One of the great unsolved murders in Berlin

December 19, 2023 2:26 AM

When I spoke to people from East Berlin who remembered the Hanno Klein case, they were generally inclined towards the view that the letter-bomb must have been sent by men involved with West Berlin’s construction companies: businessmen who were keen to be seen as dominant figures and now found themselves dismissed by Klein. People who would have liked a piece of the action but kept finding Klein standing in their way. People driven by greed for profits and fear of losses. from The Killing of a Berlin Power Broker [Granta; ungated]
posted by chavenet (3 comments total)

This is fascinating. Also making me really want to revisit Berlin.
posted by Artw at 7:48 AM on December 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

(It also makes me wonder what a counterfactual where someone assassinated Robert Moses would have been like, though it doesn’t sound like this guy was quite as bad as Moses and his ascendant rival didn’t sound great either)
posted by Artw at 9:47 AM on December 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

I've been baited.

Not even enough of [the Greens'] own constituencies really wanted to stroll let alone sit down here [on pedestrianized Friedrichstraße] and stare at empty shop windows and grimly gridded facades. In the last elections the Greens were turfed out of office in Berlin. Even by their own account: because of Friedrichstraße.

Plenty of people liked the pedestrianization. It worked — the first sentence here is misleading at best. Translated from Berliner Zeitung:

19 [of 23 Friedrichstraße shopkeepers who filled out a questionnaire] spoke out against restoring the previous situation with car traffic. A total of around a thousand passers-by were surveyed in three waves. “74 percent of those surveyed said that they thought the changes were good or very good,” said Lehmkuehler. 85 percent said they would like to see such a redesign on other streets in Berlin.

I agree that the CDU successfully weaponized resentment and car-centrism in outer-borough voters to overwhelm voters who liked it. Reactionism is a legitimate challenge for anyone who wants Berlin to be a nice place. But the fact that Friedrichstraße became a political football which played a significant part in the SPD gifting control of Berlin to the CDU is independent of the fact that the traffic calming project worked; the CDU only ended it to use that ending as a "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner.

Anyway — great article, thanks! The tidbit about Klein wanting to reopen the street to cars all the way to the Landwehrkanal is just ghastly, great nightmare tidbit.
posted by daveliepmann at 2:45 PM on December 19, 2023 [3 favorites]