Walking In Berlin

by Franz Hessel

The first English translation of a lost classic that reinvents the flaneur in Berlin.Franz Hessel (1880-1941), a German-born writer, grew up in Berlin, studied in Munich, and then lived in Paris, where he moved in artistic and literary circles. His relationship with the fashion journalist Helen Grund was the inspiration for Henri-Pierre Roche's novel Jules et Jim (made into a celebrated 1962 film by Francois Truffaut). In collaboration with Walter Benjamin, Hessel reinvented the Parisian figure of the flaneur. This 1929 book--here in its first English translation--offers Hessel's version of a flaneur in Berlin.

In Walking in Berlin, Hessel captures the rhythm of Weimar-era Berlin, recording the seismic shifts in German culture. Nearly all of the essays take the form of a walk or outing, focusing on either a theme or part of the city, and many end at a theater, cinema, or club. Hessel deftly weaves the past with the present, walking through the city's history as well as its neighborhoods. Even today, his walks in the city, from the Alexanderplatz to Kreuzberg, can guide would-be flaneurs.

Walking in Berlin is a lost classic, known mainly because of Hessel's connection to Benjamin but now introduced to readers of English. Walking in Berlin was a central model for Benjamin's Arcades Project and remains a classic of "walking literature" that ranges from Surrealist perambulation to Situationist "psychogeography." This MIT Press edition includes the complete text in translation as well as Benjamin's essay on Walking in Berlin, originally written as a review of the book's original edition.

"An absolutely epic book, a walking remembrance."
--Walter Benjamin

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, Germany, History, Essays, German Literature, Walking

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

Franz Hessel, Berlin-born son of a Jewish banking family, was a writer and translator, translating works by Casanova, Stendhal, and Balzac, as well as collaborating with Walter Benjamin on a translation of Proust's "À la recherche du temps perdu" into German. Hessel died in early 1941, shortly after his release from an internment camp.

Reviews

[Nat K · Rating 3 out of 5]

”To date, perhaps Berlin hasn’t really been loved enough…”

Oh to be a flâneur! I love the idea of spending my days absorbing a city’s idiosyncrasies and its vibe and energy, then putting pen to paper to share my bon mots.

Alas, there seem to be no vacancies for a flâneur, so I live vicariously through books such as these.

”The flâneur reads the street, and human faces, displays, window dressings, café terraces, trains, cars and trees become letters that yield the words, sentences, and pages of a book that is always new.”

First published in 1929, this is part travelogue, part history lesson, part social science study. “Walking In Berlin” has a lovely, gentle, meandering writing style. Franz Hessel certainly knew his stuff, and we’re given a lot of fascinating information about the areas and buildings that he’s taking us to.

The nightclubs, the coffee houses, the museums & parks. They’re all here.

But you cannot run too far ahead! You must walk with Herr Hessel, as he strolls up and down Berlin’s districts. This is a book that you simply cannot rush through, not matter how fast a reader you are.

Take your time, look around and enjoy the trip.

[Meike · Rating 4 out of 5]

English translation: Walking in Berlin: A Flaneur in the Capital
Postmodern readers are perhaps more familiar with Hessel's son Stéphane, diplomat and author of the manifesto Time for Outrage: Indignez-vous!, but Franz Hessel's book is a classic of 1920's German literature, probably only comparable to Berlin Alexanderplatz and the output of Walter Benjamin. While Döblin portrayed Berlin as a greedy machine feeding on its inhabitants, anonymous, cold, fast and relentless (much like Rilke showed Paris in The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge), Hessel took the view of the flaneur, emulating the aesthetic of Baudelaire ("Un éclair... puis la nuit ! — Fugitive beauté"), but giving it a peculiar, essayistic twist.

Hessel walks through the city, describing places and people, atmospheres and mores, reflecting the time and evoking the larger picture by pointing to the details. Readers can certainly learn a lot about the years directly preceding Hitler's rise to power, but on a poetological level, the structure and set-up of the text have remained a milestone when it comes to depicting urban settings as amalgamations of sociocultural phenomena: Here, the city is a place where past and future collide, where the philosophical and historical discourse is caught in architecture, inhabitants and everyday life.

