Faust’s Metropolis: A History of Berlin. Alexandra Richie

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СКАЧАТЬ to rival their art galleries, that while the British Museum and the Louvre were being filled with Greek statues and Egyptian mummies, Berlin was lagging far behind.

      As ever, William’s motives were linked to his desire to increase the importance of the German state. In the nineteenth century new museums and institutes dedicated to archaeology and ethnography went hand-in-hand with the rush for colonies which became yet another symbol of national pride. Germany had come late to the race for colonies; indeed Bismarck had been against the idea of rushing around the globe for land for fear it would upset his carefully balanced equilibrium in Europe. But in the summer of 1884, urged on by German nationalists as well as by merchants, bankers and entrepreneurs who sought markets and raw material overseas, and with the help of the English (who appreciated his support in Egypt), he changed course and within a few years he had acquired South-West Africa (Namibia), German East Africa (Tanzania), Togo and the Cameroons in West Africa, the Bismarck Archipelago (Solomon Islands) and much of New Guinea. The colonies were not particularly successful: most holdings in South-West Africa were ‘only good for diamond mines’ and German East Africa was uninhabitable; indeed by the outbreak of the First World War only 25,000 Germans had settled there. But they remained a source of great pride. The Berlin department stores and speciality shops sold racks of tropical clothes and outlandish gear and the city was host to organizations from the German Colonial Society and the Colonial Lottery to the Colonial Troops and the Colonial Congress. Germans felt themselves to be as much of a ‘civilizing force’ as other Europeans and no one batted an eyelid when, for example, the learned Professor Doktor Emil Steudel debated whether or not one should best use ‘a rope or a hippopotamus whip to keep plantation workers in line’.¹⁰⁹ It was during this period that the museums of Ethnology, Arts and Crafts, the Colonial Museum and the Natural History Museum grew most rapidly, and even the Maritime Museum, built in 1906, was little more than an excuse to present more nationalistic propaganda about the need for a large German navy to defend the new colonies or trade routes.

      Berlin’s archaeologists first flexed their muscles in North Africa. The fearsome leader Mohammed Ali had kept all Europeans out of his ancient territory for years, but the Berlin Egyptologist Carl Lepsius managed to get an audience with him and exchanged a few pieces of Prussian porcelain for permission to remove all the treasures he could find. It was a great coup. He returned to Berlin in 1850 with crates and boxes bursting with artefacts, leaving the French and the British green with envy. German archaeologists never looked back, increasing their theoretical and practical knowledge while actively participating in German foreign policy. Like their British and French counterparts they took to working alongside the military as spies, gathering intelligence and keeping their government informed of the local political situation while unearthing the treasures of ancient Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Mesopotamia and Greece. Interest in the cultures of the Nile delta reached new heights during the Suez Canal project, which led to the creation of the Egyptian Museum, a fantastic collection which still houses the breathtaking bust of Nefertiti discovered by Ludwig Borchardt at Tell al-Amarna in 1912. The Islamic Museum was founded during the construction of the railroad line to Mecca. The eighth-century palace of Mshatta which had stood in the way was summarily torn down, but in 1903 the sultan of the crumbling Ottoman empire, keen to ingratiate himself with the Kaiser, presented Berlin with the lavish 45-metre rock facade. The Pergamon Museum was named after the extraordinary Pergamon Altar. The city had once rivalled Athens in the ancient world, but it had been forgotten by westerners for over 300 years until the German archaeologist Carl Humann rediscovered it in 1878. He spent thirty years excavating and reconstructing the massive line of stone columns which includes a huge frieze depicting Zeus fighting the giants for Mount Olympus. The Market Gate of Miletus, built by the wealthy citizens of the city in AD 120 under Hadrian, soon joined the Pergamon Altar with its giant two-tiered Corinthian marble columns. This fabulous gate had once greeted traders from all civilization, but the structure had collapsed in an earthquake around the year 1000 and was only excavated and transported to Berlin in 1905.¹¹⁰ The Middle East Department was built to contain the fantastic Ishtar Gate of Babylon, which was built at the height of Nebuchadnezzar’s influence in 580 BC, and it still dazzles visitors with its brilliant blue-glazed tiles and mosaics of glorious mythical animals.

