ 49
VI. Conclusion:

The Stadtschloss as a Symbol of Unity and Diversity in Berlin ...................... 58
WORKS CITED ..................................................................................... 63
WORKS CONSULTED ........................................................................... 67

vi

I. Introduction: The Berlin Stadtschloss and the Role of Visual Culture

“Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past. ”

--T. S. Elliot

Choosing a starting point for a discussion on the “Berliner Stadtschloss”l is as
difficult a task as approaching the topic as a whole. So many single events have played
such pivotal roles in the long and storied fate of old Berlin’s longtime centerpiece. The
small Spree island was the worksite of Prussia’s great baroque architect, Andreas
Schliiter, from 1699 to 1701, as he rebuilt the residence in anticipation of the arrival of
Prussia’s first king, Frederick 1. Two centuries later Kaiser William 11 abdicated the
German throne, thus ending the reign of the Hohenzollern monarchy and vacating the
Schloss. In 1945, Allied bombs rained from the skies above Berlin’s historical center,
descending without prejudice upon countless buildings, among them the vacant palace
that had long become an afterthought in Berlin. Just months later, three men signed a
document at nearby Potsdam’s unharmed Schloss Cecilienhofi thereby placing the
bumed-out Berlin Stadtschloss on one side of a line of ink—which would later become
an imposing wall of concrete. Its placement would finally determine the Schloss’ ultimate
fate: GDR officials had the palace demolished in 1950.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, clashing ideologies have fueled an ongoing

debate in Berlin concerning the future of this prominent site. While the debate still

 

' The “Berliner Stadtschloss” is frequently referenced in scholarly work written in English as the “Royal
Palace,” “Royal Castle” or “City Palace.” From here on, I will refer to the building as the “Berlin
Stadtschloss,” and will most often use “Stadtschloss” or simply “Schloss.” Similarly, I will use the German
“Palast der Republik” or “Palast” to refer to the 1976 GDR structure, which in other literature in English
has been referenced as the “Palace of the Republic.”

continues in many circles, the decision has fallen. In 2002 the Bundestag voted to
reconstruct a building with the original palace’s facade. This new project has come at the
expense of the Palast der Republik, a multi-purpose structure finished during the 19705,
purposefully placed by GDR leaders on top of the old palace’s ruins. Wilhelm von
Boddien calls the Palast “de[r] wichtigste Reprasentationsbau der untergegangenen
DDR” (9). To many—particularly former East Berliners—it is the tearing down of the
Palast der Republik that proved more offensive than the reconstruction of the Prussian
palace facade.

What is it that makes the Stadtschloss decision so paramount to German cultural
studies? To answer this question, one must first appreciate the importance of “visual
culture,” an area of study that has become vital to the postmodern era. Nicholas Mirzoef’f
goes so far as to say: “Postmodernism is visual culture” (4). Gail Finney (Visual Culture
in Twentieth-Century Germany, 2006) defines the term as “variously understood as the
culture we live in, as the visible phenomena within this culture, and as ‘the
interdisciplinary field that studies these phenomena” (2). She subsequently identifies
urban architecture as one such “visual culture” subject that is “worthy of treatment”
(Ibid).

Art historian Jonathan Crary emphasizes the inescapable bond between vision and
history. He writes: “I have tried to show how vision is never separable from larger
historical questions about the construction of subjectivity” (33). Thus, what one sees at
such a historical site as the Stadtschloss and what one will remember about the German

history it represents are unmistakably linked.

The decision regarding the Stadtschloss site is one that will not only affect the
current Berlin generation, but generations to come as well. For in the realm of visual
culture, there is another distinct correlation—namely, between memory and imagination
(Miller 230). The concept linking memory and imagination is by no means new; it dates
back to classical Greece and Rome, at which time terminologies illustrated the
connection between memory and imagination much more clearly than does contemporary
English. Consider Vico’s comparison of the terms, as quoted by J acque LeGofi:

The Latins call memory memoria when it retains sense perceptions, and

reminiscentia when it gives them back to us. But they designated in the same way

the faculty by which we form images, which the Greeks called phantasia, and
which we call imaginativa; for where we vulgarly say imaginare, the Latins said
memorare. . ..Thus the Greeks say in their mythology that the Muses, the powers

of imagination, are the daughters of Memory. (LeGoff 86)

Wallis Miller follows LeGoff’s words with the following analogy: “The intimacy
of memory and imagination implies a similar intimacy of past and present” (230). In
other words, what Germans see today in their storied capital city will trigger memory of
the past; likewise, what they see fifty years from now will also recall certain events and
images from Germany’s past. Moreover, what they see will likewise have an impact on
how Germans remember their past, as well as how they connect that past to the present
and future.

Karen Till, in her book entitled The New Berlin: Memory, Politics, Place, makes
exactly this point in her second chapter. Till also recognizes that memory and the past
certainly can influence imagination, and hence the future. She writes that visions of the

future Berlin can be understood through a memory structure another scholar—Michael

Perlman—has termed “remembering the future”2 (Till 39).

 

2 Till credits the term to Michael Perlman (cf. Perlman 37).

According to Perlman, “In [remembering the future], images of the possible
and/or anticipated future are made present in the “past” of remembering” (Perhnan 37).
Throughout his book on memory and the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Perlman
regularly refers to Greek mythology and the Muses, as well as to psychology. Here he
explains the situation from a psychological standpoint:

Images of past and present inevitably point to future possibilities. ...If we recall

and explore childhood memories, as in psychoanalysis, we see that these fantasies

of the past speak too of what is and will be in our lives (including transforrnative
possibilities), for we are remembering foundational complexes. 80 too with
collective memorial fantasies, which “present” the cultural psyche and its future
possibilities. When we address remembrances of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we
will discover ways in which these images tell not only of the past but also of the

present and (the imaginal presence of) the future. (Perlman 37)

These words are every bit as applicable to memory in Berlin. How one “addresses
remembrances” or deals with the past certainly impacts how one also perceives the
present and affects the future. Regarding the Stadtschloss, Berlin’s dilemma is more
specific: how to display the past. The crucial nature of the matter is perhaps multiplied by
this specificity, however, since how the past is displayed can impact the way entire
generations address their remembrances (or, as the case may be with younger
generations, their historical knowledge) of the past.

Till, however, qualifies the past-future relationship, thus highlighting Berlin’s
situation: “Psychologically, images of the future can only have a resonance with what
appears to be familiar, with known experiences from the past and present” (3 9). The two
Berlin edifices—the Stadtschloss and the Palast der Republik—which in public debate

have commonly been pitted against one another, are both distinctly “familiar,” since they

have both existed in one very prominent place in the city. That only one of the two will

be able to occupy that single space in the future allows politicians, citizens, and critics
alike to carefully ponder the message portrayed by each of those two physical structures.
Till also mentions exploring the “past and contemporary visions of remembered
new Berlins” (39). These various “new Berlins” are “modernist utopian visions of
society, the nation, and global power” narrating “a history of national hopes for the
future” (Ibid.). In other words, such political figures as Frederick the Great, Bismarck,
Hitler, and Ulbricht—along with the architectural vision of figures like Schltiter,
Eosander, Schinkel, and Speer—all had their own aspirations of what Berlin would look
like, what its architecture would represent. Today these aspirations are still evident in the
interwoven cityscape, continuing “to haunt the spaces of the New Berlin today” (Ibid).
Hence, one is led to the obvious question: which past, indeed, will Berliners see?
Which memory—perhaps better stated: which imagination—will be triggered by the
visual image the 2020 Berliner will see across the Lustgarten to the south? That is at its
very core the issue at hand with the entire Stadtschloss debate. What, in fact, will Berlin
remember? Is a discussion of Berliners’ fond memories of Hohenzollem architecture
blindly euphemistic? Or can scholars overcome their propensity for condemning all
things Hohenzollem as part of a harmful militaristic wave that ended in war, genocide
and destruction? If the Palast der Republik is removed, will Berlin essentially be erasing
and thereby ignoring the forty years of the East German chapter of its history; or are there
other places in (East) Berlin where that architecture is still prominently displayed and that
history recognized? Will rebuilding the Schloss simply be one more strictly West Berlin
(or West German) decision made in the post-Wall era, neglecting the perspective of those

from the former East; or is it a decision that could benefit all Berlin’s citizens?

In my thesis, I will focus on the various ideologies and identities visually reflected
by each of three buildings on the palace site: Schliiter’s baroque Stadtschloss, with its
Eighteenth-Century additions by Eosander and Bohme; the Palast der Republik; and a
future construction bearing the baroque facade. A description of any one of these
buildings in connection with its visual ideological message is a complicated task in itself;
for as Berlin is a city of conflicting political views and intertwining ideologies, so is each
building the subject of several varying interpretations. Godfrey Carr and Georgina Paul
sum up Berlin’s latest architectural challenge with the following words: “[W]hat the
debates reveal above all else is the dilemma of attempting to express a unified cultural
identity in public buildings which are manifestations of a history of political discontinuity
and ideological antagonism” (338). While the Stadtschloss decision in no way guarantees
a solution to Berlin’s “dilemma,” a new facade will play no small role in re-unifying the
reunited Berlin.

I will treat the topic in five chapters following this introduction. The second
chapter will discuss the history and fate of the Stadtschloss, ending with its destruction in
1950. The third chapter will cover the Palast der Republik, where I will discuss the
political climate in the GDR’s East Berlin and its influence on the timeline of the
Schlossplatz site during these 40 years: plans afier the Schloss was destroyed; a two-
decade vacancy; and the very important 19705 structure, the Palast der Republik. Despite
the popular Palast replacing the Schloss on Berlin’s nascent ground, there were those in
the GDR who had not only opposed the Schloss’ destruction; many even felt regret for its

fate as late as the 19805.

F ourthly, I will consider the post-Wall debate in the 19905, and the ensuing 2002
decision to tear down the Palast and build in its place a new structure bearing a
reconstructed Schloss facade. It was the debate that interested me even before the
decision was made; therefore I feel obliged to discuss the alternate solution(s). What
would a preserved Palast have said, had it been decided to maintain this more recent
structure in place of the planned baroque reconstruction? Some also have suggested
constructing a modern architectural building on the site in lieu of both palaces. With
reference to Janet Ward’s article “Las Vegas on the Spree,” I will address this possibility
as well.

F ifthly, I will discuss the palace’s future as an important part of Berlin’s visual
face. It is here that I intend to consider Berlin’s future not only as Germany’s capital, but
an influential European capital as well. The tourist influence in the city no doubt also
plays an important role in the city’s urban landscape. Any city should maintain a certain
connection to its own history. Berlin’s unique situation mirrors its many closely entwined
histories, largely evident in the city’s patchwork of architectures strewn across its streets
and neighborhoods. In comparing Berlin to other European capital cities of present and
past, I hope to be able to draw conclusions as to why the Stadtschloss decision came out
as it did.

The aforementioned “political discontinuity and ideological antagonism” to which
Carr and Paul refer are qualities that make Berlin a city worth writing about, researching,
or simply visiting. It’s a city like no other in Germany, Europe or the world. Its situation
sui generis is thus one that has attracted a great deal of press and scholarship in the realm

of cultural studies. These very qualities have drawn me to this particular thesis. It is my

hope to convey the fascinating and unique nature of this particular topic, while
demonstrating the relation between Berlin’s historical and future identities, as well as

what role a Stadtschloss edifice might play.

11. History of the Berlin Stadtschloss to 1950

“[Das Stadtschloss] beherrscht das Zentrum Berlins, den Platz, den es bilden hilft, die
Strafle, die zu ihmfuhrt, das alte Berlin, dasfiir den, der die Vergangenheit Berlins
verkr'irpert sehen machte, den Begrifl Berlin ausmacht. ”

--Richard Hamann"

Those wishing to validate the Schloss’ importance to the Berlin landscape point
out a relevant historical connection: the structure has been at Berlin’s geographical core
since the city’s genesis. First came the seat of Hohenzollem monarchy to Berlin, and only
then did a city grow and develop around it.

