Berlin has been the intersection of Eastern and Western Europe at least since the Hollenzolleran Kingdom of Prussia, was founded in 1701.
This was reinforced by the completion of the Partition of Poland (divided between Russia, Germany, and Austria) in1795. Between this date and WWI, Berlin was the closest major city to the Russian Empire and migration point for many in what now are Poland, Latvia, Estonia, and, Lithuania, all of which were part of the Russian Empire.
After WWI, the USSR pulled it's border east, and, for a short time (before 1933), Berlin again was at the cross roads of the East and East.
After the end of WWII, the Iron Curtain border of the Soviet Union moved west of Berlin, and from 1945 to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Berlin was a Frankenstein whose survival depended on the West.
Since 1989, and, even more since the collapse of the Soviet Union and liberation of Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, and Moldavia, in 1991-1992, Berlin has remerged as the East West cross roads.
Berlin is becoming, again, what she historically has been since at least 1800.
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