      Berlin produced other pioneers as well: in 1873 Heinrich Schliemann discovered the ancient city of Troy. He dug through precious layers looking for the city of King Priamos, and discovered a fabulous cache of exquisite gold jewellery, later modelled by his wife Sophie in one of the most famous photographs of the century. The find changed fashion trends all over Europe, much as did Carter’s later discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings, and there was no well-dressed Berlin lady in the Gründerjahre (the years following the foundation of the empire) who did not have at least one piece of gold jewellery inspired by Priamos’ treasure. The Trojan hoard was thought to have melted in the fires of the Second World War; in fact it had been stored in the Zoo bunker in 1945 and was stolen by Soviet troops. It has recently turned up in Russia along with dozens of other treasures and was shown in a magnificent exhibition at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

      The sight of all the colonial artefacts in the heart of the Mark Brandenburg helped to reinforce the idea that Berlin was now a great and powerful capital, and the Kaiser encouraged these sentiments by building outlandish monuments of his own. Since 1871 Berliners had been swept along by the tide of nationalism and militarism which was reflected in the Kaiserkult or ‘Cult of the Kaiser’. Busts and statues of Bismarck and William, von Roon and von Moltke, including the three enormous works which still stand forlornly on the Grosser Stern, had sprung up like mushrooms; over fifty statues of Bismarck had been raised by 1890 alone, and new versions were reproduced in glass or bronze for household use. Everything from schnapps to pickled herring was named after the Iron Chancellor, while grown men swooned at the thought of living in Bismarck’s city; Hermann Bahr wrote in 1884: ‘even today my heart beat quickens when I remember how I stepped off at the Anhalter Bahnhof: to be in the same city as Bismarck, to breathe the same air … here [where he] wanders amongst the people!’ Children were taught about the greatness of the Kaiser; when the sun was shining Berliners called it ‘Kaiser weather’, and bourgeois children were dressed up in military outfits and Hussars’ hats. When William II began to build up his navy little boys were squeezed into dark-blue sailor suits complete with gold buttons and caps with SMS Rügen or SMS Helgoland emblazoned across their brims. During his 1897 visit Rubinstein was amazed to see that over half the men of Berlin had copied the Kaiser and ‘enthusiastically adopted the fashion of wearing the enormous W-shaped moustache’. That grown men should so slavishly sport such a strange style seemed ludicrous to him.

      William II dreamed of filling every street in his city with grand statues and monuments to rival those of the ancient world. For him these were an important way of projecting historical legitimacy, of demonstrating the power and the might of the German capital and its new place in the world. He did not understand that since the early nineteenth century great and profound works of art had no longer been asked to fit within a given tradition, but were increasingly judged by their ability to break from it. Thanks largely to Romantic notions of the creative spirit, artists were now supposed to be original, to be emancipated, to be ‘free’. William disregarded this trend; for him art was to reflect the historical greatness of the Prussian state, and of the new capital city of Berlin.¹¹¹ The huge nationalistic monuments he sponsored were meant to remind troublesome Berliners of the glorious victories of the past, and would become the focus for parades and ceremonies of all kinds.

      When the angels in Wim Wenders’s classic Berlin film Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire) met to look over the lonely city they chose one of its most impressive vantage points, the top of the Siegessäule (Victory Column) which towers high above the Brandenburg Gate. The massive structure was built to commemorate Bismarck’s victorious campaigns against Denmark, Austria and France, and symbolized the pomp and splendour of the imperial capital. The red Swedish granite structure was decorated with captured cannon barrels and enhanced by mosaics depicting a glorified version of the victories of the Prussian army throughout the ages, and it was topped by a rather beefy golden Goddess of Victory. It was meant to commemorate the unification of Germany but, in the spirit of true Prussian СКАЧАТЬ