Other European capital cities expanded out from their historical centers, and only
much later received the central building that characterized them. No one would dispute
the unequivocal importance of the Tower to the city of London, the Louvre to Paris, or
St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican to Rome. Yet each of these cities existed quite
prominently for many centuries before its respective longtime architectural trademark.
Despite being later additions, each structure is crucial to its city’s landscape and
character.

The situation in the very young Berlin was, however, much different. With a
history stretching back no farther than the Late Middle Ages, Berlin had never been a
historically significant city—certainly not in the European community and not even in the
German (i.e. Holy Roman) Empire until some 300 years ago. First mentioned in the

Thirteenth Century, the small dual Spree towns of Berlin and Cdlln remained largely

insignificant until 1451, when they, as a single city, became the site of Elector Frederick

 

3 qtd. in Boddien, “Das Schloss lag nicht in Berlin,” 21

II of Hohenzollem’s4 royal residence as one of the empire’s seven electors. The city grew
very little, however, until the late Seventeenth Century, and as late as 1648 had a mere
6,000 inhabitants.

Nonetheless, the Hohenzollem residence remained the city’s center throughout.
Wolf Jobst Siedler perhaps put it best with his oft-referenced statement: “Das Schloss lag
nicht in Berlin. Berlin war das Schloss!” (qtd. in Flierl). The cornerstone was laid on July
31, 1443, and the first structure was finished in 1451 (Rollka 11). The fortress, which
Rollka refers to as “das burgartige Residenzschloss” (12), was known at that time as the
Zwingburg. It had a distinct comer tower with an onion cupola, dubbed the “Grliner Hut,”
that had been part of Colln’s old city wall. This the Schloss’ oldest element survived a
host of additions, improvements and renovations, the Thirty Years War and World War
11, until its 1950 destruction (Ibid.).

Petitioned by Joachim II to build a larger structure in order to accommodate the
growing court, Saxon architect Caspar TheiB created out of the older Zwingburg a
striking Renaissance-style Schloss in 1538 (Ibid.). After the Schloss suffered—along with
the city—extensive damage and destruction during the Thirty Years War, Berlin
recovered to enjoy a period of growth and prosperity under Elector Frederick William I
(1640-1688). The Schloss was also repaired and enhanced.

Ever remembered for his 1685 Edict of Potsdam, “der GroBe Kurfiirst” exercised
religious tolerance and saw Berlin grow by fifty percent with the arrival of thousands of
wealthy French Huguenots and Jewish merchants from Vienna who came seeking

asylum. Berlin continued to prosper under his son Frederick 111, whose wife Sophie

 

‘ The Hohenzollem family would rule continuously in Berlin until the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II in
1918.

10

Charlotte of Hanover and friend, philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, promoted and enhanced
science and the fine arts in the growing city. When in 1701 Frederick (III) crowned
himself Frederick I, “Ktinig in PreuBen,” Berlin gained a royal status and with it, a new
residence.

Andreas Schliiter, renowned as “the most important German baroque architect
and sculptor” (“The architectural history” 10), is the primary name associated with the
baroque Schloss. Commissioned by Friedrich to convert the Renaissance palace into a
grander baroque residence, Schliiter completed his grandiose project in time for the new
king’s triumphant return from his 1701 crowning in Kdnigsberg. Inspired by the facade
of Rome’s Palazzo Madama, Schliiter’s edifice was admired for generations thereafter.
Some compared his sculptures to those of Michelangelo (Ibid.). Even Karl Friedrich
Schinkel revered Schliiter’s masterpiece and hesitated to change any outer feature of the
structure, as he had done with so many other structures in Berlin (11). Hans Scharoun
proudly refers to the building as “de[r] hervorragendste Bau des norddeutschen Barock”
(Stadtverwaltung, “Umstrittenes Erbe”).

After another proj ect—the nearby Munzenturm—failed Schliiter because of
unstable ground, the great architect was fired and left several years later for Russia.
There, under Tsar Peter the Great, he developed plans for the renowned Peterhoj; dubbed
“the Russian Versailles.” Schliiter died of an illness in 1714, one year afier his arrival in
St. Petersburg, but many of his plans and models were invaluable to the establishment
and beautification of Russia’s imperial port city with a decidedly European flavor.

Chosen to replace Schlilter was a Berlin contemporary, Swedish-born Johann

Friedrich Eosander von Gothe. Eosander is also known for such impressive structures as

11

Schloss Charlottenburg and the Rathaus in Charlottenburg. His contributions to the
Stadtschloss included a brand new cornered wing extending almost 100 meters to the
west and another 80 meters south. Though he planned to erect a dome 100 meters high
over the new portal, Eosander’s work was interrupted because of Friedrich Wilhelm I’s
disapproval of his architect’s lavish spending.

Eosander’s successor and a former student of Schliiter, Martin Heinrich Bdhme,
filled in the final gap in 1716, thus connecting Eosander’s wing back to the other side of
the original and creating a second, larger courtyard (Rollka 31). The 1716 structure is
essentially what Berliners knew in 1950. Only the dome, capping Eosander’s western
portal was added, constructed in 1850 by the court architect Friedrich August Stiiler.
While there followed additional renovations and improvements to the frame, the Schloss’
shape did not change after 1716.

As mentioned, even Schinkel, the most renowned Prussian architect, did nothing
to alter the Schloss’ exterior, on account of his great admiration for Schliiter. Instead he
brought more attention to the Schloss by focusing on it and the Lustgarten as Berlin’s
focal point. With his 1830 masterpiece, the Altes Museum, Schinkel enclosed the
' Lustgarten on its fourth side, positioning the Dom, the Zeughaus, the museum and the
Schloss around the beautiful garden. This quadrilateral centrality is something those
planning a new structure bearing the Schloss facade have highlighted, though their
symbolic focus will be different than that of Schinkel. This comparison will be discussed
in greater detail in Chapter V.

Germany’s last monarch, Kaiser William 11, also did very little to the Schloss.

William only added a large monument in front of the dome-capped, western facade. The

12

 

monument portrayed an imposing statue of Kaiser William I, William’s grandfather
under whom Germany was united for the first time in 1871. Today the monument is
“long gone and unlamented” (Ladd, Ghosts 54). Wilhelm II also tore down the old
cathedral and had a newer, more imposing replacement built—one that “never had good
press” (55). Ladd comments that in this case, ironically, “East German authorities
(consistent only in their bad taste, some would say) eventually decided to keep the
massive old building” (Ibid.).

After the Kaiser’s 1918 abdication he fled to the Netherlands, leaving a vacant
Schloss without a monarch. There was no monarch because the Weimar Republic
followed the monarchy. The leaders avoided utilizing the Schloss as either a chancellor’s
residence or the seat of parliament. The building was used for little more than housing
several temporary museum exhibitions. Likewise, the Third Reich shunned the Schloss.
Since he wanted to avoid any association of “his ‘Thousand Year Reich’ with the idea of
monarchial restoration,” Hitler never even stepped inside the building (Taylor 31).

Perhaps the Schloss’ last significant moment before its bombing and destruction
came on the day of the Kaiser’s abdication: November 9. Karl Liebknecht proclaimed a
communist state from one of the Schloss’ northern portals. Though Philipp
Scheidemann’s proclamation of a republic from the Reichstag just two hours prior had
rendered Liebknecht’s words obsolete, communists revered the portal. In fact, it was the
only part of the Schloss carefully preserved and restored by GDR authorities in 1950.
Though it was Portal IV that was actually incorporated into the 1964 Staatsratsgeba'ude
to the south of the Schlossplatz, a well-known painting depicting that historical day

shows Liebknecht at Portal V (Boddien, “Die Baugeschichte” 19).

13

During the winter of 1944-45 the Allies and Soviets advanced on their respective
(Eastern and Western) fronts, and soon they began to close in around Berlin and the
eastern part of Germany. Though the war’s outcome was becoming quite clear, it dragged
out for months. Sadly, though perhaps not surprisingly, Hitler refused to surrender. In
February Allied air strikes ravaged Berlin and Dresden. The art historian and author Ernst
Gall describes the scene at the Schlossplatz the morning after central Berlin was heavily
bombed:

Am Morgen des 3. Februar 1945...war das Schloss zwar nicht unversehrt. . ., aber

doch noch immer in seinen wesentlichen Teilen. . .ein lebensvolles Ganzes. Um

die Mittagsstunde lag unter einem von machtigen Brandwolken verfinsterten

Himmel die Ecke gegen Spree und Dom, sowie die Halfte desQuerbaus zwischen

den beiden Binnenhofen in Schutt und Asche, wahrend alles Ubrige lichterloh

brannte. (qtd. in Budde'e 168)

The fires burned for four days without efforts to extinguish them. Two years of
continuous bombing had rendered any such effort in the minds of Berlin’s frightened
citizens useless against the attacks expected the next day and the day after (Boddien,
“War Damage” 16).

The novelist and Berlin native Alfred Doblin described the Hohenzollem past as
“entirely liquidated” after the war (Brett-Smith 127). According to Robert Taylor,
however,

this was not quite true, for in the battered walls of the Royal Palace, and in other

Hohenzollem monuments, the past was still alive and would be a postwar source

of as much embarrassment and controversy as pride. (24)

Whether or not the word “embarrassment” accurately portrays surviving Hohenzollem
architecture in Berlin is at the very least questionable. “Embarrassment” certainly does

not come to one’s mind when admiring Schloss Charlottenburg or any of the noble

Hohenzollem structures in Park Sanssouci. Taylor was right about the controversy,

l4

however, which has indeed surrounded some Hohenzollem buildings. In the case of the
Schloss, though, many would argue that the controversy hangs rather over its untenable
destruction in 1950 than over its Hohenzollem origins.

A large part of today’s debate regarding a new royal palace harkens back to an
earlier debate in post-World War II Berlin. While surviving Germans were trying to
breathe some life back into their ruined city, two very differing world views were
competing for influence in that city and its future urban landscape. What was once a joint
effort in winning back Europe from Hitler became a growing rivalry marked by distrust
and suspicion. The Soviets and the Allies now saw each other with contempt, and these
ideals were to a large extent learned and embraced by East and West Germans. The first
Stadtschloss debate—regarding the damaged post-war structure—reflected these ideals.
This debate is treated in greater detail in Chapter III.

After Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated the German throne in November 1918, he left
for the Netherlands and the Schloss was left essentially vacant for the remainder of its
existence. Despite the building’s several-decade vacancy, however, the Schloss was
certainly put to use. In 1928 it housed the German Academic Exchange Service [DAAD],
which had been founded in 1925. After the Second World War, the architect Hans
Scharoun was named by the Allies as director of the city’s building department. He
utilized the Schloss to hold a number of exhibits, themes ranging from modern French
painting (Petras 103) and the failed 1848 revolution (105) to the so-called “degenerate
art” formerly banned by the Nazis (104). One exhibition, entitled Berlin plant—Erster
Bericht, even featured Scharoun’s own aspirations for reconstruction (98). Referring to

the Schloss’ 1950 destruction, Goerd Peschken poses the question: “Warum muBten seine

15

Mauern fallen, nachdem sie schon 32 Jahre — eine ganze Generation lang -— Museen und
Sozialeinrichtungen in sich gefaBt hatte?” (qtd. in Petras 6).

Despite having played virtually no role in the catastrophic thirty years following
the Kaiser’s 1918 abdication, the Schloss fell victim to a reactionary ambition. There
would be neither repair nor renovation for Berlin’s damaged Stadtschloss as would be
successfully accomplished with residences in Munich, Wiirzburg, Stuttgart—even several
miles west in Charlottenburg. Ironically, even the Russians repaired their own Schliiter
structure damaged in World War II: the impressive Peterhof in St. Petersburg. Not so in
Berlin.

