This post will be of interest only to those who buy the digital edition of Berlin Before and After, which omits the Notes section due to complicated formatting reasons. The print edition includes all of this material at the back. Both editions—print and digital—are due out on September 8.
WINTER
19 “People like to laugh in Berlin”: Alfred Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz,
translated by Michael Hofmann. New York: NYRB Classics, 2018, p.
348. (Hereafter cited as Döblin.)
21 “The period reflected by Berlin’s . . . in visual form”: Heinrich
Mendelssohn in Metropolis Berlin: 1880–1940, edited by Iain Boyd
Whyte and David Frisby. Berkeley: University of California Press,
2012, p. 346. (Hereafter cited as Metropolis Berlin.)
21 “this point in history . . . is a necessity”: Heinrich Mendelssohn in
Metropolis Berlin, p. 346.
22 “only if height . . . secured in the buildings”: Werner Hegemann, Report
on a City Plan for the Municipalities of Oakland and Berkeley, 1915,
reprinted in London by Forgotten Books, 2018, p. 98.
22 “passion for justice.” “a winning edge . . . rounds out the writing”: Joseph
Roth, What I Saw: Reports from Berlin 1920–1933, translated by
Michael Hofmann. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2003, pp.
127, 126. (Hereafter cited as Roth.)
22 “Wherever he . . . Hegemann declares it”: Walter Benjamin in
Metropolis Berlin, p. 360.
23 “A skyscraper is like . . . particular individuals”: Werner Hegemann in
Metropolis Berlin, p. 345.
23 “A metropolitan square . . . flowing traffic”: Martin Wagner in
Metropolis Berlin, p. 351.
24 “On Alexanderplatz . . . get the money from”: Döblin, pp. 113, 155–56.
25 “Glacial air . . . melted away”: Döblin, p. 155.
26 “the winter was terribly . . . theft of public property”: Döblin, p. 434.
28 The two largest gangs . . . Nordpiraten: Barney White-Spunner,
Berlin:
The Story of a City. London: Pegasus Books, 2021. (Hereafter cited as
White-Spunner.)
29 “In London . . . live in each house”: Werner Hegemann in Metropolis
Berlin, p. 354.
29 “In those places . . . bars all around Alexanderplatz close”: Franz Hessel,
Walking in Berlin: A Flaneur in the Capital, translated by Amanda
DeMarco. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2017, p. 192. (Hereafter
cited as Hessel.)
30 “Given the fact . . . facing the nation”: Werner Hegemann in Metropolis Berlin, p. 357.
31 “This book is . . . destroyed by the war,” “All quiet on the Western Front”:
Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, translated by
A. W. Wheen. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2013, pp.
160, 159.
32 “He has the head . . . been of use”: Harry Kessler, Berlin in Lights: The
Diaries of Count Harry Kessler (1918–1937), translated by Charles
Kessler. New York: Grove Press, 1999, pp. 366, 367. (Hereafter cited as
Kessler.)
38 In the 1925 local elections . . . went to Joseph Goebbels: White-Spunner,
p. 295; see also James K. Pollock, “The German Elections of 1928,”
American Political Science Review, vol. 22, no. 3 (August 1928), p. 702.
39 “Buy yourself . . . supporter of order . . . a Jew with a red beard . . . take
me in”: Döblin, pp. 57, 70, 7, 20.
39 “voluntary ghetto . . . their peculiarity”: Hessel, p. 71.
40 “He was no longer . . . some sort of mechanical order”: Philipp Frank,
Einstein: His Life and Times, translated by George Rosen. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1947, p. 15.
41 “It was when . . . he recalled one day”: Antonina Vallentin, The Drama
of Albert Einstein, translated by Moura Budberg. Garden City:
Doubleday, 1954, p. 93. (Hereafter cited as Vallentin.)
41 878-square-kilometer
metropolis . . . lakes, woods, and parks: White-Spunner,
p. 284.
43 “a fashionable physician . . . postage stamps.” “In the tranquillity . . .
relativity”: Albrecht Fölsing, Albert Einstein: A Biography, translated by
Ewald Osers. New York: Viking Penguin, 1997, pp. 601, 602.
45 “Dear children . . . Yours, A. Einstein”: Siegfried Grundmann, The
Einstein Dossiers: Science and Politics—Einstein’s
Berlin Period, with
an Appendix on Einstein’s FBI File, translated by Ann M. Hentschel.
Berlin: Springer Verlag, 2004, p. 252.
46 “How did you manage . . . fragrant sunny air”: Vallentin, pp. 163–64.
SPRING
47 “It was Berlin itself . . . meant Boys”: Christopher Isherwood,
Christopher and His Kind. New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1976, p.
1. (Hereafter cited as Christopher and His Kind.)
47 “Both beautiful, one a gazelle”: Christopher and His Kind, p. 239.
