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Berlin Now: The City After the Wall
柏林
它既是歐盟火車頭德國的心臟，
卻也是歐洲各大城市中容貌最醜、歷史最短的灰姑娘。
它曾象徵了民主自由與集權鐵幕的冷戰，被一堵圍牆割裂為兩個世界，
但在納粹時代卻是歐洲最繁華、最燈紅酒綠的性解放之都。
儘管德國人以嚴謹與紀律聞名於世，
21世紀的柏林卻吸引了全球最叛逆的藝術家與最具創造力的企業家。
德國最知名的左派作家彼得•施奈德的深度導覽，
讓我們知道為什麼柏林人總愛驕傲地大喊：
「這就是柏林！」
（Das Ist Berlin!）
柏林既不是歐洲最漂亮、也不是最古老的城市；它的建築與市容不及巴黎或羅馬，它的博物館館藏也比不上倫敦或巴塞隆納。然而，作者卻告訴我們，當他在紐約、台拉維夫（Tel Aviv）或羅馬碰到當地人問他從哪裡來而他回答「柏林」時，他們的眼神便立刻發亮起來。
本書是一位柏林人對於自己身處的這座充滿活力的城市充斥的各種誘惑所展開的長期而廣泛的、機伶而大膽的探索，並在一些普遍的說法之外，繼續摸索它的魅力所在：因為沒有營業時間的限制而益加發達的夜店文化、由於低生活消費而蓬勃發展的藝術家聚落等。作者施耐德用他的文字帶領我們深入了解這座變化快速的大都會，例如，在波茨坦廣場施工時期，柏林國家歌劇院音樂總監巴倫波英在工地裡為一齣不尋常的「起重機芭蕾舞」進行的一場音樂伴奏；柏林的青年創業家如何在沒有公共資金的挹注下（比方說，史普雷河畔的傳奇夜店「雄貓霍次希」）反而比市政府的官員對於柏林市做出更大的貢獻。
施耐德向來以書寫柏林著稱，他在一九八二年發表的經典小說《跨越圍牆的人》（Der Mauerspringer）裡，便以風趣的筆觸及充滿哲理的沉思描繪柏林人在柏林圍牆的陰影下平凡細瑣的生活，本書則是他這一系列書寫柏林的書籍中最新的一大力作。施耐德能用他的妙筆敏銳而詼諧地勾勒出柏林的神髓與精粹，不僅因為他長期關注與探究這座城市，還因為他身為德國藝文界的名人，經常與社會名流往來，因此，對於某些人事物的來龍去脈能有不同的觀察角度以及難得的第一手資訊。
它既是歐盟火車頭德國的心臟，
卻也是歐洲各大城市中容貌最醜、歷史最短的灰姑娘。
它曾象徵了民主自由與集權鐵幕的冷戰，被一堵圍牆割裂為兩個世界，
但在納粹時代卻是歐洲最繁華、最燈紅酒綠的性解放之都。
儘管德國人以嚴謹與紀律聞名於世，
21世紀的柏林卻吸引了全球最叛逆的藝術家與最具創造力的企業家。
德國最知名的左派作家彼得•施奈德的深度導覽，
讓我們知道為什麼柏林人總愛驕傲地大喊：
「這就是柏林！」
（Das Ist Berlin!）
柏林既不是歐洲最漂亮、也不是最古老的城市；它的建築與市容不及巴黎或羅馬，它的博物館館藏也比不上倫敦或巴塞隆納。然而，作者卻告訴我們，當他在紐約、台拉維夫（Tel Aviv）或羅馬碰到當地人問他從哪裡來而他回答「柏林」時，他們的眼神便立刻發亮起來。
本書是一位柏林人對於自己身處的這座充滿活力的城市充斥的各種誘惑所展開的長期而廣泛的、機伶而大膽的探索，並在一些普遍的說法之外，繼續摸索它的魅力所在：因為沒有營業時間的限制而益加發達的夜店文化、由於低生活消費而蓬勃發展的藝術家聚落等。作者施耐德用他的文字帶領我們深入了解這座變化快速的大都會，例如，在波茨坦廣場施工時期，柏林國家歌劇院音樂總監巴倫波英在工地裡為一齣不尋常的「起重機芭蕾舞」進行的一場音樂伴奏；柏林的青年創業家如何在沒有公共資金的挹注下（比方說，史普雷河畔的傳奇夜店「雄貓霍次希」）反而比市政府的官員對於柏林市做出更大的貢獻。
施耐德向來以書寫柏林著稱，他在一九八二年發表的經典小說《跨越圍牆的人》（Der Mauerspringer）裡，便以風趣的筆觸及充滿哲理的沉思描繪柏林人在柏林圍牆的陰影下平凡細瑣的生活，本書則是他這一系列書寫柏林的書籍中最新的一大力作。施耐德能用他的妙筆敏銳而詼諧地勾勒出柏林的神髓與精粹，不僅因為他長期關注與探究這座城市，還因為他身為德國藝文界的名人，經常與社會名流往來，因此，對於某些人事物的來龍去脈能有不同的觀察角度以及難得的第一手資訊。
336 pages, Hardcover
Published August 5, 2014
61 people are currently reading
600 people want to read
About the author
Peter Schneider
346 books26 followersPeter Schneider is a German novelist. His novel Lenz, published in 1973, had become a cult text for the Left, capturing the feelings of those disappointed by the failure of their utopian revolt. Since then, Peter Schneider has written novels, short stories and film scripts, that often deal with the fate of members of his generation. Other works deal with the situation of Berlin before and after German reunification. Schneider is also a major Essayist; having moved away from the radicalism of 1968, his work now appears predominantly in bourgeois publications.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 71 reviews
September 16, 2021
Peter Schneider made his reputation in the early 1980's and 90's, a well-placed journalist explaining both divided and reunified Germany to the outside world. The idea here is to explain how Berlin has evolved since the momentous events of 1989 -- a doomed project, really, as it quickly grew obsolete since its 2014 publication. Schneider himself, aged about seventy when it was published, may not have been the right guy to write this. The essay collection has some nice moments but seems jumbled, random and often self-congratulatory.