In our podcast interview with Thorsten Nagelschmidt (who last year published Arbeit, a highly acclaimed novel about Berlin at night), he recommended Hessel's classic, both as a great book about the heart of a city, but mainly as a travelogue - it takes a true flaneur to breath in a place, and what might seem familiar might become foreign if you look closer. So read Hessel, he can teach you how to take a new viewpoint.

[Steffi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Franz Hessel, der lange Zeit in Berlin lebte, brachte die in Paris verbreitete Perspektive des Flaneurs nach Berlin und liefert wunderbare Beschreibungen des Berliner Alltags in den 20er Jahren.

[Sophy H · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't get into this at all. It wasn't what I expected and I found myself quite bored a lot of the time. I skim read a lot then picked up again only to find more of the same banal observations. I've never been to Berlin and was hoping to get a real sense of place from this account but instead it was like looking through someone's holiday photographs while they explain every excruciating detail to you!

Not for me. Off to the community library for you mein matey!

[Rennie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The cover caught my eye in the bookshop of the Sammlung Scharf Gerstenberg in Berlin. The inside fell a little flat though. It has some lovely lines and I liked some of the pictures he painted of neighborhoods and streets I know, but it wasn't always particularly compelling. There's also next to no context about who he is or what exactly he's even doing. You can pick up that he spent his childhood in Berlin, but why is he walking (and driving) around now? What was the purpose of this? I had a hard time being invested in it.

[Tripfiction · Rating 4 out of 5]

Memoir set in BERLIN of the 1920s

A physically delightful book, the unusual pink and turquoise cover really caught my eye. A perfect book to take to Berlin to get under the granite and stones facades of this imposing and historically rich city, and gain a real sense of perspective of the legacy evident all around today.

Franz Hessel saw himself as a flâneur, someone who sauntered about the capital on foot, and sometimes by car. He would observe the buildings and the people as they went about their daily business. Meandering at times, incisive at others, he brings to life an era that is usually accessible only through blurred black and white photos.

He chooses a theme or a “Kiez” (an area, but I doubt if they were called that then) and ponders the historical associations combined with what he could see then and there. There is a real sense of immediacy, as he glides through the streets and stops and reflects. At the heart of his musing he felt that “to date, perhaps, Berlin hasn’t been loved enough” and this memoir is his ode to this city.

He considered periods of history and happenings as he made his rounds. His eyes alighted, for example, on the gilded picture frames that came into vogue after the austerity of WW1and the later inflation; the need for people to have something glittery and showy was paramount. How Charlottenburg was created out of the village of Lietzow and how the exotic animals in the Tiergarten each had buildings to reflect their provenance – the camel house for example was a mosque. Statues in the Tiergarten were called the Puppen and later the phrase “bis in die Puppen” was absorbed into everyday language (Google Translate will have you believe it mean “up in the dolls” but in fact means “into the wee small hours” or “very late”). Wine, even, used to be produced in the environs of the city, sour as it was. Tempelhof, the original airport, was named after the Knights Templar, and that, at that point in the 1920s he says “there’s really no reason to visit Neukölln“, actually one of the up-and-coming neighbourhoods of today.

He observed how the original Alexanderplatz was already being rebuilt in the 1920s, and this led me in turn to ponder how much change this particular city has seen. Alexanderplatz today would be utterly unrecognisable to the citizens a century ago, having undergone a further major reform when the city was divided. The Fernsehturm (pictured with the book) was the status symbol of the Eastern sector (and when the sun shines it is possible to see a cross on the globe, thought to be an irony in the design as religion was eschewed under Communism). It was erected in 1969.

Walking in Berlin is a guide to enlighten and please, aimed, I imagine at those who know the city reasonably well already. For anyone who is unfamiliar with Berlin there can be simply too much information to assimilate and link with the city as it is today. Plenty of footnotes, however, do help to guide the reader a little further.