In 1950 Ragnar Josephson, a Swedish professor, chastised those in power for their
decision, while also warning them of how history would remember the motivation for
their decision:

The people in power in East Berlin perceive the fame of the Palace as a discordant

note from a long past cult of nobility. This has irritated their sensitive eardrums

and must now be hushed. They prefer to hear their own noises on the
demonstration square which they have built on the site of the demolished Palace.

Yet this bleak square will also one day become a monument, a monument to lack

of respect, to narrow mindedness, and to spiritual poverty. (qtd. in Boddien, “War
Damage” 17)

16

III. The Schlossplatz, in the GDR: From Vacancy to Palast der Republik

1,

“There is no greater immortality than to occupy a place you cannot fill.
-Napoleon

Schinkel’s Neue Wache in Berlin, built in 1818, has been the site of several
“renovations” (each following a change in political system) to introduce different
memorials, each of which publicly portrayed a decidedly different political ideology. In
the opening paragraph to an article on this structure, Miller pinpoints the controversy
which surrounds architectural debates and urban landscape in contemporary Berlin. The
(architectural) balance holds on either side the respective weights of history and ideology.
Consider Miller’s words:

Since the beginning of the eighteenth century the instability of the

Prussian/German state has affected the shape of Berlin. Constant shifts in the

boundaries of the empire as well as in its ideology have forced countless

architectural redefinitions of the center of its capital. The decisions to preserve,
renovate, or replace Berlin’s monuments have thus always been caught between
considerations of their ideological impact and their effect on the body of historic

documentation. (Miller 228)

Though Miller refers to the situation surrounding a memorial, much the same
applies to the Stadtschloss debate. Both the Palast der Republik and the Schloss are
caught between exactly those two opposing principles described by Miller: “their
ideological impact and their effect on the body of historical documentation” (Ibid). Does
one principle outweigh the other? Can a building’s historical significance trump a tainted

ideology, allowing it to maintain a prominent place in the same urban landscape that the

building’s ideology has visibly wounded?

17

.51

On the other hand, at what point might an unwanted ideology, e. g. Nazism, justify
eliminating a viable historical structure? In comparing buildings to state officials,
Elizabeth Strom poses a similar question from a different angle:

Berliners have a vivid awareness of the potency of physical symbols. ...Berlin,

which has served as the capital of so many notoriously failed regimes, has several

times in modern history been the site of the construction and deconstruction of the
built symbols. As first socialist, then Nazi, and today communist rulers have been
purged from the political scene, Berlin planners have had to address the question
of whether buildings and monuments can be so imbued with the ethos of their
creators that they too must be ‘purged’ in order to assure the new regime a fresh

start. Germans refer to state officials who are thoroughly identified with a

discredited regime as politically belastet, or ‘burdened.’ Can buildings also be

politically and morally burdened? (67)

This entire study focuses on two buildings, both of which were (and for many still
are) certainly identified with a particular “discredited regime,” as Strom puts it. After
examining at the end of Chapter II the fate of the Stadtschloss, this chapter turns its
attention to the subsequent vacancy and, finally, the building that was Palast der
Republik.

In 1949 there was a need, notes Brian Ladd, for the new GDR to “establish its
own identity, distinct from both the previous (nazi) regime and the rival West German
state” (“East German Political Monuments,” 91). Nowhere would this identity be on such
display as in the capital city of (East) Berlin, particularly since its West Berlin
counterpart belonged to a western nation and reflected a liberal democratic political
ideology and capitalist way of life. Nowhere else in the GDR would the architecture be as
transparent—certainly also to the West—as in Berlin. The need to “establish its own

identity” no doubt played a large role in influencing major decisions regarding the

rebuilding of East Berlin’s architecture.

18

Paul Connerton makes the following observation of regime changes: “To pass
judgment on the practices of the old regime is the constitutive act of the new order” (7).
The GDR did well to reflect this statement, as its regime (under significant Soviet
guidance) made swift and permanent changes. The topography of a city like Berlin saw
as much change as anything, for one in the politics of names. Public streets and plazas
were named after communist historical figures and socialist leaders instead of
Hohenzollem monarchs and members of the royal family.

One of the most intense decisions involved the key structure at the focal point of
Berlin’s very center: the site of Schliiter’s damaged—but intact—royal palace. The GDR
decision to tear down the Schloss fit right into what Ladd identifies as the necessity to
establish a distinct identity; it also typified Connerton’s comment about passing judgment
on the old regime.

Of the 1950 debate writes Goerd Peschken: “Diese Debatte erforderte mehr Mut
als die heutige, sie bleibt menschlich bewegend und fiir uns Deutsche bedeutsarn, ganz
gleich, wie die gegenwartige Debatte ausgehen wir ” (qtd. in Petras 6).

Walter Ulbricht’s statement on July 23, 1950, at the Third Party Congress of the
GDR’s ruling Socialist Unity Party summed up the attitude of the decision makers:

Das Zentrum unserer Hauptstadt, der Lustgarten und das Gebiet der SchloBruine,

miissen zu dem groBen Demonstrationsplatz werden, auf dem der Kampfwille und

Aufbauwille unseres Volkes Ausdruck finden konnen. (qtd. in Petras 115)
Ulbricht’s words demonstrate the Communist ambition to cut ties with that part of their
German past and begin their own new chapter.

In hearing of the planned destruction, there were naturally protests from

intellectuals and others from the West. Yet nothing any Westemer could say would have

19

influenced what would be done on Berlin’s most hallowed ground. The decision was
even controversial in the East Berlin public forum; certainly there were those there who
also opposed the palace’s destruction. Hans Scharoun, city planning councilors in Berlin,
advocated the preservation and repair of the damaged Schloss. With this 1946 statement
he stressed the importance of the building to German architecture:

[Der Wiederaufbau] durfie bei der Bedeutung die dem SchloB als dem

hervorragendsten Bau des norddeutschen Barock und einzig erhaltenem Werk

Schliiters zukommt, als ein Gebot erscheinen, zumal seine stadtebauliche

Funktion...einen kiinstlerisch pragnanten Ausdruck verlangt. (Stadtverwaltung,

“Umstrittenes Erbe”)

Another building councilor, Heinrich Starck,6 saw the Schloss ruin in an
altogether different light. His own 1946 statement reflects the common (at least for those
with communist/socialist ideological views) association of the Schloss with Prussian
militarism leading to fascism and war: “Das Schloss war das Symbol einer fiir uns nicht
tragbaren Zeit. Man sollte diese Dinge beseitigen” (Ibid.).

East German art historian Richard Hamann, an authority on baroque art, also
publicly and emphatically defended the Schloss on account of its aesthetic architectural
value. Hamann, here quoted by Ladd, compares the Schloss to other cities’ central
structures that have remained despite revolution and ideological change: “The Louvre in
Paris has survived all revolutions, and the Kremlin in Moscow, likewise the former seat
of forces opposed by the government, is still today the seat of government” (Ghosts 56).

Yet such arguments as Scharoun’s and Hamann’s were to no avail in the young

GDR, as it was those in Starck’s camp who would prevail. For it was not a pseudo-

Kremlin which GDR officials were originally interested in creating and maintaining in

 

’ Scharoun’s original German title was Stadtratfur Bau- and Wohnungswesen.
6 Starck was identified as Stellvertretender Stadtratffir Bau- und Wohnungswesen.

20

central Berlin. Rather, they were thinking of something along the lines of another well-
known Moscow site: Red Square. A central, meaningful place for the people to be able to
assemble would be crucial to the socialist atmosphere and mindset in their new East
Berlin. As cited earlier, Ulbricht had called for a “Demonstrationsplatz” where the GDR
citizens’ “Kampfwille und Aufbauwille” could be expressed (Petras 115). Writes Ladd:
“It was above all [the GDR leaders’] desire to create a vast square for mass
demonstrations that prompted them to demolish the badly damaged palace in 1950”
(“Monuments” 92). The dynamiting on the Schloss began September 6, 1950, and
dragged on for three months until the project’s completion on December 30 (131).

The Schloss’ destruction in December of 1950 was as a single event successful in
establishing a new identity in East Berlin—an identity that would last forty years and, in
a very real sense, beyond. SED authorities had accomplished one powerful goal:
altogether eliminating the most visible and hallowed Hohenzollem structure from
Berlin’s landscape. Strom remarks:

Certainly the decision of GDR leaders in 1950 to blow up the remains of the

damaged City Palace. . .was not made on engineering grounds alone; to all

observers this act represented an intentional and dramatic break with German

history. (68)

GDR authorities were, in essence, placing the blame for World War II and the Holocaust
on the Nazis, whom they viewed as the natural heirs of the conservative Hohenzollem
monarchy. By tearing down such structures as the Schloss (there were many other
buildings and monuments which met a similar fate), they were essentially ending that

dark chapter in German history, and in effect, freeing themselves from an emotional

burden they could now place onto those in the West.

21

The West, meanwhile, though dealing with blame and guilt differently, was in a
sense similar in that it diverted some of the blame to those in the East. The unique bipolar
climate in Berlin and Germany during the Cold War not only allowed for allocation of
blame; it encouraged the same. Commenting on the lingering Cold War bias widely held
in the post-Wall West, Laurence McFalls writes: “This hypothesis of East German
backwardness, of course, fed into the West German Cold War stereotype of the GDR as
the perpetuation of Nazi authoritarianism” (303). On the other hand, many East Germans
continued to associate fascism with capitalism, from which their government claimed to
be protecting its citizens with the Berlin Wall. Friedrich Ebert, East Berlin’s mayor in
1950 and son of the Weimar Republic’s first President of the same name, shared this
opinion, as he blamed the “eighty percent destroyed” Schloss on “English and American
bombing attacks” (Ladd, Ghosts 56-57). According to Ladd, “Ebert’s allocation of blame
typified the early Cold War: Hitler bore some responsibility, but the main source of
troubles was the current capitalist enemy” (57).

Such misled Cold War conceptions (from both sides) illustrate the complicated
nature Germans have had in dealing with the past during the existence of two separate
rival German states. Each state guided its citizens in dealing with the German past in a
different way, often readily shifting much of the blame on to its respective ideological
counterpart state. Not until 1990 were Germans for the first time confronted with
addressing their past together—as one nation. That is a challenge which the German
people are forced to address in many areas today, one of which is Berlin’s urban

landscape. The lingering bias ingrained in many of Berlin’s citizens is not easily

22

forgotten. Thus the Schloss debate is thereby intrinsically linked to the notion of a unified
nation dealing with its complex past and searching for its current identity.

Though many proposals were offered, essentially nothing was done in two
decades on the Schlossplatz, which had been renamed Marx-Engels-Platz. Ladd writes
that “plans for new, monumental buildings came and went” and little changed for years,
“as the proletarian will became less demonstrative (or as the GDR became less
bourgeois)” (57).

To the west of the vacant site Schinkel’s Bauakademie was torn down and the
East German Foreign Ministry Building built in its place in 1961. This imposing new
structure incidentally had enough space to accommodate offices for a united socialist
Germany. Plans at Marx-EngeIs-Platz remained stagnant, however, and for the time
being the planned site was used as a parking lot.

Meanwhile, in the time that had elapsed since the palace’s destruction, the Cold
War had been heating up on the international scene. No longer just a difference in post-
war political ideologies, now the relationship between the members of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization and the Warsaw Pact had genuinely soured. In a period characterized
by suspicion and competition, opposing sides anticipated the worst. NATO prepared for a
potential Soviet invasion of Western Europe, while Soviet and GDR authorities erected
what they called an “anti-fascist protection wall” in Berlin—which would come to be
more commonly known as the Berlin Wall.