49 “Wystan had now begun . . . inner law of our own nature . . . whatever
lies Bubi was telling him”: Christopher and His Kind, pp. 2, 3, 6.
50 “I am a camera . . . not thinking”: Christopher Isherwood, “A Berlin
Diary,” in The Berlin Stories. New York: New Directions, 1945, p. 1.
52 “The most beautiful . . . in the moving pictures”: Hessel, p. 175.
52 “hundreds of yards . . . a first-class
silent film”: Billie Wilder in Billy
Wilder on Assignment: Dispatches from Weimar Berlin and Interwar
Vienna, translated by Shelley Frisch, edited by Noah Eisenberg.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021, p. 187. (Hereafter cited as
Wilder.)
53 “where I would never have gone . . . in our courtyards”: Hessel, pp.
174–75.
53 “The latter . . . naturally promiscuous”: Christopher and His Kind, p. 6.
55 “Preparation for Pandora’s Box . . . he picked Louise Brooks . . . Budd
Schulberg . . . I quit . . . would become a burlesque”: Louise Brooks,
“Pabst and Lulu,” Sight and Sound, Summer 1965, p. 124. (Hereafter
cited as Brooks.)
57 “As I was leaving the set . . . The smoke . . . fragments of reality”: Brooks,
p. 126.
58 “the ruling class . . . She does nothing . . . the screen’s first lesbian”:
Brooks, p. 124.
62 “Berlin has its own . . . mere sight of them”: Hessel, p. 15.
62 “The car shot along . . . excited dogs”: Vicki Baum, Grand Hotel,
translated by Basil Creighton. New York: NYRB Classics, 2016, p. 164.
(Hereafter cited as Baum.)
64 “Berlin divided into . . . was the Wannsee”: Baum, p. 172.
64 “The hall began to . . . hitting each other . . . thousand lights . . .
Tauentzienstrasse”: Baum, p. 201.
64 “completely alert . . . Radio Tower”: Baum, p. 205.
65 “Are they going . . . It is finished”: Baum, p. 165.
65 “at the hub of modern Berlin . . . out of the city”: Baum, p. 196.
67 “generally keep the same rhythm” . . . fifteen minutes in one place:
Hessel, pp. 34–35.
68 “At the Eden Hotel . . . The night club . . . meat appears at the cage”:
Brooks, pp. 125, 127.
69 “The black man was tall,” “But he doesn’t . . . made up to look black”:
Baum, pp. 199, 39–40.
69 “The invention . . . screws up his courage”: Hessel, p. 42.
70 “These past ten days . . . dress shirts,” “I dance . . . with a thousand
kinds”: Wilder, pp. 39, 38.
SUMMER
71 “Where do you hole up . . . already here,” “People quench . . . volume”:
Wilder, pp. 56, 80.
73 “Well, we have started . . . heads in the water . . . umbrella right in here”:
Wilder, pp. 80–81.
74 “Pabst seemed to lose interest . . . as near as you’ll get to mine . . . Pabst
wanted realism . . . German champagne”: Kenneth Tynan, “The Girl in
the Black Helmet: Louise Brooks Remembers,” New Yorker, June 11,
1979; reprinted in the August 29, 2022, issue, pp. 21–23.
74 “A very, very simple story . . . that’s you and me”: Wilder, p. 81.
75 “has its own beauty . . . found nowhere else”: Walter Benjamin in
Metropolis Berlin, p. 361.
76 “Tauentzienstrasse and Kurfürstendamm . . . adventure of the eyes”:
Hessel, p. 133.
77 “still looking like new . . . collapse a little”: Hessel, pp. 123–24.
78 “A restaurant is . . . inconsistency is consistent . . . morning papers”:
Roth, pp. 149–50.
79 “But if you do . . . vice versa,” “the distance between . . . both camps”:
Hessel, pp. 114, 258.
83 “half-empty
house . . . grown tired of ballet”: Vicki Baum quoted in
Noah Isenberg’s introduction to Grand Hotel (op. cit.), p. ix.
86 “Charlottengrad . . . Little Moscow”: Karl Schlögel, “Investigating
Russian Berlin in Weimar Germany: Culture and Displacement in
the Age of War and Revolution,” published on Balticworlds.com,
September 22, 2011.
87 “Note the pat pattern . . . A half-empty
package . . . a life so precisely . . .
An insane chess player”: Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory: An
Autobiography Revisited. New York: Vintage International, 1989, p.
229. (Hereafter cited as Speak, Memory.)
87 “has been found lovable . . . detest all my other books”: Vladimir
Nabokov, The Defense, translated by the author and Michael
Scammell. New York: Capricorn Books, 1970, p. 10. (Hereafter cited as
The Defense.)
