Unter den Linden and the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin 1937
Double-decker buses swing through the Brandenburg Gate, crowds cross the great avenue, and a lamp post carries the signs Unter den Linden and Wilhelmstraße.
The columns and quadriga of the Brandenburg Gate close the end of a summer street; double-decker buses pass through its openings, a woman pushes a pram across the road and men wheel their bicycles. At a sunny corner, Berliners in hats and summer dresses cross the broad roadway in a steady stream, an officer among them, tall white flagpoles lining the avenue before a long palace facade. High on a lamp post with traffic lights, the street signs read Unter den Linden and Wilhelmstraße 69b-78.
The gate, built by Carl Gotthard Langhans in 1791, had seen the SA's torchlight march on the night Hitler became chancellor. A few steps down the Wilhelmstraße stood the Reich Chancellery, the Foreign Office and the propaganda ministry of Joseph Goebbels.
