Berlin's Search for a "Democratic" Architecture: Post-World War II and Post-unification

1998/09/01 by Deborah Howell-Ardila
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #European history and politics #German History and Society #Literature and Cultural Memory

paper · doi:10.3167/104503098782487130

openalex publication_date 1998/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23

Abstract

Berlin 1948 and the longest airlift in history simultaneously ushered in the Cold War, with a divided Berlin its best-known symbol, and transformed West Berliners in the eyes of the Allied world from Nazis to victims of Soviet aggression. By 1950, with Germany officially divided, political elites of the East (GDR) and West (FRG) took up the task of convincing their citizens and each other of the legitimacy of their own governments. In spite of the primacy of Cold War rhetoric in the media of the day, however, the most pressing challenge of postwar society for both sides lay in redefining— in perception, if not in fact—political and social institutions in opposition to the Nazi past.

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