20 Percent Berlin

🤖 Pols to remove hobbles on intelligence services

🏊 🌒#519: Black swim cancelled, ChatGPT in Berlin, eclipse eye pain

Andrew Bulkeley — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 11:33:33 GMT

Me and Hubertus are just to the left. Grainy concert footage by Heipl Berlin.

Hey 20 Percent,

I got my official election materials from Berlin Thursday and after being annoyed that what could have just been an email was a letter AND an envelope, I enjoyed the moment as a new German.

I thought I had already decided how I was going to vote but then some friends invited us to a concert at Wühlheide Thursday night. I was watching the opening band when I realized Hubertus Heil (SPD) was sitting next to me.

Heil’s been a parliamentarian since 1998, coincidentally the year I accidentally emigrated to Germany, and was labor minister in the ill-fated traffic light coalition under Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD).

The traffic-light coalition that reformed immigration laws and made it possible for me to become German and keep my American passport. Ergo, to become German.

We chatted some and I thanked him and he couldn’t have been more nice, and I started wondering if I owed the SPD a vote for enabling my German-ness. Do I?

Now I don’t know how I’ll vote. Have a good weekend — it’s supposed to be hot.

Andrew

Even swimming is a problem now

Racist comments and threats led the Volksbühne to cancel a joint event planned for Friday with the Each One Teach One association (Eoto) that would have opened the theater’s Volksbad pool only for young Black swimmers from 12pm to 6pm Friday, according to RBB24. The Volksbühne and Eoto said they couldn’t guarantee the safety of the swimmers, even with the assistance of the police, following the threats. Right-wing German media latched onto the event as racist since the pool would only be open to Black swimmers although the event was private. The pool was already closed most of the week because the showers were broken. Eoto says it is “a community-based education and empowerment organization, as well as a place of learning and encounter, for people of African descent.” How can right-wing idiots get such a great event cancelled?

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Germans call it either “Chatty” or just “Chat”

Are you looking for a job because you were replaced by AI? ChatGPT creator OpenAI will open a second German office in Berlin “relatively soon”, CEO Sam Altman said during an interview with financial daily Handelsblatt. Germany is OpenAI’s biggest European market for paid subscriptions and is one of its three largest markets. The company only has an office in Munich. Altman said talks with Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) and finance minister Lars Klingbeil (SPD) about opening a data center have proven unfruitful.

Is BVG … improving?

Public transport provider BVG has become more reliable and is reviving at least one mothballed bus line, according to Tagesspiegel. Reliability by subways — how many trains ran as planned — rose to 98.5% in the first half of the year from 94.3% last year and 91.7% in 2024. Trams improved to 99.3% from 98.6% while buses bumped up 0.1 percentage points to 99.6%. But the services experienced delays at the same level as last year. BVG will also reintroduce the 310 bus in Charlottenburg and extend the M77 bus in Marienfelde. The frequency of X33 from Spandau will also be increased, the first improvement in bus service since 2023.

Eclipsed

Charité hospital treated 10 eye patients and the eye emergency room in Marzahn saw 29 patients with eye complaints after staring directly at Wednesday’s eclipse, even though each and every media outlet warned against doing just that, according to Tagesspiegel. The Vivantes hospital in Neukölln treated another 10. Most, the paper noted, were under 35. Minor burns to the retina can heal but severe burns are permanent and can affect eyesight. Police also had to be called to the Planetarium in Prenzlauer Berg Wednesday after 3,000 people queued up in hopes of getting a free pair of glasses to watch the eclipse and some grew impatient.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🌀 Drought threatens German recovery

Factoid

No notes. Photo: Robert Scarth

Construction on the Berlin Wall began unexpectedly on Aug. 13, 1961 — 65 years ago. East German leader Walter Ulbricht telegraphed the construction during a press conference on June 15 of that same year when asked if East Germany planned to create a border with West Germany at Brandenburg Gate. “Nobody is planning on building a wall,” Ulbricht said. The West German journalist had asked him about a border, not a barrier, and his denial is now seen as prophetic.

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#518: Landlord fined, club death, mall homes, Nazi concert

Maurice Frank — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 11:33:51 GMT

Photo: me

Hey 20 Percent,

According to a new study by the Club Commission, only 61% of Berlin’s club operators say they’re breaking even; 23% say they’re thinking about throwing in the towel and closing their club.

A number of factors play a role: higher rents; higher wage and energy costs; people buying fewer alcoholic drinks and going home earlier.

Call me nostalgic, but this is not good news for Berlin. Since I arrived here in the Dark Ages, the diverse buffet of independent nightlife establishments has been the city’s defining USP. Berlin’s ability to attract young talent is directly linked to nightlife and alternative culture.

Time to divert more of Berlin’s €600 million in culture funding towards clubs?

YES.

The city ploughs €172 million into its three opera houses alone each year. It’s hard to say exactly how much goes into clubs, but operators say just 2% of their income comes from state funding, probably funding for one-off special projects. I don’t want to pick on opera, but does it make sense that the taxpayer covers 72% of the cost of an opera ticket while clubs get mere crumbs?

Clubs are more essential to Berlin’s identity, image and reputation than opera. Besides, opera — being a fancy, posh artform — can surely attract more private sponsorship funding than currently. Or just stomach slightly higher ticket prices.

Funnel €20-30 million to the clubs. A lot could be done.

Meanwhile, we should just go clubbing more often, even us oldies.

What do you think?

News below.

Maurice

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Landlord fined for rent gouging

A Berlin district court has fined a landlord €1,000 for rent gouging (paywall) under Germany’s Commercial Criminal Law’s (Wirtschaftsstrafrecht) “exploitation of scarce supply” provision. The case involved an apartment in Kreuzberg’s Katzbachstraße where the landlord was found to have “exploited Berlin’s housing shortage”, according to judge Wolfgang Konecny. This ruling could strengthen district authorities’ ability to combat illegal rent increases. The rent at the start of a new tenancy cannot exceed “the local comparative rent” (“Ortsübliche Vergleichsmiete”, which can be found in the Mietspiegel) by more than 10%. If you suspect excessive rent, you’re entitled to a consultation with the Rent Review Office (info in English and other languages) who will advise further steps. In a few cases, districts themselves have sued landlords, with Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, in particular, having some success.

My place at the mall

Another way of chipping away at the housing problem: The owner of the Boulevard Berlin shopping centre in Steglitz is converting former retail spaces into 217 mini-apartments. The project is repurposing 16,000 sqm. With e-commerce battling malls and home office reducing the need for IRL offices, this is part of a growing trend of converting commercial property into residential units.

App to avoid ticket Kontrolleure

A new web-based app allows public transport patrons to warn others against active ticket checkers to help Schwarzfahrer dodge fines for riding without a ticket, according to Berliner Morgenpost (paywall or this summary by T-Online). The Freifahren app has a map of Berlin public transport routes with red warning signs highlighting where checkers have been spotted — they appear to be very active on the U5 today. The BVG has said it loses up to €25 million per annum to Schwarzfahren and said those using the app “lack solidarity”. Probably better to buy a ticket but also: BVG needs to stop hiring sometimes-racist thugs to enforce ticketing.

Nazi rock in Lichtenberg

At the other end of town, extreme rightwing party Die Heimat (formerly NPD) held an unregistered rock concert at their Köpenick office on Saturday (paywall) featuring bands like Lunikoff Verschwörung. Around 250 people showed up, including known neo-Nazis from across the country. People wore Ku Klux Klan masks or T-shirts with Nazi slogans. Police intervened following noise complaints and arrested a 52-year-old man for shouting Nazi propaganda and assaulting a photographer.

Another unicorn in the stable

Despite all the economic gloom, Berlin founders continue to rake in investment. Mitte-based fintech firm Moss just raised €30m, boosting its valuation to over €1 billion. Moss is a “digital spend management platform for European SMEs” aka a nifty AI-automation finance tool to keep a grip on business lunches. Moss says it has 5,000 customers and employs 350.

Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin

😶‍🌫️ Sound in the Garden
Thu-Sun · 6:30 pm · Neue Nationalgalerie, Potsdamer Straße 50 · €23 to 30 per night, series ticket available Curated with CTM around Fujiko Nakaya’s fog sculpture. Dopplereffekt live with Space Afrika Thursday, Hildur Guðnadóttir and Sam Slater with Slauson Malone 1 Friday, Michael Rother playing NEU! and Harmonia Saturday. Sunday is recorded works sounding inside the fog all day, and the vapour behaves differently after dark

🎪 Berlin Circus Festival
Saturday-Sunday · Tempelhofer Feld, entrance at S+U Tempelhof
The twelfth edition ends this weekend, and its spine this year is a Catalan focus built with the APCC and the Institut Ramon Llull. Cia Manel Rosés plays Akri at half seven and Cia Totapedra does Pifia twice a day, with Collective Rage closing at half eight. Three tents and an outdoor stage, plus a show of work on circus, body and city.

💃🏽 Rave The Planet Parade 2026 Saturday · 2 pm · Straße des 17. Juni · Free - you can check the floats here Dr. Motte has called this a demonstration since 1989 and won techno its UNESCO heritage listing, arguing exactly that. Thirty floats leaning hard techno and trance, the whole axis closed.

🪩 GROOVE x Studio Liberté
Sunday · 2 pm · Sonnenraum, Eichenstraße 4A · €17-22
DJ Assault and DJ Godfather carry Detroit ghettotech; Detroit in Effect and SLIC Unit carry the older lineage; Danny Daze comes from Miami; Modeselektor and SALOME play at home. Electro in every dialect, running 14 hours.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🚨 US intelligence believes Russia was behind Leipzig drone

🚨 Germany battling ‘daily’ hybrid warfare attacks, minister warns

🚨 Far-right AfD extends its lead in nationwide polls

📉 Germany’s long industrial decline

⚽ Bayern’s Harry Kane to receive Golden Shoe award

Factoid

About 1.4 million Berlin residents are excluded from the September election, including non-German citizens and children under 16. And so, the Migrationsrat (migrant council) and Berliner Späti e.V. are organizing an unofficial election at Spätis where non-eligible residents can cast symbolic ballots. Give it a go! Also, check out the work of our friends at WahlHEYmat, which focuses on getting more non-citizens involved in Berlin politics.

📫Postkutsche (mail coach)

20% Berlin subscriber Lucy wrote to us about an observation she made at Hauptbahnhof:

“Thanks for all your fantastic reporting. Regarding the tragic CSD attack, I wanted to also share something I saw yesterday when I passed through Hauptbahnhof. The ad screens around the station were displaying a flickering candle (without text) followed by a stock photo of rainbow coloured pigment exploding. A vague tribute, I thought, but at least some form of showing reverence following the attack. But then - and this is what shocked me - these images were followed by an advert for some car/car rental company which displayed the words “Egal was passiert ist (whatever happens)” and then more text saying something like “bleib entspannt (stay relaxed)”. This juxtaposition was so disrespectful, somehow even worse than if it had only been ads on the screen.”

If you missed it, here’s out latest pod — with better audio, made with proper equipment!

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🏊 👨‍⚖️#517: Adlon for sale, free swimming, air-con in every tram

Andrew Bulkeley — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 11:26:18 GMT

Pool preparation. Photo: Me

Hey 20 Percent,

Shout out to EU party Volt for best improvement in campaign posters.

They used to specialize in cryptic posters that annoyed more than informed but this year they’ve come out screaming with one containing a tiring list of what they see as wrong with Berlin (I mostly agree).

Another highlights the solution to Berlin’s apartment problem — using Berlin’s own property companies to build lots of flats. Their “unfuck Berlin” posters are still annoying but I’ll give them credit for trying.

And their posters for individual candidates are cringe but delightfully so.

This isn’t an ad for them — they don’t have a chance of clearing the 5% hurdle to make it into government so I’ll be voting for someone else.

But I like their posters.

Listen to this week’s podcast to find out my favorite poster — from an aesthetic, not political, point of view.

Have a good, not-so-hot weekend!

Andrew

PS: If you missed it, the latest episode of our podcast is out and please visit this issue’s sponsor, Feather insurance for your liability needs.

The People’s Swimming Pool?

The Volksbad public swimming pool at Volksbühne opens today, ostensibly to protest Berlin’s lack of infrastructure spending but mostly just to give publicity to the Volksbühne and its new director. Tickets are free and can be booked (here) three days in advance but the pool at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Mitte is closed Sundays and Mondays so you won’t be able to sign up for Tuesday until this weekend. I’ll try it once, I guess. It’ll close Oct. 1.

A CDU mayor again?

Ines Schwerdtner, the co-head of the leftist Die Linke party, told Stern magazine her party would only form a coalition following Berlin’s September election with other parties willing to pursue the nationalization of privately-owned flats. The party leads recent polls but would need to link up with two other parties to gain a majority, most likely environmentalists Die Grüne and the center-left SPD. The stance may allow the conservative CDU to remain the senior partner in Berlin’s ruling coalition since other parties, including the SPD and Die Grüne, then said they were unwilling to accept the demand to enter a coalition. The only other constellation would have the CDU (polling at 18%), die Grüne (16%) and the SPD (13%) ruling together. Voters in 2021 approved a referendum to limit corporate landlords to just 3,000 Berlin apartments and force them to sell the excess to Berlin but politicians have yet to craft the corresponding law.

The 20% Suite at Adlon?

Some corporate landlords are volunteering to leave the Berlin market. Investor Fundus-Fonds 31 may soon put the Adlon Hotel on the auction block with a price tag of €280 million, according to Der Spiegel. The fund has asked its 4,000 investors for approval to sell the luxury hotel adjacent to the Brandenburg Gate after some investors said they’d rather have cash than suites and restaurants. But if you bought it you’d have to wait until 2032 to open your own hotel at the site — hotel chain Kempinski’s lease runs until then and they themselves may be interested in the property.

Air-conditioned trams

All BVG trams will be air conditioned by 2031 as aging trams without the convenience will be replaced by more modern, cooler models, according to T-Online. Only 113 of its 379 trains lack air conditioning though, if you’ve ridden in them on a hot day, you know it’s more a suggestion of air conditioning than actual air conditioning.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🤖 Explosive Russian drone in Leipzig?

🌀 RWE caves to Trump on windmills

Factoid

Recreation.

Berliners affected by January’s blackout have been reimbursed a total of €900,000 for hotel costs, according to RBB24. 3,100 people applied for reimbursement and so far 2,900 applications have been reviewed with stays costing an average of between €52 to €55 per person per night. 129 applications were rejected and 54 were voluntarily rescinded. An estimated 100,000 people in 45,000 households were without power from Jan. 3 to 7 following an as-yet unsolved attack on power cables in southwestern Berlin.

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🛂 Germany deports Bob Vylan frontman for anti-Israel chants

#39: Unemployment, Campaign posters, Speckgürtel

Andrew Bulkeley — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 10:46:14 GMT

We talk about national unemployment, campaign posters, the AfD leading in at least one poll and the concentric circles renters are causing in Brandenburg around Berlin.

🔫🚂#516: CSD vigil, welfare cuts hit seniors, Kotti surveillance, scammer

Maurice Frank — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 11:07:09 GMT

Hey 20 Percent,

I’m a bit of a public transport nerd so I was happy to see this beast upgrading an S-Bahn line I use daily, despite the disruption in service. When else to do this work than in summer?

