Thank you, Katja, for yet another excellent article on Berlin. As you wrote, Berlin was largely destroyed in the Second World War, both physically and in spirit, and Prussia is no more. But when I first came to West Berlin as a student in 1967, both in West and in East Berlin I met only Berliners, speaking with the Berlin accent. Despite the destruction and the division of the city, Berlin was still Berlin because of the Berliners. That has changed completely. The old Berlin working class district Prenzlauer Berg has become a fashionable area populated by wealthy West Germans. Other old Berlin working class districts like Wedding, Kreuzberg and Neukölln are mainly populated by Turks and Arabs. The real Berliners have become a minority in their own city. In the Berlin S Bahn, you hear more Turkish than the Berliner accent. But looking at the history of Berlin and Prussia, I can see a chance for the future. In the 18th century Berlin had a large French speaking community. They all became Berliners. The famous Prussian general Wilhelm René de l’Homme de Courbière was born in Maastricht. He joined the Prussian army and in 1807 defended the Prussian town of Graudenz (now in Poland) against Napoleon’s forces. The Courbièrestraße in Berlin-Schöneberg has been named after him. The Prussian reformers Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein and Karl August von Hardenberg were not born in Prussia; you could call them immigrants. The foremost Prussian novel writer Theodor Fontane was of French origin. Prussia’s population was heterogeneous. Most Prussians were Lutherans, a minority Calvinists, and another minority Catholics. With the Jews, a total of four larger religious communities existed in the state, along with several smaller free churches. Ethnically, in addition to the German majority, there were Slavic and Baltic minorities, and a significant minority of the population, especially in Berlin, consisted of descendants of French Huguenots. In such a heterogeneous state, the Prussian virtues, such as honesty and frugality, punctuality, order, diligence, and sense of duty that were influenced by Lutheran Pietism and the Enlightenment gave the people living in Prussian a consciousness that united them. Immanuel Kant’s philosophy was another major influence. Is it utopian to believe that something similar could be developing in our time? Looking forward to seeing you in the hotel Adlon on Saturday evening!
I do like the the picture comparisons of then and now , there’s a photo in front of the Reichstag ?? Where the Berliners are chopping up fire wood and it appears that the ground in front is being prepped to grow food
I've just spent this week doing cold War/sww, so I'm very much looking forward hearing about this particular era of history.
Did the same adie a few summers back , it’s never ending 😬, enjoy 👍
Thank you, Katja, for yet another excellent article on Berlin. As you wrote, Berlin was largely destroyed in the Second World War, both physically and in spirit, and Prussia is no more. But when I first came to West Berlin as a student in 1967, both in West and in East Berlin I met only Berliners, speaking with the Berlin accent. Despite the destruction and the division of the city, Berlin was still Berlin because of the Berliners. That has changed completely. The old Berlin working class district Prenzlauer Berg has become a fashionable area populated by wealthy West Germans. Other old Berlin working class districts like Wedding, Kreuzberg and Neukölln are mainly populated by Turks and Arabs. The real Berliners have become a minority in their own city. In the Berlin S Bahn, you hear more Turkish than the Berliner accent. But looking at the history of Berlin and Prussia, I can see a chance for the future. In the 18th century Berlin had a large French speaking community. They all became Berliners. The famous Prussian general Wilhelm René de l’Homme de Courbière was born in Maastricht. He joined the Prussian army and in 1807 defended the Prussian town of Graudenz (now in Poland) against Napoleon’s forces. The Courbièrestraße in Berlin-Schöneberg has been named after him. The Prussian reformers Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein and Karl August von Hardenberg were not born in Prussia; you could call them immigrants. The foremost Prussian novel writer Theodor Fontane was of French origin. Prussia’s population was heterogeneous. Most Prussians were Lutherans, a minority Calvinists, and another minority Catholics. With the Jews, a total of four larger religious communities existed in the state, along with several smaller free churches. Ethnically, in addition to the German majority, there were Slavic and Baltic minorities, and a significant minority of the population, especially in Berlin, consisted of descendants of French Huguenots. In such a heterogeneous state, the Prussian virtues, such as honesty and frugality, punctuality, order, diligence, and sense of duty that were influenced by Lutheran Pietism and the Enlightenment gave the people living in Prussian a consciousness that united them. Immanuel Kant’s philosophy was another major influence. Is it utopian to believe that something similar could be developing in our time? Looking forward to seeing you in the hotel Adlon on Saturday evening!
I do like the the picture comparisons of then and now , there’s a photo in front of the Reichstag ?? Where the Berliners are chopping up fire wood and it appears that the ground in front is being prepped to grow food