Univ., Diss.--Kiel, 2005.

Zugl.: Berlin, Freie Universiẗat, Diss., 2008.

Univ., Habil.-Schr.--Konstanz, 2001. / Literaturverz. S. [471] - 504.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Leipzig, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 399-448) and index.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Leipzig, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 399-448) and index.

This thesis "An Isolated Island: West Berlin under Willy Brandt (1961- 1966). The city behind the Berlin Wall" concentrates on West Berlin between 1961 and 1966 and on the political initiatives of Willy Brandt as a Governing Mayor of the city. The city, which became immediately after World War II a central point of Cold War tensions between the East and the West, remained after the first Berlin Crisis the last gap in the Iron Curtain, where the two worlds - the East and the West - met face to face. After the construction of the Berlin wall the city experienced a shock, which it overcame very fast, and benefited from the subsequent changes thanks to extraordinary work of the Mayor Willy Brandt. His new political style and new communicative approach to politics transformed the situation in the city and led to rapid modernization and development. He was able to secure moral, political and above all financial support for the city for a long time period, which enabled to turn the city into a "showcase of democracy in the middle of the communist sea". Such a success in West Berlin elevated Willy Brandt into the highest political posts in Federal Republic of Germany.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

This thesis examines the history of urban squatting in East and West Berlin from c. 1970 to c.1990. In doing so, it explores the relationship between urban space, opposition and conformity, mainstream and alternative cultures, as well as questions of identity and belonging in both halves of the formerly divided city. During Berlin’s history of division, illegal squatting was undertaken by a diverse range of actors from across the period’s political and Cold War divides. The practice emerged in both East and West Berlin during the early 1970s, continuing and intensifying during the following decade, before the traditions of squatting on both sides of the Berlin Wall converged in 1989-­‐90, as the city’s – and Germany’s – physical division was overcome. Squatting, this thesis argues, provides an important yet little studied chapter in Berlin’s – and indeed Germany’s – post-­‐war history. What is more, it provides an example of the ways in which, during the period of Cold War division, Berlin’s and Germany’s symbolic meaning was not only contested between East and West, but was, within the respective societies, also re-­‐interpreted from below. Drawing on a broad range of archival sources, this thesis compares and contrasts the experience of squatters on both sides of the Berlin Wall, and the ways in which the respective polities responded to this phenomenon. Broadly similar paradigms of urban renewal, this thesis argues, account for not only parallels in the temporality but also the geography of squatting in East and West Berlin. In both Berlins, this thesis demonstrates, the history of squatting was interconnected with that of domestic opposition and political dissidence. Moreover, squatting contributed to the emergence of alternative urban lifestyles, which sustained comparable urban sub-­‐cultures on both sides of the Cold War divide. Perhaps counter-­‐intuitively, this thesis argues that, East Germany’s apparatus of control notwithstanding, the relationship between squatters and the authorities in the GDR was generally more consensual than it was between their counterparts in West Germany and West Berlin. The thesis not only points to the limits of the totalitarian model of interpretation when applied to late Socialist society in the GDR, but also questions the dominant historiographical trend of studying the two Germanys in isolation from one another. Taking its cue from a number of influential scholars, this thesis asserts the importance of incorporating the experiences of both East and West Germany into a narrative of the nation’s divided past. Through identifying and analysing the overarching variable of urban squatting, this thesis attempts to develops a perspective that regards the post-­‐war history of East and West Germany as part of a wider whole.

Thesis advisor: Christopher Baum / Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and Reunification in 1990, Germany experienced many economic and labor market shifts. This empirical analysis evaluates the determinants of entrepreneurship in post-Reunification Germany from 1986 to 2014 using self-employment dependent variables as entrepreneurial proxies and measures of social capital as independent variables. Age, gender, nationality, education, income, risk attitudes, and social factors are all shown to be statistically significant predictors of entrepreneurial activity in Germany. The subsequent sociological analysis examines popular media’s portrayal of contemporary technological entrepreneurship in modern Berlin. The investigation highlights the differences between Berlin’s countercultural image and the need for sustainable funding and business plans for new technology ventures. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics Honors Program. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: Economics.

Seit der deutschen Wiedervereinigung steht die Stadt Berlin im Fokus einer Kampagne, die die Identität von Berlin neu definiert und die allgemeine Darstellung der Stadt positiv zu beeinflussen versucht. Das weit verbreitete Stadtbild beinhaltet jedoch nicht immer die Vielfältigkeit von sozialen und urbanen Akteuren. Oftmals wird Berlin als eine elitäre Stadt dargestellt, soziale Spannungen werden nicht betrachtet und können sich durch die einseitige Darstellung sogar verstärken. Diese Arbeit vergleicht die verschiedenen Darstellungen der Stadt, die von lokalen politischen Akteuren, der Tourismusbranche und von sozialen Bürgerbewegungen propagiert werden. Sie werden in der Arbeit ausgiebig erläutert und bewertet. Ein abschließender Vergleich legt die unterschiedlichen Darstellungen und Gemeinsamkeiten der verschiedenen Akteure dar. Neben der historischen Analyse mit Einbezug des Wandels der Stadt, werden Aspekte und Themen wie Kommerzialisierung, Bürgerbeteiligung, Multikulturalismus und Subkulturen behandelt. Darüber hinaus werden im Rahmen dieser Arbeit Fragen und Probleme des Urbanismus und der Gestaltung des Stadtbildes durch einen bildlichen Ansatz mit Einbezug der verschiedenen Konstellationen analysiert. Der Ansatz beruht auf der Idee des “dialektischen Bildes” von Walter Benjamin aus seinem ‘Passagen-Werk’. Die Auswertung ergibt, dass die öffentliche Darstellung der Stadt von lokalen politischen Akteuren und der Tourismusbranche viele Gemeinsamkeiten aufweisen, während die Darstellung der Bewohner deutlich davon abweicht. Dieser Kontrast spiegelt eine große Unzufriedenheit von Teilen der Bevölkerung mit der offiziellen Darstellung der Stadt, welche sich auf einen post-industriellen, ökonomischen Ansatz stützt. / Since German Reunification the city of Berlin has been the object of a carefully designed campaign to reinvent its identity and to promote its image. The propagated city image does not always include the wide variety of social and urban expressions, and frequently compels an elitist vision of the city that, far from alleviating emerging social tensions, reinforces them. This research offers a comparative analysis of the city image produced by the local government, and the imagery produced by other actors involved in urban processes. To this end, a collection of images representing the city of Berlin was integrated, with materials produced by three main sectors: the local government, the tourism industry and a variety of social movements. The collected images are described and analyzed with the aim of knowing the assumptions they comprise, and are afterwards compared against each other to find similarities and differences between the city visions of their producers. Topics like historical memory, urban change, commercialization, public participation, subcultural expressions and multiculturalism arose from this comparison. In addition, the dissertation proposes a visual approach for the analysis of issues linked to urbanism and the construction of city image. Such approach is inspired in the idea of “dialectical image”, described by Walter Benjamin in his unfinished ‘Arcades Project’, and consists in putting together a set of chosen pictures in small groups or “constellations” that make evident their similarities and differences. The research shows that the image prompted by the local government and by the tourist industry are alike, while there are significant divergences between the official image and the representations of citizens. These divergences seem to reflect a deep dissatisfaction of some sectors of the population with the official city model, based on assumptions of a post-industrial economy.