Café Berlin on the Kurfürstendamm presents itself in summer 1955 as a spacious street café with an expansive outdoor terrace and a striking neon sign for Dortmunder Union Beer. The broad lettering and elegant awnings signal consumption and leisure — typical attributes of the rising West sector in the era of the nascent economic miracle (Wirtschaftswunder). In the foreground, a large American Buick, a VW Beetle, and an older German prewar vehicle are parked side by side, illustrating both the social breadth of the clientele and the rapid transformation of motorization. To the left of the image, further shops are visible, including signs of an art dealer offering European and non-European goods — a sign of West Berlin’s recovered cosmopolitanism. The photograph is exemplary of the Kurfürstendamm’s role as the “showcase of the West”: a demonstrative counterpoint to East Berlin’s Stalinallee, meant to render visible quality of life, consumption, and normalcy in divided Berlin.