88 “The room was clean and brightly,” “the blazon of Berlin taxis,” “looked
about him at the table . . . with interest, with pleasure”: The Defense, pp.
76, 147, 133.
88 “an animal aching yearn for the still fresh reek of Russia”: Speak,
Memory, p. 220.
90 “Three kinds of flags . . . hatred in someone,” “that ridiculous
sequence . . . international treaties”: Vladimir Nabokov, The Gift,
translated by the author and Michael Scammell. New York: G. P.
Putnam’s Sons, 1963, pp. 370, 48.
91 “opera’s enduring appeal . . . for the first”: Wilder, p. 181.
92 “In the evening saw Brecht’s . . . always sold out”: Kessler, p. 349.
92 “I was introduced . . . head on his shoulders”: Kessler, p. 353.
95 “Reality as such . . . draughtsmanship”: Georg Grosz quoted in Kessler, p. 354.
98 “The Jew is the cause . . . is still doing today!”: Joseph Goebbels, “Those
Damn Nazis,” translated by Randall Bytwerk and made available
online through his German Propaganda Archive, copyright 1999
(web address: https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-
archive/haken32.htm).
FALL AND BEYOND
99 “Excursioners . . . even just a paddleboat”: Hessel, p. 52.
100 “The first thing to say . . . dust-blue
sky”: Hessel, p. 53.
101 “grandiose . . . royal theater . . . I peer . . . Berlin marketplace”: Hessel,
p. 54.
102 “Our opera, Knobelsdorff’s . . . We children of Berlin . . . days gone-by”:
Hessel, pp. 101–102.
102 “Just walking around . . . becoming something else”: Hessel, p. 7.
103 “First night of the Scala . . . not deeply stirred”: Kessler, p. 363.
104 “I was sitting . . . consequences cannot be foreseen”: Kessler, pp. 367–68.
105 Dawes Plan, Young Plan, and economic data: Theo Balderston,
Economics and Politics in the Weimar Republic. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 23–24.
106 “On the evening before . . . A few hours later he was dead!”: Kessler, p.
370.
106 “It is almost . . . Bismarck,” “It becomes ever . . . entire nation”: Kessler,
pp. 368, 369.
107 “What I fear . . . establish a dictatorship”: Kessler, p. 368.
109 “ for the purpose . . . acquisition fund,” “Einstein Declines”: Albrecht
Fölsing, Albert Einstein (op. cit.), pp. 610, 611.
109 “The whole thing,” “Wearing sandals . . . reached the water”: Vallentin,
pp. 169, 168.
110 “He had often met . . . struggle for an idea . . . a good democrat, Count
Kessler . . . natural instincts”: Vallentin, p. 172.
112 “Nationalism is an infantile,” “not a madhouse of nationalism,” “When I
met you,” “no pure race remains,” “vestal virgin guarding the fire,” “lazy
habits of thinking”: George Sylvester Viereck, “What Life Means to
Einstein,” Saturday Evening Post, October 26, 1929, pp. 117, 114, 113.
116 Brüning’s severe fiscal policies . . . aversion to the socialists: Theo
Balderston, Economics and Politics in the Weimar Republic (op. cit.), p.
89.
116 September 14, 1930 . . . Nazi Party had won 18.3 percent: Eric D.
Weitz, Weimar Germany. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007,
pp. 350–51.
117 “A black day for Germany,” “today’s rioting will,” “National Socialism is a
delirium,” “ for decades ahead”: Kessler, pp. 396, 400–401, 397.
120 “I’m looking,” “tousled, furious,” “lunch here, would you?”: Christopher
and His Kind, pp. 12, 13.
122 “tribe,” “many other nations,” “of all three groups”: Christopher and His
Kind, pp. 16, 17, 18.
122 “Indoors,” “ought to have lived,” “middle-class
queens,” “respectability”:
Christopher and His Kind, pp. 22, 23, 25–26, 27.
123 “Arab harem girl”: Elisabeth Young-Bruehl,
Hannah Arendt: For Love of
the World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982, p. 102.
123 “who had inherited,” “social gathering,” “his devotees”: Christopher and
His Kind, pp. 33, 34.
125 “As much as I love,” “greasy tablecloth,” “drew them”: Hessel, pp. 209,
210–211, 211–212.
125 “Once in your life . . . can be had for pretty cheap”: Hessel, p. 32.
126 “at Baby Goldschmidt-Rothschild’s
. . . to mere baubles”: Kessler, p. 374.
GOODBYE, LENIN
180 “no one has any intention of building a wall”: White-Spunner,
p. 390.
184 Stasi at 97,000 and the network of informants at 173,000: Anna
Funder, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall. New York:
HarperCollins, 2002, p. 57. (Hereafter cited as Funder.)
