Walter Benjamin at the city library of Berlin: The new library as incident room

Abstract

This article pairs Bibliothek, a memorial in Berlin against the Nazi book-burning of May 10, 1933, with the library in Wim Wenders' film Der Himmel uber Berlin (1987) as sites to reflect on loss with the disappearance of material books from the library and the conversion of libraries into information centers in the era of the internet and digital reproduction. It explores loss by taking up arguments of Walter Benjamin concerning artworks and by applying his theory of loss to books that exist, unlike works of art, only because of mass technical reproduction. It then examines how to argue for oss in ontological and even civilizational terms, especially when the rational justification for the massive clearance of books is justified by the short-term utilitarian calculus of benefit and gain that determines that there is no loss at all. By way of conclusion, it offers a sketch of the new library as having heightened responsibilities in the pursuit of truth as a center for documentation akin to an incident room at the scene of a crime. In this regard, the Topography of Terror Documentation Center on Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin on the site of the former Gestapo Headquarters is both a paradigm and a beacon.