10 - Re-connection

Summary

On 3 October 1990 the newly constituted federal states (Länder) joined an enlarged Federal Republic of Germany, as the Unification Treaty came into effect. Reunification had a fundamental impact on Berlin in just about every respect: topographically, in terms of borders, buildings, and infrastructure; socially, in terms of the economy, communities, culture, and life-styles; and also in the sphere of the imaginary, of self-representations and reflections, and selective preservation of traces of an always controversial past. A third of a century later, the divided Berlin of the Cold War era was becoming virtually unimaginable. Alongside major social and economic transformation, the landscapes of memorialisation became overwhelming. Berlin is perhaps unique among major capital cities in displaying such a level of national shame in public remembrance of the victims of its own previous misdeeds.