The photograph shows the plain, light-rendered façade of the Schiller Theatre in the Berlin district of Charlottenburg with the capital letters of its signage — a sign of cultural continuity in the western part of the divided city. On the right of the image, two persons in military uniforms can be seen speaking in front of the building, pointing to the Allied presence in West Berlin’s everyday life. The Schiller Theatre was regarded in the mid-1950s as one of the most significant spoken-word theaters in West Berlin and was at the same time a representative symbol of cultural reconstruction and Western lifestyle in the city. In the context of the Cold War, such a cultural institution also functioned as part of the image that West Berlin projected outward — and toward the East — of itself: a vibrant, civilized metropolis in the spirit of the “showcase of the West”.