At the end of the First World War, the memories of the conflict which developed in France and Germany diverged widely. However, Paris and Berlin were something else than just a genuine reflection of their respective national context; their status as capital cities gave them common characteristics. Therefore some similar phenomena appear. On the one hand, those cities may offer a national backing to particular memories, which was especially sought. On the other hand, the concentration of marks of memory in those cities tended to consolidate them in an always more exclusively national role. Thus, a kind of reciprocal nationalization of memory by capital cities and of capital cities by memory occurred. This nationalization is particularly visible in the analysis of the national monuments that emerged in the post-war years. Nevertheless, such phenomena underline variations between Paris and Berlin: Paris stood out without any difficulty as the capital of France, even of the Allied world, while Berlin stood out as the capital of Prussia, with more difficulty as the capital of Germany.