A city of many faces<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
As an introduction to Berlin, I would like to quote a passage from the first edition of my book \u201cExploring Berlin\u201d (my recommendation to anyone visiting Berlin):<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen I moved to what was then West Berlin a long time ago from one of the many parts of Germany long-time Berliners call \u2018the provinces\u2019, I was not all that impressed. The pomp and splendour of imperial Germany loomed large for me in the wide streets. Even alternative Kreuzberg seemed more interested in navel-gazing than in adventurous new beginnings. There was little evidence of the back then sometimes billed \u2018avant-garde city\u2019, where idealistic work was being done on the future to facilitate a free human society without power structures (my ideal at the time, and probably still). And of course, consumerism along the Ku\u2019damm was buzzing - during the day in the luxury shops, at night on the street itself, which also served as a somewhat upmarket red-light district. But first impressions are often deceptive, or at least you get used to everything, and then the Wall came down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember in the \u2018Kumpelnest\u2019 back then the legendary all-night hangout for anyone who somehow didn\u2019t belong anywhere. We jived in youthful, hopeful naivety about this and that, including the burden of Germany\u2019s past, which everyone I knew wanted to escape from, into an uncertain, hopefully positive future. To West Berlin, for example, which we, with unfounded optimism, described as a blank page. As a blank, perhaps erased, perhaps new city. West Berlin looked a bit like that, with its large postwar wastelands, the barren \u2018no-man's-land\u2019 opposite the still unfinished Kulturforum (now called Potsdamer Platz, back then Germany\u2019s largest fleamarket on weekends), the old buildings that were often more run-down than renovated, the new buildings that often seemed out of place, and the visionary buildings, such as the Philharmonie and Haus der Kulturen der Welt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On rereading the text, I realised it is very much about setting a city (a \u2018vanishing point\u2019, as I called it elsewhere) as a place of escape into happiness or to a \u2018good\u2019, \u2018free\u2019, even \u2018guilt-free\u2019 life. It is thus possible to read West Berlin as a kind of utopia, although this hardly corresponds or corresponded to reality. Berlin lies just as much on the other side of hope, often making it perceived as the capital of guilt, the heir of past crimes and atrocities. To put it bluntly: Berlin inhales the future and exhales the past. Or the other way round. The idea of the search for happiness has me thinking of a film\/book as a possible cultural gateway into the city: The Legend of Paul and Paula<\/em> and The Legend of Happiness Without End<\/em>\u201d. Despite my West-centric preamble, both are East German works. In the ether of thought, that distinction matters little, but here\u2019s a practical warning. The following text is a true treasure chest of spoilers; while such things are often deemed OK when it comes to literature, most of us prefer to see movies with \u2018unspoilered\u2019 eyes and minds. So, if you are so inclined, maybe watch the movie before reading this text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Die „Paula“ in der Rummelburger Bucht sieht zwar \u00e4hnlich aus, ist aber nicht mit dem Kahn aus dem Film identisch \u2013 darum ist sie aber noch keine „Laura“ (die Spitze wird sp\u00e4testens im weiteren Text klar)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Legend of Paul and Paula<\/em> (Regie: Heiner Carow) kam 1973 in die ostdeutschen Kinos und wurde der erfolgreichste Film der DDR. Warum? War es das Drehbuch von Ulrich Plenzdorf, Heiner Carow und Ingrid Reschke (die urspr\u00fcnglich Regie f\u00fchren sollte, aber w\u00e4hrend der Drehbuchentwicklung verstarb; der Film ist ihr gewidmet), waren es die attraktiven Hauptdarsteller, war es der Soundtrack1<\/a><\/sup>soundtrack that made the Puhdys (later the most successful of all GDR bands), or was it the sometimes fairytale-like images that somehow seemed to weave western hippiedom into the tapestry of the GDR. In an interview after reunification, director Carow had an explanation for the success of the film: \u201cFor the first time a heroine did not seek happiness in working for the communist cause, so to speak, but was instead devoted to love\u201d<\/em>\u201d. The reference to the subject of \u2018happiness\u2019 is important here, because enabling or