ABSTRACT
The decision to locate the capit al of the newly united Germany in Berlin in 1991 was surrounded by a great deal of controversy, not least because of the historical symbolism of that city. For many Berlin typified all that was wrong with the German past. Together with the nearby garrison town of Potsdam it represented the autocratic and militaristic traditions of the Prussian state. It was the city from which two world wars were unleashed and the seat of a Nazi government which embarked upon the despicable politics of racial genocide. Yet this powerful symbolism hid a different face of the city and scarcely does justice to the political positions of those who resided there. For Berliners, more than the citizens of almost any other German city, gave their support to the Left. In the scarcely free elections of March 1933, when Hitler was already Chancellor, the Nazis gained roughly 44 per cent of all votes cast in the Reich, yet just over 31 per cent of those cast in its capital city. There the Social Democrats secured the support of 22.5 per cent of voters and the Communists over 30 per cent. Berlin was then and had for some time been a ‘red city’.
