The story of Berlin is the story of its people, a people largely composed of succesive waves of immigrants. Dutchmen, Frenchmen, Hugenots, Jews, Italians, Poles, Scots, Silesians, Galicians, Saxons, Pomeranians, Prussians, Lithuanians, Russians, and God knows what else - rucksack Berliners, they were called - all poured in to what was for a long time little more than a malodorous garrison town. There, they were transformed by the Berliner Luft, the special Berlin atmosphere, into something rich and strange. It has been said that no-one is born a Berliner, everyone has to become one. You breathe in the air, which has been described as being addictive as cocaine or alcohol, and tune in to the fast Berliner Tempo, and are transfigured.
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