conditioning the happiness of people or citizens (of all variations) is just as much a promise of any ideology as it is the actual task of governments and the subject of philosophy. Happiness is a concept important in the defence and makeup of any utopia. Carow's quote references the GDR narrative that its citizens saw working for communism (\u2018the good\u2019) as the fulfilment of their own wishes, as their purpose in life. A daring assumption, but one that is taken seriously in many areas (religion, do-goodery and politics), albeit with little connection to the truth. That said: such considerations are unlikely to have contributed to the film\u2019s popularity. The lead character\u2019s devotion to love not only offended the GDR censors (who may have detected Western\/capitalist influences in the film). In West Germany, a feminist magazine wrote: \u201cthe eye of the camera forces viewers to consider women from the perspective of a horny square\u201d<\/em> I found the quote in the commendable article Der Untergang des alten Berlin in der Legende von Paul und Paula<\/em> by Stephanie Warnke (linked here<\/a>), in which the author reports on the initial outrage the film triggered in her when she first watched it in the mid-1990s. I can sympathise with her reaction, which, according to her, came out of a \u201clate feminist, West German perspective\u201d<\/em> \u201d. I also found the image of women\/people strange when I first saw the film in 2022 (but could quite enjoy the almost fairy-tale-like quality, the evocative images and my confusion at what it was all about). Others often highlighted the power of love, the self-liberation of the individual and the escape from the constraints of political-ideological values (an appropriate commentary by Stephan Br\u00f6ssel is linked here<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The film tells the story of two people, Paul and Paula, living on the same street, but divided (in work and street sides) by progress - Paula (a single parent) lives in a dilapidated house on the \u2018yesteryear\u2019 side of the street, Paul (a family man) lives opposite in a brand new concrete apartment block on the \u2018future\u2019 side of the street (the shift from old to new is clear in the first images of the film; as the dust settles from the demolition blast of an old building, a new building becomes visible). Paula is a simple worker. Paul conforms to the prevailing morals and society and is therefore \u201cupwardly mobile\u201d. Nevertheless, the mismatched couple find each other in a moment of escapism; both are out to find a lover for the night and then end up in Paul\u2019s garage together. The location is important, as Paula and Paul\u2019s sexuality and love could not be played out in a bourgeois context at the beginning, i.e. in a normal bedroom. Their newfound love almost immediately threatens to break apart because of Paul\u2019s conservatism, but the romantic-sexual factor is stronger than Paul\u2019s need to conform. In Warneke\u2019s interpretation, it is Paula\u2019s self-sacrifice (she insists, despite a doctor\u2019s warning, on having another child, this time Paul\u2019s, and dies while in labour) that liberates Paul the man and, at the end of the film, transforms him into a harbinger of a caring, masculine and socialist future. Berlin, city of (dearly gained) happiness?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Legend of Paul and Paula<\/em> \u201d is regarded as a \u201cBerlin movie\u201d. It both reflects the architectural reality (and transformation) of the city and features characters who use the local dialect. Here, two important female characters (Paula and Paul\u2019s first wife, Ines, portrayed as a kind of \u201cmarriage opportunist\u201d) stand out. Today, the strong localisation, the establishment of an East Berlin identity and the portrayal of a city as a formative culture might contribute even more to the film\u2019s fairytale-like quality then back in the 1970s; cultures have long since become optional, with Berlin as well as other cities becoming, for the multitudes, homes of choice rather than fate. Stephanie Warnke mentions in her article that the Paula character uses the Berlin dialect thanks to actress Angelica Domr\u00f6se - who grew up in the city. The original script had her speaking standard German, and of the main characters only Ines using the local dialect (presumably to create a contrast between beauty, status and that great betrayer of one\u2019s pedigree: accent).