Recent visitors to Berlin will have experienced the extraordinary spectacle of the construction of a fake Schloss in the historic centre of Berlin: more precisely, the construction of a replica of three-quarters of the exterior of the baroque Berlin city palace. The reconstruction of the Schloss was controversial and highly expensive for a city that has been chronically cash-strapped since German unification in 1990. It followed the demolition and removal and removal of the former GDR parliament building on the same site. Why, then, did this rebuilding project go ahead, several decades after most post-war reconstruction building projects had concluded? This paper will attempt to answer this question, giving consideration to factors such as memorial fatigue in Berlin, the de-legitimation of the built heritage of the GDR, the absence of convincing competitor projects, and the existence of a determined and well-organized lobby group of “friends of the Schloss”.
