Reading (about) Berlin

During the first week of class, our class explored a variety of literature to familiarize ourselves with the history of Berlin and the current efforts to preserve and memorialize its history.

Day 1: Introduction to Berlin: Politics, History, Culture & Introduction to the LC

The entire first week of the course was to be a crash course in German and Berlin history, with a focus on the traumatic 20th century, including the Nazis rise to power, the Holocaust, WWII, division into East and West Germany during the Cold War, followed by reunification after the fall of the wall. After 1990, many debates ensued on how to rebuild, design a new federal government quarter from scratch and re-design the Historic Center of Berlin.

Day 2: From Old Berlin to Nazi Berlin

This day focused on scholarly readings and materials from the pre-wall era. We covered Berlin under the Nazis during the Holocaust and WWII. In terms of Berlin’s urban fabric, the grandiose plans the Nazis had for Berlin to become the ‘world capital’ of Germania remained of course unfulfilled as the Nazis were defeated by the Allied forces in May 1945 and Berlin instead was largely reduced to rubble.

Check out our in-class presentations for Days 1 & 2:

Day 3: From WWII to the Cold War to The Fall of The Wall

This day covered developments after the end of WWI when the victorious Allied forced divided the city into four different sectors, with the Soviet sector becoming East Berlin and the American, French, and British sectors eventually becoming the island of West Berlin that became encircled by the Berlin wall during the later stages of the Cold War. We investigated life on both sides of the border inside Germany’s largest city as it stood divided from 1961 to 1989.

Check out some of the content we prepared for Day 3:

Day 4: After the Fall of the Wall: The Emergence of the ‘New Berlin’

This day covered developments after 1989, giving students a glimpse of the complex redevelopment and rebuilding debates that ensued post-reunification. Dr. Peters was an active participant in these local & scholarly debates from 2000-2010 and shared some of her own work.

Check out some of the content we prepared for Day 4:

Day 4 (evening): Documentary Screening and Q&A: “The American Sector”

In the evening, our LC collaborated with SUA Community Cinema to host Courtney Stephens for a screening of her documentary “The American Sector” about remnants of the Berlin wall scattered across the US.

Selected Course Bibliography

Architekten, G. R. A. F. T., & Birthler, M. (Eds.). (2018). Unbuilding Walls: Vom Todesstreifen zum freien Raum/From Death Strip to Freespace. Birkhäuser.

Bernt, Matthias (2003) Rübergeklappt: die ‘Behutsame Stadterneurung’ im Berlin der 90er Jahre. [Flipped: ‘Careful’ Urban Renewal in  Berlin in the 1990s.] Berlin: Schelzky & Jeep.

Bertens, L. M. (2021). SUCCEEDING BY FAILING: THE BERNAUER STRASSE WALL MEMORIAL AS PERFORMATIVE MEMORIAL. German Life and Letters, 74(2), 203-223.

Bodenschatz, Harald (1997) Planwerk Innenstadt Berlin [The inner-city Berlin master plan]. In Architektenkammer Berlin (ed.), Architektur in Berlin: Jahrbuch [Architecture in Berlin; yearbook], Junius Verlag, Hamburg.

Bodenschatz, Harald (Ed.) (2005) Renaissance der Mitte: Zentrumsbau in London und Berlin. (Renaissance of the Center: Center Building in London and Berlin.) Berlin: Verlagshaus Braun.

Bodenschatz, Harald (2007) “Was braucht Berlin?” In: Altrock, U., Güntner, S., Huning, S., Kuder, T., Nuissl, H. und Peters, D. (Eds.) (2007) Städtebau als Chefsache? Die Debatte um die Nachfolge von Hans Stimmann (“Urban Design as Executive Priority? The Debate over the Succession to [Berlin’s former Senate Building Director] Hans Stimmann.) Berlin: Altrock Verlag

Bodenschatz, Harald (2013) Berlin Urban Design – A Brief History of a European City. Berlin: DOM Publishers. (Second, revised and expanded edition).

Campbell, Scott (1999) Capital reconstruction and capital accumulation in Berlin: a reply to Peter Marcuse. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 23, 173–9.

Cochrane, Allan and Jonas, Andrew (1999) ‘Reimagining Berlin: World City, National Capital or Ordinary Place?’, European Urban and Regional Studies 6 (2): 145–64.

Cochrane, Allan and Passmore, Adrian (2001) ‘Building a National Capital in an Age of Globalization: The Case of Berlin’, Area 33 (4): 341–52.

Cochrane, Allan (2006b) “Making up Meanings in a Capital City: Power, Memory and Monuments in Berlin”, European Urban and Regional Studies 13:1, pp. 5–24

Colomb, Claire (2012) Staging the New Berlin: Place Marketing and the Politics of Urban Reinvention Post-1989 London: Routledge

Draus, P., Haase, D., Napieralski, J., Roddy, J., & Qureshi, S. (2019). Wounds, ghosts and gardens: Historical trauma and green reparations in Berlin and Detroit. Cities, 93, 153–163.

