Writers describing a place in which some event of importance occurred will often stress the apparent “normality” of that place. This literary device plays on our expectation that great historical events ought to have taken place in cities, halls, mountains, plains and so on, that have a corresponding ambiance of greatness about them. It creates an intriguing disjuncture. It is not a bad way of easing the reader into an article. A sterling candidate for this ordinary-place-extraordinary-events conceit may be found in a quiet suburb of eastern Berlin known as Karlshorst. Here, only a brief walk from the local railway…