I've spent some time in Berlin, both East and West, pre- and post-unification, and never warmed up to the place. Germans are almost without peer in building towns and small cities, but big cities seem to be beyond their skillset. As Schneider would have it, it most appeals to the young, who can't really afford to live in the nicer areas of the country; in its very wretchedness lies its appeal. Except it sounds much better when he writes it! He is a professional, after all.
No sense writing a full review here, since virtually nobody will be reading this book anymore.
I've spent some time in Berlin, both East and West, pre- and post-unification, and never warmed up to the place. Germans are almost without peer in building towns and small cities, but big cities seem to be beyond their skillset. As Schneider would have it, it most appeals to the young, who can't really afford to live in the nicer areas of the country; in its very wretchedness lies its appeal. Except it sounds much better when he writes it! He is a professional, after all.
No sense writing a full review here, since virtually nobody will be reading this book anymore.
October 22, 2023
Three quarters of this book is exactly the kind of backstory drama I didn't know I wanted to read. Although as this book is from 2014 I don't know how much it can be described as Berlin Now. The other quarter is the author bemoaning how Muslim residents of Berlin aren't assimilating like he thinks they should. I definitely interpreted it as a "old man yells at clouds" situation until I read the author's Wikipedia page and saw he was active in leftist politics when younger. Then again I also know American liberals who handwring like this about immigration as well. I find the author's moral panic to be a huge blot on the rest of the book.
The other major flaw: this book desperately needs one or more maps and a whole bunch of photographs, even if the author had to take his own photos to reduce costs. I definitely had to use my phone extensively to Google places and buildings referenced, especially when reading the chapter about the rebuilding of the Potsdamer Platz.
The book was definitely helpful to gain some insight into the Berlin I visited and to see how different what I experienced was from how it had been, even a decade ago. Even the Humboldt Center that the author grumbles will never going to be built is now open. I did appreciate getting the entire backstory of the Holzmarkt 25 and how it relates to issues of gentrification in former East Berlin.
In general it was helpful to see the ways in which Berlin is grappling with the same issues as New York City, and how it succeeds and how it doesn't. I definitely came to better understand why some people think the two cities are similar even if they look very different.
The other major flaw: this book desperately needs one or more maps and a whole bunch of photographs, even if the author had to take his own photos to reduce costs. I definitely had to use my phone extensively to Google places and buildings referenced, especially when reading the chapter about the rebuilding of the Potsdamer Platz.
The book was definitely helpful to gain some insight into the Berlin I visited and to see how different what I experienced was from how it had been, even a decade ago. Even the Humboldt Center that the author grumbles will never going to be built is now open. I did appreciate getting the entire backstory of the Holzmarkt 25 and how it relates to issues of gentrification in former East Berlin.
In general it was helpful to see the ways in which Berlin is grappling with the same issues as New York City, and how it succeeds and how it doesn't. I definitely came to better understand why some people think the two cities are similar even if they look very different.
May 12, 2022
3.5 stars, rounded up
September 23, 2016
Having recently read, and loved, Emanuel Litvinoff’s wonderful 'The Lost Europeans’ I wanted to read more about Berlin, a city I have yet to visit despite being interested in it for decades.
'Berlin Now: The Rise of the City and the Fall of the Wall' by Peter Schneider, published in 2014, is a very readable account of the changes in Berlin since the fall of the wall in 1989. It's an interesting account of a fascinating city that makes me even keener to go and see it for myself.
'Berlin Now: The Rise of the City and the Fall of the Wall' is a blend of memoir, history and reportage that makes a perfect primer for the first-time visitor.
'Berlin Now: The Rise of the City and the Fall of the Wall' by Peter Schneider, published in 2014, is a very readable account of the changes in Berlin since the fall of the wall in 1989. It's an interesting account of a fascinating city that makes me even keener to go and see it for myself.
'Berlin Now: The Rise of the City and the Fall of the Wall' is a blend of memoir, history and reportage that makes a perfect primer for the first-time visitor.
February 2, 2017
I read the book Berlin: Portrait of a City Through the Centuries and I really loved the unique way the history of Berlin was addressed. It also got me on a bit of a Berlin kick. I found myself nostalgic for a city I had lived in for two weeks in the 90s and visited so many other times. I saw this book while researching info found in the Portrait of a City book. I've used some of Peter Schneider's work in my classes and, though I didn't know who he was then, I stumbled upon his book reading in Heidelberg. Therefore, I felt like I couldn't pass it up.
