The Berlin I once knew was not the kind of place you raved about. There was no fine dining but plenty of heavy drinking. The beautiful people ran London and Munich and Milan. In Berlin, the punks were in charge.
Berlin
Berlin is my adopted hometown. I first visited the divided city in 1988, when I was backpacking around Europe the summer after high school. Nobody then would have imagined that the Berlin Wall would fall in a little more than a year.
In 1996 I received a Fulbright Fellowship for Young Journalists and set up shop as a journalist in Berlin. Even though I’ve moved away at least three times since then, I keep returning. Easygoing and tolerant, the city has become a magnet for the whole world.
The Greek Bruce Willis Fights for Democracy — and Marxism?
If Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister, was going to make a comeback, it had to be in the German capital.
War Is Decided on the Battlefield. Why Peace Is Decided in Berlin.
Without even trying, Berlin has become the “it” capital of the Western world.
25 Years After Its Fall, Vladimir Putin Puts Berlin Wall’s Lessons Front and Center
Putin punished Ukrainians by dismembering their country not only because he saw a threat to his power. It was late revenge for the world he lost in 1989.
Don’t Tear Down This Wall
A quarter of a century after Ronald Reagan called on Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall, a new generation of Berliners is taking to the streets to preserve it.
Bobos in Berlin
I paid for my first apartment with beer money, and my second pad didn’t cost more than $100. Since then the neighborhoods have been filled with the organic food shops and yoga studios that are the stamp of hipsterdom.
From Death Strip to Tech Campus
Although Berlin still lags behind other European tech hubs like London in terms of available capital or qualified developers, the German capital’s scruffy, anything-goes attitude is attracting talent.
Up in the Air
Berlin’s new airport, which was supposed to be the city’s gateway to the world, has turned into a symbol of its provincialism.
Wall of Fear
I was 17 years old when I first saw the Berlin Wall. I clambered up an observation platform in West Berlin to peer over to the Brandenburg Gate. Two summers later, I was back. Everything had changed.
Better to Mention the War Than to Forget It
It took more than half a century to complete the reconstruction of Berlin. It took only a few weeks to reduce it to rubble.