Frank, S. (2016) Wall Memorials and Heritage: The Heritage Industry of Berlin’s Checkpoint Charlie Routledge: New York

Habermas, Jürgen (1995). Die Normalität einer Berliner Republik. Suhrkamp

Harrison, H. M. (2019). After the Berlin Wall: Memory and the making of the new Germany, 1989 to the present. Cambridge University Press.

Harrison, H. M. (2019). After the Berlin Wall: Memory and the making of the new Germany, 1989 to the present. Cambridge University Press.

Häußermann, Hartmut (1999) Economic and political power in the new Berlin. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 23, 180–84.

Häußermann, Hartmut and Andras Kapphan (2000) Von der geteilten zur gespaltenen Stadt: Sozialräumlicher Wandel seit 1990 [From the divided city to the split city: sociospatial change since 1990]. Leske+Budrich, Opladen.

Holm, Andrej, & Kuhn, Armin (2011). Squatting and urban renewal: The interaction of squatter movements and strategies of urban restructuring in Berlin. International journal of urban and regional research, 35(3), 644-658.

Huyssen, Andreas (1997) The voids of Berlin. Critical Inquiry 24, 57–66.

Jordan, J. (2006) Structures of memory: understanding urban change in Berlin and beyond. Stanford University Press, Stanford.

Knischewski and, G., & Spittler, U. (2006). Remembering the Berlin Wall: The wall memorial ensemble bernauer Straße. German Life and Letters, 59(2), 280-293.

Kowarik, I. (2019). The “Green Belt Berlin”: Establishing a greenway where the Berlin Wall once stood by integrating ecological, social and cultural approaches. Landscape and Urban Planning, 184, 12-22.Krätke, S. (1999): Berlin's Regional Economy in the 1990s: Structural Adjustment or 'Open-ended' Structural Break? in: European Urban and Regional Studies, Vol. 6, No. 4

Krätke, Stefan and Renate Borst (2000) Berlin: Metropole zwischen Boom und Krise [Berlin: a metropolis between boom and bust]. Leske + Budrich, Opladen.

Ladd, Brian (1997) The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Latham, Alan (2006a). Euro-Commentary: Anglophone Urban Studies and the European City: Some Comments on Interpreting Berlin. European Urban and Regional Studies, 13(1), 88-92.

Lehrer, Ute (2003) ‘The Spectacularization of the Building Process: Berlin, Potsdamer Platz’, Genre: Forms of Discourse and Culture Fall/Winter: 383–404.

Lehrer, Ute. 2006 “Willing the Global City: Berlin’s Cultural Strategies of Interurban Competition After 1989”, In: N. Brenner and R. Keil (eds.), The Global City Reader, Routledge, 332-338.

Lenhart, Karin (2001) Berliner Metropoly: Stadtentwicklungspolitik im Berliner Bezirk Mitte nach der Wende [Berlin metropoly: urban development policy in the central district of Berlin after the millennium]. Leske+Budrich, Opladen.

Marcuse, Peter (1998) Reflections on Berlin: the meaning of construction and the construction of meaning. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 22, 331–38.

Mayer, Margit (1997) Berlin–Los Angeles. Berlin auf dem Weg zur ‘Global City’? [Berlin–Los Angeles. Berlin on the way to a global city?] Prokla 27, 519–43.

Molnar, V. (2010). The Cultural Production of Locality: Reclaiming the ‘European City’ in Post‐Wall Berlin. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 34(2), 281-309.

Novy, J., & Colomb, C. (2012). Struggling for the Right to the (Creative) City in Berlin and Hamburg: New Urban Social Movements, New ‘Spaces of Hope’?. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.

Peters, D. (2010). Rail City Berlin: rail infrastructure development and intermodality in the reunified German capital. Transportation research record, 2146(1), 60-68.

Rada, Uwe (1997) Hauptstadt der Verdrängung: Berliner Zukunft zwischen Kiez und Metropole. Berlin:Verlag Schwartze Risse.


Richie, A. (1998). Faust's Metropolis: A History of Berlin. Carroll & Graf

Strom, Elisabeth (2001) Building the New Berlin: The Politics of Urban Development in Germany’s Capital City. Landham, MD: Lexington Books

Till, Karen (2005) The New Berlin: Memory, Politics, Place. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press

Welch Guerra, M. 1999 Haupstadt Einig Vaterland: Planung und Politik zwischen Bonn und Berlin [United Capital Fatherland: Planning and Politics from Bonn to Berlin], Berlin: Verlag Bauwesen.

Wise, M. (1998) Germany’s Search for a New Architecture of Democracy, New York: Princeton Architectural Press.