BERLIN — If there’s one spot symbolising Germany’s inexorable debate over how it sees itself, it is here: a hotly contested parcel of land on the city’s imperial boulevard where the Prussian royal palace once stood.

The East Germans bulldozed the palace in 1952 as a means of driving an architectural stake through the heart of Prussian militarism and nazism. To make the symbolism even clearer, they then built their glass and bronze parliament squarely on top of the palace ruins. Fast forward to 2006, and German rightwingers won a lobbying battle and pushed Angela Merkel’s government to respond to the communists – albeit belatedly – by levelling the parliament building.