Despite SED party leader Walter Ulbricht’s infamous statement of assurance in
June of 1961, “Niemand hat die Absicht, cine Mauer zu errichten,” on August 13 that

same summer the border was indeed closed and secured with barbed wire and military

23

 

presence. The construction of the wall immediately ensued. As the historian Eckhart
Stratenschulte puts it, “In der Nacht vorn 12. auf den 13. August 1961 hatte das
Undenkbare dennoch begonnen” (99). In actuality, for the city, the wall served to further
isolate West Berlin from the rest of West Germany and Western Europe. It also widened
the rift between East and West Germany, since that entire border had been closed off and
guarded as well.

The erection of the Berlin Wall was by no means a sudden or isolated incident in
the Cold War era. 1956 and 1968 revolts were violently squashed by Soviet troops in
Budapest and Prague, respectively. The United States deployed troops to defend against
communist expansionism—both in Korea during the 19505 and in Vietnam during the
19605. Both were long, drawn-out affairs that lasted several difficult years. Soviet
military action in Afghanistan in December 1979 renewed international tensions after a
several-year period of relative security.

Neither was the Berlin Wall’s erection the only major event in the city of Berlin
during the Cold War period. In June 1948 Soviet occupational authorities blocked road
and rail traffic entering or exiting West Berlin. They also shut off water and electricity
within the Western part of the city, essentially creating a type of siege situation for West
Berlin’s citizens. Kirchner describes it as “Dka auf eine Millionenstadt mit verletzbaren
Versorgungswegen und in ungitnstiger goegraphischer Lage” (14).

Those events prompted American and British pilots to launch under the direction
of American General Lucius Clay what became known as the Berlin Airlift—a
continuous stream of airplanes raining food and supplies to the helpless West Berliners.

Clay described the Western perspective as such: “Wenn Berlin fallt, folgt

24

Westdeutschland als nachstes” (Ibid). The airlift continued until October l949—a total of
462 days. At its height in April, over 1,000 flights left each day and transported as much
as 13,000 tons of supplies to Berlin daily (17). The Soviets, impressed by the West’s
determination for maintaining control of West Berlin, opened the borders on May 12. In
all, over 20,000 planes made the trip to West Berlin as part of the airlift during this
period.

A few months after the erection of the wall—in October 1961, a standoff occurred
at Checkpoint Charlie involving a number of American and Soviet tanks. When several
American military officers were not allowed to return through the checkpoint—one of
just four (albeit heavily guarded) “gateways” between East and West Berlin—tanks
began to assemble on FriedrichsstraBe facing each other from across the border. Although
no shots were fired, many—émost of all Berlin’s citizens in both East and West—feared
their still recovering city would witness the start of yet another war. Fortunately for
Berlin, no shots were ever fired, and the war remained “cold”: one fought with spies,
positioning, diplomacy, and an arms race.

While the Cold War may have been about the world’s two superpowers, the
central location that defined that so-called “war” was in neither the Soviet Union nor the
United States. That defining place, rather, was Berlin. The city that was trying to pick up
its pieces and start over after total destruction in 1945 became the world’s political focal
point in the next two decades, though it had little to do with Berlin’s own citizens. The
city was divided, first formally, then with a wall. And the former German capital grew

apart as did the entire world around it.

25

This political and ideological rift in the city no doubt exists to a certain extent
today, and has molded the way most Berliners perceive the Palast der Republik. For
many, the Palast represents more than anything one side of the bipolar Cold War
ideology. Make no mistake: the alleged “Mauer in den Kbpfen” (wall in the heads)
(McFalls 304) is very real in Berlin today, even sixteen progressive years after
reunification. This psychological “wall” in the minds of many of Berlin’s citizens guides
the respective arguments both for and against the Stadtschloss reconstruction.

In 1968 the SED Politburo made the following statement regarding the future of
GDR architecture, which would affect first and foremost the East Berlin capital:

Bold and original urbanistic and architectural solutions are needed to counteract

monotony. . .in order to give built manifestation of the optimism and strength with

which our people create socialism. (Wise 51)

Erich Honecker succeeded Ulbricht as head of state in 1971 and soon after began
construction on what architectural historian Michael Wise calls “the flashiest element on
the Marx-Engels-Platz” (Ibid.). A structure would now epitomize the GDR ideal that
Ulbricht hoped to accomplish in a large square at the renamed Schlossplatz. Wise
describes Honecker’s structure, completed in 1976, as follows:

The building was encased in copper-tinted reflective glass and white marble. Its

oblong form equally recalled the Palace of the Soviets in Moscow and the

Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. and filled roughly

the footprint previously covered by a central courtyard of the Royal Palace

leveled in 1950. The design of this people’s palace strove for what its chief
architect Heinz Graffunder called a “bright, festive elegance,” and it did succeed
in bringing unaccustomed glitz to the dreary East Berlin center. The colored
facade mirrored sunlight during the day and shone by night from inner
illumination, giving the city a new focal point at the eastern terminus of Unter den

Linden. (Ibid.)

Wise calls the Palast’s interiors “lavish and fanciful,” and describes its decorative

elements such as “myriad chandeliers of dangling glass ropes, a black and white marble

26

floor in a swirling psychedelic pattern, and curved banquettes of plush tufted velvet in a
series of theme restaurants whose styles ranged from faux neoclassical to rustic baroque”
(51-52). The abundance of lighted lamps and chandeliers earned the building the
nickname “Erichs Lampenladen,” with reference to Honecker. Aside from the many
restaurants, cafes and banquet halls, the Palast housed the GDR Volkskammer
(parliament), a bowling alley, and a 5,000-seat auditorium for musical performances.
Both inside and out, the structure was indeed a sharp contrast to its dark gray
surroundings in East Berlin’s center.

The palace was designed to be attractive to East Berlin (and East German)
citizens, and most would agree it succeeded in that role in the GDR. Godfrey Carr
describes the importance of the so-called “Volkspalast” [people’s palace] to its citizens,
something unique to East Germany:

It was here that citizens of East Berlin were married, celebrated birthdays, and

took part in a range of leisure pursuits, all at very little cost. It was open to all and

affordable by all. As such, it represented a much appreciated facility for urban

cultural and social life unparalleled in the west of the country. (338)

According to Wise, the concept and form of the Palast were imitated in “communist-built
halls” for Prague, Sofia, and Havana (52).

However widespread it may have been, admiration of the Palast was by no means
universal, not even in the GDR. In 1980 Francois Bondy still refers to regret in East
Germany on account of the fallen Schloss. This was decades after the Schloss’
destruction but still before reunification—and perhaps more significantly—while the then
very new Palast der Republik was proudly standing on the very site. He comments on the

role East Berlin and East Germany would play in supporting the Prussian Cultural

Foundation and an exhibition illustrating both the glory and problems of Prussia. With

27

this exhibition came a renewed appreciation for architects and urban planners such as
Schinkel and Lenne who are part of that tradition. Concerning the Schloss Bondy writes:

In East Berlin, the complete razing of the ruined Royal Castle of Berlin and other

such acts of destruction are now regretted, and national pride is tuming toward the

monarchic tradition, architecture and monuments. (275)

After the Wall fell in fall of 1989, the Palast was the site of a monumental
occasion in German history. It was here, in July of 1990, that the Volkskammer voted to
dissolve the GDR and join the West German Bundesrepublik, thereby uniting the German
people once more into a single nation. This event would provide an important argument
for advocates of the Palast in the coming architectural debate, who have said that this
event alone makes the Palast worth keeping on account of its role in reunification.

McFalls brings to light a crucial difference in the post-Wall life of former East
Germans as compared to those from the West:

Whereas West Germans had by and large grown up with or into a modern, liberal-

democratic capitalist society, East Germans had cultivated traditional petit-

bourgeois values—modesty, solidarity, and equality—that were hardly adapted to

a competitive, individualistic consumer society. (303)

Citing J firgen Habermas along with Michael Brie and Dieter Klein, McFalls points out
that “even critical intellectuals in East and West embraced the hypothesis that East
German society was simply retarded in its modernization and would catch up to the West
with time” (Ibid.). This ofi-voiced though uninformed view, on account of its belittling
and arrogant nature, only succeeded in widening the rift between respective supporters of
the Palast and of the Schloss.

Though to some a visible representation of a corrupt East German government,

the Palast der Republik could in no way be equivocated to Hitler’s bunker or the Stasi

headquarters, even to the most biased Western opinion. Neither was the Palast first and

28

foremost identifiable as the place of government, despite housing the Volkskammer,
which met just a few times per year. It was open to the public, a place to be socially
utilized and celebrated by the people of the GDR. In fact, the building itself was far less a
representation of GDR authority than was the ground it stood upon. Likewise, for many,
its erection paled in comparison to the Stadtschloss’ destruction. The Palast’s placement
far outweighed its function in the attention it gained and controversy that surrounded it,

especially after the Wall had fallen. Had it been placed almost anywhere else in the city,

it would very unlikely have ever been in any danger. Considering where it stood and how

_ 4r_" ‘

its predecessor was so hastily removed, however, the Palast der Republik found itself

suddenly the center of a nation’s attention.

29

IV. The Post-Wall Debate and 2002 Decision

“ What the debates reveal above all else is the dilemma of attempting to express a unified
cultural identity in public buildings which are manifestations of a history of political
discontinuity and ideological antagonism. ”

—Godfrey Carr (338)

Reunification has presented Germany with a serious issue, which—according to
Godfrey Carr—the nation had been able to avoid since the end of the Second World War:
namely, what it means to be German. This issue has led to “a profound trauma,” the
depth of which, he writes, “is seen most obviously in the realm of architecture and
especially in Berlin” (336). He then addresses the importance of resolving this issue
through urban planning: “The many ugly gaps in the very heart of the city which were the
legacy of the Cold War now had to be filled, but how and to what end?” (Ibid).

This is another crucial question that has lain at the heart of the Stadtschloss
Debate since Reunification in 1990: how does Berlin move forward architecturally in the
post-Wall era? Nearly two decades later, the question has been answered many different
times in different places throughout the city. Yet, as one might expect, it has hardly been
with the same consistent answer.

Berlin has long been a city with many faces, particularly in the past two centuries.
Consider the whirlwind of political, societal and industrial change that has swept across
the young European metropolis on the sandy banks of the Spree: Prussian monarchy, das
deutsche Kaisertum and the late republic; Fredrick the Great, Napoleon and Bismarck;
Hitler, Stalin and Ulbricht; industrialization, hyper-inflation and war; the Enlightenment,

the Holocaust and the Wall; destruction, division and reconstruction; reunification, debate

and globalization. Each of these persons, movements, events and ideas—as indeed many

30

others—has not only had a great influence on Berlin. Each has also made literally a
“landmark” impression, leaving behind its (his) own ideology on the city’s buildings and
layout. Berlin is an architectural kaleidoscope, which is obviously part of what makes it
so unique in today’s Europe. Through its current urban face Twenty-First-Century Berlin
still bears witness to each of the very different eras it has seen and survived.

MIT architectural scholar Francesca Rogier likens the post-Wall era in Berlin to
the city’s period of A ufbau and change following Germany’s initial unification in 1871.
She writes, “The post-Wall phase of Berlin’s history that began with the 1990 unification
is already being referred to, with a characteristic combination of pride and sarcastic
pessimism, as the second Grr’inderzeit, or ‘founding time’” (44). She cites the addition of
public buildings in Berlin’s center, changes to infrastructure, and “rings of dense
apartment blocks” spilling into rural areas as the parallel factors connecting both eras. In
1871 it was French war reparations that financed the changes; following reunification it
has primarily been Western taxes and entrepreneurial investments.

Rogier’s comparison is quite viable. Of his 1891/92 visit, Mark Twain called
Grunderzeit Berlin “the newest city I have ever encountered,” claiming it “took [him] by
surprise” (Kruse 34). Till entitled her book about the current post-Wall city: The New
Berlin. She quoted one interviewee as saying:

Other cities are completed; you know where everything is. Berlin is not a

completed city yet. In ten years probably I could show the finished product. We

want to say that Berlin is a large architectural exhibition. Each and every year

things change. (38)

Certainly Rogier is on to something with her comparison of the two Berlin eras that saw

the respective “turns” of the past two centuries.

