The ministers agreed to call a wider international conference to discuss a settlement to the recent Korean War and the ongoing Indochina War between France and the Viet Minh, but failed to reach agreement on issues of European security and the international status of Germany and Austria, then under four-power occupation following World War II.
The Berlin meeting was an early fruit of the first period of U.S._Soviet détente or "thaw" following the first Cold War. The subsequent Vietnam, though formal peace in Korea remained elusive.
Berlin is also home to another group of famous institutions, including the Painting Gallery, which displays European painting from the 13th to 16th centuries, and the Staatliche Museum, home to the famous 14th-century-bc painted limestone bust of Egyptian queen Nefertiti.
Berlin has three international airports, one at Tegel in the northwest of the city, another at Tempelhof south of the center (and famed for its role during the Berlin blockade that began in 1948), and yet another at Schönefeld in the south and east beyond Berlin’s city limits.
Berlin served as the capital of the Weimar Republic from 1919 to 1933.
"Berlin is a philosopher of history as well as a historian of ideas, and these nine engaging, previously unpublished essays, broadcasts, talks and lectures written or delivered between 1950 and 1972 confirm the noted Oxford scholar's breadth of vision, humanistic outlook and enormous erudition worn lightly.
Berlin finds much to admire in Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore's double-edged critique of colonialism, on the one hand, and in Indians' chauvinist nationalism, on the other.
Berlin's career has spanned the century: He witnessed the 1917 revolution in Petrograd, has had diplomatic postings in Washington and Moscow, and has headed Oxford's Wolfson College, the British Academy, and the Royal Opera.