As heart of the Prussian kingdom, cultural centre of the Weimar Republic, headquarters of Hitler's Third Reich and a key frontline flashpoint in the Cold War, Berlin has long been a weather vane of European – and world – history.
World War II may have left the city devastated to such an extent that there was serious debate about leaving it in ruins, but in the following years the city did a remarkable job rebuilding. Reconstructions of its sixteenth-century core exist in the Nikolaiviertel, while nearby stand many rebuilt nineteenth-century buildings from the time when the city prospered as capital of the Second Reich. Little from the Third Reich has survived, and no one has cared to rebuild it, with the notable exception of the 1936 Olympic Stadium.
The rest of Berlin is the product of post-war rebuilding, when the city was divided – ideologically and physically – by the Berlin Wall. West Berlin became a capitalist showcase of subsidized experimental architecture – the Philharmonie and the Neue Nationalgalerie for example – while in the east vast projects such as the Karl-Marx-Allee apartment blocks and radical TV tower were hymns to socialism. On both sides the era also produced vast housing estates, soulless prefabricated dwellings that remain reality for thousands of Berliners.
During the Cold War, West Berlin's unorthodox character made it a magnet for bohemians who flocked here attracted by a military service loophole and huge West German subsidies that funded a cutting-edge arts scene. Non-Germans came too, lured to Germany by promises of work, and to Berlin by its tolerance. Turks, Greeks and Italians arrived in the 1960s making Berlin Germany's most cosmopolitan city – reflected in the excellent variety of cuisines on offer.
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