Berlin [antikvár]

ßer///2 a/jd Berliners To visit Berlin is to see and to experience one if the most manifold worid metropolies. Today Berlin is not only once again the capital of Germany and the most important industrial and congressional centre, but has also been able to maintain its cultural importance. Berlin has always been a city full of contrasts. On the one hand there are avantgarde structures and the most modem housing estates, on the other farms and windmills, and hardly any other city in the world has as many wooded and water areas as well as greens at its disposal. The mergure of the villages of Cölln and Berlin to form a single unit, in 1432, marked the beginning of a development that was to be continuous. In 1470, Berlin became the seat of the government of the Elector Princes of Brandenburg and, in 1701, the place of residence of the kings of Prussia. In 1750, Frederick the Great gave it an importance on a European scale by increasing its population to 150,000 inhabitants. It was raised to the rank of capital of the German Empire in 1871, and it was to expand at an incredibly rapid rate in the course of the years which followed (Gründeqahren), to pass the figure of one million inhabitants by the year 1900. In 1918, it saw the Republic installed and in 1920 its population reached, thanks to the addition of eight town and country administrative districts, as well as 27 other state properties, a total figure of 4.1 million. During the decade of the twenties, which was indeed a "golden age" for the town, Berlin became the town in Europe in which there blew a refreshing breeze of Art, keen Wit and Culture. The names of Albert Einstein, Max Reinhard and Carl von Ossietzky may serve as mere examples of a list which would be too long to be given in full here. The period during which Hitler's National Socialism held sway cast a dark veil over the city and restricted its activities. Only the Olympic Games of 1936 for a short time restored its international air. No more than thirty per cent of Berlin's buildings remained undamaged at the end of the Second World War, after which the town was occupied by the four great powers. Since 1948, BerUn has, in fact, been subjected to a political division between East and West (the Soviet Sector, on one hand, and the American, British and French Sectors on the other), a division which was confirmed by the building of the 46-kilometer-long Berlin Wall in 1961. The Wall lasted for almost thirty years.