Each chapter of this book could be read on its own, much like with Portrait. This is where the comparisons stop. I found this to be rather boring and it took me a long time to get through it. I didn't find myself feeling nostalgic for the city I knew, nor excited about all that has occurred since I was last there some 16 years ago. It's strange that this book was unable to create either emotion. It was a bit heavy on the architecture and thinner on the personal stories. I enjoyed the chapter on the Stasi and the ones on immigration, but found it, overall, very easy to put down and hard to pick back up.
Each chapter of this book could be read on its own, much like with Portrait. This is where the comparisons stop. I found this to be rather boring and it took me a long time to get through it. I didn't find myself feeling nostalgic for the city I knew, nor excited about all that has occurred since I was last there some 16 years ago. It's strange that this book was unable to create either emotion. It was a bit heavy on the architecture and thinner on the personal stories. I enjoyed the chapter on the Stasi and the ones on immigration, but found it, overall, very easy to put down and hard to pick back up.
November 9, 2021
The first half of the book is really good and describes many interesting things about the city and its history and culture. However, about halfway through the author starts to tell stories that feel extremely self important, and he starts dipping into frames of reference that feel xenophobic and populist conservative. He does spend time praising initiatives opposing xenophobia, but as his narrative develops, he shows which forms of xenophobia he favours. I couldn't finish the last few chapters of the book because of the problematic shift. I wouldn't recommend it.
February 3, 2015
Pleasant enough read but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it.
January 1, 2020
Published in 2014, the year of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, this multifaceted and engagin portrait of the city, especially the many changes it has undergone and problems it has faced over the decades encompassing its post-war division, the 28 years during which the Wall physically separated its two halves and the quarter of a century of trying to meld those two halves back together makes interesting reading both for those intimately familiar with the city, its people, sights, nightlife, curiosities and quirks and for those who have yet to discover it.
April 30, 2018
I didn’t love Berlin when I visited. I was tired, and I was led on long walking tours throughout the city. It was strangely sunny, and the sun beat down on me with unfamiliarity. It wasn’t until the day I left, when I walked past the S-Bahn tracks and to little shops, that I began to appreciate the life that hummed under its greyness. Later that summer, I read The Wall Jumper and revisited Berlin in my mind, albeit a past version of what I had seen. I began to fall in love with its pace and the young people drinking beer on patios in Mitte and old women with head scarves and grocery bags and all the other things I had seen. I more fully felt the force of history and memorialization that defines Berlin. Reading Berlin Now had the same intimate, lyrical power of Schneider’s fictional work. Each chapter was a treasure trove of facts that seemed to uncover corners of the city. I fell in love, and I can’t wait to travel back soon.
October 26, 2015
Schneider a long time resident of Berlin, reflects on what makes it such a unique city. He delves into the architecture that has evolve with the spliting and reuniting of a city. He explores the night clubs and various neighborhoods. And he talks about remembrance and the power of history, that can weigh down a city. And the challenges of immigration, both from the East to the West and from the Middle East to Europe.
Why I started this book: Berlin is a fascinating city, full of history, energy and problems.
Why I finished it: I struggled with the first part of the book. If I read this right before taking a trip to Berlin, I think that I would have enjoyed the architecture more. Interesting glimpses into what makes a city tick... and the politics of living with a horrible history.
Why I started this book: Berlin is a fascinating city, full of history, energy and problems.
Why I finished it: I struggled with the first part of the book. If I read this right before taking a trip to Berlin, I think that I would have enjoyed the architecture more. Interesting glimpses into what makes a city tick... and the politics of living with a horrible history.
September 18, 2014
I finished about half of this book before a trip to Berlin. The essays I had read were fascinating and while walking around the city, I was able to point out places I had read about and offer my husband interesting bits of history, context, politics, and trivia. Schneider does an excellent job of describing the culture of the city. I’m only just starting to delve into the unique history of Berlin and this was a great starting point.
October 31, 2014
Peter Schneider has very little new or original to say about the New Berlin.
Here are some quotes:
Cinderella Berlin
p.7 – Today, half of Berlin’s tourists come from abroad, and their numbers continue to grow every year. Forecasts already predict that the city, which currently counts 25 million overnight visitors, could soon catch up with Paris (37 million overnight visitors), thus making it second only to London.
p.8 – Cinderella Berlin offers an inestimable advantage over these princess cities: it gives all newcomers the feeling that there is still room for them, that they can still make something of themselves here. It is this peculiarity that makes Berlin the capital of creative people from around the world today.
p.10 – the three friends had to carry the couch several blocks and up five flights of stairs to their apartment. They succeeded because they had to succeed.
