Berlin Now: The City After the Wall by Peter Schneider (review)

The German author and public intellectual Peter Schneider, chronicler and conscience of divided Berlin for decades, presents here his latest extended feuilletons on contemporary, unified Berlin. Written—but not all originally published—in German, the text, translated by Sophie Schlondorff, contains thirty essays on such topics as Berlin’s new architecture, changing political culture, Jewish life today, east-west gender and sexual relations, the vibrant youth and music scene, assimilation of “foreigners” --including Turks, Vietnamese, and Germans from other regions of the country—and more. By turns insightful, humorous, and occasionally infuriating, Berlin Now will be of interest to historians and cultural studies specialists alike. For those, including this reviewer, who both visited the divided city and lived there during the first decade of German unification, the book also satisfies nostalgic curiosity about developments there since the 1990s.

Schneider is best known to English-speaking audiences for several essay collections, articles in the New Yorker and similar publications, and the novels The Wall Jumper (1984), Couplings (1996) and Eduard’s Homecoming (2000). Germans, particularly West Berlin residents, will also know of his decades-long engagement with politics and letters there. In addition to being an active participant in the West Berlin student protest movement, Social Democratic politics, and Berlin intellectual life at the highest levels, his 1973 novel Lenz gave voice to the disillusionment of those students whose protests ultimately caused less societal change than hoped. His lengthy presence in West Berlin also powerfully informed unified Germany’s first important and Academy-Award-nominated post-Wall film The Promise (1995), for which he co-wrote the script.

As such, Schneider is one of the few German public intellectuals uniquely qualified, as both participant and eyewitness, to interpret Berlin’s contemporary culture for both non-West Berliners and the English-speaking world. Indeed, his current essay collection could be seen as the sequel to his 1990 work The German Comedy (1990). His expertise is especially important concerning aspects that cannot help but be framed against a historical backdrop. This includes chapters on the rebirth of Potsdamer Platz, preserving the few original portions of the Berlin Wall, the emergence of Berlin as a post-Wall metropolis, the bust of Nefertiti of which Berliners are so proud, and the geographical power shift from buildings and streets in former West Berlin to those in former East Berlin during the process of municipal—and national—unification. His instinct for which details to select to illuminate present-day Berlin is also superb: while many others, for example, have wittily contrasted rebuilding the Hohenzollern Palace in central Berlin with the much-maligned construction process of Berlin’s new airport, Schneider also has the insight to mention the Amerika Haus and American Memorial Library in that context.

Indeed, a decided strength of the book is that its title is relatively misleading, as Schneider includes considerable historical background in his portrayal of present-day Berlin. Most chapters begin in medias res before going back 20, 50, or even 100 years to track the origins of whatever contemporary Berlin phenomenon has caught his critical eye. Often this historical journey includes references to forgotten influential figures and landmarks: Klaus-Ruediger Landowsky, James Simon, Claire Waldorff, Gail Halvorsen, Anette Kahane, Edzard Reuter, the AVUS, the Golden Gospel Singers, the Harnack House, Kurfuerstendamm (alas!), and more. Each has an important role to play in the narrative of Berlin Now before dissipating again into the networked subconscious of the metropolis. This narrative strategy reminds us that— particularly in Berlin, but also in unified Germany—no contemporary cultural phenomenon, however avant-garde, is sui generis.

Mindful that this is a translated work, it is worth comparing Schneider’s English voice in Berlin Now to his prose as translated by others. There are subtle but important differences between the earlier “Leigh Hafrey Schneider” of The Wall Jumper and The German Comedy, and the Schneider to whom Schlondorff introduces us here. Hafrey’s Schneider seems personal...