Berlin is to Germany what New York is to the US: unique, a one-off. Just like the Big Apple, Berlin has a buzz about it, a vibe not found anywhere else in Germany. In fact the rest of the country looks on it with a sniff of disapproval, like one might a wayward smarty-pants child encouraged by a too-indulgent parent. The parent in this case is the government, which has sunk megabucks into making the capital something of a showpiece.
Like Beijing, Berlin is a city in the grip of construction frenzy. Fancy developments, such as Potsdamer Platz on the former no man's land of the Wall, are springing up, as are parks and greenbelts. All this activity will eventually make the remnants of the GDR (East Germany) disappear – but not for a while yet. Tempelhof Airport, scene of the famous 1948-49 Berlin Airlift, was closed in 2008 and has been turned over to the public as a vast park, art space and cycleway, yet reminders remain: a tour of the old airport building includes a wartime bunker and graffiti left by bored American GIs.
But the city's biggest changes have been unofficial and community-driven. Suburbs that, until November 1989 when the wall came down, languished in the political and economic shadow cast over a divided city are now pulsating with life and cooler than cool.
Neukölln is taking off, in part due to the transformation of Tempelhof. When those thousands of noisy flights stopped, it became instantly attractive and the borough is changing so fast it's impossible to keep up with all that's new here.
Kreuzberg, on the south-western edge of Tempelhof, has the bohemian flavour that only artists, musos and immigrants can provide, but these days they're joined by cashed-up professionals and creatives who flock to the hip cafes and shop at the newly restored historic food market on Eisenbahnstrasse.
In Kreuzberg you will find one of the most famous relics of the Berlin Mauer: East Side Gallery. The 100 or so images painted here by street artists in 1989, as the Berlin Wall collapsed, have survived to become an iconic reminder of that turbulent era.
Prenzlauer Berg is a stage along the path to gentrification from Kreuzberg but it's no less lively for that. Once part of East Germany, it has kept much of its 19th-century architecture. The buildings along its tree-lined streets now house cafes, galleries and newly renovated swanky apartments. Its heart is Mauerpark, a green haven fashioned from a section of the former "death strip" that was once patrolled by border guards.
Berlin is still the poster child of the Soviet era and the virtually non-existent Berlin Wall remains its No. 1 attraction. At Checkpoint Charlie, one of the old crossing points between east and west, fake uniformed GDR border guards issue "entry permits" to excitable tourists. Guides conduct tours by Trabi car into the former east, much of which is still recognisable, and there's a roaring trade in "ostalgie", the clothes, furniture and food of the communist era. It makes the GDR seem a vaguely charming bit of nostalgia, like a flea market of totalitarian bric-a-brac. George Smiley would be turning in his grave.
But there's a serious side to all this, too. I have seldom visited a city so obviously torn to pieces by its history. On the city's rail network, the S-Bahn, the stations look similar then, suddenly, they have a completely different design; you've crossed over from what was the east to the west, or vice versa. Walk along a street and suddenly you come to a vast tract of absolutely nothing where the "death strip" used to be.
The excellent Topography of Terror museum, built on the GDR side of a surviving remnant of the Wall, tracks the rise and fall of the Nazi Party. The Holocaust Memorial occupies an entire city block between Potsdamer Platz and the Tiergarten.
The men and women who resisted the Third Reich, and usually paid with their lives, are recognised at the Memorial to the German Resistance. It is housed in the offices once occupied by Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, instigator of the July 1944 assassination plot against Hitler.
You can visit his office, walk down the stairs he was marched along when the plot failed and stand on the spot where he and his colleagues were shot. His is just one of many stories of courage and resistance, a surprisingly high number of them about ordinary Germans: students, writers, farmers and factory workers.
AT CHECKPOINT CHARLIE, FAKE GDR BORDER GUARDS ISSUE “ENTRY PERMITS” TO EXCITABLE TOURISTS.
Berlin shows its battle scars if not with pride, then at least with acceptance. "Lest we forget" is one leitmotif of the city; the other is "live in hope".
Pauline Webber travelled to Berlin at her own expense.