Yesterday was my first day back on the S- and U-Bahn after a couple of weeks away. After a trip to the pristine Bavarian mountains, my beloved Berlin tranport seemed dirtier than ever. The U-Bahn stations, tunnels, cars and doors were caked with an even thicker layer of grime, gum, and mystery substances than before. Were the cleaners also on vacation?

A month ago, somebody power-washed the floors at an U-Bahn station I pass through a lot. It’s irrational, but just seeing those shiny, grime-free tiles brightened my mood. More power-washing please, BVG!

News below.

Maurice

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CSD vigil

On Sunday, thousands, including local politicians, came together for a vigil in Tiergaren to honour the victims of the terrorist attack on the CSD pride march, at which one Polish woman was killed and 31 people were injured. On Saturday, hundreds of thousands showed up for Hamburg’s pride march and Berlin’s CSD association, which organises the event here, was represented by a float. Meanwhile, apparently as a direct reaction to the CSD attack, a Berlin court has allowed the police to monitor four people from the Islamist scene using GPS ankle devices.

Berlin’s elderly would be hit by cuts

Elderly Berliners could be massively affected by plans by the Merz government to cut housing benefit (Wohngeld) funding from €5 billion to €3 billion annually. According to stats released by the government, the number of pensioners relying on Grundsicherung (basic welfare) and Wohngeld in Berlin has surged, with the cost rising from from €287 million in 2020 to €521 million in 2025. The ranks of elderly housing benefit recipients has quadrupled since 2015 to 33,000. Women are disproportionately affected. Die Linke politician Pascal Meiser, who submitted the request for data to the federal government, warned that “an even greater wave of poverty amongst the elderly is set to sweep over the capital in the future”.

AI at Kotti

No, it’s not Kreuzberg’s latest unicorn startup, it’s the police. They’re testing AI-assisted video surveillance at the notorious Kottbusser Tor, with plans to expand to Warschauer Straße. Berlin’s head of interior affairs Iris Spranger (SPD) emphasizes the system analyses “movement patterns,” not faces. The €2.47 million pilot (2026-2030) aims to combat street crime in high-risk areas. Critics call it “expensive security theatre,” while police unions say it will boost public safety. While surveillance might have its place, I sometimes wonder why the hell the police set up their mini-police station at Kotti in the first place? It’s clearly made zero difference in the amount of dealing and using of hard drugs in broad daylight on the square.

Senior scammed

In a depressing way, this story brings together (fake) cops and seniors. Back in May, the (real) police say, a 76-year-old Charlottenburger was tricked into handing over his stash of gold by scammers posing as police officers, who falsely claimed his daughter was jailed after causing a traffic accident. Using what’s known as the “shock call” tactic, the fraudsters demanded immediate bail payment, and the victim complied by giving his actual gold to a stranger. Berlin police are now looking for the suspect using surveillance footage and have appealed to the public for information. I’ve been hearing stories like this among my friends for years — usually elderly parents being pressured into a forking over cash or assets to pay for some kind of emergency situation.

Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin

🎸 Ana Frango Elétrico
Thursday · 7 pm · Lido, Cuvrystr. 7 · €32-35
Ana writes, plays, produces and arranges, and the live band is where all of that comes loose. Bossa and samba sit next to post-punk guitar and funk without any of it reading as costume. One of the people at the center of the Rio scene currently rewriting how much Brazilian pop can hold at once.

🍿 Joshua Oppenheimer: THE END Friday · 9:15 pm · silent green, Gerichtstr. 35 · €6 A musical set in a bunker after the collapse, screened outdoors as part of Lost in Finity.

🔊 MAGMA Festival
Saturday & Sunday · from noon · RSO.Berlin, Schnellerstr. 137 · €50 per day, €107 for both
Second edition, two days, two stages, and a booking that reads like a map of where listening actually is. Saturday runs from the afternoon into the evening with Erika de Casier, Yaeji, Joy Orbison, DJ Python, Six Sex, Skin On Skin, Ata Kak, DJ Travella, and The Dare. MAGMA BY NIGHT then takes the same site through to morning with Blawan, Pearson Sound, Surusinghe, JAXX TMS and Garage Girls. Sunday continues on the same ground.

🛼 LOVEDANCIN' Roller Jam
Sunday · 3 pm · ZIK, Schloßstraße 78-82 · €25
Moodymann playing a roller rink is not a sentence that comes up often. LOVEDANCIN' takes over ZIK and puts skaters and dancers on the same floor, with skates rentable at the door.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

👩‍🏭 Unemployment tops 3 million

🏳️‍🌈 Hamburg Pride returns with message of solidarity after Berlin attack

🚨 Rhine falls to record low levels

🤖 Wagner opera’s AI backdrop meets loud boos at Bayreuth Festival

Factoid

According to the election rules, parties could start hanging up their posters for the September Berlin election at noon on Sunday. Some parties simply ignored the rule and began postering on Saturday. An estimated 250,000 posters are around the city. I’ve noticed something else: companies piggy-backing on the political posters. In my neighbourhood, an ad for a store buying and selling gold has been on lampposts since the weekend. Fun fact, about 10 years ago, when I briefly joined a political party, I volunteered for some poster-hanging work. It was mostly fun, though a few old men passing by chose to hurl an insult or two in my direction.

📫Postkutsche (mail coach)

Reader Naman wrote to us about a hobby coding project.

“I built bahnscanner.de - a free tool that lets you search Deutsche Bahn fares across flexible dates, kind of like Skyscanner but for German trains. You can find the cheapest day to travel over a range, browse a 30-day price calendar, or search round-trip cheapest pairs. I thought it might be a useful thing to mention to your readers. It's free, no sign-up required, and most people living in Berlin are on a train at some point.”

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🐄🥓 #515: One street-rave gone, Tech hiring and firing, Attacker's conviction

Andrew Bulkeley — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 11:16:28 GMT

A dozen water buffalo hoped to experience Berlin after escaping from their herd in Wustrower Park in Hohenschönhausen Thursday. The fence was somehow damaged. Photo: Berliner Polizei

Hey 20 Percent!

I’ve been wondering a lot lately if I would have been happier had I accidentally migrated to a different European (or maybe non-European) city.

This Berlin thing was an accident — I took German on a whim in seventh grade and then decided to become an exchange student in eleventh grade because we had moved to Texas and, well, Texas.

I came to Germany as an adult to change up my life and get some experience as a financial journalist to make it easier to get my dream job writing for entertainment rag Variety in Los Angeles.

Then I discovered Berlin on a business trip and could never stop thinking about it until I moved here two years later.

And now I’m even German. Would I be happier if I were, say, Italian now? Finnish? Japanese? Or even working for Variety in LA (I actually wrote some for them in the 00s).

No idea. I just keep thinking about it.

Have a good weekend!

Andrew

Tesla hiring, Zalando firing

The good capitalist lord giveth and taketh away: Tesla in Grünheide southeast of Berlin has hired 1,000 new employees as it ramps up weekly production of its Musk-mobiles to 6,200 from 5,000, according to Tagesspiegel. At the same time, fast-fashion platform Zalando has begun eliminating up to 200 at its Berlin HQ — ironically more than 200 employees volunteered for redundancy because morale is apparently great, according to Handelsblatt. Zalando just happens to also be opening a new office in Romania. 🤔

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CSD attack impact on events

The Zug der Liebe planned for Aug. 29 on Straße der 17. Juni will move from a street party to a smaller protest rave at Ritter Butzke in Kreuzberg while the Rave the Planet party will go on as planned on Aug. 15, according to RBB24. Zug der Liebe said increased security costs as well as the cancellation of 70% of the trucks needed for the event have made it impossible — it also has yet to win regulary approval. Meanwhile, Rave the Planet said it met with Berlin officials to review its security plans for its ersatz Love Parade. Both cited the CSD attack as factors for their security reviews but came to different conclusions.

