The German capital has lost yet another stunning relic of the communist era with the demolition of a grand, Soviet-era airport reception building that once welcomed Eastern bloc VIPs including Leonid Brezhnev, Fidel Castro and Yuri Gagarin to East Berlin.
The so-called Generalshotel, built shortly after the end of the Second World War to cater for Red Army top brass visiting the divided city, has been demolished to make way for the German government’s fleet of jets.
It was a controversial decision. Officials ignored furious protests that a piece of East German identity was being erased by an arrogant western elite. If the building didn’t have a communist