31

One might argue that the city has been in a continuous state of flux since the
Grzinderzeit. While this—depending on how strictly one interprets the term
“continuous”—may well be true, change and growth are not necessarily equivocal. Both
the Grunderzeit era and today’s Berlin are identifiable with unification and growth. In
terms of state unification and a concerted trend toward national unity, the similarities lie
in plain sight.

Most would have to agree with Rogier’s point from an architectural standpoint as
well. The only difference might, in fact, be the increased multi-level complexity of
today’s Berlin, given the range of additional events during the past century of German
(Berlin) history. These events themselves have, in no small way, become part of Berlin’s
present.

Thus, in this post-Wall, pseudo-Grunderzeit era stigmatized by clashing
ideologies and cultural identity questions without answers, the Stadtschloss debate took
center stage. “To rebuild or not to rebuild” was the question in the city divided—no
longer by a wall, instead simply by public opinion. According to Rogier, “the question of

who decides [the conflicts’] outcome is crucial” (Ibid).

The question of what to do with the Schlossplatz quickly became a matter of
public debate and concern after Reunification. The notion of reconstructing a Schloss on
the site was aided by the discovery of asbestos in the Palast der Republik. On September
19, 1990, the Volkskammer decided to close the Palast on account of the harmful material
they discovered in the summer of that significant year. According to Berlin’s

Senatsverwaltungfu‘r Stadtentwicklung, over 720 tons of raw asbestos were found to have

32

been used in some 5,000 tons of the structure’s material—a financially crippling hazard
not uncommon to buildings of this era (“Asbestsanierung”). In October 1997 the
renovation was begun to safely remove the asbestos from the building. After five years
and over € 60 million, the renovation was finally completed in November 2002 (Ibid.).

In 1993 the debate intensified when supporters of the Schloss reconstruction—led
by the Hamburg businessman William von Boddien—set up a painted canopy around the
perimeter of the Schlossplatz, simulating what a reconstructed facade would look like.
The organization Boddien established, called the F arderverein Berliner Stadtschloss e.
V., continues to lead the reconstruction initiative today. The simulation remained into
1994, and was intended to win the support of Berliners by depicting the aesthetic
advantages the baroque Schloss had on the Palast.

Similarly, in 2004, the opposing supporters of maintaining the Palast placed large
white block letters spelling out “Zweifel” (doubt) on the roof of the Palast facing the
West. Their intention was to create just that: doubt in the minds of Berliners as to
whether an expensive demolition and reconstruction were really the best decision.

The Palast der Republik is more than just an expendable building, however.
Godfrey Carr calls it “a relic of the communist regime in a very prominent site” (338).
Given its location, the Palast allowed its proponents to bring their argument of justifying
the place of communist architecture to the arena of a very opinionated and concerned
pubhc.

Advocating the Palast’s preservation and criticizing the Schloss are strategically

one in the same. Thus, a significant part of the reasoning of those who backed

33

maintaining the Palast took on that secondary role: casting doubt on the notion of a
reconstructed Schloss.

One of the major concerns many opponents to reconstruction share is the view
that a return to the glorification of this Prussian architecture will also lead to a renewed
admiration for Prussian militarism. Robert Taylor already voiced this opinion of Prussian
architecture in his 1985 book Hohenzollem Berlin: Construction and Reconstruction.
Taylor summarizes in his introduction: “Hohenzollem kings and emperors tried to use
architecture as a symbolic buttress for their rule” (1). His ideas, though written before the
debate took center stage in the 19905, mirror many of the arguments of the Schloss’
opponents.

As much as it may have meant to Germans, Taylor maintains the Schloss was
always disliked by non-Germans. He writes that non-German historians and journalists
“almost always disliked” the Schloss, and “few. . .lamented its demise” (30). To a 1919
French diplomat, it was “pompous and theatrical;” to a 1972 American merely “an ugly
stone building” (Ibid). To another American, all Prussian palaces are simply “museums
of war” (28).

Despite the unflattering view of the Schloss that certainly may have been
prevalent beyond the German borders, one might inquire as to its relevance. After all, it is
the German identity that is at stake here, namely: how Germans identify with themselves,
their nation and its past. In his 1988 critique of Taylor’s book, Rand Carter criticizes that
the author “relies so heavily not on the judgments of architectural historians (nor on the
view of the majority of the Berlin population). . .but rather on the opinions of ideologues,

politicians, and journalists” (Carter 93). For that matter, especially valued are American

34

and French opinions, “whose own nationalist fervor made them unlikely to respond
favorably to expression of Prussian might and majesty” (Ibid.). Carter also points out the
fact that even Taylor, himself, was writing to an English-speaking audience, which may
have subtly influenced his own portrayal of Hohenzollem architecture (Ibid.). Hence, one
must take caution with the wealth of comments that abound on the Stadtschloss debate.
Impartial perspectives are rare, and scholarly literature is certainly no exception.

Interestingly, Carter points out that even the East Germans had begun to become
more accepting of certain Prussian images. The irony is thick, of course, since those who
indeed tore down the Schloss in the first place were as anti-Prussian as anyone. So Carter:

[T]he East German authorities have within the past decade returned Christian

Daniel Rauch’s Equestrian Monument to Frederick the Great to its original site on

Unter den Linden along with such other former ideological offenders as the

sculptural groups of Goddesses and nude Warriors by assistants and students of

Rauch, which once again stand on the granite pedestals above the breakwaters of

Schinkel’s Palace Bridge. The Baroque Arsenal, no longer seen as a symbol of

“monarchic tyranny,” has been converted into a museum outlining a Marxist view

of history. . ..After four decades of total neglect, the neobaroque Evangelical

Cathedral nearby is under restoration as a symbol of religious toleration in the

socialist East German state. (94)

Hence, even East Germans seemed to have appreciated the architectural value of these
important central structures to German citizens, since they brought some of the structures
back in spite of the ideology represented.

Finally, whatever happens in post-reunification Berlin should not be stained by
ideological prejudices and “we vs. you” comparisons. Rather, those responsible for how
future Berlin looks and what its walls will say must have a different approach altogether.
They must decide the city’s future by looking to its past. They should also let the past

speak for itself, rather than hiding certain parts of it. How, indeed, can history teach us

anything if we are not willing to consider it because we are too fearful of what it might

35

have to say? The city’s walls should explain the past—dark chapters alongside proud
ones—and perhaps influence how a given society impacts the future.

Before November of 1989, a wall prevented Berlin’s two separate identities from
interacting or mixing with one another. Perhaps more precisely, the governments on
either side of this wall prevented any interaction. Carter summarizes Taylor’s prediction
in 1985 that the “current effort of the authorities in both East and West Berlin to use
architecture to score political points will, like that of their Hohenzollem and Nazi
predecessors, probably fail” (Carter 94). To a large extent, time has proven his statement
to be correct. Yet, judging by the conclusions in his book, he would almost certainly
oppose a Stadtschloss reconstruction today. Is that not contradictory? Would not
disguising the past be in itself using architecture (or the lack thereof) to “score political
points”? Carter writes that “great buildings have a way of transcending temporal politics”
(Ibid.). The Berlin Stadtschloss truly was—surely for Berlin and Prussia, if not also for
Germany—a great building.

Taylor calls into question the actual significance the Schloss had to the
Hohenzollem monarchy—a significance upon which much of Schloss advocates’
argument is based. He points out Frederick the Great’s move to Sanssouci in Potsdam, as
well as several of the subsequent kings who had other preferences all the way to William
11, the “Reisekaiser” (traveling Kaiser), whose residence there he also downplays (31).
Were the Schloss not important to the Hohenzollem dynasty—for whom it essentially
was built, and without whom it would never have had such a prominent place in the

city—how could one justify tearing down another building to re-erect it? And this nearly

a century after the last ruling monarch stepped down! Challenging the Schloss’

36

significance to the monarchy weakens its historical relevance and therewith the hope for
its reconstruction.

Contemporaries of the Palast were certainly not the first to criticize the Schloss
and Hohenzollem architecture. The Hohenzollem era had its share of critics as well,
particularly in the Grunderzeit era of the Kaiserreich. Alfred Ddblin entitled a 1910 essay
on Berlin “Das markischc Ninive,” in which he wrote of his hometown: “Hier war vom
Anfang an alles verdorben” (313). The anonymous author of the 1892 essay “Berlin die
Stimmc Dcutschlands?” harshly criticized the city’s architecture as well as the general
appreciation for art there: “Welche chankenarmut, Geschmacklosigkeit und
Oberflachigkeit Berlin in seiner Bauten offen zur Schau stellt” (219).7

Karl Schefflcr8 wrote in 1910 an entire book, entitled Berlin —- ein Stadtschicksal,
on Berlin’s cultural and societal shortcomings, one chapter of which he dedicated to
“Grilndcrarchitcktur.” Despite his extensive, overbearing—if not at times reprehensible—
criticism of Berlin’s Slavic inhabitants, what he writes in regard to Berlin’s architecture is
certainly worthy of consideration. He refers to Berlin as “die Stadt der tausend Stile”
(158), and “dieses tollc architektonische Parveniitum dcr Gcgenwart” (156). He
condemns the capital for its “Traditionarrnut und Kulturlosigkeit” (164), as well as its
“verderblichsten und kulturfcindlichstcn Eklektizismus” (156) and

“Emporkdmmlingsstil” (158). Likcning it to architecture in the young United States, he

 

7 The anonymous author freely voices in this article strong negative remarks toward citizens of both Jewish
and Slavic descent. This citation should be considered only in regard to the anonymous author’s comments
on Berlin’s architecture, as this author wishes neither to reflect nor condone the racially subjective views
expressed.

3 Similarly, Scheffler’s writing includes pejorative sections where he criticizes Berlin on account of its
Eastern and Slavic inhabitants. While considering Schefiler’s assessment of Berlin, the author of this thesis
wishes not to advocate the short-sighted racial views expressed by Scheffler.

37

coins the phrase “yankeehaft” (165), meanwhile citing “amcrikanistische Stupiditat”
(160) and “Quantitat statt Qualitat” (171) as typical qualities of Berlin.

Other contemporaries of Scheffler, such as city councilor Walter Behrendt,
appreciated, for example, Berlin’s American flavor. In his 1929 journal on urban
planning, Behrendt complimented Berlin’s ability to combine “European tradition
with. . .American modernity” (Till 56).

' Yet the cutting and complementary remarks alike are nothing more than a matter
of opinion. The debate essentially has little to do with anyonc’s degree of fondness or
affinity for the city of Berlin. Rather, the Schloss’ historical presence in Berlin and its
value as a baroque representation are the key principles at stake. No one erased certain
buildings from Vienna’s landscape because a group of critics did not care for Art
Nouveau architecture.

Berlin certainly was a working-class city, one that grew exponentially during the
industrial Nineteenth Century on account of immigration and opportunity. Lest we forget,
New York took much the same path—albeit somewhat earlier—to becoming a world
metropole. Chicago was very comparable to Berlin in its Nineteenth Century growth, yet
the cosmopolitan face of today’s Chicago has long since shed its reputation as a reckless
meatpacking city run by bootleggers and gangsters.

Today’s Berlin has no doubt also advanced from its turn-of-the-century state
characterized by Mietskasernen and a poverty-stricken working class. Despite its
tumultuous Twentieth Century full of catastrophe and change, Berlin has regained its
prominent position as Germany’s national capital. Its past will not be forgotten, as there

are many prominent and striking visual places to commemorate that, such as Daniel

38

Libeskind’s renowned Jewish Museum, the T opographie des Terrors, the Memorial to
the Murdered Jews of Europe, and the Neue Synagoge on OranienburgerstraBe, to name
but a few. A new Stadtschloss facade will do nothing to erase these current memorials.
Moreover, reviving the city’s longtime focal point prior politically-motivated elimination
should be no cause for concern in Berlin.