The attacker’s priors

CSD attacker Abdul B. had only a single conviction and had been charged as a minor, Berlin prosecutors clarified Wednesday, according to RBB24. Specialists determined Abdul was emotionally stunted and was therefore tried as a minor despite being 20 for his attempt to join the Islamic State terrorist organization in Syria in 2025. He was then sentenced to 22 months. His sentence was reduced to probation because he spent nearly six months in a German jail as well as three months behind bars in Lebanon in connection with the crime. The sentence would have automatically been reduced to probation after six months had he attended counseling and behaved in jail. He had two other run-ins with officials for assault and robbery but they didn’t result in convictions.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

💀 Super-creepy plastinator Gunter von Hagens dead

🚗 BMW firing thousands too

🚂 Troubled Deutsche Bahn halts losses

Factoid

The red is Speckgürtel 1, the orange is 2, the gray is just … Brandenburg. Graphic: statistik Berlin Brandenburg

Berlin has created a second Speckgürtel as residents flee deeper into surrounding Brandenburg to escape the rising cost of residential real estate, according to the Berlin-Brandenburg stats nerds. Speckgürtel is the cute German word for spare tire — that extra bit of flab many people acquire around their mid-sections. The first Speckgürtel in Brandenburg around Berlin has about 50 villages and is home to 1 million. The second also has 50 villages but just 240,000 people. The rest of Brandenburg has 1.3 million residents — and some really, really great lakes. Population in the first has risen 14% since 2011 and the second 9.4% while the rest of Brandenburg expanded just 3.4%.

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🫠 German teacher ill for 17 years fights in court for full salary

#514: CSD tragedy

Maurice Frank — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 10:26:15 GMT

Pboto: Orator, CC BY-SA 4.0

By now you’ve heard about the horrendous attack on the CSD pride march on Saturday night. A van drove into Tiergarten a few hundred metres away from the event’s locus at the Brandenburg Gate. A 65-year-old Polish woman was killed, 29 people were injured, including the deceased woman’s daughter.

An enormous manhunt ensued for the prime suspect, 21-year-old Lebanese-German Abdul Ballout. He appears to have shared Islamic State propaganda and even attempted to join the organisation in Syria, after which he was imprisoned in Lebanon for three months.

Back in Germany, he was given a suspended sentence of 22 months for “preparing a serious violent offence endangering the state”. He pretended to renounce his Islamist beliefs; he even took part in a de-radicalisation programme.

Police traced him to an allotment garden in Spandau, where they shot him dead after he apparently came at officers with a knife.

First and foremost, we must show our solidarity with the victims. That goes without saying.

Beyond that, I am saddened and disgusted by how this deliberate attack at Berlin’s large, strong queer community and its allies is also an attack on everything Berlin stands for: personal freedom, tolerance, political expression without fear, and just partying. One sick young man drunk on a radical Islamist ideology extinguished an innocent life, traumatised many others, and spread fear and insecurity throughout the community and throughout the city.

This crime is the culmination of a massive failure on different levels: the education system, the justice system, the law enforcement system.

This guy isn’t alone. The BKA, a federal law enforcement agency, estimates there are 28,000 people in with Islamist views in Germany; 9,000 are considered “prone to violence”. They believe about 450 people are capable of committing or supporting a terrorist act. The authorities are overwelmed by the number of “potential threats” including potential extreme-rightwing terrorists.

The insane thing is that Ballout himself was classified as a “high-risk threat” and yet was allowed to walk free with a suspended sentence.

This act will lead to a more repressive state. Politicians are, unsurprisingly, talking of expanding AI surveillance programmes, which will prove tricky in this data-protection obsessed country.

This act comes at a time of growing hostility and violence directed at queer people. Gay men have been assaulted at cruising spots by groups of young men; queer people have been harrassed and robbed on fake Grindr dates.

Meanwhile, Neukölln’s Commissioner for Integration Güner Balci said in an interview that homophobia is openly preached in some reactionary mosques and a massive problem among children and young people in her district. Balci said she wouldn’t be surprised if Ballout had grown up in such an environment. She called for the state to take much more drastic action against homophobia while warning against placing Muslims under general suspicion.

Solving this problem is a Herculean task. Berlin and Germany need to devote massive resources and get real about combatting the extremism infecting young people — whether it’s coming from Islamists or neo-Nazis, birds of a feather, it would seem.

Maurice

Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin

Internet Cinema selected by Dana Dawud
30.07 · 8–10pm · Julia Stoschek Foundation, Leipziger Straße 60 · free admission
Palestinian artist Dana Dawud built Open Secret, her touring internet cinema series, out of screenings with online collaborators in nine cities. She treats CoreCore, deep fakes and phone footage as cinema worth watching together.

Bwa Kayiman: Crossing the Mangrove
01–02.08 · from midday · HKW, John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10 · free entry, Garifuna Collective concert €20-24
Fourth chapter of HKW's study of the Haitian Revolution's legacy, this year turning to mangroves as sites of ecological knowledge. Ritual, dance and talks run from Camilo Mejía Cortés's salsa rooted VAIVÉN to a rare Berlin set from Garifuna Collective, closing with Three Thousand Songs Records.

Book Presentation and Performance
30.07 · 7pm · Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Kottbusser Straße 10 · free entry
Closing weekend for the six artist residency show at Bethanien. Ruti de Vries and Tracey Snelling present new books at 7pm, followed by a performance from Noé Duboutay and Caroline Beach. Snelling builds miniature rooms from sociology and voyeurism, part stage set, part crime scene.

Festival Entre Trópicos
01.08 · 1pm–12am · Neue Zukunft, Alt-Stralau 68 · €15-35
Two stages of sound. Desenfreno Tropical runs cumbia through avant-garde jazz and psych rock, closer to ritual than party band. Mercedes & Marxx bring fuzzed post-punk built on Latin American post-pop. Los Baby Jaguars swing cumbia into boogaloo and Afrobeat. Las Migrañas play hypnotic, ritual synth.

Mille et Une Nuits
31.07 · 7pm · Radialsystem, Holzmarktstraße 33 · €18, reduced €14
Iranian choreographer Sorour Darabi's first opera reimagines One Thousand and One Nights from Scheherazade's own point of view, freeing her from the storytelling device the original male author reduced her to. Eight performers build a queer, immersive night through live music and song.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

📉 Germany news: Industry hemorrhaging 15,000 jobs a month

⚽ Klopp threatens to quit Germany job

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🪖 Ireland lobbying for pro-Palestinian activists

🌈🍺 #513: Exorbitant rent ads, public drinking ban, fewer parties (in election)

Andrew Bulkeley — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 11:24:23 GMT

The Hohenzollern Castle somewhere in southern Germany, shot by me out of a zooming ICE. Home to the Musk-esque like clan that ruled Berlin (and Prussia) for 503 years.

Hey 20 Percent!

The problem with writing a newsletter is that when you make a mistake, you send that mistake to 12,000 inboxes.

Christopher Street Day is of course this weekend, not last weekend as I said last Friday.

The Lesbisch Schwules Straßenfest was last weekend — and I was annoyed I had to miss it for a four-day business trip down south (see photo above). It’s always been my favorite street party.

My aging brain confused the street festivals. At least I’m not missing CSD.

So: the weather is supposed to be good for CSD, which officially starts today.

Andrew

The latest tool against exorbitant rent

I guess we should be glad they’re doing something, even if it’s years too late — Berlin officials discovered 46 percent of apartment rental ads in June appeared to ask for illegally high rents, according to RBB24. The landlords will now be contacted by the government and asked if they don’t maybe want to re-think and lower their prices. The scans — and presumably friendly nudges — will be continued monthly in a proactive effort to rein in illegally high rents in Berlin. Housing minister Christian Gaebler (SPD) said the government is doing all it can to combat high rents, which is objectively a lie.

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Drinking in public is … illegal?

