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It might be said that Berlin has changed its image over the last few decades. Today it is more like the city it was in the 1920s (as Peter Conrad describes in Modern Time, Modern Places; Life and Art in the 20th Century, 62–64.) than it did during the 1980s, and the streets are again pulsing like the veins of a wildly excited animal, intoxicated by diesel fumes. Now the city’s heart pumps like someone on a workout—to the pulse of the construction engines and jack hammers that are driving it.

This is the New Republic, and the glory days of the Weimar might yet be recaptured, although no-one would dare say that in so many words. Berliners remain mindful of the lessons of history.