Abstract

Berlin, May 2012: At the Brandenburg Gate, on Unter den Linden, stands an array of “crate slugs”: street theater characters. Two tall, handsome men, mounted on the aforesaid crates, work as a double act, playing a Soviet soldier and an American soldier. They are by far the most popular of the characters; tourists flock to be photographed standing between them. The actor-soldiers recall one aspect of the past of the Brandenburg Gate — its function as part of the divide between the former GDR and West Germany. By their very presence, they play out the conversion of the site into one of tourist consumption, offering a handshake which, captured in a photograph, will become a souvenir of contact with the site.