The Berlin Reader

Abstract

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East Germany, March 1990: Eine Schubladenreportage

“…Scholarly discussion of these controversies has spawned an extensive literature. (See, for example, Demshuk, 2020 andBernt, 2014) Since the political nature of the settlement between the two Germanys involved the incorporation of the East into the West's existing constitutional structure as a Beitrittsgebiet, (under article 23 of the Grundgesetz rather than article 146) it was feared that the specific history of the GDR visible in its urban fabric would be overwritten in a gesture of capitalist triumphalism. If the ruins of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche and the Anhalter Bahnhof in Berlin had been left standing as a persistent reminder of the defeat of fascism, they also served to underscore West Germany's claim to membership of the postwar capitalist order.…”