The translation still has the feel of the original German, it retains a slightly stilted structure, underlining that this is indeed a work of translation. I felt this was an intended device, to anchor it in the 1920s, although there were slang turns of phrase such as “the hideous staircase was gotten rid of” which left me questioning some of the quality of the translation.

Overall an interesting read for someone who is reasonably familiar with the city and who would like to get a sense of the history, manners and feel of Berlin of the 1920s and how much of that era still echoes today.

[Andreea Ursu-Listeveanu]

Am vazut-o in librarie si am rasfoit-o. Nu fac asta aproape niciodata (stiu ca e ciudat pentru o cititoare, dar am alte criterii pe care imi aleg cartile, nu rasfoindu-le). Citesc foarte mult despre Berlin pentru ca ma intereseaza sa il descopar asa cum a fost el si cum a ajuns ce este azi. Am ramas surprinsa sa descopar ca in ciuda inepuizabilelor operatii estetice pe care le-a suferit, spiritul orasului a fost intotdeauna cel pe care il observ si azi.

Walking in Berlin este relatarea unui flaneur care se plimba pe strazile cartierelor din tot Berlinul anilor 1920, adica exact in perioada in care iau nastere noua Potsdamer Platz, in care Alexanderplatz este locul dubios si murdar pe care vrei sa il eviti cu orice pret, timpul cand se sapa tuneluri pentru metrouri si in multe randuri ne invita sa dam o fuga sa vedem o anumita cladire sau statuie pentru ca in curand nu va mai exista pe fata Pamantului. Desigur, nu putem face asta, insa o putem cauta pe Google sa vedem cum arata. Am facut asta foarte des citind-o si a servit scopului la care ma asteptam. Dincolo de informare (am umplut cartea de sublinieri), tonul lui Franz Hessel a fost cand amuzant, cand pedant, cand trist pentru tot ce urma sa inlocuiasca familiaritatea. De-ar fi stiut cat de devastat urma sa fie Berlinul in Al doilea razboi mondial si de divizat in Razboiul rece. Urme se vad peste tot pentru a nu uita si a nu repeta.

[Tosh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was expecting something more experimental or an odd point of view with regards to Franz Hessel's "Walking in Berlin." The narration is very straight forward and reads like a travel guide to a city. The interesting aspect is that this is Berlin in the 1920s and this is first-person reportage of a very interesting city in a fascinating period of 20th-century history. Hessel gives all the senses in his writing of what I have to imagine is his favorite city. Berlin, especially in the 1920s, draws my imagination of life being lived in a very dangerous manner. It's odd to me that Hessel doesn't discuss or acknowledge the Far Right movement that was taking place in the metropolis. Every sense of politics is zapped out of the reporting. What's interesting is the snapshot view of Berlin at this time. I feel it was written for the moment and not for history. The irony is that we now read this book due to the city's history, and what happens afterward. Not one of my favorite books on the subject matter of Berlin, but important for the student studying the city, or those who are curious about a first-person observation at its time.

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just as Eugène Atget captured the disappearance of the old in a modernizing, late 19th-century Paris, so Franz Hessel apropos of Weimar-era Berlin, "a city that's always on the go, always in the middle of becoming something else". Reinventing the introspective meanderings of the flâneur figure, his travels detail a transient world with places and figures on the cusp of dematerializing into historical relics amidst the inexorable march of time. And yet, one yearns for a more penetrating insight into the forces of modernity effecting these aberrations irreducible to surface inspection. Such a critical endeavor, later to be taken up by Walter Benjamin in his magnum-opus The Arcades Project, perhaps necessitates a temporal distance impossible within a documentation of the present. "I can't yet describe this emerging Berlin—I can only praise it". One's own History cannot be stepped outside of; it is rather lived in.

[Lysergius · Rating 4 out of 5]

The is an essential guide for anyone interested in the city of Berlin and its history. Hessel is a great guide. His walks across the city combine a bit of everything. More to the point the fact that it was written in 1929 does not matter, since his accounts have a contemporary feel, and despite all the turmoil and upset that Berlin has endured, once cannot help but feel it is the same city described by Hessel all those years ago.

