Continuities in Urban Planning and Architecture in the East and West after 1945

Prior to the establishment of the two German states in 1949, all four occupied zones endured years of severe hardship at the end of the war. To start with, there was considerable discrepancy between the objectives of the occupying powers and the scope they allowed in planning and construction. However, the incipient Cold War between East and West soon resulted in a fundamental change of tack. The merger in 1948 of the three zones occupied by the Western powers and the accompanying economic support provided by the European Recovery Program (ERP) initiated in 1947 by US Secretary of State George C. Marshall were of crucial importance here. This led to a momentous paradigm shift in the competition between the two economic systems, market and planned, between capitalism and socialism, which transformed West Germany from "enemy territory" into an economic partner enjoying massive support. The Soviet Union, meanwhile, continued its practice of industrial dismantling and demanding reparations in the zone it occupied, significantly aggravating the economic imbalances between West and East. Reconstruction took place under very different conditions in East and West, guided by policies that were wildly divergent. There were a wide range of concepts advocated at the local level, ranging from visions of radical urban redevelopment to proposals for cautious reconstruction based on historical models. In many cases, though, pragmatic ideas were then implemented that also took into account structures of land ownership, street layouts and the existing infrastructure below ground. There was no "fresh start" on either side, with considerable continuity in terms of personnel and concepts dating from the National Socialist era, although this was much less evident in the East than in the West. Nevertheless, quite a few of the leading "Moscow returnees" in the East had been involved in the traumatisation perpetrated by the Stalin regime – although this, too, was carefully kept very quiet.

Compiled by Tilman Harlander and Wolfram Pyta, using the research findings of Frank Betker, Harald Engler and Tanja Scheffler; Georg Wagner-Kyora and Clemens Zimmermann; Benedikt Goebel and Jörg Rudolph

Translated from the German by Simon Cowper