German culture was shaped in part by centuries of Prussian militarism that eventually went horribly wrong. How do you rebuild a culture after that, without trying to rewrite history?
When I studied in Berlin years ago, I heard this joke: A Prussian youth was walking down Unter den Linden boulevard in Berlin with his cousin from Heidelberg, home of one of the most celebrated universities and intellectual traditions in the land.
The young Heidelberger got a stone in his shoe. He took off the shoe and began trying to pry out the stone. After a minute, the Prussian grabbed the shoe and banged it on the curb until the stone popped out.
The Heidelberg boy looked at his Prussian cousin and said, “Na, ja — mit Gewalt” ( “Oh, sure, with force”)!
Maybe not entirely a joke.
My grandfather, a welder and inventor, helped Krupp fashion the WWI “Big Bertha” howitzer that needed only days to demolish Belgian and French defenses that were designed to last weeks or months. My grandfather said when Prussian officers walked down the sidewalks of Berlin, pedestrians — including women and children — stepped off into the mud, if necessary, to let them pass.
Punctuality, order and hierarchy were valued in Germany, among other reasons, because they served the military. Over centuries they evolved into civilian qualities. That Prussian spirit is one source of today’s German ideals of personal reliability and punctuality, efficiency and professionalism, thriftiness and plainness.
Obedience, too. But not blind obedience. That kind of thing is associated with historical catastrophe and widely criticized over here.
The exhaustive bombing of Germany during WWII left hulking bullet- and bomb-scarred buildings all over the country. The debate about what to do with them is alive today.
The disagreement is between those who want to make the pockmarked buildings a teaching moment and those who don’t want to rebuild a symbol of the nation’s authoritarian past. The contradictions — and compromises — are preserved in concrete, steel and glass all over Germany, including in Berlin and Potsdam.
Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, Berlin
One option in dealing with structures lost to an aggressive war is to leave the ruins as a reminder of war’s destruction.
The most commonly cited example is Berlin’s 130-year-old Kaiser Wilhelm Church, stabilized and conserved.
During an Allied bombing raid, the church’s main tower was snapped off and the nave leveled. The church’s facade is riddled with bomb scars, but the damage was left visible on purpose. After public objection to the church’s proposed destruction, a new octagonal church, bell tower, chapel and foyer were built next to it.
City Palace, Berlin
The massive City Palace in Berlin, from which kings and emperors ruled for centuries, had been burned in the war, and the East Germans destroyed it as a Prussian symbol. They built a Palace of the Republic on the site. The replacement was itself demolished in 2008, and a debate raged over what should take its place.
Solution: The European Baroque facade of the original City Palace has been restored on three sides, while the fourth wall (east) is a contrasting modern glass and steel curtain. Outside, the imposing presence of the former royal home and headquarters is back. Inside, the former palace houses the Humboldt Forum, Germany’s answer to the British Museum.
The exterior design restores a key historical profile of the city, while the interior features a modern, cross-cultural purpose worthy of the Enlightenment. Humboldt visitors see displays from disparate civilizations as part of one of the world’s most important anthropological and cultural holdings, even as ownership of some artifacts is being contested.
Garrison Church, Potsdam
A local decision went in a different direction. Compare the full exterior reconstruction of the Berlin city palace to the partial rebuilding of the Garnisonkirche (Garrison Church) in Potsdam.
In the throne and worship culture of the 1730s, the chapel served resident royals and the troop units stationed here in the second seat of government. In time, the church and its 290-foot tower took its place in the city’s profile.
Two hundred years after it was built, the church became infamous as the site of the Potsdam Day ceremony. German President Hindenburg and Hitler gave speeches. A wreath was laid at the crypt of Frederick the Great. The idea was to link the Nazis to Prussia’s elites and centuries of militaristic tradition.
Arguably the most important moment was the handshake between Hindenburg in Prussian uniform and Hitler, bowing his head to him, memorialized in a photo that went around the globe. Two days later in Berlin, Parliament passed the Enabling Act that allowed Hitler to pass laws without parliament.
A dozen years later, just before Germany’s WWII surrender, British bombs wiped out some 1,000 buildings in Potsdam center. The church was a ruin, and the East German government blew it up in the late 1960s, despite public protest.
In 2024, the reconstructed church tower, rebuilt according to 18th Century designs, was reopened without the nave shown in the church’s historical exhibition model. The tower provided a silhouette similar to the original and helped restore the city skyline.
Critics had opposed federal funding of what they considered a symbol of Nazism, and today the tower houses a historical exhibition about the effects of war. The tower is designed as a reminder of the misuse of tradition and symbols by an authoritarian regime.
The decision was exterior continuity for the city shape but only partial reconstruction of the church and only then in the context of what has been learned from history.
There may be an age axis to the reconstruction debate. In conversations I’ve had, younger Germans tended to approach reconstruction — which uses public funds — less as a moral issue and more as an issue of contemporary usefulness coupled with openness about the past. Older Germans, when they were willing to talk about it (some with lived memory of the Hitler time), tended to see a moral issue of historical responsibility and feared the buildings may be used by some to glorify a shameful past.
A recent poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations shows that majorities in 15 European countries doubt that the U.S. would intervene if a NATO country were attacked. Germany — with the largest economy in Europe — is increasingly regarded as the country most able to create the backbone of a credible conventional European defense.
German Chancellor Frederick Merz has said the country wants to build Europe’s strongest conventional army. The world is watching to see whether Germany can re-arm without triggering the dangerous part of the Prussian spirit.
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