Divided Berlin: One Past and Three Futures

Postwar developments in divided Berlin have much to tell us about political integration and disintegration. The city endured successive waves of wartime destruction, postwar dismantling, and, after 1948, political division. Structural division was made more permanent after 1961. Not until 1970-1972 could the wartime allies and the two postwar Germanies work out contractual arrange ments to regulate interaction between East and West Berlin. Despite cultural, geographic, and other affinities, the two cities have become and remain separate entities.One possible but improbable future development is the failure of some party to fulfill the letter and spirit of these agreements, leading to a renewal of cold war tension. Another equally improbable scenario envisions the internal decay of West Berlin or its eventual abandonment by the Federal Republic, leading to its absorption by the German Democratic Republic. A more probable scenario sees East and West Berlin developing as sister cities in separate countries. This would necessitate a clearcut recognition of both the two cities' autonomy from each other as well as the legitimacy of this status quo. Each could then work on matters of mutual interest without fearing a loss of control over its own fate. To the extent that policy planners want detente in the Berlin area, it behooves them to search out not the grandiose schemes for reunification, but rather areas of limited, low-risk, but cumulative cooperation between autonomous entities.