Berlin

Fixed-wing aircraft, which were introduced at about the same time, initially encountered some skepticism in Berlin. The local newspapers mocked the Wright brothers when they visited the German capital in 1909 to try to sell their invention to the Prussian War Ministry. The ministry turned them down, saying that airplanes had no future in warfare. But after Orville Wright successfully demonstrated a plane at Tempelhof, attitudes quickly changed, at least among the general populace. One Berlin newspaperman wrote, “The Zeppelin . . . is like a giant bee, a fabulous monster, while the Wright is like a spinning insect, whose wings shimmer in the sunlight and whose delicate skeleton seems transparent. It is something from a fairy tale, a fulfillment of our wildest dreams, a realization of apparent impossibilities.” So infectious was the enthusiasm that a sport-flying facility was quickly constructed at Johannisthal outside Berlin, complete with hangers, workshops, and restaurants. From Johannisthal, an aviator named Alfred Frey made the first flight over central Berlin in 1910. Of this historic occasion the Berliner Tageblatt

wrote: “Everywhere people stood still to observe the flight, shopkeepers and their employees streamed out of the shops, passengers jumped from the trains, all pointing out the air-sailor to one another. Young boys galloped through the streets trying to keep up with the airplane, which, given its great speed, was of course impossible, and some homeowners hurried up to the roof to get a better view.” Soon wealthy Berliners were lining up at Johannisthal to go up for joyrides over the city.

During one of the zeppelin overflights in 1911, powerful searchlights illuminated the ship, revealing slogans for various consumer products printed on the sides. Here were two innovations on display simultaneously: flight and electricity. Like airships, electric lighting was a badge of municipal modernity that Berlin wore lavishly and proudly. Berliners called their city “Elektropolis,” claiming that it had overtaken Paris as the electrical capital of the world. In addition to pioneering electrified trains and trolleys, Berlin was among the first European cities to replace gas lamps with electric lights in its central streets. In 1910 the first electric advertisement appeared, a sign touting Manoli cigarettes, with the letters revolving in a brightly colored circle. (This immediately yielded a new phrase in Berlin for someone acting weirdly: “He is manoli.”) Berliners hoped that electrification would enhance the capital’s dubious reputation in Germany. Hans Ostwald, an astute student of life in the big city, wrote that “The profusion of light fills us with wonder. . . . And perhaps as a Lichtstadt

[city of light], Berlin will win more friends elsewhere in the Reich, will be hailed as a bringer of light.” There is no evidence that better lighting made Berlin more popular across Germany, but it did enhance the German capital’s reputation as a city of progress. When a delegation of electrical engineers from Melbourne visited Europe in 1912, they beat a path to Berlin as “electrically the most important city.” Another arena in which Berlin competed with Paris involved the department store, a retailing innovation that turned shopping into the quintessential big city experience, a succession of nerve-tingling sensations and rushes of acquisitive fever. The modern department store, observed the Berlin periodical Die Zukunft

, was a mixture of Wildness und Weltstadt

(jungle and world city). Wertheim, which opened in 1896 on the Leipzigerstrasse, was Wilhelmian Berlin’s most spectacular contribution to this genre. Designed by Alfred Messel, it was a true temple of mass consumption, with a huge central hall lit by chandeliers, upper stories visible through richly carved arches, and row upon row of glass or wooden cases displaying goods from all over the world. Here was the variety of a souk without the discomfort. As the Berlin flaneur Franz Hessel noted, Wertheim and similar Berlin department stores were:

well organized showplaces that pamper their patrons with a high level of comfort. As we select a meter-long piece of pink elastic cord from one of the circular racks made of bright brass, our gaze rests on marble and mirrors, drifts across glittering parquet floors. In atria and winter gardens we sit on granite benches, our packages in our laps. Art exhibits, which merge into refreshment rooms, interrupt stocks of toys and accouterments for the bath. Between decorative baldachins of silk and satin we wander to the soaps and toothbrushes.