Potsdamer Platz
p.30 – And what’s the rush anyway? Why does the area have to be developed in just four years? Why not let the city grow there organically over the next twenty to thirty years? And does the entire plot really have to be covered with buildings? Couldn’t part of it be set aside for the generations to come?
p.35-36 – Renzo Piano: “You create a space not for life with its unpredictable, biological rhythms, but for virtual life. This kind of awakening by bombardment scares me sometimes.” Can’t something be left unfinished, I asked, some small part of the construction area set aside for the ideas and revisions of future generations? The financial constraints of a large-scale project like this are despotic, Piano replied. They don’t allow for leaving openings. It would be expecting too much of him as an architect to leave untouched any part of an area he had been hired to develop.
p.37-38 – Hotel Esplanade: before leaving for Hollywood, Billy Wilder had earned a reputation as a gigolo, working for five deutsche marks and a free meal. He taught dolled-up ladies aged twenty to fifty how to dance the Charleston. […] In this same hotel, in 1944, conspirators in the July plot against Hitler waited for the code word “Valkyrie.”
Berlin Schloss versus Palace of the Republic
p.51 – Talent, according to one definition, is the ability to be in the right place at the right time.
West Berlin
p.63 – The name West Berlin refers to a city that no longer exists. With “Where Are We Now?” his new song about the time he spent in West Berlin, David Bowie – who lived on Hauptstraβe in the Schöneberg district in the 1970s – has unleashed a veritable wave of nostalgia.
p.71 – In the summer of 1962, I boarded a train in Freiburg, arriving in the Prussian metropolis the following day. It was the farthest distance you could travel within West Germany – some five hundred miles. I wanted to go to Berlin for the same reason that most students of my generation chose this city: studying in the “front city” counted as a sort of voluntary military service – if you studied in West Berlin, you were exempt from serving in the Bundeswehr.
Clubs
p.147 – Pippi Longstocking’s motto: Do things the way you like. That’s the only way to make sure they turn out right!
p.152 – In Berlin, it seems, in the end everything becomes either art and/or memorial, irrespective of whether you’re dealing with the Holocaust, World War II bombardments, or the division of Germany. And maybe that’s a good thing.
What Happened to the Wall Anyway?
p.156 – Ever since Joe Hatchiban started hosting karaoke parties in the amphitheatre and handing out trash bags to the audience afterward, Mauerpark has become clean and green.
p.157 – At more than fourteen hundred yards, the so-called East Side Gallery is by far the longest remaining section of the Wall. In reality, however, it is also part of the former Hinterlandmauer; in other words, it only became possible to pain on it after the actual Wall had fallen. After reunification, the Council of Ministers of East Germany commissioned a series of internationally known artists to paint and spray-paint a number of impressive images onto the long wall.
The Ghost of BER International Airport
p.175 – Tegel was designed for 7 million passengers a year, but now handles 17 million.
p.178 – For the time being, Berlin is glad it still has the small but brilliant Tegel Airport, designed by the architect Meinhard von Gerken when he was just twenty-five years old. As for the new international airport, designed by this same von Gerkan, it remains in the state of incompletion that the city likes best.
Spring in Berlin
p.310 – In the summer of 2013, many beaming faces from Berlin’s municipal government could be seen on television. The reason? For the first time in living memory, the city had generated a surplus of 750 million euros and was able to put forward a budget that would reduce the debt burden from 63 billion to 61.8 billion euros by 2016. Hurray! Only 61.8 billion euros of debt left! Sober viewers like me asked ourselves why a city like Detroit with a debt of $17 billion has to declare bankruptcy, while Berlin considers a debt burden four times as large a reason to celebrate!
p.311 – In 2012 alone, Berlin grew by some 45,000 inhabitants. Assuming continued growth of this magnitude, by 2030 the city will have roughly 250,000 more inhabitants – the equivalent of a whole new district.
But the city is already short some 100,000 apartments and has only hesitantly begun to tackle the construction of affordable new housing. Then there are the social problems associated with this growth. For, the number of persons aged eighty years and over is set to grow the most.
There is no doubt that what Berlin needs more than anything else are qualified immigrants who are willing to assimilate.
Berlin has also mastered a very different problem of integration better than most of the rest of Germany: overcoming the “Wall in the mind.”
p.312 – Today, Berlin is the city in Germany where reunification has made the greatest progress. And that doesn’t mean that the differences between the two German cultures have simply been leveled. It was always an illusion to believe that reunifying the two German states would leave behind nothing of East Germany but its green arrow turns signs and the now iconic little traffic-light men at intersections. In reality, the westernization of the East has long since been matched by the easternization of the West.
Today, almost all the major literary awards go to writers from Germany’s East – to the considerable annoyance of their West German colleagues – and hardworking officials from the new federal states have gained a foothold in all the important juries, commissions, and academies of the reunited republic.
Here are some quotes:
Cinderella Berlin
p.7 – Today, half of Berlin’s tourists come from abroad, and their numbers continue to grow every year. Forecasts already predict that the city, which currently counts 25 million overnight visitors, could soon catch up with Paris (37 million overnight visitors), thus making it second only to London.
p.8 – Cinderella Berlin offers an inestimable advantage over these princess cities: it gives all newcomers the feeling that there is still room for them, that they can still make something of themselves here. It is this peculiarity that makes Berlin the capital of creative people from around the world today.
p.10 – the three friends had to carry the couch several blocks and up five flights of stairs to their apartment. They succeeded because they had to succeed.
