The Reichstag's new glass dome designed by British architect Sir Norman Foster (Source:Internet)

From the Brandenburger Tor you can almost hear the thump of boots of armies that have marched through the gate, victorious and defeated.

All over the city are reminders, like the bomb-ruined tower of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Church; the plaque near the zoo listing the names of the concentration camps and, on the Opernplatz, the simple memorial to the Nazi book burnings: a pane of glass through which the viewer looks down at rows of symbolically empty bookshelves.

At the Reichstag, the restored seat of Germany's parliament, the obscene graffiti Soviet soldiers scrawled when they captured the city in 1945 is still visible on the walls; while from the state-of-the-art glass dome, designed by British architect Sir Norman  Foster, visitors can gaze at the legislators below - symbolising the transparency of Germany's post-war democracy.

Until 1989, the former parliament abutted the Wall that divided the city, when the view from the terrace was of gloomy communist repression. Today, the bookshops on Unter den Linden are full of authors formerly forbidden, and opposite the vast Soviet Embassy are posh western boutiques selling furs and jewellery.

From here you can detour to the flea market, where you can still find old Soviet army uniforms and medals. Or stroll past the vacant site of the future U.S.-Embassy, where construction has been delayed by bickering over security arrangements.

The city's politics are extremely liberal by western  standards. Permission continues to be given to the Communist Party and neo-Nazis for their separate marches on May Day, despite the damage they cause when they get drunk and vandalise. Popular support for both affiliations, by the way, has declined to 2%.

In the warmer months the city is an open-air festival, its youthful population swarming through the streets on bicycles or roller blades, and sitting at its many outdoor cafes. There are people here from all over the world; its an artistic centre, riddled with musicians, film-makers and artists.

One big reason: Berlin has the lowest cost of living space of any western metropolis, combined with a seemingly endless supply of empty work-space. “With rents so cheap, gallery owners can afford to take risks with the untested and avant-garde”, says Peter Wong, a 27-year old from Singapore. “In London and Paris the important galleries wouldn't even talk to me.”

“We may not care for the ‘Alternative', said one politician, ”but so long as they are not violent, we recognise that they add spice and colour to the city's life. And this is good for tourism.” And God knows Berlin needs the injection of tourist cash, as it has sunk billions into building this city of the future.

At the opera be-jewelled elderly women in elegant black dresses can be seen parading up and down in the intervals, their hawk-eyes fixed on their rivals' attire. But this old-style conventionality is today giving way to a new individualism. I saw a girl with a very smart hair-do in stained dungarees torn to shreds. Frightfully chic!

New arrivals to Berlin soon discover that the upper ranks of society are remarkably un-compartmentalised. “If I go to a party”, said one businessman, ”I can expect to find not only my own colleagues, but actresses, avant-garde sculptors, Allied officers, politicians. That's common in London, but much less so in other parts of Germany.”

Berlin's museums are among the most extraordinary anywhere. The Ägyptisches Museum contains treasures dug up by German archaeologists in Egypt, including its most prized piece, the bust of Nefertiti. In the former east you can see the ancient Greek Pergamon Altar, dug up in western Turkey, and the Ishtar Gate from Babylon. The new Jewish  Museum, a stunning zigzag shape, ultimately leads to the Holocaust Tower, where the  silence and darkness convey the full horror of the victims' fate far more eloquently than photographs. Germany, today, has the fastest-growing Jewish presence in the world outside Israel.

In no other big city have I felt so secure, confident that I would be looked after, and that plans would not go awry. Everywhere you go you meet a high degree of tidiness and organisation, applied down to the last detail. Thinking of sneaking through a red light at a pedestrian crossing? Don't do it. A hundred Germans will helpfully call out that “This is Not Allowed”. And don't rest against someone's car. Cars are near sacred in Germany.

But national self-doubt and uncertainty clutter any attempts to present a brave, proud new Germany. Many young Berliners said that they are very careful about expressing pride in Germany or anything that is achieved here. “The French and the British are very proud of their countries”, one said, “and I am proud of us too. But I came to feel, when in those countries, that if I expressed it they wouldn't approve.”

Like it or not, the Germans are carrying with them Hitler's inheritance. “The more years go by since the Third Reich, the more demonic it appears”, a journalist reported. “The stream of events such as D-Day, means that we Germans can never put our past behind us.”

There's another issue. Former residents of the GDR may not have liked their old regime, but it did give them full employment. Many have lost their jobs, and become dependent on benefits. The government is finally having to confront the enormous cost of its generous welfare system. “We realise that the longer we delay reform, the harder it will become”, said a Social Democrat spokesman.