Lost for words so I’ll mention some words that I’m reading… I am really enjoying Anna Funder’s first novel, All That I Am. I also really enjoyed her first book Stasiland which won the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction in 2004. I would even say that All that I Am is one of my favourite reads of this year too (even though I’m still reading it) if you’re looking for an enjoyable holiday read.

Aeroflot throws its iconic Berlin signage out with the trash

One of the last hammer and sickle emblems in Berlin has disappeared from its prominent place in the centre of the city.

The hammer and sickle – the symbol of communism and the Soviet Union – was removed from most public buildings across the former East Berlin after the fall of the Wall. Yet it remained on display in one very visible location – above the Berlin ticket office of the Russian airline Aeroflot on the busy central boulevard Unter den Linden.

Aeroflot’s logo still contains the hammer and sickle, a remainder from its time as the state airline of the USSR. The carrier continues to run regular services between Berlin and Moscow, and it kept a ticket office open in the heart of the city in a building that is part of the Russian Embassy complex.

It was here that the logo was proudly displayed at street level, just one block from the iconic Brandenburg Gate, which draws hundreds of thousands of tourists each year.

Several weeks ago Aeroflot closed its Unter den Linden office. The signage – illuminated blue plastic and metal lettering – was dismantled. Today all that remains are the ghosted outlines of the removed signage, and a note on the door informing visitors that the office has ceased operations. Aeroflot’s German office said the old sign and lettering had been thrown away as rubbish.

The hammer and sickle hasn’t made a full retreat, however. It can still be seen in the stonework of the façade of the main building of the Russian Embassy, next door to the old Aeroflot office.

That example of the symbol isn’t as prominent as the former Aeroflot sign. Its removal marks another erasure of the visual memory of Berlin’s divided era.   - Joel Alas

Our friends at Ein Magazin über Orte recently published their latest issue dedicated to Berlin, and I’m really happy that they asked to include a few images of a series that I started working on quite a few years ago (and since then shamefully neglected), on the city’s layered past, in this case its East German past in particular, photographing a series of buildings that used to house central departments of the infamous Ministry for State Security.

The Ministerium fuer Staatssicherheit (MfS) as it was called in German, more commonly known as the Stasi, was the official security service of East Germany and widely feared as one of the most effective and repressive intelligence agencies in the world. At its demise in 1989, it had more than 91,000 employees, with an additional 174,000 unofficial informants, approximating around 2.5% of East Germany’s population.

Apart from its official headquarters, the Stasi owned thousands of buildings and apartments, in almost every street of all major cities of the GDR to sustain its unprecedented machinery of control and espionage. These buildings now blend seamlessly into the German landscape, partly deserted, partly used for residential, governmental or commercial purposes. Only few of them indicate the sinister history that took place behind their walls.

Photography: Kai von Rabenau

Above:
OTS
Freienwalder Strasse, Berlin Hohenschoenhausen
Employees: 1080
Laboratory for Criminal Technology

VRD
Normannenstrasse, Berlin Lichtenberg
Employees: 3733
Administration Rear Services

VRD
Normannenstrasse, Berlin Lichtenberg
Employees: 3733
Administration Rear Services

Abteilung N
Gotlindestrasse, Berlin Lichtenberg
Employees: more than 1500
Information Services

WACHREGIMENT BERLIN FELIKS E. DZIERZYNSKI
Ahrensfelder Chaussee, Berlin Ahrensfelde
Employees: 10211
Military Corps of the MfS

HVA
Normannenstrasse, Berlin Lichtenberg
Employees: 4126
Central Intelligence Administration

VRD
Normannenstrasse, Berlin Lichtenberg
Employees: 3733
Administration Rear Services

HA KuSch
Gotlindestrasse, Berlin Lichtenberg
Employees: 1077
Department for Training and Education

Abteilung XII
Freienwalder Strasse, Berlin Hohenschoenhausen
Employees: 350
Central Secret Archives

Abteilung XIV
Freienwalder Strasse, Berlin Hohenschoenhausen
Employees: ca. 250
Penitentiary of the MfS

Nerdy magazine Wired’s US edition features a special on time travel this month. One article examines Haruki Murakami’s novel 1Q84 which was just released in the English translation. Murakami creates a “bizarro version” of 1984 and Wired compares it to the real 1984 as it happened.

Moreover, there’s an interview with Stephen King about his latest novel 11/22/63 in which he sends his hero, Jake Epping, back in time to prevent JFK’s assassination. A short article about H.G. Wells’ first time machine explains where the idea of time travel and it’s fascination for writers came from.

Illustrations by Sachin Teng (Murakami) Pilgrim (King).

A new online database documents the vision for nazi Germany as accumulated for “Die Großen Deutschen Kunstausstellungen” 1937-1944 in Munich. Making the images and files publicly accessible opens up opportunities for researchers to explore the eclectic imagery of  “the new era” as postulated by Goebbels and his fellow loons.

www.gdk-research.de (in Germanic tongue only, obviously)

The novel takes upon the story of John Holten, the author, and Djordje Bojić, a Serbian artist, whose effort in writing a possible history of LGB Group, leads the narrative. LGB — a neo avant-garde eastern european collective formed in Belgrade in the middle 90s — which sought to escape, through art, the post war nationalism that dominated Serbia during those years, works as a story within the story, the particular narrative on which the general narrative centers itself in.

Different moments, points of view, dialogues and tones build up this novel, making it confusing sometimes, noisy or overcrowded, but perfectly translating the contexts where its characters move, their motivations and energy — or lack of it, at times. Politics, art and literature get together on a perfect mix of novel, documental text and art catalogue.

Bojić’s manuscript, that actually integrates the final part of the book, tells both the story of the artist and the group. A story that closely follows war’s history and its experience (which is also the urge and the foundation behind LGB’s artistic gesture). John Holten’s writing is therefore combined with LGB’s artwork, found texts and 1st person testimonies. The edition, beautifully designed by F.U.K Laboratories, elevates this novel to a piece of art in itself.

And in case you missed, like me, the book launch at Motto earlier this Fall, cheer up! Broken Dimanche Press, the publishing effort behind ‘The Readymades’, will be present at this year’s edition of MISS READ, taking place, as usual, at KW Berlin, between 25th and 27th November.

The International Literature Festival Berlin has kicked off with an impressive program of 180 events over 11 days.

Tonight Javier Cercas reads from and talks about his latest book The Anatomy of a Moment: Thirty-Five Minutes in History and Imagination. Read Gideon Lewis-Kraus’ excellent review in n+1.