<\/p>\n\n\n\n An 'identity-creating' playground under construction, park bench on Paul-und-Paula-Ufer during renovation work, Singerstrasse in 2024<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It is possible to link the film to several places in today\u2019s Berlin, but those places have changed dramatically. Friedrichshain\u2019s Singerstra\u00dfe (not named in the film, but the prefabricated building with the number 51 is visible) was where the homes of the eponymous lovers stood. Here, clean, modern concrete blocks and decaying tenement buildings once faced each other. Today, no reminder of that conflict between old and new remains, but the prefabs have by now grown old. I would like to make a left-field observation about the (current and former) redesign. In 2022, the Singerstra\u00dfe paddling pool was removed and the site, together with surrounding facilities, to be redeveloped. On its website, the Berlin government describes the site as an \u2018identity-forming playground\u2019. To clarify: the contrasts between local\/standard German language and old\/new buildings in the film can be viewed through the prism of the identity debate. But whatever is supposed to turn a paddling pool\/playground into something that creates whatever identity remains unclear to me. Perhaps the children are supposed to play there and become children. I believe this might be an example of linguistic opportunism (\u2018identity\u2019 was an identity-creating and advertising buzzword in politics in the early 2020s). The new communist buildings were certainly also intended to have some identity-forming value, while the old buildings expressed a fading identity. Should these brand-new identities somehow always replace or even erase an old one?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another relevant location is Rummelsburg Bay; it is the backdrop to one of the film\u2019s most famous scenes, a dream sequence in which Paul and Paula are married on a ship amidst Paula\u2019s ancestors (the latter were boatmen; the family abandoned the tradition as there was no son available to keep it afloat). It is a strange scene which, with its strong linking of sexuality to a kind of fortuitous annihilation of the individual (see below) can be almost frightening. Family history (or powers or procreation) is a recurring theme in the film. For example, a sensual scene between the eponymous lovers becomes a faded black-and-white image in a frame that is an obvious part in a historical sequence of such dual portraits. But back to the dream sequence: Paula\u2019s ancestors tie her and Paul to their marital bed with anchor chains, cover them with flowers (only Paula\u2019s face remains visible) and set the bed on fire. In any case, the scene can be read in many ways, and has spawned its own local history. The place itself, the shore of Rummelsburg Bay, had been referred to as Paul-und-Paula-Ufer for some time before the name became official around 2000. The street sign has frequently being stolen by fans and there is also a bench dedicated to \u2018all Berlin lovers\u2019. Standing at the Paul-und-Paula-Ufer, the radical changes between past and present are obvious. The film scene shows barges and the rather bare shore of the Stralau peninsula. Houseboats have since replaced the working ships, while Stralau is now replete with new buildings and industrial monuments converted into luxury flats. On the Rummelsburg side, a new street honours the screenwriter, East German writer Ulrich Plenzdorf, and there are other street names in the surrounding area with links to the film, among them: Ingrid-Reschke-Stra\u00dfe. The new buildings (begun in the early 2020s) are impersonal in a stale modern way; to my surprise, I found an English-language site online that offers high-priced flats in Plenzdorf-Stra\u00dfe and, according to the note on the website, only accepts enquiries from hopeful tenants aged 18-35. This may be anecdotal, but a lot has changed since the days when it was assumed that the city, somehow, belonged to its inhabitants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eine der Besonderheiten des Films ist (f\u00fcr mich) seine Offenheit in Sachen Interpretation. H\u00e4userbau, Geschichtsbild, Identit\u00e4t, Reproduktionskraft, Feminismus, sexuelles Gl\u00fcck, die halbe Freiheit und weitere Themen lassen sich finden. Viele w\u00fcrden den Film ein Werk der DDR-Kritik nennen, und das ist sicher nicht falsch. Das Werk kritisierte zur Zeit der Ver\u00f6ffentlichung den Anpassungsdruck und die (f\u00fcr ein sozialistisches Land seltsame, weil nicht vorgesehene) Spie\u00dfigkeit der DDR. Der Alltag mit seinen Problemen und der (auch nicht vorgesehenen) Mangel an gewissen Produkten wurden realit\u00e4tsnah dargestellt. Die Reaktion von staatlicher Seite war nicht enthusiastisch. Zwar hatte SED-Chef Honecker selbst die Zulassung des Films genehmigt (die DDR-Zensur gilt als