Potsdamer Platz
p.30 – And what’s the rush anyway? Why does the area have to be developed in just four years? Why not let the city grow there organically over the next twenty to thirty years? And does the entire plot really have to be covered with buildings? Couldn’t part of it be set aside for the generations to come?
p.35-36 – Renzo Piano: “You create a space not for life with its unpredictable, biological rhythms, but for virtual life. This kind of awakening by bombardment scares me sometimes.” Can’t something be left unfinished, I asked, some small part of the construction area set aside for the ideas and revisions of future generations? The financial constraints of a large-scale project like this are despotic, Piano replied. They don’t allow for leaving openings. It would be expecting too much of him as an architect to leave untouched any part of an area he had been hired to develop.
p.37-38 – Hotel Esplanade: before leaving for Hollywood, Billy Wilder had earned a reputation as a gigolo, working for five deutsche marks and a free meal. He taught dolled-up ladies aged twenty to fifty how to dance the Charleston. […] In this same hotel, in 1944, conspirators in the July plot against Hitler waited for the code word “Valkyrie.”
Berlin Schloss versus Palace of the Republic
p.51 – Talent, according to one definition, is the ability to be in the right place at the right time.
West Berlin
p.63 – The name West Berlin refers to a city that no longer exists. With “Where Are We Now?” his new song about the time he spent in West Berlin, David Bowie – who lived on Hauptstraβe in the Schöneberg district in the 1970s – has unleashed a veritable wave of nostalgia.
p.71 – In the summer of 1962, I boarded a train in Freiburg, arriving in the Prussian metropolis the following day. It was the farthest distance you could travel within West Germany – some five hundred miles. I wanted to go to Berlin for the same reason that most students of my generation chose this city: studying in the “front city” counted as a sort of voluntary military service – if you studied in West Berlin, you were exempt from serving in the Bundeswehr.
Clubs
p.147 – Pippi Longstocking’s motto: Do things the way you like. That’s the only way to make sure they turn out right!
p.152 – In Berlin, it seems, in the end everything becomes either art and/or memorial, irrespective of whether you’re dealing with the Holocaust, World War II bombardments, or the division of Germany. And maybe that’s a good thing.
What Happened to the Wall Anyway?
p.156 – Ever since Joe Hatchiban started hosting karaoke parties in the amphitheatre and handing out trash bags to the audience afterward, Mauerpark has become clean and green.
p.157 – At more than fourteen hundred yards, the so-called East Side Gallery is by far the longest remaining section of the Wall. In reality, however, it is also part of the former Hinterlandmauer; in other words, it only became possible to pain on it after the actual Wall had fallen. After reunification, the Council of Ministers of East Germany commissioned a series of internationally known artists to paint and spray-paint a number of impressive images onto the long wall.
The Ghost of BER International Airport
p.175 – Tegel was designed for 7 million passengers a year, but now handles 17 million.
p.178 – For the time being, Berlin is glad it still has the small but brilliant Tegel Airport, designed by the architect Meinhard von Gerken when he was just twenty-five years old. As for the new international airport, designed by this same von Gerkan, it remains in the state of incompletion that the city likes best.
Spring in Berlin
p.310 – In the summer of 2013, many beaming faces from Berlin’s municipal government could be seen on television. The reason? For the first time in living memory, the city had generated a surplus of 750 million euros and was able to put forward a budget that would reduce the debt burden from 63 billion to 61.8 billion euros by 2016. Hurray! Only 61.8 billion euros of debt left! Sober viewers like me asked ourselves why a city like Detroit with a debt of $17 billion has to declare bankruptcy, while Berlin considers a debt burden four times as large a reason to celebrate!
p.311 – In 2012 alone, Berlin grew by some 45,000 inhabitants. Assuming continued growth of this magnitude, by 2030 the city will have roughly 250,000 more inhabitants – the equivalent of a whole new district.
But the city is already short some 100,000 apartments and has only hesitantly begun to tackle the construction of affordable new housing. Then there are the social problems associated with this growth. For, the number of persons aged eighty years and over is set to grow the most.
There is no doubt that what Berlin needs more than anything else are qualified immigrants who are willing to assimilate.
Berlin has also mastered a very different problem of integration better than most of the rest of Germany: overcoming the “Wall in the mind.”
p.312 – Today, Berlin is the city in Germany where reunification has made the greatest progress. And that doesn’t mean that the differences between the two German cultures have simply been leveled. It was always an illusion to believe that reunifying the two German states would leave behind nothing of East Germany but its green arrow turns signs and the now iconic little traffic-light men at intersections. In reality, the westernization of the East has long since been matched by the easternization of the West.
Today, almost all the major literary awards go to writers from Germany’s East – to the considerable annoyance of their West German colleagues – and hardworking officials from the new federal states have gained a foothold in all the important juries, commissions, and academies of the reunited republic.
August 8, 2020
There is one chapter that opens with Peter Schneider saying that he wanted to write a book about Berlin that wouldn't only appeal to men over their 50s and in that regard he failed. Miserably. There's pages upon pages where he talks about the architecture of a single building and how it was financed (getting into all the boring details about each and every single benefactor), pages upon pages where he lists minute details about a single street or a single square or a single little corner that nobody has ever heard of before and nobody cares about, pages upon pages of rumbling about nothing in particular and oftentimes the chapters would venture off the subject completely, to the point that I had to flip back and read the chapter title to see what this particular segment was supposed to be about.
