A reporter walks through Berlin – twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall – and finds a television tower whose revolving restaurant turns twice as fast as it did in East German times. He finds a former border exit at Friedrichstrasse, the Palace of Tears, in the shadow of brand new office blocks, and an empty space in the centre of town where the Palace of the Republic once stood. Grass grows there now. Berlin has changed, and as the city changes, so does the meaning it has for its residents.

But this transformation has West Berlin in its grip, too. Intercity trains no longer stop at yesterday’s main station: the legendary Bahnhof Zoo now serves local transit. Today’s investors meet in the eastern sector. Westernising East Berlin shows what became of the city united twenty years ago.

Producer: BBC (Radio 4)