[Kinga · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is best read slowly, savouring each description of a city no longer there. Franz Hessel moves through Berlin in 1920s, describing building, streets and people. A picture painted with words of many places which have changed completely in the last century.

[Hayley · Rating 2 out of 5]

For whatever reason I struggled to engage with this book, but there are a few really beautiful descriptions of 1920s/1930s Berlin in here, and I’m glad I persisted.

[Cameron]

It’s not all I hoped it would be. But Hessel reignited my love for walking and seeing and listening- everything you can do in solitude while feeling connected to the place around you.

[Juan Jiménez García · Rating 4 out of 5]

Franz Hessel. Guía para un mundo que desaparecerá

Hemos leído libros sobre mundos que se pierden, irremediablemente. El peatón de París, editado también por Errata Naturae, podría ser uno de ellos. Son como cajitas en las que se guardan un montón de cosas con la certeza de que no estarán en breve o dejaron de estar no hace mucho. Con una especie de necesidad de preservar la ciudad, pero también los recuerdos. La infancia o aquellos sitios que significaron algo. Sitios que significaron algo pero también cuál era aquel significado. Para quien escribe o para sus contemporáneos. Pero Berlín no era París, ni Franz Hessel era Léon-Paul Fargue. Tampoco sus épocas coincidían. Leyendo al escritor alemán es imposible dejar de pensar en el año en que el libro fue escrito: 1929. La República de Weimar lleva diez años dando tumbos por la Historia. 1929 sería el año de la Gran Depresión. Cuatro años después, el Partido Nacional Socialista Alemán de los Trabajadores de Adolf Hitler llegaría al poder. El curso de los acontecimientos más o menos lo sabemos. El final también. Entre todo, la destrucción de Berlín, convertida en un montón de escombros. Así pues, estos Paseos por Berlín son también la historia de una ciudad devastada.

Pero el porvenir es largo, decía Louis Althusser, y mientras este llegaba, Franz Hessel paseaba por ese Berlín gris, no por triste, sino porque Berlín siempre fue una ciudad en ese color. Una ciudad monumental, como su Historia. Y Hessel también se ocupa de ella. Como si fuera preciso nombrar las cosas, para que no desaparezcan, recorrerá calles y plazas, a pie o velozmente (cuando la velocidad era otra cosa) en coche. Como un turista o como alguien que rememora, como un paseante solitario o como un visitante, como alguien que mira o alguien que está ahí para dar testimonio también de las personas que poblaron aquel Berlín que venía de un montón de desastres y derrotas sin saber que se encaminaba hacia otros desastres y derrotas aún más terribles.

En Hessel está el tiempo que pasa dulcemente, mientras la ciudad se teje y desteje, porque en Berlín siempre pareció existir esa necesidad de inventarse constantemente, de huir hacia adelante. Le gustaba caminar lentamente, un corredor de fondo de la literatura peatonal, que nunca pretendió ganar ninguna carrera. A diferencia de Fargue (y vuelvo una y otra vez a él como referencia de una forma de entender la vida) no se paraba en cada bar o café y tampoco era una cuestión de ver la vida desde un rincón. Como un poético registrador de la propiedad, hay que inventariar edificios, animales del zoológico, hombres-aves nocturnos y otros seres que pueblan (o mejor: son) las ciudades. No todo puede estar, pero hay que intentarlo, porque el peatón de Berlín debe hacer que las cosas sean indestructibles. Las palabras, al contrario que las piedras, permanecerán. Y esa es la verdadera obra del flâneur que escribe, ese ser capaz de construir ciudades de letras, como esas otras ciudades recortables y montables de nuestra infancia.

Franz Hessel es esa torre Eiffel de Guillaume Apollinaire que pastoreaba un mundo antiguo. Un bello mundo antiguo, un bonito presente, un triste futuro todavía desconocido y por llegar. Y como André Breton, tenemos que gritar (e inventar): abandonadlo todo, abandonad la comodidad de vuestras casas, vuestros televisores, liberaos de redes sociales, de amigos imaginarios, sí, abandonadlo todo. Salid a las calles, pasead, recorred esas ciudades visibles, mientras estén ahí, mientras sean algo.

