In our street there is a gap in the straight line of the facades, despite the building boom since 1990. Until the Second World War there was a completely normal tenement house built in 1884 in late Classicist forms. Since the rubble was cleared up in the 1950s, some trees have grown wild on the property. You often see people standing on the sidewalk and suspect that there is speculation as to how there can still be such a noble gap in expensive Berlin in 2022, what could be built here.
The front building was destroyed by a large bomb that fell in the middle of the street, also blowing away the house opposite. While this was replaced by a moderately postmodernist new building in the 1990s, all that remains of the front building are the remains of the former passageway and a full basement. He must be every rat family’s dream. And then there are, say the residents of the rear building, the boards from the former front building floors, which were pulled out of the ruins during the war and placed in front of the fire walls as insulating material. Saving energy is really not a new invention.
One can see this gap as a pure building expectation land, like city planners, speculators and investors. But it is also a monument that has become rare in Berlin. It commemorates a war and its aftermath planned by a man who enjoyed overwhelming popular support until almost the end of his reign. In his speeches and writings, he had announced his readiness to break with civilization down to the last detail. A man who is said to be quite pleasant in personal dealings, who had members of the opposition and minorities he disliked brutally persecuted and murdered, who allied himself with right-wing extremists and dictators from all political camps in order to undermine free, democratic societies organized under the rule of law.
But they repeatedly admitted that he was only trying to heal the national trauma caused by the loss of national territory. Not even when he initiated orgies of violence against his own citizens, broke international treaties, occupied a neighboring country, amputated, smashed and occupied a second, democratically governed neighboring country, when he started the war against a third neighboring country in alliance with another dictator did many democrats want it understand that resistance is required. It would be much better if the invaded country became neutral, demilitarized and resigned to its fate. “Die for Danzig?” was the slogan of the then dictator understanding in 1939.
Oh, you misunderstood me. No, we are not talking about Vladimir Putin, his supporters and his wars here, but about Adolf Hitler and Stalin. I am not writing about Volodymyr Zelenskyj, but about Winston Churchill, who, like the Ukrainian President now, took a largely unexpected stand against a seemingly invincible power and was initially armed primarily with speeches. I’m reading his memoirs, which are very worth reading right now, and I’m looking at a magnificent plane tree that has grown on the site of a house since the war. By the way, only three blue and yellow flags of Ukraine can be seen in the whole street so far. It is perhaps no coincidence that they are attached to the new building and the rear building of the property, which unintentionally reminds us: when democracies keep giving in to autocrats and dictators, they become more militant, not milder. Until they can start war to achieve their goals.