Consuming alcohol in Deutsche Bahn train and S-Bahn stations in Berlin will be verboten beginning Oct. 15 though it’s apparently not been allowed at Ostbahnhof and Zoo station since May 1, according to T-Online. Boozing is still allowed in bars and restaurants within stations. I wanna watch them try to enforce this at S-Bahn Warschauer Straße on a weekend evening.

Full pay, no Polizei work

A crooked Berlin cop has been receiving full pay despite being suspended from work since 2021 for looking up people in police databases for personal reasons, according to Tagesspiegel. The officer is likely receiving the full pay because he owes child support or alimony — suspended officers normally lose half their pay except in special circumstances. The suspension hit the news because the man is on trial for pretending to be a cop during a January car-deal-gone-bad where he confiscated €68,000 that a Polish dealer hoped to use to buy a Lamborghini — the victims fought back and the Polizei eventually arrested Gerry C., the crooked cop. Police officials refused to comment on the full pay citing confidentiality laws. Hearings on both the original charges, which stem from 2019 (!), as well as the bad car deal are still ongoing.

Half as many parties in election

Half as many parties will take part in Berlin’s September election than in the 2023 election, according to Tagesspiegel. Just 17 rather than 34 parties will take part in the election — 21 had applied but 4 failed to produce enough signatures, including Die Piraten, an anti-copyright reform party that once seemed to hold high promise but then imploded. Many of the parties are single-issue such as the animal-protection party or Maurice’s fave, the anti-aging party (it’s unclear if either applied to take part in September’s election).

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

💩 Chancellor Merz cleaning house after Spahn

⚽ Will hydration breaks come to the Bundesliga?

Factoid

No notes. Photo: Sascha Kohlmann via CC2.0

The death rate exceeded the birth rate in Berlin in 2025 for the fourth year in a row, meaning even Berlin needs immigrants to maintain its population. Berlin’s birth rate was 1.18 per woman, down from 1.20 in 2024, the lowest level since 2003, according to Berlin-Brandenburg statistics nerds. That figure is well below the national average of 1.31. 33,230 kids were born in Berlin in 2025 while 37,375 people died. The most births were in Mitte — 3,524 — while the most deaths were in Steglitz-Zehlendorf (no surprise there) — 3,865. Oh, and hidden in the stats — fewer people married in Berlin in 2025 than since 1989. Just 11,235 people tied the knot. 6% of which were same-sex or including at least one non-binary partner.

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Episode #38 of our podcast is out! We dive right in as there was a recording issue at the beginning 🤦

#512: CDU poll bump, temporary pool, asbestos, U-Bahn surveillance, AfD at Stauffenberg event

Maurice Frank — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 11:15:58 GMT

Photo: Loretta Fahrenholz/Volksbühne

Dear 20 Percent,

This kind of thing is what I simultaneously love and hate about Berlin: The Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz is setting up a 25-metre swimming pool on its doorstep from August 7 to October 1. Enty will be free. You’ll just have to book a time slot. FAQS in English here.

You might be asking yourself: Why is a state-funded theatre setting up a pool that surely costs millions of euros in a time when the state is cutting culture? Isn’t theatre money supposed to go to, you know, theatre? Actors, directors, set and costume designers and so on?

The Volksbühne’s website explains:

“In a city where infrastructure has been systematically cut back over the past few decades and public spaces are more and more commercialised and monitored, the VOLKSBAD is the first urban initiative under the new management of the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, and a summer invitation to the people in the capital.”

I prefer this explanation: “The Volksbühne considers even two people splashing water on each other to be a theatrical event,” said Matthias Lilienthal, the edgy theatre’s new artistic director.

It’s also just a marketing stunt to get young folks interested in the institution of theatre at all. There’ll be loads of Tik Toks of dive-bombing teenagers but will they stay for the experimental, multi-hour stage productions?

News below.

Maurice

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RBB discovers international Berlin

Hats off to public broadcaster RBB (which we’re paying for with our monthly fee). They did some revolutionary and published an article in English, an explainer on the upcoming election. Who can vote and who can’t; what will be on the ballot and what won’t. 👏

AfD wreath dispute

On Monday, during the official commemoration of the 82nd anniversary of the failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler, Tobias Korenke, the great-nephew of anti-Nazi resistance fighter Dietrich Bonhoeffer, attempted to remove the AfD’s wreath from the memorial site. Security intervened and put the wreath back. Korenke told news agency dpa that many descendants of resistance fighters felt “great anger” at the AfD’s participation at such events. At a recent AfD rally, a comedian said on stage: “When I see Friedrich Merz, where is Stauffenberg when we really need him?” referring to Claus von Stauffenberg who led the assassination plot against Hitler. And an AfD politician once said Stauffenberg would have voted for the party if he were alive today. Stauffenberg’s grandson Karl Schenk Graf Stauffenberg said in an interview that the way the AfD “used his grandfather for their purposes was absolutely horrible and utterly disgusting”.

AI surveillance at U-Bahn stations but not of passengers

BVG is expanding its AI-powered video surveillance system, and plans to install “detection cameras” at 23 U-Bahn stations by the end of 2026. Currently, there are 80 such cameras in 16 stations. The system uses AI to detect unauthorized individuals in tunnels and on tracks. It has already triggered 44 alarms for track intrusions and 6 for unauthorized access in two months. The system alerts security staff, who can then call the cops or halt trains if safety is compromised. And yes, critics have expressed concerns about data privacy though this seems like a reasonable use of AI to me.

Thousands of homes contaminated with asbestos

Tens of thousands of apartments owned by Berlin's municipal housing companies are suspected of containing asbestos, particularly in Reinickendorf, Neukölln, and Tempelhof-Schöneberg. A total of 58,847 units built before the 1993 asbestos ban could contain the toxic substance, according to data released by Berlin’s housing ministry in response to an enquiry in the city parliament. Asbestos becomes dangerous when fibres are released and inhaled during renovation or demolition work. The federal environment agency says residents should not panic if asbestos is properly contained, but says renovations require special safety measures.

Baldhead bash

Hundreds of bald-headed Berliners gathered in Görlitzer Park for the annual “Glatzkopf-Treffen” on Saturday. The organiser was shooting for the world record for the number of hair-free people in one location but failed, yet maybe this was finally some positive PR for Kreuzberg’s sketchiest green space.

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Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin

🕺Berlin Beats: MARRØN Thursday · 7 pm · Hamburger Bahnhof · Invalidenstr. 50-51 · free Eerste Communie co-founder from Amsterdam. Hypnotic percussion evolving from afro deep into his own techno. Ben Klock plays on 30.07; and Nene H on 06.08.

🪧 CSD Berlin 2026
Friday rally at Brandenburg Gate from 6 pm · Saturday parade from noon, Leipziger Str. to Straße des 17. Juni · free
First two-day edition ever. Drag March from Nollendorfplatz on Friday at 5 pm, then Demokratieabend at Brandenburg Gate until 11 pm. On Saturday, the parade starts at noon from Spittelmarkt, through Potsdamer Platz and Nollendorfplatz, ending at the Siegessäule under the motto: Haltung ist hot (attitude is hot). Half a million people are expected, dozens of trucks, and the whole city shifts. For a good spot to watch it go by, the Neue Nationalgalerie terrace hosts a free warm-up on Saturday with Roi Perez from noon, before the parade reaches it at 1pm.

