How the GDR Nearly Split Berlin Across Two Time Zones in 1980

With the clocks set to fall back on the night of 24-25 October, the Berliner Zeitung published a historical deep-dive examining why West Germany adopted daylight saving time in 1980. The answer centres on the Berlin Wall: East Germany had already decided to implement summer time, and had West Germany not followed, train platforms in divided Berlin would have displayed two different times — a logistical and symbolic absurdity West German authorities could not accept. The article traces the broader history of daylight saving from a 1895 proposal by New Zealand entomologist George Vernon Hudson and British businessman William Willett's 1907 campaign to Germany's own first use during World War I in 1916. The piece debunks five myths: that Benjamin Franklin invented daylight saving (he wrote satirical fiction), that it benefits farmers (they oppose it), and that it saves energy (evidence is inconclusive). The EU Parliament voted in 2019 to end the practice, but member states cannot agree on a permanent time zone, so the biannual change persists into 2026.