That the Stadtschloss was once the focal point in Berlin is a difficult concept to
grasp in the Twenty-First Century. Today one thinks first of the Brandenburg Gate as
Berlin’s Wahrzeichen: the paradoxical “gateway” to the city that was incorporated into
the Wall for 28 years, but is once again open and heralded as a symbol of unity and
freedom in Europe. Others may think of the Reichstag, the F ernsehturm, Schlofl
C harlottenburg, or the Siegessaule as other symbolic structures in Berlin. Fewer
Berliners remain who have ever seen the Stadtschloss before its 1950 destruction. Even
before its removal, the Schloss was avoided by two regimes over three decades.

Though its prominence was lost early in the Twentieth Century, the Schloss had
always been the Berlin symbol until that point. In his 1822 “Briefe aus Berlin,” Heinrich
Heine provides a vivid description of the Schlossplatz, albeit in his typical ironic style.
He points out the “ewigcs Menschcngedrange” on the lange Brr‘icke, certainly quite
telling of early Nineteenth Century Berlin, when the city was swiftly developing into a
Gro/J’stadt (10). He further describes:

Auf dieser Brilcke ist ein ewigcs Menschengedrange. Sehen Sie sich mahl urn.

Welche groBc, herrliche StraBe! Das ist ebcn die KdnigstraBe, wo ein

Kaufmannsmagazin ans andre grenzt, und die bunten, leuchtenden

Waarenausstellungen fast das Auge blenden. LaBt uns weiter gehen, wir gelangen

hier auf den Schlonlatz. Rechts das SchloB, ein hohes, groBartiges Gebaude. Die

Zeit hat es grau gefarbt, und gab ihm ein diisteres, aber dcsto majestatischeres
Ansehcn. (Ibid.)

39

A century later, in 1931, Schefflcr still wrote convincingly of the Schloss—thirteen years
after it was vacated: “Schliiter’s Schlossbau ist die schbnste Berliner Architektur
geworden” (Wandlungen, 71 ).

Even the Brandenburg Gate was built to complement the Schloss. Intentionally
designed after the Propylaea—entrance to the Acropolis of Athens—Berlin’s gate was
meant to draw attention to Unter den Linden’s culmination. On the other side of the city’s
grand boulevard stood the “Acropolis” of the “Spree-Athen”: the Berlin Stadtschloss.

To fully appreciate many Berliners’ desire for a restoration of the Schloss, one
really must consider the importance of aesthetically significant architecture to the citizens
there. They take a pride in their city’s appearance. According to Jane Kramer, Berliners
continue to believe in their architecture

theologically, the way Paris believes in bread or Los Angeles believes in plastic

surgeons. They live in a capital from which the worst of Germany’s history was

decreed, and now that the government is moving back to that capital they have
convinced themselves that the right buildings will somehow produce the right

attitudes in the people inside them. (“Living with Berlin,” 54).9

Berliners have “believed in” the Stadtschloss as long as any other piece of
architecture in the city’s storied history of growth, turbulence, and change. Since
becoming the Hohenzollem residence in 1443, Berlin was a capital city until its fall in
1945. In 1995, it was once again given the chance to be the capital of a united German
nation.

Without question, the decision to make Berlin the German capital worked in favor
of those advocating the Schloss’ reconstruction. Writes Strom: “The demise of the GDR

and the decision to move the capital of united Germany to Berlin once more prompted

discussion of the political significance of the urban landscape” (68). As the capital city,

 

9 Quoted from Till, 56.

4O

Berlin would be the face of united Germany. What EurOpe and the rest of the world
would see in Berlin would mold their impression of the German nation. Berlin had
become Germany’s beacon once again. Europe eagerly awaits Berlin’s development as an
international metropole, a city reborn into the present era.

With that in mind, how the city looks and what visitors—political guests, business
travelers and tourists alike—see and perceive of the city is by no means unimportant.
Though those local to Berlin are, for obvious reasons, more directly concerned with their
city’s appearance, its urban landscape has also become a matter of national interest.

Moving the capital to Berlin in 1995 also gave Germans a chance to change their
image. Till summarizes the thoughts of “many officials and boosters” regarding the new
government buildings in the Regierungsviertel, who hoped the new architecture would
express “ambition and pride” instead of “the modest discretion” of the former capital,
Bonn (56). Oscar Schneider, building minister to former chancellor Helmut Kohl had this
to say about German identity in future architecture: “We Germans must finally take off
this tattered Cinderella’s dress and find our way back to a healthy self-confidence” (Wise
17).

Many argue that Berlin’s current financial challenges (the city is over € 50 billion
in debt) should be enough to dissuade the city from reconstructing a building bearing the
Schloss facade, which has been estimated at 6 80 million (Berliner Extrablatt, 35). Dr.
Richard Schrbder, Professor at the Humboldt University, criticizes this view by drawing
two engaging while markedly pertinent comparisons in the realm of post-World War II
reconstruction: “Zu tcucr? Die Polcn sind kein reiches Volk und haben trotzdem ihr

Schloss von unten an neu aufgebaut. Die Dresdncr haben mit dem Aufbau der

41

F rauenkirche bewiesen, dass da scheinbar Unmtigliches moglich ist” (“Die Berliner
Schlossdebatte,” 148). These comments bring to light the underlining importance of a
city maintaining a connection to its history. For Schrddcr, as for many of Berlin’s
citizens, that the Schloss should be reconstructed is simply a given. Rather, for them, the
questions are when and how.

Dresden’s 1743 baroque F rauenkirche is the quintessential example of a
successful reconstruction in the absence of ample support from state funding. After
having been leveled in the infamous Allied fire-bombings of February 1945, the city’s
architectural jewel lay in ruins for 45 years. When Germany was reunited, the church
building was the same pile of rubble it had been in 1945. Shortly after reunification,
however, enthusiastic and hopeful citizens founded an initiative to rebuild their church.
The $170 million project was funded solely on the basis of donations—coming from over
600,000 individual benefactors (Siemon-Netto 11). Though some donors—such as the
British royal family—were international, the majority were German citizens.

The scholar Uwe Siemon-Netto now calls the reconstructed church the “most
important Lutheran sanctuary in Germany” (10). Rededicated in a Reformation service on
October 31, 2005, the masterpiece has drawn much international attention in the
architectural community. Boddien’s camp in Berlin was surely watching, as they hope
their own baroque project to the north would have similar success. One factor the Schloss
has in common with the Frauenkirche may aid its donation success: the building will not
have a political function. Unlike the Frauenkirche—which is once again being used by
patient Dresdners as a place of worship—the Schloss will not be used for its original

purpose. The Schloss will have a cultural function rather than a political one: housing the

42

Humboldt Forum along with various museum exhibits will work in its favor. There has
already been a politically-heavy structure recently rebuilt in Berlin—and that for its
original purpose: the Reichstag. Though controversial a decade ago during its beginning
phase of renovation, surprisingly little political controversy still surrounds the home to
the German parliament. The Reichstag’s very existence plays an important role in
justifying the Schloss’ reconstruction. This is further discussed at the end of Chapter V.
Not to be overlooked is the motivation behind Schloss supporters’ objective.
Some, as journalist Joachim Fest, dwelled still on the “Communists’ justification for
destroying the palace in 1950” (Ladd, Ghosts 61). Ladd records Fest’s 1991 statement:
In the worldwide conflict that lies behind us, not the least of our goals was to
prevent the advance of that kind of control. If the destruction of the palace was
supposed to be the symbol of its victory, reconstruction would be the symbol of
its failure” (Ibid.)
Despite the Schloss’ politically motivated removal, no retaliating blow or symbolic nail
in Communism’s coffin should be the reasoning behind the Schloss’ reconstruction. As
Ladd points out, many former GDR citizens “saw the initiative to rebuild the royal
palace, dominated by Westerners, as a denial of their experiences, or as an attempt to
erase an unwanted chapter of recent German history” (62). If revenge were the reason for
reconstruction, the initiative would have no legs on which to stand. Such thinking can
only serve to define the debate as another East vs. West cultural inconsistency, which is
to misjudge the situation entirely.
The debate centers, rather, on the central historical structure of a city deserving

the restoration of this crucial part of its identity. The Schloss once belonged to the urban

landscape that was recognized and enjoyed by its citizens—before there were two groups

43

of citizens separated, at first, only by a geographical distinction. A restored Schloss

would again anchor the urban landscape with which all citizens once more can identify.

Not all Berliners, however, have been in favor of either the Schloss or the Palast.
Many thought the site could be used to build something completely modern—and
unrelated to either of the aforementioned edifices—as a type of compromise between the
two lobbying factions. Says Carr: “Common to all these affairs is a hesitation between
the desire, on the one hand, to link up with the past and, on the other, to affirm the
foundation of a new state with emphatically modern, indeed daring architecture” (33 8).

In the eyes of those wishing to see neither the Palast nor a new Schloss facade,
erecting a modern structure on the Schlossplatz would almost be the perfect answer to an
impossible decision. The decision would thereby grant Berlin the opportunity to separate
itself from its respective jaded pasts suggested by the site’s two previous structures. It
could also be a step toward a unified Berlin—the city of the future.

Yet so many felt that Berlin’s history—for better or worse—is something the city
will never be able to shed. Rather, its history makes a place what it is. Berlin’s residents
will not simply forget what has happened at a given site; nor will historians, scholars,
journalists, visitors or tourists. Rather, history is what defines a city, and to hide from the
past would be neither ethical, practical nor responsible.

Furthermore, cutting all ties to the past is hardly prerequisite to achieving a city’s
desired future identity. On the contrary, achieving a plausible future identity requires
accepting the past—embracing the positive while learning from the negative. No city

with an urban landscape that prominently displays the jagged-steeple of a bombed-out

44

church shell10 and a striking five-acre field of over 2,700 massive stone steles
remembering Jewish Holocaust victimsll is in any danger of forgetting the negative
aspects of its past. Nor can the city’s citizens be admonished for trying to cover up the
past. Rather than replace certain chapters in the city’s history—which would no doubt
still be displayed elsewhere—a Schloss facade would complement Berlin’s visual display
of its history.

Janet Ward discusses Berlin’s modern commercial architecture in her 2006 article
“Las Vegas on the Spree: The Americanization of the New Berlin.” Ward addresses
Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz and other places in association with certain elements of Las
Vegas, which she describes as “ahistorical fabrication and unashamed self-invention”
(83). She points out two main factors contributing to “the Americanization of post-Wall
Berlin”: the influence of commercial architecture and the sale of formerly public
properties to private investor groups (87). In addition to the highly commercialized film
and entertainment district at Potsdamer Platz, which has become a tourist mecca, Ward
references the new FriedrichsstraBe with its row of chic shopping Passagen, the
Hackesche Hofe, and kitschy Checkpoint Charlie (91). These and other places, says
Ward, have contributed to a perceived transformation of the former “Spree-Athen” of
Frederick the Great into “Vegas on the Spree” (89).

As one might imagine, such urban landscape comparisons are anything but
flattering to the European. Ward is able to easily portray the common feeling of disgust

and dissociation widely held by critics, as she assembles an array of outspoken criticisms,

 

'0 Reference to the Kaiser Wilhelm Geddchtniskirche at Breitscheidplatz in Charlottenburg.
” Reference to Peter Eiscnman’s 2005 Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

45

such as Martin Filler’s condemnation of the “grotesque speculative frenzy of the classic
boomtown” that “overwhelmed all other impulses in 19905 Berlin” (96).

What this entire article demonstrates is the large scale commercialization that has
existed in Berlin since reunification. Whether that is good or bad for Berlin, it certainly
has already been widely evident throughout the city. The trend seems likely to continue
in the constantly changing capital, which is all the more reason to embrace the city’s
history at various important sites. No site has been a longer part of Berlin’s history than
the Schlossplatz, where Berlin was born. Future generations of both Berliners and visitors
need more than just simply knowing—they need to be able to see that Berlin’s history
goes much farther back than the 19905 city burdened with the task of unity and
assimilation; that its history goes back far beyond the city that was unfortunately and
abruptly divided by guarded borders and a Wall.

