“Berlin resembles the Holy Roman Empire, described by the great jurist Pufendorff as Monstro Simile – like unto a Monster. Seek not to understand – only to preserve!”
With these words, old Dr Kohn, the Bonn embassy’s legal adviser, would begin the induction of each incoming British ambassador into the mysteries of divided Berlin.
But that Berlin, the city with a wall down the middle, was only one of several. It’s the one Iain MacGregor describes in this lively book of anecdotes and interviews. And yet this great town is a shape-shifter. Every generation or so, it shakes itself – or is shaken - and becomes unrecognisable. From a pretty little provincial dump, it turned in a few years of frenzied building into the towering capital of a Wilhelmine empire.
Read Full Article »