🎶 Gaswerk Music Days 2026
Friday to Sunday · Gaswerksiedlung, Köpenicker Chaussee 24-39 · €34 per day
Fourth edition across two stages. Friday MODULA: live modular with NSI. (Tobias Freund & Max Loderbauer), OORA, Sarah Wreath. Saturday MOTHER DRUM: Nyege Nyege ecosystem, Jay Mitta on Singeli, Kampire, Ancestral Futures. Sunday ROOTSONIC: MC Yallah & Scotch Rolex, desert blues from Tissilawen, Ecko Bazz. A festival by musicians for curious ears.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🚼 CDU politician resigns over surrogacy child controversy

😥 Germany’s 5,000 heat deaths: What the numbers reveal

⚛️ Germany and France initiate nuclear cooperation

🌿 East-West border death zone now Germany’s biodiversity oasis

The conservative CDU enjoyed a little bump in the polls this weekend, thanks to the announcement that Berlin’s finance minister Stefan Evers would be leading the party into the September 20 elections instead of disgraced mayor Kai Wegner. Evers is considered more conservative than Wegner, loves fiscal discipline, wants to force welfare recipients to take on cleaning jobs and is 100% pro-building-on-Tempelhof. If that’s not your cup of tea, don’t worry. All signs point to a left-green-SPD coalition taking over Berlin this autumn.

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See your Digital Wellbeing radar →

#38: Jens Spahn's resignation, Mayor Wegner's transition funds, Wegner's replacement and the pool at Volksbühne

Andrew Bulkeley — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:07:47 GMT

We’re back with a video podcast where we discuss Jens Spahn’s resignation and the golden handshake Mayor Kai Wegner will be getting when he leaves office. Plus other Berlin news of the week!

Available for iOS and Android

🎂💶 #511: Linke mayor?, Tesla profitable, Delivery Hero sold

Andrew Bulkeley — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 08:58:29 GMT

An oldie but a goodie at Westhafen. Photo: Ingolf via CC2.0.

Hey 20 Percent!

Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) last week said he wouldn’t run in September’s election and it looked like he would need to resign as well for doing a very bad job as our mayor — but he oddly didn’t.

A professor at a local private college may know why.

Had Wegner resigned, he would have had to forego Übergangsgeld, or transition funds. It’s a bizarre form of unemployment funds that political mucky mucks get for up to two years when they leave office. Apparently to help them get back to non-political life.

Wegner, it seems, stands to reel in €235,763 in Übergangsgeld for doing a very bad job as our mayor. The figure is based on his monthly salary of €17,463 for doing a very bad job as our mayor. You don’t get the money if you quit.

I should have become a German politician.

More political dealings below.

Have a good CSD/pride weekend — though it’s supposed to be stormy with hail today. Be careful!

Andrew

CDU doing better, AfD worse

Everyone really hated Wegner — the CDU gained three percentage points in the latest poll following his resignation, jumping to 20% and becoming Berlins No. 2 party behind leftists Die Linke, who also gained 2 percentage points to 22%, according to RBB24. Both the environmentalist Die Grüne and rightwingers AfD lost two percentage points (to 17% and 16%, respectively), making them the third- and fourth-most popular parties in the Hauptstadt. The Sonntagsfrage (Sunday poll) asks participants how they would have voted if elections were Sunday. It now looks very likely that Elif Eralp will become the first-ever Die Linke mayor in Berlin.

F*ck corporate landlords

Oh, are we talking about polls? A majority of Berliners would still like to force corporate landlords to sell a significant portion of their residential portfolios to the state, according to a study that was commissioned by corporate landord Vonovia, Tagesspiegel says. The February poll showed 24% of respondents supported the move while 32% were leaning toward supporting such a measure. 59.1% of voters approved a referendum in 2021 asking politicians to pass a law what would limit corporate landlords to just 3,000 flats and force them to sell the excess to Berlin. The initiative was named after landlord Deutsche Wohnen, which is now Vonovia. Local politicians have dragged their feet on the law and the German government is now working on a law to forbid the practice of nationalization and circumvent the referendum.

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Lieferheld will become Uber

The joke in Germany for decades has been that no one in Berlin actually works (I’ve made it myself). That myth must finally be dead considering all the high-priced acquisitions of Berlin startups. Ride-sharing giant Uber Thursday said it wanted to buy Delivery Hero in a deal that values the Berlin food delivery start up at €12.7 billion, according to Handelsblatt. That’s about twice what the company was worth in April when Uber first bought a significant piece of the company, signalling its interest. I love an ironic twist and ironically the purchase will bring Delivery Hero back to the German market — it’s based on Oranienburger Straße in Mitte but abandoned the German market in 2022. But Uber Eats, we all know too well, has a strong foothold here. If you work at Delivery Hero, maybe update your LinkedIn/resume.

Senior citizen charged as serial rapist

A 68-year-old Berlin man was charged Tuesday with 22 charges or rape after allegedy drugging and assaulting at least 14 women and video taping the attacks, according to Tagesspiegel. The suspect has been in protective custody since March and investigators say he may have assaulted more than 50 women. Investigators began looking at the man after they found chats with him on the phone of a deceased convicted rapist in western Germany.

Tesla blinging

Those of us wishing pest & cholera on the Tesla factory southeast of Berlin in Grünheide are fighting a rhetorical uphill battle — the plant last year made €77.1 million in profit, up from €56.8 million in 2024, on €7.1 billion in sales, according to Tagesspiegel. It paid €610 million in salaries and is the biggest single employer in Brandenburg. The sales are all internal — it sells its wares to Tesla Motors Netherlands in Amsterdam.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🪖 Conscientious objection up.

💩 Trans neo-Nazi sent to men’s prison

Factoid

Berlin’s aorta, its most important subway line, our lifeblood, the Ringbahn took its first trip on this day in 1871 — from Moabit to Schöneberg. The complete ring wasn’t complete until six years later. The Berlin Wall disrupted the 37-km Ringbahn in 1961 and it wasn’t fully restored until 2002. Happy birthday Ringbahn!

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🚗 Autobahn speed limit would greatly reduce deaths — study

#510: CDU hopeful, hostage at Rewe, arms factory protest

Maurice Frank — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 10:15:21 GMT

Slightly cheaper flats here? More below.

Dear 20 Percent,

My family vacation almost got ruined yesterday. I turned up at Europcar at the airport to pick up a car I’d reserved for a couple of weeks. To my horror, they told me by license had expired.

“What do you mean expired? German licenses are valid for life.”

“The EU is phasingout old licenses. First the paper licenses. Then the old plastic cards, like yours from 2001. The deadline was in January.”

The guy pulled out a laminated A4 with a complicated list of types of licenses and when they’re no longer valid.

"Huh? I can’t get a car?”

“No.”

Family road trip not happening.

I walked to another rental desk and held up my ancient license. The woman shook her head.

I tried Herz. “Yes, that’s fine,” the lady said. “The worst that could happen is that the police stop you with your old license and you’ll get fined €10.”

Apparently the right to drive a car doesn’t expire, just the format of the license.

And there’s apparently no rule forbidding rental firms from renting you a car.

How ridiculous. But at least my holiday was saved.

Here’s all the info on how to exchange your old license for a forgery-proof new one plus a confusing list of deadlines. Switch languages at the upper right of the page. Naturally, it can’t be done online. You need an in-person appointment and it costs €26.50.

Maurice

🪴🪴🪴Thanks to today’s sponsor, balcony gardener Easy Bee Berlin! 🪴🪴🪴

CDU’s new guy

Following the downfall of mayor Kai Wegner thanks to his poor handling of the huge blackout in January (which included lying about whether he’d phoned Chancellor Merz during the crisis) the Berlin CDU has chosen finance senator Stefan Evers to lead the party in the September 20 election. Evers says he wants to “prevent left and right extremes from tearing at the city”. Evers is facing an uphill battle, with the CDU polling at just 17%. Meanwhile, the leftwing party Die Linke is polling at 20%, the far-right AfD at 18%. Right now, it’s looking like a Die Linke-Green-SPD coalition will take the reins.

12-hour hostage situation at Rewe

Police successfully ended a hostage crisis at a Rewe supermarket in Marienfelde in southern Berlin on Saturday morning. A 29-year-old man had held a woman captive since Friday evening before special forces stormed the building. Authorities have not yet revealed the suspect’s motives. A judge ruled Sunday that the suspect should remain in investigative custody.

