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The sector border between East and West Berlin was not only a border between
two half cities, but also divided two economic systems, under which completely
different consumer worlds developed. The function of the retail trade in
the GDR was to pass goods produced in a planned economy on to the population
at fixed prices. This was carried out essentially by shops belonging to
the state trade organisations HO and Centrum, as well as those in consumer
cooperatives. The objective was to guar-antee basic provisions by means
of a centrally managed production system. Since as goods distri-butors
the state sales outlets were not subject to any pressure of competition,
little was invested in making them look attractive. They were intended
to meet demand, and often enough did not even manage to do this,
let alone awaken consumer desire. Nevertheless, importance was attached
to a colourful world of goods as evidence of the efficiency of socialism,
particularly in the capital city. And thus a prestigious shopping centre
emerged on Alexanderplatz in the course of restructuring during the post-war
decades. The first HO department store there, established in the
fifties, was followed by Centrum department store (now Kaufhof) and the
electrical shop "Haus der Elektrotechnik" in 1969, to coincide with the
20th anniversary of the founding of the GDR. By 1973, housing and shops
had appeared, along with an integ-rated market hall on Karl-Liebknecht-Straße
and the Rathauspassagen shopping arcade. However, none of these buildings
exist in their original state. Although on the free market of West
Berlin numerous shops filled to bursting point had been awakening consumer
desire since the early fifties, unemployment was high and purchasing power
was limited. This did not change until economic aid from the German government
and the Marshall Plan took effect and led the city gradually towards full
employment by 1961. Parallel to this development was a growing pleasure
in small and larger luxuries to be consumed particularly on Kurfürstendamm
and Tauentzienstraße. This was where the KaDeWe department store
had opened on two floors back in 1950. The building that had been completely
burnt out during the war had been erected again by 1956. The building boom
that had seized the centre of West Berlin since the early sixties reached
its climax with the Europa-Center, completed in 1965. A shopping mall based
on the American model, it was an attraction for locals and tourists
alike. Busy shopping streets also emerged in districts far from the
city centre. And in the middle of today’s rows of façades, there
is many a shop in the district centres with a design that consciously defies
current trends and invites visitors to go on a brief journey through time
back to the West Berlin shopping world of yesteryear.
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