Escrito para Détour.

[LIBROCINIO · Rating 4 out of 5]

En muchas ocasiones echo en falta libros que no basen toda la intención de su trama en la necesidad de motivar al lector a base de giros y situaciones intrincadas. Echo en falta la prosa bella sin mayor intención que narrar, que contar algo por el mero hecho de contárselo al lector. Y eso es precisamente lo que ofrece Franz Hessel en este relato. El autor se dispone a coger al lector de la mano y llevarlo de paseo por Berlín, mientras le va narrando lo que ve, lo que siente, lo que vive. Sin artificios, sin añagazas.

Franz Hessel se enfunda en su traje de flâneur y vaga por las calles de Berlín sin un propósito aparentemente fijo, mientras se deleita por aquello que el paseante común no es capaz de ver, y mucho menos de sentir. Hessel vive las calles, las plazas, sus gentes. Descubre a cada paso detalles de un Berlín de los años veinte del s.XX que, si ya de por sí resultaba maravilloso (y lo sigue resultando), bajo los ojos de Hessel se convierte en un catálogo de maravillosas peculiaridades deliciosamente caóticas.

Si su coetáneo Erich Kästner en la magnífica novela «Fabian» nos describió de una forma directa la sociedad de los años 20 y 30 en Berlín y cómo se asimilaban los cambios históricos que se estaban produciendo, se podría decir que, sin llegar a obviar ese contexto, que no lo hace, Hessel se centra en el entorno berlinés donde se producían, ayudándonos a imbuirnos en ese ambiente singular.

«Paseos por Berlín» llega a resultar por momentos, y es quizás una de sus mayores virtudes, una guía visual y social del Berlín de entreguerras, del comienzo de su modernización. Cualquier viajero, que no turista, actual, puede optar por coger este texto y usarlo, además, como una peculiar guía de viaje. De hecho la estructura del libro propicia este aspecto. Se pueden usar sus peculiares y calculadamente erráticas rutas para descubrir otro Berlín alejado de las guías de viaje y check-points turísticos y entender de dónde procede aquello que se está observando y cómo ha ido evolucionando. De hecho, estas rutas son tan amplias que, como si de una espiral se tratasen, llegan a abarcar las afueras de Berlín, igual de cautivadoras, si se sabe donde mirar, y Hessel lo indica, que los más fastuosos monumentos.

Pero, sin obviar este aspecto visual, y creo que es la mayor cualidad de esta obra, «Paseos por Berlín» permite la libertad de no tener que optar por pretensión alguna a la hora de leerlo, ni siquiera la de descubrir el propio Berlín. Permite deleitarse con la simple y llana lectura de un prosa ligera, calculada, descriptiva y cautivadora. Una prosa difícil de encontrar. Una prosa sin trampa. Transparente. Deliciosa.

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a tragedy that more of Hessel's work isn't available in English translation. This is lumped in with other flaneur pieces that take a worm's eye view of interwar/ Weimar Germany, but Hessel's descriptive power, his sense of humor, and his knowledge of German history are too keen for this work to be limited or categorized. It's just great literature.

The heart of the work is "The Tour," a long Feuilleton piece that describes a day trip the author took with several tourists through Berlin's gardens, markets, arts districts, and statuary-lined streets. The other pieces are uniformly strong, although standouts in my opinion include his description of the seedy Alexanderplatz neighborhood and his narration of what goes on inside Berlin's factories and slaughterhouses (the Germans at the time had an obsession with rationalization and efficiency and American iterations of the same, such as Henry Ford's assembly lines).