But the book does become quite readable when Schneider talks about life in Berlin (both in the present day and while Berlin was divided in two) and when he shares his thoughts about Berlin's citizens and how they have responded to the constant changes the city has endured throughout the decades. It should then be approached as a "pick what you want to eat buffet". Different parts will appeal to different readers.
But the book does become quite readable when Schneider talks about life in Berlin (both in the present day and while Berlin was divided in two) and when he shares his thoughts about Berlin's citizens and how they have responded to the constant changes the city has endured throughout the decades. It should then be approached as a "pick what you want to eat buffet". Different parts will appeal to different readers.
January 30, 2020
Five stars might be pushing it, but for me this book deserves all five. I lived in Berlin for a semester and loved every moment of it. I find myself thinking about that time of my life on a weekly, if not daily, basis and Berlin Now brought back all of those memories for me. I found myself nodding in agreement as I read about the history of anti-semitism in the city and how it has affected the current inhabitants. Reading about how living in East Germany (I also lived in the Eastern part of the city) was bland and drab compared to the Western side and how the Ossi's reacted once the wall came down made me feel like I was there, even though I wasn't born until 8 years later. Schneider's writing transported me back in time. The ending line hit me hard. "I feel sorry for anyone who can't live here (Berlin)". I'd never really thought about it, but I feel the same way. Berlin, specifically living there, is something I think everyone should experience.
November 9, 2019
This is Schneider's anecdotal and opinionated portrait of his adopted city. It's winding and arbitrary, to an extent, yet brings the city to life in a way that a conventional 'modern history' could never do. Anyone looking for such a history or a Berlin guidebook will be disappointed. Otherwise, the reader is in for a treat.
Schneider gives us a mixture of research, personal experience and interviews to build up his picture of postwar Berlin. Along the way, we gain insights into the experience of the Turkish and Jewish communities, the changes in the built landscape, the relationships between Ossis and Wessis (pre and post Wall) and the lives of the city's bohos and radicals. Among other things, he takes us clubbing with his girlfriend (he's several decades older than his fellow clubbers, but no one seems to mind) and to meet a politically incorrect but highly effective district mayor. One deeply disturbing chapter deals with the rise in senseless and extreme violence visited by young men upon innocent citizens. All of this is told with an accomplished novelist's touch, which makes us feel engaged in both the highs and lows.
I finished reading Berlin Now this morning, 9th November 2019, precisely 30 years to the day since the Wall fell. How apposite. I had intended to travel to Berlin for the occasion but work commitments made that impossible. Schneider's highly enjoyable guided tour was my substitute.
Schneider gives us a mixture of research, personal experience and interviews to build up his picture of postwar Berlin. Along the way, we gain insights into the experience of the Turkish and Jewish communities, the changes in the built landscape, the relationships between Ossis and Wessis (pre and post Wall) and the lives of the city's bohos and radicals. Among other things, he takes us clubbing with his girlfriend (he's several decades older than his fellow clubbers, but no one seems to mind) and to meet a politically incorrect but highly effective district mayor. One deeply disturbing chapter deals with the rise in senseless and extreme violence visited by young men upon innocent citizens. All of this is told with an accomplished novelist's touch, which makes us feel engaged in both the highs and lows.
I finished reading Berlin Now this morning, 9th November 2019, precisely 30 years to the day since the Wall fell. How apposite. I had intended to travel to Berlin for the occasion but work commitments made that impossible. Schneider's highly enjoyable guided tour was my substitute.
November 8, 2021
Incredible guide to the development and progression of Berlin as a society, culture, and more. Absolutely spot on - and most importantly, Schneider has attempted to be as unbiased as possible, although you can notice a tinge of bias in favour of West Germany, as he tends to use 'Ossis' and 'Wessis' which aren't used by 'Ossis' as such words are a tad derogatory.
Chapters:
1. Cinderella Berlin
2. The Great Awakening
3. Clash of the Architects
4. Potsdamer Platz
5. Berlin Schloss vs Palace of the Republic [of the DDR]
6. West Berlin
7. A "Wessi" Attempts to Find Berlin's Soul
8. Berlin: Emergence of a New Metropolis
9. City West vs Capital City (East) and Vice Versa
10. Love (and Sex) in Berlin
11. Love in Divided Berlin
12. Clubs
13. What Happened to the Wall Anyway?
14. The American Sector Is Leaving You
15. The Ghost of BER International Airport
16. The Stasi Legacy
17. An "Enemy of the State" Becomes Boss
18. The New Racism
19. Vietnamese in Berlin
20. Anetta Kahane and the Amadeu Antonio Foundation
21. The New Barbarism
22. Turks in Berlin (most interesting chapter)
23. A Mayor Flouts Political Correctness (Heinz Buschkowsky is an icon)
24. Yes, You Can: The Rütli School
25. Help, the Swabians Are Coming!
26. A Belated Cemetery Visit
27. The Man Who Gave Nefertiti Away
28. Jewish Life in Berlin
29. Spring in Berlin
(A LOT of chapters, I know...)
