The Struggle for the Streets of Berlin

Rezensionen / Stimmen

'Molly Loberg illuminates the sequential phases of the commercial and political 'scramble for space' and struggle for access to and control of the streets of post-World War I Berlin. Alongside the less well known contestations - the stories of rogue placard pasters, hawkers, beggars, unruly drivers, and gangs of thieves - is the assault on Jewish space in Berlin. The extinction of Jewish space preceded the extinction of Jewish life. This is a deeply-researched, highly original, and creative venture in spatial history.' Christopher R. Browning, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 'It is a rare book that allows today's readers to mingle with yesterday's crowds, to touch the textures of streets, the noise of hype, but also to feel the suspicious glances of policemen, Nazis, and ordinary strangers. Loberg's superb book explores how possibility and apprehension intertwined to make and remake the face of twentieth-century Berlin.' Peter Fritzsche, author of An Iron Wind: Europe under Hitler 'Brimming with fresh empirical findings and intellectual insights, The Struggle for the Streets of Berlin makes a significant contribution to the historiography of the German metropolis in the Weimar and Nazi periods. The book should also be of interest to scholars of consumption, commerce and social control in European cities.' Moritz Foellmer, University of Amsterdam 'Placing the familiar story of the rise of National Socialism in the context of the changing texture of urban life, Molly Loberg offers a fresh perspective on Germany during the 1920s and 1930s. In an extremely well-researched book, she shows how people (and police) interacted in public space - through commerce, consumption, crime and the often chaotic patchwork of daily life - in the 'struggle for the streets of Berlin.' Richard Bessel, University of York 'How do the big political events and large-scale social transformations make their way into the ground-level experience of everyday lives? In this fascinating social topography of popular politics in early twentieth-century Berlin. Molly Loberg challenges many familiar assumptions about how political changes can occur.' Geoff Eley, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 'Loberg offers much that challenges readers to rethink historical assumptions ... Advancing an innovative approach to Berlin's history, The Struggle for the Streets is essential reading for historians of Berlin. Students of Weimar and Nazi Germany will also find the work engaging, as Loberg's analysis from the streets convincingly questions the standard periodization of German history.' Sara Ann Sewell, European History Quarterly