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Potsdamerplatz in the 1920s, as Curt Bois', the Homeric storyteller idling through Wenders' Wings of Desire (1987) remembered, was a buzzing hub of people teeming everywhere. Always more than just a shopping mall, Potsdamerplatz was a place where people could sit in cafes and be entertained and diverted from mundane everyday life. People would sit in idle chatter, telling each other all sorts of stories about exciting new discoveries – in art, culture, and science – and allow their imagination chase the smoke from their cigars. This was "the people’s plaza" that Bois recollected – uplifting to the spirit, exciting to the mind, satisfying to the body, a place of life.

And that was how Homer remembered Potsdamerplatz ... before the Storm Troopers came.