10/10
Chapters:
1. Cinderella Berlin
2. The Great Awakening
3. Clash of the Architects
4. Potsdamer Platz
5. Berlin Schloss vs Palace of the Republic [of the DDR]
6. West Berlin
7. A "Wessi" Attempts to Find Berlin's Soul
8. Berlin: Emergence of a New Metropolis
9. City West vs Capital City (East) and Vice Versa
10. Love (and Sex) in Berlin
11. Love in Divided Berlin
12. Clubs
13. What Happened to the Wall Anyway?
14. The American Sector Is Leaving You
15. The Ghost of BER International Airport
16. The Stasi Legacy
17. An "Enemy of the State" Becomes Boss
18. The New Racism
19. Vietnamese in Berlin
20. Anetta Kahane and the Amadeu Antonio Foundation
21. The New Barbarism
22. Turks in Berlin (most interesting chapter)
23. A Mayor Flouts Political Correctness (Heinz Buschkowsky is an icon)
24. Yes, You Can: The Rütli School
25. Help, the Swabians Are Coming!
26. A Belated Cemetery Visit
27. The Man Who Gave Nefertiti Away
28. Jewish Life in Berlin
29. Spring in Berlin
(A LOT of chapters, I know...)
10/10
March 1, 2019
Peter Schneider's Berlin Now is another one of the books that has been sitting on my shelf unread for a few years now, yet unlike some of the other books I've tackled recently and ended up loving, Berlin Now was a chore to get through, and the second I finished it, I was mostly just happy that I could now give it away. Why? Because my tolerance for reading rants by cranky old white men is very low these days. And so while some of the Berlin trivia was interesting enough, Peter Schneider is just a bit much to handle.
Skip.
Skip.
February 22, 2023
sometimes books are described as "essential reading", and i've always wondered what "unessential reading" would look like. well, this is it.
that sounds harsher than i intend, so let me explain. this book is a series of essays by an old german man about berlin, a city he loves. as a book published in 2014 and with no real direction or central thesis, it is pure indulgence on the part of the author and reader to engage with it. it is thoroughly unessential, which feels nice! there is no thundering central message, no imminent issue or threat, it is simply a series of essays by a fairly good writer about a city. there's a joy to reading something ephemeral, past its use by date.
the first half is great. a series of slightly meandering stories about berlin told by someone who clearly loves the city, with fantastic little insights and insider tips by someone who knows it well. while some of the topics are less interesting than others, none overstay their welcome and each moves along quite quickly. an accidental theme starts to develop of berlin as a kind of trauma survivor, framed by the world historic events that occurred there and the lives that people lead in the scars left behind.
unfortunately the book has a second half. the theme of the book shifts HARD into the tiresome anti-muslim sentiment that dominated the discourse in europe at the time and doesn't shift back for a long time. these muslims are somehow uniquely barbarous and dimwitted, while also being masters of crime who are constantly shuffling women around the world. political correctness gets an equally tedious blast, with the usual canards trotted out about inner city leftists and how out of touch they are.
it's a really unwelcome intrusion into a book that i was only reading because of how amiable it had been, and it's hard to not feel like you've been suckered into reading something less genial than you might have thought. the last 40 pages of the book discuss the city's jewish population, and while the discussions around the memorials in berlin are interesting, it feels a bit hard to get on board with after 100 pages of anti muslim sentiment.
i can take solace in the fact that i may well be the last person to review this on goodreads. its such a uniquely specific book that i can't imagine it has a lot of new readers (i only got this book as part of a pack of random books), and i don't think anyone is going to be recommending this.
that sounds harsher than i intend, so let me explain. this book is a series of essays by an old german man about berlin, a city he loves. as a book published in 2014 and with no real direction or central thesis, it is pure indulgence on the part of the author and reader to engage with it. it is thoroughly unessential, which feels nice! there is no thundering central message, no imminent issue or threat, it is simply a series of essays by a fairly good writer about a city. there's a joy to reading something ephemeral, past its use by date.
the first half is great. a series of slightly meandering stories about berlin told by someone who clearly loves the city, with fantastic little insights and insider tips by someone who knows it well. while some of the topics are less interesting than others, none overstay their welcome and each moves along quite quickly. an accidental theme starts to develop of berlin as a kind of trauma survivor, framed by the world historic events that occurred there and the lives that people lead in the scars left behind.
unfortunately the book has a second half. the theme of the book shifts HARD into the tiresome anti-muslim sentiment that dominated the discourse in europe at the time and doesn't shift back for a long time. these muslims are somehow uniquely barbarous and dimwitted, while also being masters of crime who are constantly shuffling women around the world. political correctness gets an equally tedious blast, with the usual canards trotted out about inner city leftists and how out of touch they are.
it's a really unwelcome intrusion into a book that i was only reading because of how amiable it had been, and it's hard to not feel like you've been suckered into reading something less genial than you might have thought. the last 40 pages of the book discuss the city's jewish population, and while the discussions around the memorials in berlin are interesting, it feels a bit hard to get on board with after 100 pages of anti muslim sentiment.
i can take solace in the fact that i may well be the last person to review this on goodreads. its such a uniquely specific book that i can't imagine it has a lot of new readers (i only got this book as part of a pack of random books), and i don't think anyone is going to be recommending this.
