Correspondence
A LETTER FROM BERLIN. [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,-A young French writer, returning from Moscow after a tour round the Russian soul which is just now so popular among young French writers, told me that it is possible to understand all that is necessary of Berlin by merely looking out of the windows of the train at the stations where the Nord Express stops on its way through the city.
There is something to be said for the opinion. The train crawls from east to west, from the ill-famed Silesian station, where emigrants bound to America from all lands beyond the Oder fight all night for sleeping space in the waiting-rooms, through the Friedrichstrasse, built in a ponderous style that looked modern so very few years ago and surrounded by offices hustling in the daytime, and at night by the decayed dance halls and cabarets that since the fat inflation years eke out a shady existence by showing " Life " to misguided provincials, on to the Zoo station in the west, its dingy inadequacy lit up by the garish lights of all the largest cinema theatres in Berlin. For Berlin has expanded westwards at a pace which the builders of its railway stations have not attempted to equal, and the Kurfiirstendamm, three years ago a road leading into the country through a comparatively quiet residential district sprinlded with cafés; has become the Berlin version of Piccadilly and Regent Street simul- taneously, so that the authorities have recently made the unwelcome proposal to remove for the sake of the traffic the double line of trees and the gardens in front of the houses which here alleviate the crushing monotony of most Berlin streets.
In a city so new and so quickly growing new adventures in architecture evidently have a better chance of being translated from the architect's plans into bricks and mortar than in the stability of London. Also the business community here is perhaps rather more, adventurous than in London and a trifle less nervous of "high-brow notions," so that one sees now and then agreeable evidence of the increasing influence of the " Neue Sachlichkeit " school of architecture,' which has
its home in Dessau, and of which one of the essential principles is to build with an eye solely to the purpose for which the building is to be used and the material available, without being
deflected in the least by aesthetic considerations. For instance a new corner-house on the Kurffirstendanun has been built with the definite purpose of being not only a shop and a block of offices or flats, but also a pillar for the display of advertise- ments, and the balconies. and windows are so arranged that
the maximum space not essential for the admittance of light and air to the interior of the house shall be conveniently adaptable to the display either of posters or of skysigns. It would take too long to go into the principles of this school,
which in the last two years has profoundly influenced every branch of German art, or even into its manifestations in architecture. One may mention two buildings both indirectly but strongly influenced by it. One is the new printing house of the Ullstein Press, the other the German Luft Hansa building, both at Tempelhof in South Berlin.-
The latter is a low, fiat-roofed building of great simplicity„ convenience and charm, and well worth visiting, even if one has not had the advantage of arriving in Germany by aeroplane, a way of travel that is becoming more and more a matter of course in Germany. In August last year the Luft
Hansa carried nearly, sixty thousand passengers, and there
is no doubt that this year the number will be considerably increased. There are very few large towns in Germany that are not immediately accessible by air, and when it is a question of a voyage to Vienna, Geneva or Paris, one can hardly hesitate between the rail and the air service. A very convenient Sunday service to Paris has just been opened, the first non-stop service between the two capitals, so that one is now able to leave Berlin at ten in the morning, lunch on the aeroplane, and land in Le Bourget at half-past three.
It is not only the great efficiency and comfort of the Luft Hansa service that is responsible for its popularity. Since the early days of Count Zeppelin flying has had for the German mind some of the significance that the sea has for the English, and with the disappearance of the fleet as an object of senti- mental national enthusiasm Germany has felt more and more that her future lies in the air.
Naturally as in all countries a certain sporting element enters into the idea of flying and sport is pursued in Germany with passionate enthusiasm by every class of the population, from the bank clerks and shop assistants who organize Sunday runs through the suburbs and the comitry beyond, to the smart crowds in the best seats at the tennis ground the other day when the German girl, Mlle. Aussem, won a decisive victory over the Wimbledon finalist, Mlle. de Alvarez. Multitudes watched the hockey match, in which the Indian team beat the Germans, and the football victory of Berlin over a London team. Greyhound racing is on the point of being introduced, and it will be interesting to see whether the same excitement that this sport aroused in London will be felt by a population in whose eyes, although there is a bookmaker's office in every other street, the Turf has never approached the position it held in England.
Not only sport, but the country or any reasonable sub- stitute for it is something for which the Berliner will endure hours in overcrowded stations and bursting trains, and since the small car is far less widely disseminated than it is in England and the suburban communications are, to put .it mildly,
inadequate, the week-end trains are a nightmare. • The last fortnight has been the season when the entire population of the city, or so it seems, travels out to the village of Werder to see the cherry blossom and drink the new wine, an innocent- seeming, but incredibly potent, concoction which towards evening reduces the place to a very lively imitation of Hampstead Heath at its loudest.
Forty per cent, of the theatres are occupied more or less regularly by English and American plays, and the sensation of the season has also been a foreign importation, the Granow- sky company from Moscow, whose acting is so remarkable that one has sat in the theatre a long time before it occurs to one that one has not understood a word. This week Chaliapin is singing at the newly reopened State Opera House, a building of truly lamentable appearance but fitted with one of the finest stages in Europe.—I am, Sir, &c., YOUR BERLIN CORRESPONDENT.
Previous page
