ABSTRACT
Berlin has never been a metropolis like Paris, London or New York, but from around 1800 it was such a lively centre of culture and science, that the term Classical Berlin has become common recently. Berlin was considered to be the German cultural metropolis, dominating all other German cities in terms of science and the arts. Scientists helped to establish this impression by making themselves and their science visible as an important aspect of social, political and economic life. There was a duality in scientists thinking: a scientist should search for truth and improve himself by study; bodily aspects and needs should be disregarded, particularly finance, which should be ignored altogether. By 1850, the natural sciences had become an indispensable factor of production whose enormous power was impressively demonstrated at the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London in 1851. The growing importance of scientist's conference meals is very well documented by those of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft.