May 3, 2019
If Berlin is not the "real Germany," Germany would be impossible without it. Like New York this is a European capital, not just a national city, though it's that too. It's all here: Ossi vs. Wessi, immigrants vs. natives, even immigrants vs. immigrants: contrast the improbable, trendy east-side Vietnamese with the marginalized Kurds to the west. Warts are bared along with the glitz, including random adolescent acts of violence. Berlin's controversial history converges into the present: memorials to vanished Jewish neighborhoods; the prosecution of former Stasi in the '90s, to the blind eye turned toward former Nazis in the 50s; the famed Nefertiti bust, mutually coveted by its Jewish discoverer and Adolf Hitler; to sex shows on the KuDamm. Revealing, too, that for all the colonization of West over East, the defeated are quietly conquering back. Soon Wessis will feel like second-class citizens, too. Worth reading to understand what has become, if not "uber all in die Welt," at least the capital of the Continent.
May 24, 2018
A thematic study of a great city which I decided to read on my first visits for 15 years or so. It's especially strong on gentrification - that double edge sword of urban cityscapes the world over - and generally provides a nuanced view. I also enjoyed the chapter on super club Berghain, its mystifying door policy one of the main reasons why Berlin is such a great city - for, in the main, it doesn't matter how you dress, what you look like or how old you are - or, arguably, how much money you've got - to be made to feel welcome. Good also on the city's Jewish history, the Turkish populations that flocked to West Berlin in the post-war years and those loveable people, the Stasi. That said, although the thematic approach is appropriate, I would probably have preferred a chronological take in the manner of Geert Mak's Amsterdam .
August 12, 2018
I visited Berlin for the first time recently and was amazed. I loved the city's grittiness and its general atmosphere of creativity and the feeling of unending fertility. This books goes a long way in explaining how the city got this way. Written by a local who first visited Berlin in the early '60s it's a behind the scenes look at the culture and politics that have shaped the city during the last 50 or 60 years. The larger question asked is how does a city transform while still staying true to its history? What's worth saving and what isn't, and who decides? It's interesting how many of the same issues are at play in San Francisco, where I live, as well as (I'm sure) many cities going through renewal and gentrification.
The book is knowing, chastising, loving, funny and critical. And it's a quick and fun read...
The book is knowing, chastising, loving, funny and critical. And it's a quick and fun read...
March 31, 2018
Very interesting book by a German writer. It's a series of essays about contemporary Berlin and about as far from a travel book as you can get. There are warts, there are roses, and sometimes they're side-by side. I've always been fascinated by Berlin and we plan to visit for the first time later this year. Based on Schneider's account we're probably just about too old to enjoy it. It's apparently creative, trendy, and quirky as well as a mixture of very liberal and very xenophobic populations who can be wonderful and awful in turn. I'm also prepared for it not to be beautiful. It survived WWII but became a different place.
April 13, 2019
It's hard to rate this book overall, because it really is a series of stand alone chapters on Berlin. Unlike some other reviewers, I felt that the first half was the stronger. When he delved more into social issues, the chapters did not feel nearly nuanced enough - something that really would be impossible in a ten page chapter so in some ways I wonder, why try? Schneider definitely comes from a particular educational, socio-economic, cultural background and that needs to be considered when reading his essays.
July 22, 2017
It took me some time to finish this book, but that is no problem.
It is a biography about Berlin and every chapter has is own theme. So you can read it chapter for chapter if you want.
It is a great book for everybody who has been to Berlin, a lot of familiar places and their history are in this book. I liked that a lot.
I also learned a lot about the history of Berlin, that was nice too.
It is a biography about Berlin and every chapter has is own theme. So you can read it chapter for chapter if you want.
It is a great book for everybody who has been to Berlin, a lot of familiar places and their history are in this book. I liked that a lot.
I also learned a lot about the history of Berlin, that was nice too.
October 18, 2021
Very disappointing. No incites on the current Berlin. I don't know what I expected, but this was a very boring book. I've been to Berlin, both when the Wall was up and soon after it came down. Thirty years have past since the reunion of Germany. I longed to hear how well it fared. This book didn't reveal any incites.
August 28, 2023
Compelling stories, written by an 'insider'. As difficult as it is to explain a city, the author manages to show several shades and tones. For people who have fallen in love with Berlin, it is a marvelous way to better know your love. For Berlin-newbies, it will open your curiosity to the greatest extent.
November 14, 2018
An incomparable pairing for a first time trip to Berlin if you’re especially interested in it’s recent history. Anecdote-filled narrative that gives a good overview of many aspects of the city’s transition since the fall of the wall.
August 8, 2017
Eclectic, personal and insightful insight into Berlin.
October 17, 2017
Premier livre sur Berlin que j'ai eu l'occasion d'avoir entre les mains.
Les premiers chapitres légèrement poussifs... Après, c'est que du bonheur.
Se lit assez rapidement. Très clair.
Les premiers chapitres légèrement poussifs... Après, c'est que du bonheur.
Se lit assez rapidement. Très clair.
January 4, 2019
If anything, the book pointed floodlights at the glaring hole in my education about anything that happened in the world after 1945. The first half felt more lively than the second.
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