Berlin, Capital of the German Democratic Republic, was a city of multiple roles. Like Moscow, Warsaw, Prague, or Budapest it was the seat of a socialist government that the new rulers attempted to shape according to new ideological principles and against the shadows of the past. The city had also suffered major destructions during the Second World War, and particularly in the 1940s and 1950s ideological action went along with pragmatic response to the most basic needs. But unlike any other Eastern European metropolis, the capital of socialist Germany was the half of a divided city, and its rulers felt both stimulated and threatened by the capitalist competitor in the West. The different forms of rivalry and exchange between both parts have to be deemed the major distinction to other capitals of the Eastern bloc.