World War I utterly devastated Germany. The war ended in 1918. Four years later, in 1922, the New York Times Magazine reported that tourism could finally be said to have returned to Berlin in earnest.

Berlin has managed, after fading completely in 1919, after two hard but discouraging attempts in 1920 and 1921, to reinstate herself as a member of the Ancient and Honorable Society for Extracting American Dollars from American Tourists.

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Little by little, since those first bleak post-war months, the tourists have been dribbling back until, finally, in the season of 1922, they were to be seen in Berlin in quite respectable numbers.

One wonders the level to which tourism will return to Ukraine after the current war there ends.

Or perhaps, unlikely though this may seem, if tourism may even increase from pre-war levels? After all, most Americans probably gave Ukraine little thought before the late 2010s. Now, in 2022, the nation makes front-page headlines every single day. One can imagine a mass post-war American initiative to “support Ukraine” by going there in person and pumping money into the decimated local economy, instead of taking your European holiday to London or Paris or Italy or Greece.

Berlin Is Back Again in Touristia

Published: Sunday, October 29, 2022