scharf und erfolgte eigentlich gegen die zeitlokal geltende Gesetze, die eine freie \u00f6ffentliche Meinungs\u00e4u\u00dferung garantieren sollten), er wollte sich als Freund der Jugend zeigen. Hier ist zu beachten, dass Honecker erst seit 1971 der m\u00e4chtigsten Mann der DDR war und sich als, gegen\u00fcber der ‚alten Riege‘, kulturell und gesellschaftlich liberal zeigen wollte (obwohl er zuvor daf\u00fcr bekannt gewesen war, nicht ganz linientreuen Kulturschaffenden ’spie\u00dfb\u00fcrgerlichen Skeptizismus‘ vorzuwerfen). Jedenfalls, der Film eckte bei der ideolgiesicheren Zensurbeh\u00f6rde an. Bei der Premiere sollten, laut Erz\u00e4hlung des Regisseurs, 800 Staatsbeauftragte eisige Stimmung verbreiten, den Film Totschweigen. Das klappte nicht. Die 400 ‚eigenwilligen‘ weiteren Besucher klatschten lauter als die 800 emp\u00f6rten Werteverteidiger schwiegen. Dennoch, die Kritiken der staatstragenden Presse waren negativ, es wurde von einer \u201cconcentration on the erotic experience\u201d<\/em> \u201d, of a half-baked film. The unease of the opinion-dictating elites certainly appealed to the audiences of the time. Queues outside cinemas extended around the block.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Outside the world of the GDR censors, who were keen on clear pro-state statements, \u201cPaul and Paula\u201d does not actually have to be read as an anti-communist critique of the regime. It is possible to see it as an attempt to show a way to a better society or a better life than the one people had, East or West. One certainly valid criticism \u2013 the female lead, seen from one perspective, is dehumanised into a goddess of fertility and sacrifice while the male lead is degraded into an opportunistic fool to be converted into a good man \u2013 can be seen as part of an artistic process with an open outcome. I believe that in such processes, nothing needs to be sacrosanct, and nothing needs to be said \u2013 or even imagined \u2013 with the utmost clarity. Instead: the individual audience member retains the actual, if only personal, right of interpretation, becomes the free part of the artistic equation. This freedom is fabulous, and only possible with works that do not need to have a clear meaning or purpose. Unfortunately, the claim to correct interpretation is today often centralised (once again), and art is often assigned an easily describable meaning or purpose. A walk through Berlin is a good antidote. In the current urban landscape, people still often encounter the liberating tension between social conservatism and dropoutism, self-expression and conformity, between lobbyism, do-goodery and selfishness. In the East as in the West. Even if the film was cancelled in East Germany after the two main actors left for West Germany in the early 1980s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The publishing house Neues Deutschland is located opposite Singerstra\u00dfe. It was under construction during the filming of \"Paul and Paula\"; in 2011, an inscription was added along the ground floor, with a quote from Karl Marx on the right-hand side: \"The social revolution cannot draw its poetry from the past, but only from the future\".<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1979, Ulrich Plenzdorf published the novel The Legend of Happiness Without End<\/em>\u201d, based on the screenplay for Paul\/Paula. The first part retells the movie; the second part sets off for new shores. Paul lives on after Paula\u2019s death, without happiness and without love. He meets Laura, who is less na\u00efve, less in need of love, less cuddly, but looks very much like Paula. Paul believes in Laura somehow being Paula sent back to him, although she insists on being called Laura, and Laura has nothing against a relationship with Paul. She gets on well with the children, but somehow also insists on doing her own thing. Soon, a suspicion arises. Could it be that this new, unexpected happiness is not because of a kind fate, but to the omnipresent power of the state, intent on bringing Paul back into his old job for the government? When the penny drops, Paul despairs at the reality of a life curated by the powers that be via Laura, his false happiness. After a serious accident, he is confined to a wheelchair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Legend of Happiness Without End<\/em> \u00a0is far more than a book capitalizing on a successful movie. Some people watching Paul and Paula will find the simplifications typical of visual media (beautiful\/ugly, male\/female) irritating. Paul is a handsome, skinny, tall and young man, the embodiment of sensual-sexual romance, who competes with an unhandsome, chubby, short and old (but wealthy) adversary for Paula\u2019s love: the tyre dealer Reifen-Saft, whose very name (\u2018tyre-juice\u2019) makes him unlikeable. Paul even lowers himself to the indignant battle try \u201cHe\u2019s not up to it anymore!