Dahlem

As the centre of academic research in Berlin, Dahlem is a posh, densely populated suburb with the foremost university in West Berlin, the Free University, and various institutes like the Max Planck Institute, the Federal Institute for Material Research and Testing, the German Archeological Institute, and the German Institute for Economic Research. Numerous museums and galleries like the Ethnological Museum and the Bruecke Museum are also present in Dahlem.

The main street Clayallee is the location of the U.S. Embassy and the administrative centre of the occupation forces, the Allied Kommandatura. A small portion of the Grunewald forest covers the western part of Dahlem. The forest borders one side of Clayallee, masking the urban hustle and bustle and making the area feel secluded with its thick, dark foliage.

Dahlem is a busy district with its own dedicated line of the U-bahn. The Free University has a history of student activism; it set the scene for the student movement of ’68, where violence erupted in different parts of West Berlin leading to the death of one student and the attempt on the life of another. With the increase in the number of students from both Germany and abroad, the FU is no longer a tight-knit community; every year there are fresh faces and it takes a while for anything unusual to get noticed.

## **Locations**

### **Free University of Berlin**

* Academics 4
* Science 4
* Status: Academia

The Free University of Berlin in Dahlem was established in 1948, by students and scholars of the old Humboldt University in Mitte. While the Soviets suppressed free speech and thought in Humboldt University, its legacy lives on in the Free University of Berlin. Funded by the Americans, the university grew from around 4,000 students in its founding days to 50,000 registered students today. Its central campus consists of buildings within walking distance of one another, a design modelled after American universities which is a novelty in Germany.

The Dahlem Campus utilises the buildings of the former Kaiser Wilhelm Society (now Max Planck Society) as well as a few modern additions such as the Henry Ford Building and the “Rost-und-Silberlaube” (“Rust and Silver Lodges”). The student groups are active and the research environment is superb. The university works closely with the Max Planck Society and other institutes around the area, pioneering research in the fields of science and humanities.

#### **The Ethnological Museum of Berlin**

The Ethnological Museum is located on a block on campus adjacent to the Museum of Asian Arts and the Museum of European Cultures. Together they are considered part of the Dahlem museum complex. This museum features artefacts from far-flung locations like the Sepik River, Hawaii, the Kingdom of Benin, Cameroon, Congo, Tanzania, China, Mesoamerica, the Andes, and the Pacific Coast of North America. All together, the museum has 500,000 artefacts related to ethnology and archaeology.

The museum’s current feature is its exhibition on American archeology. Pre-columbian idols of stone and gold are displayed in glass cases with the lights dimmed to preserve the artefacts. Films and notes on the subject are also available for research purposes.

#### **Henry Ford Building**

The Henry Ford Building was built with a large donation from the Ford Foundation. It consists of the University Library in its west wing and lecture halls and conference rooms in its east wing. It has a modern, linear design with white walls and tall vertical glass panels for windows. The facade of its front entrance is made entirely out of glass. The entrance hall has glossy white floors and a black and white modernist staircase leading to an upper balcony.

**University Library**

The University Library is housed in the western wing of the Henry Ford Building. It has a simple and modern interior, with spaces for reading and student group meetings. The collections are housed in simple plywood bookshelves and spans various subjects of arts and humanities. The glass windows and skylights allow natural light to flood into the interior spaces during the day.

#### **Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society**

* Science 5
* Status: Academia

The Fritz Haber Institute originated as the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry. It was renamed for Fritz Haber, a Nobel Prize winner for chemistry, known for his invention of a process to mass produce ammonia and for pioneering the use of chlorine gas in warfare.

The institute is housed in a modern building, five storeys tall with white walls and clean line angles, and square windows on the sides with rows of steel shutters on the front and back. The building design is minimalistic and unadorned.

The research that comes out of this building has always been top notch. The topics covered include chemical kinetics and reaction dynamics, atomic physics, spectroscopy, chemical physics and molecular physics, theoretical chemistry and material science. Researchers who have made their name in this institution include Otto Hahn, Nobel laureate and father of nuclear chemistry, Eugene Wigner, Nobel laureate and a leading scientist in the Manhattan Project, and Ernst Ruska, inventor of the first electron microscope.

#### **U-Bahnhof Dahlem-dorf**

This station has above-ground train tracks that run on either side of its central platform. The station building is modelled after traditional German farmhouses, with its thatched roof and half-timber framing. A small traffic island with flowers is situated on the front of the station.

### **Clayallee**

Clayallee runs through Dahlem and the northern part of Zehlendorf. It is named after General Lucius D. Clay, the military governor of the American occupation zone and the commander of the Berlin Airlift. It is a wide road with six lanes; the western side of it borders the Grunewald forest. Clayallee is a street with numerous institutions and settlements of the U.S. occupation forces. Among them is the United States Embassy Mission Berlin, the Clay residential compound, the U.S. Cinema ‘Outpost', and Trumanplaza, a shopping centre constructed for U.S. military personnel.

#### **Allied Kommandatura**

* Politics 4
* Status: Politics

The Kommandatura is the governing body of the Berlin occupation zone with its office in Dahlem. The governing body consists of the American, British and French occupying forces, and formerly the Soviet Union who left the alliance in 1948. The organisation has a role in setting up city-wide policy and issuing orders to the Lord Mayor and the Berlin Magistrat. They answer to the Allied Control Council, which holds the same function for all of Germany.

Throughout the years, the Allied Kommandatura has expanded to include numerous committees and deputies. It runs on a bureaucracy that is almost Byzantine in nature; consisting of the administrative staff, the technical staff, the commandants of each Allied nation and their deputies, and their respective advisors and translators, liaisons and clerical staff, and advisors to the committees.

The office is a rather handsome building with dark red brick walls and white-framed doors and windows. The entrance porch is framed with white rectangular columns. The flagpole outside flies either the American, British, or French flag, depending on who was acting chairman at the time.

#### **Berlin Brigade**

The U.S. military forces in Berlin are housed in this group of buildings, the former headquarters of the Luftwaffe. The consulate is one of the L-shaped buildings in the compound, standing opposite the administrative building of the Berlin Brigade. This facility is administered under the U.S. State Department, with security provided by the U.S. Army military police. The facility still bears the markings of the former Nazi regime—large cement eagles on the corners of buildings with their swastika chiseled out.

**U.S. Mission Berlin**

* Persuasion 3
* Subterfuge 2
* Status: Intelligence
* Status: Politics

The consulate is one of the L-shaped buildings in the compound, standing opposite the administrative building of the Berlin Brigade. It is built in the clean, utilitarian style common to many pre-war buildings in Berlin. The block has a double row of windows running all along its length, and an L-shaped hipped roof with a row of dormer windows all across its length.

The inside of it seems just like any other office building. It has a full roster of staff carrying out different functions, under the authority of the U.S. General in Berlin. It operates independently of the U.S. embassy in Bonn, and has the ability to influence politics in West Berlin.

#### **Trumanplaza**

Opposite the residential compound is a shopping complex built for the U.S. military personnel working in Berlin. It is a modern building made up of several blocks, oriented around an outdoor space with ample parking lots. It holds the post exchange, commissary, Army post office (APO), American Express bank, Stars & Stripes book store, barber, florist, Deutsche Post, and the Nicholson Memorial Library. Every year from July through August, it holds the German-American Folk Festival. Visitors will get to enjoy American foods such as hamburgers, corndogs, and steaks, and enjoy carnival attractions in a stereotypically American “Main Street”.

#### **U-Bahnhof Oskar-Helene-Heim**

The station is situated above ground with a central platform. It has an entrance hall made up of brick with a tall, steep gable roof.