Rather than trams, a more interesting topic (and probably easier to get students to do and focus on) would be trains and the phenomena of ‘ghost stations’ (Geisterbahnhöfe), the S-Bahn and U-Bahn stations on lines left in the eastern half of Berlin when the wall was erected. Both pre- and post-unification these stations became important socio-political ciphers for understanding Berlin, and after the Wall came down they acted as important focuses for the various processes of reunification for years after.
They include Bornholmer Straße (reopened December 1990), Wollankstraße station (bricked up until 1989), the U-Bahnhof Jannowitzbrücke (first to resume operations in November 1989), the Oranienburger Straße station, the Unter den Linden and Nordbahnhof. The last ghost station to reopen was Potsdamer Platz in 1992 but the U-Bahn system didn’t reach full operations until 1995. Pre-eminent amongst the ghost stations was the Friedrichstrasse station inside East Berlin, which acted for a long period of time as one of the pre-eminent nodes of contact for East and West Germany; I also understand that there are still sections of unopened line about which discussions continue.
The point about these stations and the division and then reunification of the transport system is that they lend themselves to all sorts of interesting cultural, social and political themes about which there’s a fair amount of material available concerning the division and reunification. Take a look at the way in which maps of the rail system produced by the DDR were a form of propaganda ‘invisibilizing’ West Berlin (see ‘Then We Take Berlin: When East Ate West’, Frank Jacobs, http://bigthink.com/ideas/38349?page=all). Or have a look at some of these videos taken in the ghost stations from 1990 onwards (http://wn.com/Ghost_station_Ghost_stations_in_Berlin)
Academic stuff includes the effects of the rail network on population distribution and economic activity pre- and post-reunifications (Ahlfeldt, G., Redding, S., Sturm, D. and Wolf, N. (2010) The Economics of Density: Evidence from the Berlin Wall, http://www.princeton.edu/~reddings/papers/Berlin_102210sr-all.pdf). A whole bag of mixed student goodies in a relatively compact area with all kinds of social, economic and political geographies attached to them.
Cheers,
Dr Jon Cloke
Lecturer/Research Associate
Geography Department
Loughborough University
Loughborough LE11 3TU
Office: 01509 228193
Mob: 07984 813681
________________________________________
From: A forum for critical and radical geographers [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stephen Hall [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 30 January 2012 12:20
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Ideas for Berlin
Dear All
I am running a session with some second year Human Geographers in Berlin in March. I am a political economic/urban infrastructure type and was thinking about using the tram as a medium to discuss the linking up of the ‘two cities’ over the past 20 or so years and how the different ideologies shaped the city infrastructure during the East/West years. Then I realised the potential to become forever fixed with some of our undergrads as ‘train man’ I can deal with this but if anyone has any other perspectives on what they would do with 20 or so talented and (probably) bright eyed second year undergrads for a day in Berlin I would like to her them.... satire to a minimum if you please.
Kind regards
Stephen Hall
Department of Geography, University of Hull, HULL HU6 7RX
Telephone: +44 (0)1482 465313 (direct); +44 (0)1482 465385 (Departmental Office)
Mobile: 07581186208
Email: [log in to unmask]
Personal profile<http://www2.hull.ac.uk/science/geography/staff/research_students/s-hall.aspx>
***********************************************************
To view the terms under which this email is distributed,
please go to http://www2.hull.ac.uk/legal/disclaimer.aspx
***********************************************************
|
