Nazism and war had devastated Berlin. The city was divided into different zones under Allied administration, but cooperation soon broke down. While the Soviets retained control over the central and eastern districts, the western sectors were administered by the Americans, British, and French. Following the Berlin blockade and airlift of 1948–49, the division of Berlin was effected with the foundation of the Federal Republic (FRG) in the west and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the east. The two halves of the city began to diverge, with rebuilding under different ideological auspices in the 1950s. Growing discontent with an economically constrained and politically repressive system under communism meant that many East Germans were using crossing points that were still open within Berlin in order to escape via West Berlin to West Germany. The erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961 sealed both the division of the city and the division between West and East Germany.

On 3 October 1990 the newly constituted federal states (Länder) joined an enlarged Federal Republic of Germany, as the Unification Treaty came into effect. Reunification had a fundamental impact on Berlin in just about every respect: topographically, in terms of borders, buildings, and infrastructure; socially, in terms of the economy, communities, culture, and life-styles; and also in the sphere of the imaginary, of self-representations and reflections, and selective preservation of traces of an always controversial past. A third of a century later, the divided Berlin of the Cold War era was becoming virtually unimaginable. Alongside major social and economic transformation, the landscapes of memorialisation became overwhelming. Berlin is perhaps unique among major capital cities in displaying such a level of national shame in public remembrance of the victims of its own previous misdeeds.

Berlin was devasted by the destructive impact of the Thirty Years War. But Elector Frederick William, who had been brought up as a Calvinist and educated in the Netherlands, transformed challenges into opportunities. Using the threat of continued warfare as a pretext, he took advantage of the weakness of both the landed nobility and urban burghers to impose new taxes in order to maintain a standing army. Known as ‘the Great Elector’, he also engaged in active immigration policies to repopulate devastated lands and stimulate manufacturing and trade. The immigration of French Huguenots, as well as a small Jewish community, significantly affected Berlin’s profile and subsequent development. Frederick III, who took over as Elector in 1688, crowned himself King in Prussia in 1701, and transformed Berlin into the seat of a royal residence.

Now capital of the Federal Republic of Germany, and playing a leading role in Europe and the wider world, Berlin has risen from insignificant origins in two small medieval trading centres on swampy soil at the confluence of two rivers, the Spree and the Havel, in the Brandenburg marches (or Mark) in the centre of Europe. This chapter introduces the notion of a key moment, and outlines the three elements guiding the book: people, or changing demographic profiles; place, or the ways in which the size, shape, and principal functions of the city changed over time; and identity, or the ways in which Berliners and others imagined the city and constructed an ever-changing present in light of selected aspects of the past and contested aspirations for the future.

Adolf Hitler sought to transform Berlin as capital of the Nazi Third Reich. Berlin’s topography of power changed dramatically, including the construction of grandiose new buildings and the imposition of ideological visions on both housing and public spaces. Nazi plans for ‘Germania’ were never fully achieved; instead, the impact of Nazi rule was destructive. The overwhelming majority of Berlin Jews who did not flee abroad in time were ultimately deported to ghettos, slave labour, and extermination camps, as were Roma and Sinti; only a tiny minority survived. During the war, Berlin’s already militarised architecture was massively augmented by the building of flak towers, bunkers and air-raid shelters. By the time of defeat in 1945, the city lay in ruins, devastated by the effects of bombing and having been forced to continue fighting to the last. Surviving Berliners eked out a living among ruins, searching for food and fuel, and fearing rape or robbery by Soviet troops.

By the 1960s, quite different societies were developing in the two halves of Berlin, one under capitalist auspices and the other under communism. With West German Chancellor Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik in the early 1970s, a series of treaties resulted in recognition of the GDR and easing of travel restrictions from west to east. Under GDR leader Erich Honecker, the modernity of ‘actually existing socialism’ was expressed in an energetic housing development programme, significant public buildings, and some leeway for cultural experimentation; yet the secret police or Stasi continued to expand, and the physical apparatus of the Wall was further refined. Divergent identities between East and West were evident not only in differing political ideologies, social profiles, and degrees of freedom, consumerism, and material well-being, but also in patterns of historical memorialisation. In the 1980s the economic and environmental decline of the GDR became ever more visible. Growing unrest culminated in challenges to communist rule and the opening of the Wall on 9 November 1989, and led to German reunification in October 1990.

