On Berlin: Ultimate Defeat

About this episode

The episode explores the aftermath of Berlin's destruction in 1945 and its impact on the city's identity and culture.

Our co-host just got back from a work trip to Berlin, and his overwhelming impression was one of shiny scar tissue. All the buildings are new and glass and steel and modern, but the city lacks that sense of deep history and organic development that you get in most European cities. He imagined standing there in 1945, surrounded by absolute devastation, and feeling like he was in year zero. It must have been a unique experience to live in a city, a country, that had been completely destroyed - physically, but also morally and spiritually. They had lost everything. The assumption behind the Allies’ strategic bombing offensive was that, through demonstrating to the enemy the hopelessness of their position, they would cause Germany’s resolve to crumble. They thought that level of destruction would make them give up - as it would later with the nuclear bombs in Japan - and that a swift end to the war would ultimately mean more lives would be saved than would be lost in the bombing. But this assumed rationality. It would have been rational for Germany to surrender in 1943, a series of large defeats followed by nuclear-comparable destruction in Hamburg. It was objectively over by then…

People in this episode

Host: co-host

Topics covered

• Berlin
• history
• war
• urban development
• cultural reflection

Keywords

• Berlin
• 1945
• Allies
• bombing
• surrender
• street art
• techno

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: street art, techno

Places: Berlin, Hamburg, Germany

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