Of all human qualities, the one I admire the most is resilience — that is, the ability to withstand, adapt and grow in the face of adversity or trauma. In the history of the modern world, very few cities are as synonymous with resilience as Berlin, the creative home of German watch brand NOMOS Glashütte. While today we consider Berlin one of the global epicenters for art and culture, with the world’s greatest nightclubs and an innovative epicurean scene embodied by chef Tim Raue’s eponymous two Michelin starred restaurant, it wasn’t so long ago that the capital city of Germany was in the international spotlight for a very different reason: Between 1945 and 1990, Berlin was a hotspot in the superpower rivalry known as the Cold War.
Caught in the ideological conflict, the city was divided into East and West Berlin; the former was run by the Soviet-backed Communist government of East Germany, while the latter was deemed a territory of West Germany. The 96-mile-long Berlin Wall, built in the 1960s by East Germany, was the most notorious symbol of the conflict between the Eastern/Communist bloc and the Western/Capitalist bloc. The Wall divided families and friends and separated Germans from their jobs, leading to anguish and generational trauma. Yet, somehow encoded in the DNA of every Berliner, was the determination to fight back against this oppression. Nothing could crush the spirit of Berlin and its people. They withstood. They adapted. They grew.