Court computer crash

Another day in the painful road to digitalisation: A major IT failure has paralyzed Berlin’s courts since Monday, blocking access to case files and emails. Staff were sent home, and judges are working with pen and paper. The outage was caused by a software licensing issue and risks delaying trials and could even force the release of detainees if legal deadlines are missed. Judges are demanding an urgent IT upgrade, calling the repeated failures unacceptable.

Protest against arms factory

Around 1,800 people, including Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, protested against a Rheinmetall weapons plant in Gesundbrunnen on Saturday. The defence giant will be producing artillery shells in a former auto parts factory in the Wedding neighbourhood. Demonstrators are concerned the munitions will be used by Israel against Palestinians and by the Turkish military against Kurds.

AI textile startup funded

For a change, AI doing something good for the planet. Berlin-based AI textile sorting startup reverse.fashion has raised a seven-figure sum from High-Tech Gründerfonds to expand its automated sorting solutions for the textile industry. The company aims to scale its co.sort software and line.sort automated system, which are used to sort second-hand clothing in preparation for re-sale and upcycling.

Babylon Berlin game

Public TV network ARD says Berlin indie studio Paintbucket has developed a free game based on the hit show Babylon Berlin, set in the last days of the Weimar Republic. “A night in Moka Efti” is scheduled for release on Steam in September, in sync with the fifth season of the show. Paintbucket has won awards for its “serious games” that thematise the crimes of the Third Reich.

Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin

👯 WHOLE Festival
Friday 17 – Monday 20.07 · Ferropolis, 2h from Berlin · Weekend €279 (resale from €222) · Sunday €129 Eighth edition at Ferropolis, two hours from Berlin. Octo Octa live, Tama Sumo, HAAi, Sherelle, Kim Ann Foxman, Juliana Huxtable across six stages between excavators and a lake. But the weight sits with 30+ collectives: Anti-Mass from Kampala, Eau de Cologne from Tbilisi, Bung Lon from Saigon, Sextou from London. Cruising Village and FLINTA* spaces both expanded this year. We wrote a dedicated guide.

🎻 Kiezsalon with Sarah Neufeld and Elif Gülin Soğuksu
8 pm · Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz 4 · €10 Second Kiezsalon night. Neufeld is known from Arcade Fire, but the solo violin work is where it counts. Elif Gülin Soğuksu on electroacoustic.

🎤 SIP! with Reggie Watts & Delwin (live), Justin Shaffer, Dragana
Sunday · 3 pm · Zenner, Alt-Treptow 15 / Treptower Park · free
Reggie Watts brings the kind of musical brain that makes genre irrelevant. Beatboxing, production, comedy, electronics: all of it feeds into DJ sets that go wherever they want to go. Free, riverside, Sunday afternoon. Justin Shaffer and Dragana keep the floor moving.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

⚓ Canada orders 12 German submarines

⚽ Klopp agrees to replace Nagelsmann as Germany coach

Factoid

The state-owned Investitionsbank Berlin (IBB) says building housing for 50,000 people on Tempelhofer Feld based on a recent proposal by architects Hans Kollhoff und Tobias Nöfer would cost €7.88 billion. The plan, which sees 21,414 new apartments in the space, would be “feasible and financially viable”. The bank says building at scale would save costs and enable “cold” rents of €16 per square metre. Thirty percent of the units would be cheaper social housing. Interestingly, the architects say their plan would cost €9 billion. To which I say: has any large construction project in this city ever been completed on time and at cost? You and I know it’s going to cost double whatever anyone says now.

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⚽ Merz hopes reforms will save his chancellorship

#509: Will the mayor resign? Dr. Death sentenced, offices-to-apartments

Andrew Bulkeley — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 11:37:19 GMT

My dentist has the best stairs in the city. Photo: Me

Hey 20 Percent,

I admittedly just did a Reel about it, but one of the things that has frustrated me speaking German in Germany is how literal Germans can be. It’s like they’ve never heard of a leading question.

But I left an ancedote out of the reel: I once went to the Pankow Bürgeramt to register my new address. It was just after they had moved the responsibility from police departments to government offices — and before they introduced security at the entrances to every Bürgeramt.

I was unsure if I needed an appointment or how the process worked. There were two men seated at a desk in the lobby underneath a large red and white “INFORMATION” sign.

I walked up and, in my best German asked, “Is this where I register my new address?”

“No,” one of the men said and then went back to talking to his co-worker.

It’s supposed to get hot again this weekend — enjoy!

Andrew

Bye-bye Mayor Wegner?

The Berlin branch of the conservative CDU has called a crisis meeting for Friday evening after an open letter asked Mayor Kai Wegner to resign and step down as the party’s top candidate in the September election, according to Tagesspiegel. Dozens have signed the letter, criticizing Wegner for lies about how he reacted to a January blackout in southwestern Berlin that left tens of thousands without power for days. Wegner at first said he was in his home office directing the city’s response the first day — a Saturday — but it later came out that he actually played tennis in the afternoon. He then claimed to have otherwise been on the phone all day but the Tagesspiegel this week discovered he actually made no job-related calls that Saturday morning. The report comes just as the latest poll shows the CDU has slipped to fourth on the list of Berlin’s most popular parties after topping the list during the last election — partly Wegner’s fault and partly the fault of Friedrich Merz, the most unpopular German chancellor ever.

Murderous doctor sentenced: Life

A hospice doctor who murdered 15 patients was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison, according to t-online. He will also be placed in preventative detention after serving his sentence to protect the public and is forbidden from ever practicing medicine again. The doctor confessed near the end of the case saying he was trying to reduce his patients’ suffering. Investigators began looking at the doctor after he set fires in five patients’ apartments following the murders — detectives are still reviewing 76 other suspiscous deaths of his patients. Life sentences in Germany are never more than 25 years because courts have ruled that living in prison with no prospect of release is inhumane.

Could your old office be your new home?

We’ve all wondered why they don’t — the German government at the end of last month announced a €300 million subsidy for converting commerical real estate to residential, according to Tagesschau. Homeowners can get up to €30,000 for converting a single flat while developers (or cooperatives) can get up to €300,000. Berlin currently has 1.9 million square meters of unused commercial space, according to consultants JLL. At least one cooperative has converted a commercial building to residential (albeit before the current subsidy was announced): Wilma 19 in Lichtenberg.

No more Babyklappen in Brandenburg

A Baby Box in Tempelhof — they are litterally usually just drawers. Very comfortable drawers. Photo: Fridolin Freudenfett

The only Baby Box in Brandenburg, the leafy state surrounding Berlin, is now history after the St. Joseph’s hospital closed its maternity ward, according to RBB24. The box has been used 12 times since it opened in 2003. The boxes, known as Babyklappen in German, are controversial because they could conceivably allow abusive partners or human traffickers to easily dispose of newborns. But their necessity was underlined this week in southwestern Berlin when a newborn was found dead in a housing development — investigators believe they have since found the teenage mother, who isn’t facing any charges. Berlin has 5 Babyklappen and 112 babies had been surrendered by 2025 — they were introduced in 2000, though hospitals have also offered anonymous births for troubled potential mothers since 2014.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🚔 Crisis at VW (again)

⚡ E-Scooter liability clarified

🏭 Man sentenced in ‘not-murder’ of train conductor

🌡️ Lidl now in big tech too

Factoid

More Berliners than ever won’t be allowed to vote in September’s regional elections even though, at the same time, there have never been more people in Berlin eligible to vote in an election since 1990, according to RBB24. The increase in the number of foreigners in Berlin (ergo, the 20 Percent), means 36.4% of Berliners aren’t elegible to vote in the election, or 1.4 million people. Meanwhile, 63.6% of Berliners, or 2.5 million, are eligible (this includes, for the first time, me). Those figures switch to 30% and 70%, respectively, for district council elections because EU citizens can vote in those elections. The number of eligible votes also increased because the legal voting age was lowered to 16 in 2023.