Interestingly enough, however, Ward also criticizes the seemingly obvious
alternative to a modern “Las Vegasization” on the Schlossplatz: namely, a Schloss
reconstruction. She writes:

Any future StadtschloB. . .will surely provide as much of a mélange through

architectural time and taste as can be found by Vegas’s urban tourists as they walk

within (or go on foot or by monorail from and to) ancient Egypt, New York, Paris,
and Venice on the Strip—or, more specifically, when they access the new

Koolhaas-designed Guggenheim-Hermitage galleries that are located inside the

urban mock-up of the Venetian Hotel’s intricate exterior facades. (93-94)

Without offering any solution to the prominent site being vacated by the Palast’s
removal, Ward makes Berlin’s situation out to be a type of catch-22, in which city
planners would have no other choice than to build something that merits sharp criticism.

What she fails to realize (or at least mention), however, is that a new structure bearing the

Schloss facade will have something that very plainly and convincingly distinguishes it

46

from any of Las Vegas’ series of artificial replicas: the genuine original space. That the
Schloss will be reconstructed on exactly the original building’s site makes any Las Vegas
analogy somewhat far-fetched. The new Schloss will share the Museumsinsel with the
Pergamon and Altes Museum, and will stand across Unter den Linden from the
Lustgarten and Dom—not across the Strip from the MGM Grand.

Informed tourists—no doubt well-accustomed to the reality of war as part of
history—will be as forgiving as those who daily flock to the reconstructed door of
Wittenberg’s Schlosskirche where Luther posted his “95 These5;” historians’ depiction of
how Mozart’s study may have been arranged in his Salzburg home; or a reenactment of
the Battle of Gettysburg. History is remembering, visualizing, imagining. As fascinating
as an authentic Pompeii apartment or the Roman Colosseum might be—even as originals,
each is only as intriguing as the visitor’s imagination. The site and surroundings are what
fuel that imagination. In that sense, the “new” Berlin Stadtschloss will be no different in
the historical mood it will create on Unter den Linden, where Schrbder maintains the
Schloss is necessary to anchor one end. Without anything at that end opposite the
Brandenburg Gate, Berlin’s most famous boulevard would be reduced to a “Witz ohne

Pointe” (Schrbder 147).

On July 4, 2002, the German Parliament passed a resolution to remove the Palast
by a vote of 380 to 133, and in 2006 workers began disassembling the structure. This was
the first step in a decision to re-erect another building bearing the Schloss facade. The
financial details for reconstruction remained to be finalized. Costs have been estimated at

6 80 million, the majority of which would be expected from donations and private

47

spending. Yet the die had been cast, and while many mourned the fate of the Palast dcr

Republik, victory had been granted to Schloss rcvivalists.

 

48

V. The Old Facade in New Berlin

“Debate is the death of conversation. ”
-Emil Ludwig

The “new” German republic has taken the place of the two pre-1990 German
states. It is now centered in Berlin, a city long defined by and ever since synonymous
with the East-West rift of the Cold War. Unification and togetherness have been major
themes in the reunified German capital in terms of urban space. In fact, with the move of
the German capital from Bonn to Berlin, it brings Berlin under the public eye—not only
on account of reunification, but also as the most prominent and promising scene for a
nation reunited.

Svetlana Boym describes the impact the fall of the Wall has had on the urban
landscape: “After the wall came down, the former border zone between East and West
became the city center” (178). Within the past decade a modern entertainment district
centered at Potsdamer Platz and the new Hauptbahnhof (formerly Lehrter Bahnhoj) have
been purposefully built on ambiguous space spanning both sides of the former wall.
Hence, neither East nor West Berlin—nor, perhaps more importantly, their former
citizens—can lay claim to either one of the aforementioned sites. Neither can claim one
of these sites as its own, as both citizens and visitors alike have so naturally done in the
years since reunification. Nor could one side criticize the other on account of any such
site. These sites would not fall into an East or West categorization as do so easily
Kurfiirstendamm and Alexanderplatz. Instead, Potsdamer Platz and the Hauptbahnhof
have, indeed by both default and intention, become specifically identifiable only with the

reunited Berlin of the Twenty-First Century.

49

Even before reunification, Berlin had always been internationally recognized for
the quality of its museums and collections. Bondy remarked in 1980 that even despite its
losses, Berlin had become “the most interesting museum city of Europe” (274). Yet
collections were still divided, as was the city throughout the Cold War. During the 19605
West Berlin even built a series of museums as part of the Kulturforum, the site of the
Berlin Philharmonic. These galleries were intended to house West Berlin’s collections
and compete with the Museumsinsel heirloom possessed—as was everything in the old
city center—by East Berlin.

With reunification, however, the museum rivalry ended. Berlin’s museums in east
and west—once fierce competitors—have worked quickly and efficiently to combine
their (i.e. unified Berlin’s) collections and exhibitions in well-organized and convenient
locations, namely the Kulturforum and Museumsinsel. This has helped to create a sense
of unity in the city, a desired effect similar to that which motivated the selection of
Potsdamer Platz and the site of the new Hauptbahnhof as the locations for those new
building proj cots—strategically ambiguous to East or West.

Now no longer rivals, the museum complexes have shared, consolidated and
collaborated art and artifacts, pieces and exhibitions, as they have jointly taken on the
process of renovating the individual historical buildings of the Museumsinsel—several of
which had been in dire need of the same since the end of the war—and semantically
reorganizing the city’s collections in the best way to serve its citizens and visitors. What
planners intend to house inside the reconstructed Schloss facade are the collections

attributed to African, Asian and Native American culture. These collections, currently

50

housed in Dahlem near the F reie Universita't, will culminate a series of collections
representing cultures from all continents of the globe, to be housed on the same small
Spree island that is home to the Berliner Dom, the Lustgarten, Schinkel’s Bauakademie,
and, of course, the site being treated as the topic of this study.

Furthermore, these former exhibits from West Berlin will now be on display in
the former East—or perhaps better stated: the pre-division and now post-unification
geographical and historical center. The Stadtschloss structure will not emphasize Prussia
at the expense of GDR history; rather, it will house a concerted effort to focus on a
unified Berlin in a building that guides memory to Berlin before there was a division, a
totalitarian regime, two wars, or an economic depression. Palast dcr Republik, though a
valid historical structure representing—no doubt—a crucial part of Berlin’s history,
would have been capable of representing just that: merely one of essentially two
“Berlins” during this relatively short, divided era. Moreover, that single era is hardly the
one by which present-day Berliners want their city to be defined at its most central and
historical place.

Thus, in the sense of historical representation and the architectural message it
portrays, a Schloss facade offers two dimensions incapable of being attained by a
potentially preserved Palast. First, in terms of the past, it represents Berlin’s history at its
very roots, long before the tumultuous twentieth century of German history. Secondly, on
account of its purpose and function, the Schloss represents the unified Berlin of the

future, operating as part of the city’s museum collection.

51

 

Some speak skeptically of Berlin and its future at Germany’s political center.
They fear that centralism and nationalism still exist as a sort of sleeping giant that could
be easily awakened by a renewed emphasis on Prussian architecture. In spite of such
doubts, J. K. A. Thomanek and Bill Niven maintain that “Berlin holds more promise than
it represents threat” (93). In fact, they cite many historians who “dismiss fears of
renascent German nationalism” in Berlin (91-92).

According to Hagen Schulze, whom Thomanek cites, contemporary Germany’s
shape, position, the principle of freedom in its Grundgesetz (underlying law), and the
attitude of Germany’s neighbors reassure his view that nationalism in Germany is not a
threat. He (Schulze) argues that today’s shape of Germany is the only possible shape; that
shape and this unified German state have been established—for the first time—with the
consent of the German neighbors; both freedom and unity are now being enjoyed by
Germans there for the first time; and finally, the new German state is part of the West
(Thomanek 91, quoting Schulze 263-265).

J firgen Kocka and Michael Salewski both see the (October 3) 1990 reunification
date as the mark of a brand new era, the likes of which no Germany has ever seen. For
Kocka, it marked the end of Germany’s Sonderweg and the confirmation of Germany’s
belonging to the west (Thomanek 91, Kocka 32). Salewski sees it as the date which
finally, after a 300-year long struggle, defined Germany’s place in Europe (Thomanek
91, Salewski 428).

Thomanek maintains that it is “the lack of inner unity within Germany” that is
still a concern for historians (92). As mentioned above, Berlin’s plan with the

Stadtschloss and its position as part of the Museumsinsel complex is just one in a number

52

of steps the city is taking toward more inner unity in the future. It will require time for
this plan to be effective. It may, indeed, prove to be a generational development toward
accepting Berlin as a unified city. In any case, a great deal of progress has been made in
the decade and a half since 1990. Certainly worthy of additional consideration is the fact
that GDR authorities themselves restored certain “Prussian” structures and objects in
central Berlin, such as Frederick the Great’s equestrian statue on Unter den Linden and
the former armory (Zeughaus) adjacent to the Lustgarten (cf. Chapter 11). Furthermore,
the revived image of the Stadtschloss at Berlin’s geographical center will play an intricate
role in presenting Berlin as a unified city.

Today’s Berlin is pained with its ongoing East-West identity struggle, fueled by
its citizens who refuse to forego the connection they had with their pre-unification
identity. Likewise, many have tried to make the Stadtschloss debate into another episode
of East vs. West—this time on the battleground of ideology in architecture. But to paint
this debate with an East vs. West brush would simply not be entirely appropriate.
Granted, the Palast der Republik was an East German structure, built by the GDR for its
citizens. Yet to regard the Stadtschloss as its West German (or West Berlin) counterpart
is to consciously ignore German history.

Neither the pre- nor post-1990 Federal Republic has ever had any connection to
the building—nor, for that matter, has West Berlin. The people of the GDR only knew
the original building in its damaged state for a few years before its government made the
decision to remove it. Hitler’s fascist state as well as the failed Weimar Republic before it
both shunned the building, which stood essentially vacant for the decades between

Wilhelm II’s 1918 abdication and its 1945 destruction. A return to prominence in Berlin’s

53

central urban landscape would by no means bring a West Berlin element into Berlin’s
center; rather, it would bring a nostalgic return to the Berlin long before the city—and
with it the entire German nation—suffered political division that lasted forty years. In
fact, it would symbolize—if anything—the Berlin even before the tumultuous decades
that have scarred the German identity ever since.

This gesture toward the past Berlin that knew the functioning Schloss will at the
same time be a nod to the future of unified Berlin. The city is in no danger of forgetting
its difficult era of division. Bringing back the facade of the Schloss will insure the
memories of the Berlin that was—before the Twentieth Century wars. Berlin will once
again honor this part of its classical past, just as other European cities proudly maintain a
connection to theirs by celebrating their historical castles, palaces and residences—the

original homes of the cities’ ruling families.

Consider the Polish cities Warsaw and Cracow. While the former saw the mass-
scale World War II destruction parallel to that of Berlin, the architecture of the latter—for
many intents Poland’s historical and cultural center—was left largely untouched by the
war. Sixty years later Warsaw has been built up with modern high-rises and cutting-edge
architecture, taking on the role of an ascending business center in the new, fast
developing Eastern Europe.

Cracow, meanwhile, has thrived as a tourist destination, based largely on its
historical architecture and visible connection to Poland and its past. Buildings such as the

renaissance Royal Castle at the Wawel complex, Sukiennice (cloth hall), St. Mary’s

54

 

 

 

Basilica, and the old university provide a glimpse of Poland in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries.