\u201d<\/em> \u00a0(alluding to his rival\u2019s sexual potency). You can either laugh about it or cringe. In the second part of the book, Saft is portrayed differently. He gets his humanity back, so to speak, and helps others (including Paul) where he can. Paul\u2019s first wife, Ines, portrayed in the film as a simple, selfish opportunist, also surprises us with her humanity and openness towards the paralysed Paul. It almost seemed to this reader as if Plenzdorf wanted to correct some of the negative effects of the sometimes blunt medium a film is. In one of the final scenes, Paul simply enters West Berlin. In his wheelchair, he moves around the city, notices with astonishment that \u2018in the West\u2019 there is greater inclusivity than in his home country thanks to disabled accesses to buildings and public transport stations (even if not as common as they are today). Although impressed, Paul returns to East Berlin. And then he vanishes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul\u2019s disappearance at the end of the novel may be considered a departure from the ideological discussions, partly because of his brief visit to the West, but it doesn\u2019t have to be. Perhaps it is the fairytale ending befitting a legend. The openness and complexity of the film-novel duo is a beautiful homage to a Berlin that allows or even suggests lives led off the beaten tracks laid out by ideologies, history, guilt or belonging to some defined society\/community. A city that does not and perhaps never did exist in this form and that would certainly not be adequately described by this sentence. It perhaps remains to be said that it is not only the film\u2019s Paula that can be viewed critically. People thrown into the male gender may also consider the portrayal of the attractive man as a conformist, mainly sexually interested and opportunistic being (still, Paul never reverts to brutality and, once detached from society, even comes across as rather cool) as unflattering. Transforming the legendary characters Paula and Paul into the less straightforward human figures Laura and Paul is well worth the read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDie Legende von Paul und Paula, DEFA, GDR 1973, Screenplay: Ulrich Plenzdorf, Heiner Carow<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDie Legende vom Gl\u00fcck ohne Ende\u201d, Hinstorff Verlag, Rostock 1979<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDer Untergang des alten Berlin in der Legende von Paul und Paula\u201d, Stephanie Warnke : https:\/\/werkstattgeschichte.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/WG43_109-121_WARNKE_PAULA.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDie Legende von Paul und Paula \u2013 Einer der sch\u00f6nsten Liebesfilme der DEFA wird 50!\u201d, https:\/\/www.adk.de\/de\/news\/index.htm?we_objectID=65159<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDie subversive Kraft empathischer Liebe im DEFA-Film DIE LEGENDE VON PAUL UND PAULA\u201d, https:\/\/www.uni-muenster.de\/Germanistik\/ffm\/Paradigma\/paradigma2\/broessel_diesubversivekraftemphatischerliebeimdefafilmdielegendevonpaulundpaulina.html<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orte-und-texte.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Falsche-Paula.jpg?resize=1000%2C621\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe legend of Paul and Paula, or: In the beginning there was the film<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orte-und-texte.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Identitaetsplansche.jpg\")
<\/figure>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orte-und-texte.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Parkbank.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/orte-und-texte.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Singerstr.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\nLocation, location ...<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orte-und-texte.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Neues-D.jpg?resize=1000%2C588\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nA book dares more than a thousand pictures<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
From A to B to somewhere else ...<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orte-und-texte.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/preview-mapz-My-map-20240526-1944-773418.jpg?resize=1024%2C724\")
Sources, Links, References ...<\/h2>\n\n\n\n