The examination of Berlin's cultural history is worthwhile. It opens up new perspectives and a hitherto unfamiliar approach to the city's history. Kai-Uwe Merz guides us through the Berlin of the early 1960s on the basis of the topics of politics, show, diary literature, film, theatre, cult, church, choral music, music architecture, architectural criticism, painting and journalism. In it, we encounter Marlene Dietrich as well as Kurt Mühlenhaupt, John le Carré and Matthias Walden. A new perspective in which diplomatic history, the Cold War and Berlin crises serve merely as background and frame of reference for the description of the city's diverse cultural life.