Spittelmarkt is the name of the U-Bahn station where Leipziger Straße meets the Spree—it’s the closest entry into Berlin’s underground from where I was staying. To walk towards it every morning is to walk within a median: on the right rises glass and steel; on the left sinks the perspicuous concrete of the Eastern Bloc. Spittelmarkt services Mitte—a ‘bezirk’ containing the historic centres of Alt-Berlin and Alt-Kölln; but by the 60s—Mitte, as one of the most prominent protrusions of East Berlin, saw the erection of the Mauer on almost all sides. Now, the wall is mostly absent save for the cobblestone scar that weaves through the city; though even without it, where the division once ran still remains entirely decipherable—especially here where the East met the West and the difference can be consolidated by a half-turn of the head. A sprawling, neon-red Coca Cola sign sweeps across the roof of the brutalist apartments behind the Spittelmarkt U-Bahn entrance; trams; manhole covers; Plattenbauten; yellow street lights—remnants and all pieces of anthropological evidence in the wild.
Today, the U2 line cuts through Berlin from Pankow in the East to Ruhleben in the West. Nonetheless, it’s no difficulty to ascertain where the severance was once inflicted; every station from Thälmannplatz (now Anton-Wilhem-Amo Straße) and east of it became part of the East German Line A—one of the two U-Bahn lines established from the East German transit divorce from the much vaster Western counterpart (DDR employed an expansive S-Bahn network instead). U6 and U8, both Western lines, are the only other tracks that run through East Berlin; though to say that they are any sense of a unifying factor would be excessively idealistic. Both these lines are ones that primarily run through West Berlin, save for small intermediate sections that interject into Soviet territory; after all, borders are almost always arbitrary and the Mauer was far from straight. Remarkably, the lines were still allowed to run (for a price, of course), however it obligated the closure of all stations on those lines that fell within the East; the West Berlin trains would not be stopping at any of them—though for technical reasons, they had to tantalizingly slow down. In these geisterbahnhöfe (ghost stations), West Berlin travelers would only be meters away from the East German guards that constantly patrolled every deserted and jaundiced yellow platform, but they would not be there for long; the train will mechanically make its way to the next geisterbahnhof and the next and the subsequent thereafter, until it finally finds itself north enough to emerge into the western side of the wall.
Friedrichstraße is almost one such station, situated on the U6 line east of the wall, its chief difference is that the trains did stop. As an official border crossing with its unique circumstance of being the only one entirely within East Berlin, it was a predictably popular defection site. While the Fernsehturm (Berlin TV tower) is visible from almost every vantage point in the city centre, it’s just out of Friedrichstraße station where it seems deceivingly close, a lingering reminder that one has not yet left the DDR.
To travel further west until the very edges, one will inevitably happen upon Potsdamer Platz—a public intersection left devastated by the aftermath of WWII and remaining stagnant all throughout the Cold War. By 1961, Potsdamer Platz similarly ceased operations as the closest station to the newly constructed Mauer. Above ground, the square (or what was more of a deathstrip during the division) is bisected by the same wall. In Wim Wenders’ 1987 film Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire, not direct translation), Potsdamer Platz is seen as a desolate lot punctuated only by the graffitied concrete Mauer and scattered rubble—likely the most eminent delineation of Cold War era Berlin’s public perception. When one arrives at the same location now, it’s almost entirely unrecognizable—Potsdamer Platz is conceivably the closest one may get to American skyscrapers in Berlin. Also housing one of the largest shopping plazas, it’s perhaps the overzealous reaction—though merited—to the perceived execution of socialism; the modern plaza is poles apart from the neoclassical architecture present prior to WWII. What one will see today is no testament to the history of the city—truly no part of it speaks Berlin’s name save for the constant cyclists lacing through traffic, and that so much is able to arise so quickly out of nothing.
One of the few remnants of history left in Potsdamer Platz is the staggered clefts of concrete wall still standing in the centre of the square against gasoline and tarmac. Between the six sections stand infographic boards; possibly to educate—possibly to create just one more link between every visitor and the Cold War Berliners, that regardless of time—we both are unable to pass through what seems so unimposing, arbitrary, and ridiculous when presented face to face. Once the tallest structure (low bar given Potsdamer Platz was nothing more than flat soil) for meters, it’s now considerably dwarfed by the urban offices and headquarters sprung up around it; one cannot help but feel incredulity that something so insignificant in retrospect had ever been claimed impermeable. Stretching away from both ends is a two-brick-wide cobblestone suture line—marking where the wall once stood. It’s common to find the double row disappearing into coffeehouses and then reappearing from the other side. To stand atop these stitches is to do what no East or West Berliner could ever do from 1961 to 1989, yet today pedestrians cross the fault lines without a glance, children kick their footballs across and chase after them, outdoor tables are set up directly over it, and sometimes, when two people take their coffees—one will have it in the East, the other in the West.
Heading north from Potsdamer will be the most recognizable symbol of Berlin and Imperial Prussia. From the Western side of the Brandenburg Tor, looking east—one may again find the sight of the Fernsehturm between any of its sandstone columns if stood at the right location. Conversely, from the Eastern side peering west, the Siegessäule (Victory Column) will be visible the exact same way. Of course, none of it would have been visible during the years with the Mauer slicing right in front of the gate; passer-bys were kept back with roadblocks, and troops were never a rare sight—as such it was for more than three decades. When the wind from Leipzig arrived in 1989 and the political storm that was brewing refused to scatter, innumerable Berliners who rightly believed that they were standing at the verge of history, and were eager to taste the static, congregated at the Brandenburg Tor on both fronts. Around eleven in the evening of November 9th, the Mauer fell; barriers opened and crowds flooded through—those who could, climbed and stood on top of the wall directly in front of the Brandenburg gate—presumably the first to ever do so. Others, known as wallpeckers, took to the wall with hammers and pickaxes to chip away at the concrete, whether in frenzied rapture or to preserve a piece of tangible history before it slips from between their fingers, it’s impossible to know. What can be known, however, (bar from those already standing on the Mauer) is that as more and more of the wall slipped away to dust and rubble, the Ossis (East Germans) will have been the first in their generation to once again find the Siegessäule peeking through the Brandeburg columns, while the Wessis (West Germans) will have been the first, ever, to see the Fernsehturm (completed in 1969) in the same context.
Today, Berlin—much less Germany—has hardly achieved its quixotic utopian ideal post-reunification. Division is pervasive if one knows where to look. From East Berlin’s livery sodium-vapour lamps besides West Berlin’s LED being still visible from space today, to socialist architecture, the Glienicke bridge being painted two different shades, and widespread political polarisation stemming from extensive long-term inequality between the former West and East (die Mauer im Kopf), it’s evident that the detritus from Germany’s cleaving has not yet retired. There are few paradigms more obvious than that of Berlin’s underground—take the glass of West Berlin’s Zoologischer Garten against the blue-green tiles of East Berlin’s U5 Alexanderplatz; Berlin’s culture, like countless others, has been irrevocably shaped by the 20th century and the Cold War. While its history does undoubtedly extend far beyond just its momentary division, it’s redundant to pretend the consequences of that division must be entirely reversed and homogenised. Berlin is uniquely what it is today because of the distinct customs and way of life developed on both sides of the Mauer. Though nothing will ever be perfect and certain contentions must assuredly be addressed, to not celebrate the riveting outcome no matter how unfortunate the cause is more than a shame. Given that, this will be no elegy for the debris of Berlin’s partition, but rather an ode to how much it’s gained in spite.