According to the polish national Institute of Tourism, Cracow welcomed 2.3
million overnight guests in 2004, compared to just less than 2.0 million in Warsaw,
though the latter is a city twice as large (“Arrivals in Accommodation”). 12 The 2005
numbers were just as convincing: Cracow welcomed 2.5 million to Warsaw’s 2.2 million
(Ibid.). This statistic is perhaps more staggering when one considers that Warsaw is much
more accessible by railroad and automobile. Its position between Berlin and either
Moscow or Kiev puts it on major ground travel routes, whereas Cracow is tucked out of
the way in Southeast Poland, at the foot of the Tatry mountain range. Warsaw also
already draws a myriad of political, business and financial visitors as the nation’s capital.

Almost three times as many visitors to Poland arrive annually in Warsaw as
opposed to Cracow (Ibid.). Yet Cracow’s edge in overnight visitors shows its superiority
in the tourist market. The fact remains: Cracow’s place is secured by its historical and
cultural significance to the Poles and their heritage. This is most evident in the face of its
architecture—a message of which visitors are constantly reminded by Cracow’s historic
walls and edifices.

This is merely one example. Consider the other European cultural and political
capitals, whose historical residences and architectural centerpieces have remained and are
still as important to their twenty-first-century citizens as to those of the sixteenth century:
London’s historical Tower; the Louvre in Paris; Prague’s castle complex; Rome’s

Vatican—and the ancient Forum; Edinburgh’s medieval castle; Vienna’s Hofburg;

 

‘2 The statistics are based on the political voivodships of Cracow and Warsaw (Malopolskie and
Mazowieckie, respectively) and not solely on the cities themselves, though each city accounts for the vast
majority of its voivodship’s population.

55

Bratislava’s Primate’s Palace as well as the. fortress perched on a hill above the town; St.
Petersburg’s Hermitage; the Buda castle overlooking the Danube in Budapest. . .the list
could go on to Stockholm, Copenhagen, Madrid, and Athens. Each of these places is a
trademark for its city, adorning the front of visitor guides and brochures and attracting
tourists to the city. Each structure also serves its city’s residents as an important identifier
that has been a fixture of the urban landscape for generations—something just as
important to their ancestors generations ago. Furthermore, each of these buildings is a
source of not only city, but also national pride.

Why should Berlin be any different? Why should the German capital be deprived
of what had been its centerpiece since its beginnings as a Prussian capital? Granted, the
city’s recent (Twentieth Century) history has been somewhat more complicated than
most of the aforementioned cities. But the logic is no different. Berlin should be
permitted to revive a connection to its historical centerpiece, the Stadtschloss: for its city
residents, for Germans, and for visitors.

Some might insist that Berlin, on account of its recent Twentieth-Century history,
has a situation incomparable to the other European cities mentioned above. In this
context, it is crucial that another Berlin structure mentioned in Chapter IV not be ignored:
the Reichstag. Itself the subject of both German and international debate and controversy
in the 19905, the Reichstag was renovated and designed in a way that honored the
original architecture, incorporated a new symbolism, and accommodated Germany’s
parliament all at once. Germans and international tourists line up daily outside the

Reichstag for a free tour of the parliament building or a trip to the unique viewing

56

 

platform in the glass dome. The building has shed its controversy to become an important
structure of identity for even Germans as well as Berliners.

That the government is now represented there rather than at the Schlossplatz
clearly supports the Schloss facade initiative. It will dispel the associations some will
want to make between the Schloss and Prussian nationalism and militarism. Rather than
what will be housed there—a central place anchoring Berlin’s museum system—it is
what will not be found inside the walls of the new Schloss facade that should be
significantly reassuring to skeptics. The government is elsewhere represented—namely in
the new Regierungsviertel to the west. The Schlossplatz and Museumsinsel will represent
and honor the history of Berlin, Prussia, Germany, and now—with the Dahlem museum
additions—various cultures from across the globe. As the cultural center in the capital of
a nation so rich in culture, what better place to visually honor Schltiter et al. by restoring

the grand baroque masterpiece to its original context.

57

 

 

VI. Conclusion: The Stadtschloss as a Symbol of Unity and Diversity in Berlin

“You may delay, but time will not. ”
-Benjamin Franklin

In order to truly appreciate the Stadtschloss debate from all sides, one must
properly consider the various possibilities of what might have been done in regard to the
future of that historic site. This particular study has not merely examined the what: that
is, the decision itself in the various architectural possibilities or elusion thereof. Rather,
the focus here has been on the why: what would these different structures say about the
city, its history and identity in present and future?

With this in mind, let us briefly review the past and proposed potential future
structures on the Stadtschloss site, namely: the l8‘h-century Prussian palace built by
Schlfiter, its modification and maintenance by several generations of the Hohenzollem
monarchy, and its subsequent vacancies during the Weimar and Nazi eras; the GDR’s
debate and solution(s) of the war-damaged Schloss, ending ultimately with the 19705
construction of the Palast der Republik; the proposal of a modern, 21”-century structure,
perhaps of no relation to either of the previous politically-tainted edifices; the
preservation of the Palast der Republik; and finally, the reconstruction of a building
bearing the Stadtschloss’ original facade.

In regard to the two most recent buildings no longer in existence—Le. the
Stadtschloss and the Palast der Republik—what did each of these buildings say with its
very existence on that hallowed site in central Berlin? Then, considering the latter three
proposals of what shall fill that space in the future Berlin—what would each of these

structures have to say about the German history and identity?

58

 

During the Grunderzeit age leading up to the Twentieth Century, Berlin was
growing at an unprecedented rate. Contributing to the grth was the wealth of workers
who had come with their families, attracted by the industrial jobs available. Berlin’s
population multiplied almost tenfold in just two generations.13 Many workers came from
the Slavic areas in and to the east of Prussia. In fact, Scheffler (again with his narrow-
minded approach toward those from Eastern European areas) mentions 720,000 who
moved to Berlin from Eastern areas between 1870 and 1890—as opposed to just 120,000
from the West and South of Germany (Stadtschicksal 123). This certainly added to
Berlin’s diversity, which already had significant French and Jewish populations.

Likewise, since reunification, Berlin has again become known for its diversity.
The city has strong Turkish, Greek, Polish, Russian, Italian, Serbian, and Croatian
communities, to name but a few. As of 2005, Berlin had over 463,000 residents
representing 192 different non-German nationalities. This represented 13.6% of the city’s
total population (Senatsverwaltung, “Bevolkerungsprognosc”).

Berlin’s diversity is not limited to its citizens, however. It is also evident in the
architecture. A one-hour stroll through Berlin Mitte—from Potsdamer Platz to Pariser
Platz and on to Alexander Platz—is all it takes for one to see this kaleidoscope of
architecture on display. Oft referred to as “Stadt der Vielfalt” (city of

plurality/variety/diversity), Berlin fits the bill in many ways.

 

'3 In 1857 the city’s population was 400,000; by 1920 it had grown to 3,800,000 (Harte124, 33).

59

For a final perspective, consider the following words of Christian Morgenstem in
his 100-year old poem entitled “Berlin”:l4
Ich liebe dich bei Nebel und bei Nacht,
wenn deine Linien ineinander schwimmen, —
zumal bei Nacht, wenn deine Fenster glimmen
und Menschheit dein Gestein lebendig macht.

Was wfist am Tag, wird ratselvoll im Dunkel;
wie Seclenburgen stehn sic mystisch da,

die Hauserreihn mit ihrem Lichtgefunkel;
und Einheit ahnt, wer sonst nur Vielheit sah.
Der letzte Glanz erlischt in blindcn Scheiben;
in seine Schachteln liegt ein Spiel geraumt;
gebandigt ruht ein ungesti’rmes Treiben,

und heilig wird, was so voll Schicksal traumt.

In this poem, written in 1906, Morgenstem contrasts night and day, darkness and
light in the massive working-class city of the growing Grunderzeit era, characterized by
diversity. Notice in particular the closing line of the second stanza, where the contrast is
between “Einheit” (unity/oneness) and “Vielheit” (multiplicity). While describing the
look of the city and its architectural face throughout, he writes: “Und Einheit ahnt, wer
sonst nur Vielheit sah.” Interesting is that Morgenstem’s poetic voice senses unity, while
having seen only diversity by daylight. Perhaps he was hinting at the need for the city to
grow and become one, embracing all its diversity. Sadly, the Twentieth Century held all
but unity for the people of Berlin.

Yet, exactly one hundred years after Morgenstem wrote this poem, the Twenty-

First Century has dawned, and Berlin finds itself in a similar position. Germany has once

again been recently united, and Berlin is her new capital city. Surrounded by diversity, its

 

'4 Poem taken from: Die Berliner Moderne, 1885-1914. Eds. Jtlrgen Schutte and Peter Sprengel. Stuttgart:
Reclam, 1993. 297.

60

citizens are witnessing growth, building and change. Poverty is again a challenge, this
time due in large part to unemployment challenges. Vielfalt, T oleranz and multi-kulturell
are the societal watchwords. In fact, the similarities are almost uncanny.

Will this Berlin’s future hold the unity for which the narrator longed in
Morgenstem’s poem? Can unity be achieved while diversity is maintained? In accepting
and remembering its past, what “memories of the future” will Berlin’s citizens have?

If the Stadtschloss debate has proven one thing, it is that Berlin is certainly far
from united—at least in the realm of public opinion. To be fair, no one would have
expected Berlin to grow together overnight following 1990 reunification. And while most
would admit the city has come a long way in sixteen years, the scars of separation—
beneath which lie the healing scars of war—are still quite visible. For many, the pain of
assimilation will not be soon forgotten either.

Yet Berlin’s division will, too, become a part of history—and of memory. While
the respective cultures of the divided Berlin should never be historically neglected or
forgotten, neither shall they remain an obstacle to the city’s hope for a future of unity. In
the closing paragraph of his 2003 book Berlin: Eine kleine Geschichte, Christian Harte]
defines the most dramatic development in Berlin during the past century: “von der
kaiserlichen Kapitale zum Zentrum des GroBdeutschen Reichs fiber die geteilte Inselstadt
wieder zu einer gesamteuropaischen Metropole” (76). The Schloss will bridge the two
bookend eras Hartcl describes: already the central fixture in visual images of the
Kaiserreich, it will regain its prominent place in the future “European Metropole.”

Hartel also highlights the city’s great irony: in spite of once being the living

reminder of Europe’s Cold War rift and still being remembered above all for its division,

61

 

Berlin has become a bridge between East and West in the new Europe. As the capital of
the European Union’s largest nation, and given its central continental position, Berlin has
overtaken such East-West gateway cities as St. Petersburg, Vienna and Istanbul. Though
seemingly always left in the large shadow cast in Europe by London and Paris, here both
Berlin’s position and history offer it a role neither Paris nor London would be able to
accommodate. As Hartel says of the “geteilte Inselstadt”: “In diesen Erfahrungsschatz
liegt auch ihr groBtes Kapital fiir die Zukunf’t” (Ibid).

While time may be the largest factor in Berlin’s division becoming part of history,
architecture will also play its part. With the Stadtschloss anchoring one end of historical
Unter den Linden, the city’s grandest boulevard will once again become symmetric—as
the Brandenburg Gate will once again have its counterpart opposite it. The Stadtschloss
facade will complete the long project of restoring the Museumsinsel, making room for art
and historical collections from Asia, Afiica, and the Americas. Instead of a monarchy, the
military, church, and culture represented on the four sides of the Lustgarten, the island
will feature art, history and culture from the four comers of the earth in that one place.
This atmosphere will complement Berlin’s future role as a city of unity and diversity in
Germany and Europe.

The grandest visions of Schinkel will once again complement those of Schlilter,
and will be appreciated in a time of European peace and stability. Instead of a central
structure that portrays division and ideological competition, at Berlin’s center will stand a
structure beaming with aesthetic beauty and artistic form, and housing a practical
function. The site that put Berlin on Europe’s map will finally regain its own rightful

place on Berlin’s map.

62

 

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