189 “I’m not going to the South Pole . . . once bitten, twice shy”: Brigitte
Reimann, Siblings, translated by Lucy Jones. Oakland: Transit Books,
2022, p. 81.
190 “Nothing else is quite . . . ‘if that exists, we don’t’ ”: Michael Hofmann,
reviewing Reimann’s Siblings in the London Review of Books, March 2,
2023, p. 39.
MUSEUMS OF THINGS
208 “the people . . . and elect another?”: Brecht’s poem quoted in White-Spunner,
p. 379.
TRANSPARENCY
218 “ripping pages . . . considerably defaced”: The Guardian, November 20,
2006.
221 “dazzling . . . sense of magic”: Carlo Belli quoted in Kathleen James,
Erich Mendelsohn & the Architecture of German Modernism.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 6. (Hereafter cited as James.)
221 “a stack of pancakes”: Werner Hegemann quoted in James, pp. 197–198.
222 “An attempt . . . tension-free
horizontal”: Erich Mendelsohn quoted in
James, pp. 94, 93.
222 “only a living inside . . . intensity of form”: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
in Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century
Architecture, translated
by Michael Bullock, edited by Ulrich Conrads. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1971, p. 102. (Hereafter cited as Programs and Manifestoes.)
223 “Architecture is the will . . . carry no weight”: Mies in Programs and
Manifestoes, pp. 74–75.
223 “I hope you will . . . unfolding of its form”: Mies in Programs and
Manifestoes, p. 154.
226 “When you look at it . . . doing it all again”: Funder, p. 51.
NAMES AND CHANGES
232 “This decision means . . . look to Willy Brandt”: Hélène Miard-Delacroix,
Willy Brandt: The Life of a Statesman, translated by Isabelle
Chaize. London: I. B. Tauris, 2016, p. 210.
234 “The currency reform . . . was also threatened by the currency reform”:
Günter Grass, The Tin Drum, translated by Ralph Mannheim. New
York: Vintage International, 1990, p. 461.
236 “The Bendlerblock . . . appeals to me,” “what used to be Kaiserhof . . .
don’t they?”: Len Deighton, Berlin Game. London: Hutchinson, 1983,
pp. 104, 235.
READING MATTERS
243 “Perhaps many . . . at the Institute,” “Everything would . . . an ending”:
Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone, translated by Susan Bernofsky.
New York: New Directions, 2017, pp. 3, 6–7. (Hereafter cited as Go,
Went, Gone.)
244 “He thinks . . . that governs him”: Go, Went, Gone, p. 4.
244 “The cheese . . . in Socialist times”: Go, Went, Gone, p. 15.
246 “When my son . . . the same path,” “When you lose . . . criticizing it,”
“I wanted . . . make things up”: Conversation between the author and
Jenny Erpenbeck, Berlin, September 1, 2023.
248 “I’ve known . . . could be imagined”: Jenny Erpenbeck, Not a Novel,
translated by Kurt Beals. New York: New Directions, 2020, p. 31.
248 “Seventy-two
percent . . . What is an archetype . . . both aspects at once”:
Transcription of Jenny Erpenbeck’s public presentation at Barnard
College, New York, on September 28, 2023. (Hereafter cited as Erpenbeck at Barnard College.)
POLITICS AND MIGRATION
259 “The Jew caused . . . broken our strength”: Joseph Goebbels, “Those
Damn Nazis” (op. cit.).
261 “To be proud of Germany . . . ashamed of Hitler”: Washington Post,
September 21, 2017.
263 “That was a game changer . . . liberal democracy”: Thomas Haldenwang
quoted in the New York Times, December 23, 2022.
265 “The tense stand-off
. . . if police entered it”: Al Jazeera, July 27, 2014.
267 “All of Neukölln . . . in front of her vegetable cart”: Hessel, p. 161.
271 “When they voted . . . forgotten ones”: Erpenbeck at Barnard College.
272 “What is happening . . . too few dwellings”: White-Spunner,
pp.
446–447.
274 Data about Tempelhof refugee housing: Foreign Policy, September
2, 2023; additional Tempelhof data: The Local (German edition),
February 15, 2023.
274 Data about Tegel housing: New York Times, December 4, 2023.
274 “It’s no secret . . . to go”: Kai Wegner quoted in The Local (German
edition), June 29, 2023.
THE BODY ONSTAGE
296 “It was obvious . . . of the show . . . This location . . . after it was built”:
Emily Kapnek’s interview with David Pieper and Mario Wittman,
posted online on September 8, 2021.
RIDING THE BUS
302 “No, no . . . top of a double-decker”:
Cees Nooteboom, All Souls’ Day,
translated by Susan Massotty. London: MacLehose Press, 2022.
317 “nothing more than a massive,” “collapse a little”: Hessel, pp. 123–124.
[To be added to Lesser Blog when e-book goes up, under the exact title given at the front.]