With the foundation of Imperial Germany in 1871, Berlin became capital of an enlarged and increasingly significant Empire, or Reich. Unification precipitated an economic boom, soon followed by a crash; but industry continued to expand rapidly, with an exponential growth of the population through immigrants seeking work in the city. In the half century following unification the population quadrupled, from around one million in 1871 to nearly four million in the expanded metropolis of Greater Berlin in 1920. New forms of transportation altered the dynamics of the city, while adequate housing and public health became matters of growing concern. In an era of competing nation states, Imperial Germany too began to acquire overseas colonies, including in southwest Africa and eastern Africa (today’s Namibia and Tanzania) as well as elsewhere in Africa and the Pacific. But defeat in the First World War shattered the dreams of the newly rich, the imperialists and colonisers, those who trumpeted racial superiority and dreamed of world mastery.

The era of enlightened absolutism in the eighteenth century was a moment that decisively shaped Berlin in all senses: topographically and architecturally; socially, both at the time and subsequently; and in the cultural imaginary, in terms of what we think of as ‘Berlin’ today. In the reigns of Frederick William I (1713–40), the ‘Soldier King’, and his son Frederick II (1740–86), ‘Frederick the Great’, Berlin was transformed from a small courtly city into a significant European capital, a garrison town in a powerful European state. The administrative system was developed and reformed, while military exploits abroad led to the growth of the composite state of Brandenburg-Prussia. Under Frederick II Berlin also became a centre of ‘enlightened absolutism’, in which intellectual pursuits, educational institutions, the arts, and culture were fostered. Religious toleration and social diversity were rooted in policies of fostering economic growth through welcoming productive immigrants. By the end of the century, Berlin’s population was growing, and its intellectual life thriving, but its military might was in decline.

Following military defeat in 1918, the Emperor abdicated and a Republic was declared. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles imposed devastating terms on Germany. Social, economic, and political instability fostered the growth of radical ethno-nationalist movements. Once the great inflation of 1923 had been brought under control, and reparations and foreign relations were subjected to renegotiation, the political system began to stabilise. Berlin continued to expand as an industrial metropolis, with an improved transport network and major factories between the nineteenth-century red brick churches, schools, and municipal buildings. Immigration continued, including workers from the provinces and Jews fleeing pogroms in eastern Europe. A ferment of intellectual and artistic creativity contributed to ‘Weimar culture’, while Berlin also became noted for cabaret, night life, and challenges to traditional sexual mores. Following the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the German economy collapsed, precipitating further political instability. In a situation of near civil war, on 30 January 1933 President Hindenburg appointed the leader of the NSDAP, Adolf Hitler, as German Chancellor in a mixed cabinet.

A brief epilogue suggests that any attempt to capture the ‘essence’ of Berlin is predestined to be rapidly outdated, as the city continues to develop and change, and Berliners of widely differing backgrounds and outlooks contest alternative ways forwards in a conflict-ridden world. And this self-awareness, this energetic engagement with both the past and the future, is itself an inherent part of the city’s ever ambiguous appeal.

Following military defeat by France in 1806 and domestic reforms in the Napoleonic era, after 1815 Berlin became capital of a larger and more important Prussian state, stretching from eastern outposts by the Baltic to western provinces in the Rhineland. As trade and industry grew, Berlin began a further striking transformation: from being primarily a princely residence and garrison town to a rapidly expanding industrial city. A new sense of German nationalism began to develop, alongside the development of bourgeois culture and associated institutions and buildings, while early industrialisation also meant the growth of an impoverished working class. Political eruptions in France in 1848 sparked unrest across central Europe, including Berlin. Following defeat of the revolutionary and nationalist movements in 1848–49, authoritarianism backed by military might prevailed over liberalism in a new period of reactionary conservatism under Chancellor Bismarck. In 1871, Bismarck brought about the unification of ‘small Germany’, excluding Austria, by policies of ‘blood and iron’.

The moment that Albert the Bear conquered the Wends is often viewed as foundational. So too are the moments when the two settlements of Cölln and Berlin are first mentioned in written records. The chapter sketches the development of the emerging twin trading towns during the medieval centuries, marked by continuing immigration and punctuated by periodic violence and bouts of plague. It concludes with the advent of Hohenzollern rule, when citizens lost their powers of self-government and the city began to be transformed into a courtly residence.