Berlin once rivaled Paris in it’s progressive café society. The Nazis of course put an end to that but after the destruction a much different more corporate replacement was constructed. Businessmen the new masters? How perceptive. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
This issue of stamps were made to celebrate the new Berlin. Berlin’s post war division had recently become more permanent by the wall and at least in the western section there was much rebuilding and new construction. So a brand new glass tower shopping mall, the Europa Center was included. The stamp designer carefully disquised the most controversial part of the design to me. The large Mercedes emblem on the roof is there but shown at an angle so it is not clear what it is.
The stamp today is issue A53, a 60 Pfennigs stamp issued by West Berlin Germany in 1966. It was part if a twelve stamp issue in various denominations that displayed new or restored architecture of West Berlin. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents used.
The site of the Europa Center was once the Romanisches Haus. It was one of the premier sites of Weimar era café society. The customers were all left wing and included such notables as Bertoit Brecht, Otto Dix, Erich Kastner, and Erich Maria Remarque. Naturally a group like this would be perceived as a threat to the Nazis. Upon Nazi taking the reigns of government, many of the Romanisches Haus patrons went into exile and at one point the Nazis staged a riot that damaged the declining place. The building was later destroyed in an Allied air raid in 1943. The Café building was topped by a German style Golden Eagle.
In the early 1960s the site was acquired by shopping center developer and electronics retailer Karl-Heinz Pepper. He was concerned about Berlins divided situation and wanted to assert Berlin’s world prominence not in terms of café society but rather in terms of shopping venues. In this he claimed to be inspired by American shopping malls, but what he built was a glass tower more resembling something built in the Asia of today. American malls being suburban and horizontal with large parking lots. The center contained shopping, resturants, office space, a hotel, a movie theatre, an ice rink and a large parking deck. To top it all off instead of the German Eagle is a star. A rotating three pointed metal star that is the symbol of Mercedes Benz automobiles. At night the Mercedes emblem is lit by over 600 light bulbs. It is the biggest Mercedes star of it’s type, as though there is now a bigger one in Hong Kong, it doesn’t rotate.
Over the years there have been some renovations, the ice rink is gone so Tiffany’s could expand and the theatre is also now gone. The shopping center hosts more than 25,000 shoppers a day. The café past is not totally ignored as there is an Irish Pub with big greasy portions, multiple Asian restaurants, and a Kentucky Fried Chicken. No doubt they attract all the intelegencia, or perhaps make them want to go back into exile.
Well my drink is empty and I will wonder the food court looking for a happy hour cocktail special. Ah, the life of an intellectual. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.