Someone once quipped that Los Angeles is like your brain; you can only utilize ten percent or so. The same could be said of Berlin, which is mysterious, sad, grim, exciting, and beautiful all at the same time. Berlin started as a swampy military garrison of the Brandenburg-Hohenzollern empire and somehow grew into the cultural capital of Germany and for a time became the dividing line between the two primary political systems of our time. David Bowie captured close to one-hundred percent of the city's tone in his music. Hessel has achieved something approximating singularity with the city in this book, despite his assertions that he wasn't much more than skimming the surface when he was walking the streets and making his observations. He makes understanding the city's past, present, and future seem effortless, but it can't be easy because so many have failed (at least for this reader) where this book succeeds. Highest recommendation, for travelers, historians, and general literature fans.

[Alison P · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't be misled by the long read time: I loved this book. It is not one to be rushed, but instead visited from time to time and savoured whenever a little Berlin magic is needed.

[Scribe Publications]

Hessel is a feisty, clever, and witty guide to Berlin; his prose is animated and sumptuous and his perceptions glamorously lyrical. For anyone who knows the geography of Berlin, this book is an especial treat.
Gail Jones, Saturday Age

Beautiful … a classic observation of the German city in the late 1920s that illuminates many of the historic shadows and provides a wonderful map for modern-day wanderings.
Sydney Morning Herald

[A]n absolutely epic book, a walking remembrance.
Walter Benjamin

Walking in Berlin is a magical mystery tour of a city on the brink of upheaval. Hessel may have wandered haphazardly but he wrote with purpose, never once losing his way.
Malcolm Forbes, Sunday Herald

Walking in Berlin can be read lightly as a postcard from the past; it should be read seriously as an inexhaustible record of all that Berlin was and might have been, as an enthralling guide to a wealth of references, sidetracks, lost paths … This is a first encounter with the myth and the reality of that intangible fantastic beast of a city.
Mika Provata-Carlone, Bookanista

Captures a portrait of a city on the brink of irrevocable change … Hessel was both detailed chronicler of the present, and a man keenly aware of the city’s history … Apt then that Walking in Berlin now joins this historical hall of fame.
Lucy Scholes, The Independent

Hessel’s conversational style and subtle insights evoke Weimar Berlin and reveal a great deal about the Germany of his days.
Eileen Battersby, The Irish Times

[Walking in Berlin] is not only an important record of old Berlin; it is a testimony to its enduring spirit.
Harry Strawson, TLS

Hessel is a modest master of spontaneous observation.
Sabine Vogel, Berliner Zeitung

…a newly rediscovered treasure.
Die Welt

To this day, there is no better Berlin travel guide.
Peter Von Becker, Tagesspiegel

When you think of Berlin in the 1920s, you cannot avoid thinking of the storyteller, critic and translator Franz Hessel.
Manfred Papst Recommends Spazieren in Berlin in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ)

Like a private invitation back to the city’s most beguiling era … Irreverent and yet always enthusiastic, [Hessel’s] 88-year-old love letter to this city is a true map of the traces of a bygone world.
Vanessa Thorpe, The Observer Magazine

Hessel’s warm enthusiasm for his home town informs every page, and provides the reader with a geographical guide that still holds value, despite the enormous changes in the city. More than that, though, it evokes a time that, although just about within living memory, seems almost as remote as the nineteenth-century Berlin of Schinkel.
Shiny New Books

[A] sprawling panorama of cultural memory and miscellany, a vibrant catalog of metropolitan life, and a seismograph of a city on the verge of disaster.
Los Angeles Review of Books

Hessel’s wonderings in the Weimar-era German capital mix social commentary with artistic and architectural analysis … his musings offer a fresh set of eyes.
GQ

A timely ode to a good meander and [Hessel’s] home city [Berlin].
Wanderlust

[Celia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a guide book but more a series of tableaux of life in Berlin in the early 20th century. Extremely well written and paints its pictures vividly. It was nice to recognise places from my recent trip to the German capital. The only reason it's not 5 stars is that for me who sometimes struggles to picture things I was not always able to enjoy how good it was, even though I appreciated it.

