Disappearing History - ’Jewish Berlin^’ between Politics of Memory and Urban Marketing

’Jewish Berlin^’: This term refers on one hand to a key element of German Holocaust memory, on the other hand increasingly, to a new tourism brand. In the marketing practice of the capital of Germany, a specific historical city image has been evolved in recent years, which now presents a special mix of historical images, current culture of memory and the promise of authentic traces of the lost German-Jewish life.

In order to be in the interplay of marketing agencies, the tourism industry, the urban media, creative artists, caterers, festival agencies and finally the science initiated a process that can be called a policy of urban imagineering. This refers to a differentiated discourse and practice field within the professional agent groups actively generate specific images, narratives and symbols of the metropolis, in this case ’Jewish Berlin^’.

The proposed lecture´s departing point is that various images of the Jewish represent today a fundamental core brand in the process of marketing of Berlin. However, in this process of imagineering ’Jewish Berlin^’ , German - Jewish history and the knowledge of this history is playing less and less role. Therefore the lecture intends to analyze those images, strategies, practices and agents, who are creating ’Jewish Berlin^’ without history. Doing so, the lecture understands ’Jewish Berlin^’ as an imaginative construct, what is going to be now re-ethnicised and exoticized.