Chapter 2
24 March 1991 -Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin, Germany
About a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, a Munich resident receives a proposal by a real estate investor to sell his newly-restituted family home in East Berlin.
My family has been involved in watchmaking since 1910 when my grandfather moved into one of the newly built buildings in Prenzlauer Berg to open a workshop on the ground floor. Despite the difficult times of the World Wars, my family was successful and eventually became well known in Berlin for the quality of their products. My father was even able to buy the entire building in 1948. I still remember the ticks of the clocks in my father’s shop on Schönhauser Allee as I was beginning to learn my family’s trade…
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It was 1955, the war had been over for almost 10 years, and although the eastern part of the city was now part of the GDR, life seemed to have returned somewhat to normal. However, in a few months, everything changed for us when the authorities confiscated our house to make room for the brewery workers. We had to move to my father's cousin in Munich, which may have been good in retrospect because we weren't there to witness the rise of the wall…
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Although this house represents the work and the legacy of my family, too much time has passed, and I have a beautiful life in Munich now. I don’t think I’d have the time and the possibilities to restore it to its former glory… And so I think I should accept this offer, with the only consolation being that at least this way the house will still be standing after so much time. My only regret is that my father, who worked so hard for this house and workshop, will not be able to see them renovated.
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- Entry by Jürgen, 50 y.o.
After the Berlin Wall fell, the state began giving back houses and land confiscated by the communist government back to their original owners. My family's old house in Prenzlauer Berg, East-Berlin was restituted to me as the only living heir. One week ago I was contacted by a real estate agent from one of the largest companies in West Germany to make me an offer for the house. Initially, I found this strange because the old houses in the neighborhood have not been cared for since before World War II, and the area is not very attractive.
When I asked why they would put such a large amount of money into a run-down building, the agent urged me to look at it as a long-term investment, explaining that in the coming years, Prenzlauer Berg would be completely transformed to accommodate newcomers from western Germany and beyond. While it certainly made sense from a business standpoint, his statement also gave me pause – where would all these Westerners fit among the East-Berliners who already live there?
Researcher's Notes.
"Typical" western-style gentrification was seldom encountered in cities emerging from communism, especially in the beginning of the 1990s. Berlin, however, was the exception. While cities like Prague and Warsaw were in so-called "fast-track transition" countries, meaning that their transition from collectivism to privatization and from a socialist to a capitalist economy was relatively fast-paced, Berlin's transition happened at warp speed. More often than not, residents who received their families' properties back after the fall of the communist regime were approached by wealthy (foreign) investors looking at the rent-value gap in some neighborhoods and seeing an investment opportunity. Crucially, this thought process was not based on an actual rent gap, but a potential one based on a neighborhood's reputation as a bourgeoise area of residence.
Prenzlauer Berg:
One of the most prominent examples of gentrified neighborhoods in Berlin.
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completely transformed:
This storyteller's account is a prime example of the transition between first- and second-wave gentrification in a post-socialist area: the real estate investor contacts a resident after restitution of their formerly owned buildings, proposing a good deal to them to vacate the buildings and make it possible to transform the area. In this investment-led gentrification process, after people were restituted their properties, investors purchased dilapidated buildings in run-down areas, renovated them and raised rents, effectively pricing out the existing tenants.
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I still remember:
A memory that signals place attachment: The storyteller's good and fond experiences that are associated with the house have clear implications for their willingness to stay living there and the conflicting contemplation surrounding the sale of the restituted house.
make room:
An example of direct displacement: residents are displaced from their homes to make room for the working class (however: not gentrification-based displacement).