[Joje · Rating 4 out of 5]

Putting it aside until back into the topic. Other projects call, and not just reading (big stack of NYers!). It is fun, at least, and even better after a half week walking around Berlin in his spirit. When thinking of one of those places I can now go to the section on it, for instance. It dragged down in "Rundfahrt", although there were some juicy bits, especially when he kept writing about a place after the silly guide who kept going after a cursory mention of that place. Or else spent a lot of time on a topic (especially royalty!), while our own guide snidely cuts through it all. Loved the paragraph on the Berliner Dom I had just climbed up and down and in and around. It hardly sticks out as badly as all that, since much nicer looking than all the cranes at the Museuminsel in progress now, but I can see his point from before all the destruction.

[Spiros · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lovely, meandering ambling view of Weimar Berlin. In some ways, I feel it took me longer to read this book than it took Hessel to write it: much of that is due to the chapter which I misspeak of as occuring in the middle of the book, but which in reality is the sixth chapter, "The Tour", in which Hessel joins a group of foreigners in a "car" (I assume him to mean a bus?) on a very superficial journey through Central Berlin. He uses the occasion to give an exhausting if not exhaustive history of the places visited on the tour, and the chapter takes 82 pages. Once we get off the car (or bus), we get to go back to the breezy ambling pace which he had established in the first five chapters, and we are able to breathe again.

[Valerie Verveda · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a too detailed and too factual renumeration of what the author saw while having walks. It's great depiction of the reality but a very boring read, for me, the one who was in Berlin many times and lives the city. My expectation were too high probably. At the end I read a blog of a walker

[Becky Loader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now, this is true writing! Skilled use of the language and evocative descriptions.

What is a flaneur? Those great people who can stroll along through the neighborhood and observe. Everything.

*sigh* I hope there will be a time post-Covid-19 that such a thing can be possible again.

[Eva María · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hermoso e intenso paseo x el Berlín de entreguerras. Lleno de detalles y de abrumadora información. Sólo he estado una vez en Berlín, pero literariamente es una ciudad que he revisitado muchas veces y cada vez me sorprende y gusta más. Un placer leer también el epílogo del gran Walter Benjamin.

[Simon Brock · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bought this for something different to my usual, because I love Berlin and because I thought it would give me a taster of travel again. I found it had interesting moments and provided points about the last of Berlin and German culture as a whole, but other than that it just didn’t grab me.

[Wayne · Rating 1 out of 5]

specific audience read.

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not what I’d hoped it was...I.e. interesting.

[Therése Mellby · Rating 1 out of 5]

Lacking in actual walking.

[Thijs Van · Rating 4 out of 5]

A slow reading for me. The description and picture that's is created of old Berlin is really fascinating.

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a tragedy that more of Hessel's work isn't available in English translation. This is lumped in with other flaneur pieces that take a worm's eye view of interwar/ Weimar Germany, but Hessel's descriptive power, his sense of humor, and his knowledge of German history are too keen for this work to be limited or categorized. It's just great literature.

The heart of the work is "The Tour," a long Feuilleton piece that describes a day trip the author took with several tourists through Berlin's gardens, markets, arts districts, and statuary-lined streets. The other pieces are uniformly strong, although standouts in my opinion include his description of the seedy Alexanderplatz neighborhood and his narration of what goes on inside Berlin's factories and slaughterhouses (the Germans at the time had an obsession with rationalization and efficiency and American iterations of the same, such as Henry Ford's assembly lines).

Someone once quipped that Los Angeles is like your brain; you can only utilize ten percent or so. The same could be said of Berlin, which is mysterious, sad, grim, exciting, and beautiful all at the same time. Berlin started as a swampy military garrison of the Brandenburg-Hohenzollern empire and somehow grew into the cultural capital of Germany and for a time became the dividing line between the two primary political systems of our time. David Bowie captured close to one-hundred percent of the city's tone in his music. Hessel has achieved something approximating singularity with the city in this book, despite his assertions that he wasn't much more than skimming the surface when he was walking the streets and making his observations. He makes understanding the city's past, present, and future seem effortless, but it can't be easy because so many have failed (at least for this reader) where this book succeeds. Highest recommendation, for travelers, historians, and general literature fans.