Tale of one city …

… Review of Berlin: Life and Death in the City at the Center of the World, by Sinclair McKay. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

… after the western zones were combined into West Berlin, the gulf between the quality of life in the city’s two halves grew steadily. The Berlin Airlift of 1948–1949, a heroic response to a Soviet attempt to cut off supplies to West Berlin, only intensified the feeling among West Berliners that Americans had their backs: “Where the Soviets moved with cruelty . . . the Americans were seen to be bringing joy to the children of their former enemies.” Yet for all the Americans had done for them, one of the chief complaints by West Berliners by the time the 1950s rock-and-rolled around was that “alien” and “vulgar” American pop music was poisoning their culture. Nor did they hide their racism toward black American performers. You would think they would have been embarrassed to express such sentiments so soon after the Holocaust, but no. It was almost as if, having been lifted by America back to a position of dignity and self-respect, they were returning to master-race form and looking upon their saviors with the same old arrogance and contempt. (This is a phenomenon I’ve often reflected on when visiting Germany; I wish McKay had devoted more time to it.)