Paul Stangl - Risen from Ruins

Stanford University Press

Stanford, California

2018 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press.

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Stangl, Paul, author.

Title: Risen from ruins : the cultural politics of rebuilding East Berlin / Paul Stangl.

Description: Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2018. |

Series: Stanford studies on Central and Eastern Europe | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017034427 (print) | LCCN 2017035711 (ebook) | ISBN 9781503605503 (epub) | ISBN 9781503603202 | ISBN 9781503603202 (cloth : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: City planningGermanyBerlinHistory20th century. | Socialist realism and architectureGermanyBerlinHistory. | Communism and architectureGermanyBerlinHistory. | Berlin (Germany)Cultural policyHistory20th century. | Berlin (Germany)Politics and government19451990. | Architecture and stateGermany (East)

Classification: LCC NA9200.B4 (ebook) | LCC NA9200.B4 S73 2018 (print) | DDC 720.943/155dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017034427

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Stanford University Press

Stanford, California

Edited by Norman Naimark and Larry Wolff

THIS BOOK is the culmination of a project with roots extending back to my years in graduate school. I would like to thank the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of TexasAustin, which first supported my research on Berlin. In particular, Kenneth E. Foote provided crucial guidance and continues to do so. Karl Butzer and Robert Mugerauer provided encouragement and insights that helped to shape my initial research. Additional thanks to Bill Doolittle and Gregory Knapp. Special thanks to Anton Nelessen of Rutgers University, whose support and instruction guided me in establishing a foundation in urban design that informs all of my research. The publications of Maoz Azaryahu proved invaluable when I was first sorting through an immense literature on Berlins urban landscape and struggling to structure my research. Maoz has since become a helpful colleague and valued friend. Finally, I would like to thank the extremely supportive staffs of the Bundesarchiv, Landesarchiv Berlin, Staatsbibilothek zu Berlin, Stiftung Preuische Schlsser und Grten, and Stadtmuseum Berlin.

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.

Karl Marx, 1852

LITTLE MORE THAN ONE MONTH after the founding of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the new building minister, Lothar Bolz, declared the rebuilding of Berlin after the Second World War a lever to activate the entire population of Germany and... to raise the social consciousness of the entire population. Bolz, a student of Soviet socialist-realist theory, viewed architecture above all as an art in service of the practical and emotional needs of humans. In the ruins of Berlin, with its severe housing shortage and devastated architectural heritage, Bolz saw opportunity. The city would not be reconstructed. Instead, a new building up (Neuaufbau) would win the support of the people and help guide their transformation into socialists. Optimism would displace despair. With revolutionary fervor, a New Berlin would emerge in a New Germany, risen from ruins, as the GDRs national anthem proclaimed.

This book examines city building in East Berlin from the end of World War II on May 8, 1945, until the construction of the Berlin Wall on August 13, 1961a period of great interest in reshaping the city to express new political ideals. After centuries of growth, Berlins destruction during the war confronted political and cultural leaders with myriad decisions about what to demolish, what to restore, what to reconstruct, and what to build. Throughout the postwar era, German Communists would exert the greatest influence in this regard, due to their immediate influence in the administration of Berlin and the fact that after the division the historic core of the city lay in East Berlin. The center of Berlin might have been completely restored, or it might have been totally razed in favor of a sanitized modern city. Something between these extremes occurred, however, as decision-makers operated within the constraints of existing cultural, political, and economic frameworks. Their approach to city building was shaped by their worldviews and political ideologies, beliefs about the relationship between urban form and society, political strategizing at municipal, national, and international levels, and assessments concerning the deployment of limited resources. These motives were further complicated by the great political, ideological, and theoretical instability and change during this era. The imprint of the decisions made throughout these years are evident all over Berlin today. These same issues had similar effects on hundreds of cities across central and Eastern Europe during the Cold War.