📯📯Postkutsche 📯 📯

Reader Marston alerted me to a London controversy surrounding the Berlin Wall. Yes, that wall. The Guardian has the scoop. I did some googling — you can get a piece for €9,550, delivered.

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🪶 Thanks to today’s sponsor, Feather! More from them below.

#508: Unprepared for next blackout, rent registry, bike lane delay, vacation downsizing, podcast

Maurice Frank — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 10:25:11 GMT

BVG big boys: The new XL Urban Liner trams are in town. Photo: Oliver Land/BVG

Dear 20 Percent,

Whoever said Berlin wasn’t milking the AI revolution? Second-hand bookstores here and elsewhere in Germany have been getting huge orders from a company in Canada, apparently a subcontractor working for AI giant Anthropic. According to the Washington Post, the goal of Anthropic’s Project Panama is to scan every book in the world. Its models have been trained on everything available online so now they're hoovering up obscure works of literary criticism and all other secondary literature sitting around in dusty shop windows.

The books get broken down into individual pages, scanned and fed into the training data of Anthropic’s language models — then shredded.

I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, it's nice that bookstores are earning good money for a change. Some shops have reported 5-figure amounts or a year’s worth of revenue in a few weeks. On the other hand, it makes me quite sad that the customers are just giant computers. Strange times.

News below.

Maurice

👂Episode #36 of the 20% Berlin Podcast has dropped!

Commission: “We’re unprepared”

On Monday an independent commission presented its report about the January attack on Berlin’s power grid. Experts say the German capital is woefully unprepared for this caliber of crisis. Suspected left-wing extremists set fire to a cable near a power plant, triggering a blackout. For several days in the middle of winter, 100,000 people in southwestern Berlin were without electricity. The report identifies problems like poor communication and a failure to provide sufficient emergency power. It recommends hiring a Chief Resilience Officer and setting up a crisis management centre. I don’t think it mentioned Mayor Kai Wegner’s (CDU) tennis game on the day of the blackout. Wegner wants Berlin to become a “model city of crisis resilience” by 2029, with all critical services capable of operating for at least 10 days during emergencies.

Rent registry coming soon

Berlin’s parliament has approved Germany’s first comprehensive rent registry (paywall), requiring data from all 1.7 million rental contracts to be centrally collected and searchable via AI. The system aims to identify violations of the rent cap (Mietpreisbremse) and increase transparency. Experts estimate up to 80% of Berlin rental contracts may violate price controls. 🫠 Landlords are reportedly considering preemptive rent reductions before the system goes live. My take: This is the best use of AI yet but the real estate lobby will fight this tooth and nail. And enforcement will be a nightmare.

Bike lane slowdown

Berlin’s parliament has approved changes to the city’s Mobility Law suggested by Mayor Wegner and Co. Now, the city’s 2,370 km cycle network won’t be finished till 2035, pushed back from 2030. Only the 865 km Radvorrangnetz (“priority cycling network” aka “the most important routes”) will be finished by 2030. They’re also watering down bike lane requirements. Lanes wide enough for safe overtaking (2.5m) are no longer mandatory. And if there’s no space, the authorities can now omit bike paths entirely from main roads and divert cyclists to side streets. As we point out in our podcast, the September elections will produce a new left-of-centre government which will likely speed up investment in bike infrastructure, so this is just a bit of pro-car election campaigning by Wegner.

Tour de Berlin

Speaking of bikes, things are looking up for Berlin and three eastern German states’ bid to host the Grand Départ of the Tour de France in 2029. The event would mark the 40th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme called the Fall of the Wall “a very strong symbol for Europe” and seems open to the idea. The plan includes a 10km time trial at Brandenburg Gate, followed by three stages through Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Saxony. IMHO, this is cooler and less hassle than hosting the Olympics. Good vibes for a few days, then it’s done. Chancellor Merz is keen on the idea and wrote a letter to French President Macron promoting the idea.

Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin

🎹 Heroines of Sound Festival 2026
Thu-Sat · Radialsystem, Holzmarktstraße 33 · €16-54 per day, festival pass available Twelve editions in, 2026 leans hard into Japan. Kyoka brings the broken, hypnotic electronics she built inside the raster-noton world; Midori Hirano moves between modular synths and piano; Miki Yui works in quadraphonic minimalism that asks for total attention, not background listening. Tomoko Sauvage closes Friday with porcelain bowls filled with water, amplified through hydrophones so the pitch shifts as the water itself moves.

🧠 After Memory
Friday · Opening 5 - Reception from 7 pm · Kunstraum Kreuzberg / Bethanien, Mariannenplatz 2 · free · runs to 11.10
Group show on memory as contested territory, with reactionary movements, corporations, and algorithms writing over it at the same time. Noor Abuarafeh, Taysir Batniji, Maria Thereza Alves, Aline Motta, Rabih Mroué, Heba Y. Amin, Aram Bartholl, Zach Blas, Giselle Beiguelman, and others. Palestinian voices, Brazilian decolonial practice and AI critique in one room. The whole zeitgeist on a single free ticket.

🍷 Wine Tasting with Núria Aviñó × Alicia Serres
Saturday · Wine Tasting 3:30-5 pm (€40, 20 seats) then open from 5 pm · free · Material · Schönhauser Allee 156, Prenzlauer Berg
Two women running two Catalan natural wine houses from opposite ends of the region, Núria Aviñó of Clos Lentiscus on the coast, Alicia Serres of Celler Mendall inland. Six wines and bites by Pondji and Material during the tasting, everyone is welcome from 5 pm.

🪩 KOFFÄIN with Folamour, All Day Long
Sunday · 2 pm to 4 am · Else, An den Treptowers 10, Treptow · €28
Folamour's annual Berlin Sunday, this year behind Movement Therapy, is his 2025 return to hand-played soul-house. He plays a long set, disco into Detroit warmth, Meriem S opens the garden, Tour-Maubourg, Leroy Rey, Ana Molina and DimSum inside as the sun drops

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🚔 German riot police clash with protesters hoping to block far-right AfD conference

⚡ AfD threatens eastern Germany’s energy transition

⚽ The great German own goal: In economics, as in football, they’ve lost their edge

🏭 Go-ahead for drone factory near Munich

🌡️ Germany: Heat wave is over, political fallout has just begun

Factoid

Nearly one in four Berliners (23%) are cutting back on their vacation plans due to higher prices this summer, according to the latest BerlinTrend survey. People under 50 are most affected (32%), while only 13% of those over 65 are cutting back. Women are more likely than men to make cost-related adjustments (27% vs 20%). Thank god summer in Berlin is awesome!

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#37: Leftists polling well, AI buying books, Sick notes, Criminal couple

Andrew Bulkeley — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 09:40:07 GMT

We cover the biggest news of the past week including an AI book grab, a couple recruiting drug mules, the CDU still hating bike paths, the latest Berlin political poll, and Merz’ plan to curtail sick days.

Cover photo thanks Berliner Büchertisch via Creative Commons.

#507: Federal reforms, local poll, evil couple investigated

Andrew Bulkeley — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:44:19 GMT

The poll was conducted by RBB. The graphic was made by everyone’s favorite AI.

Hey 20 Percent,

The federal government yesterday unveiled a number of reforms — for example, Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) wants you to get a sick note from your doctor even if you’re just out for a day (down from three currently) and will no longer allow doctors to issue the notes over the phone.

Too many people are sick all the time, he says. Judging by the outrage, this reform won’t make it through parliament.

But he also announced a curious, quirky law: He wants a federal law that prohibits the nationalization of residential real estate. It’s in response to a 2021 Berlin referendum that wants a law to limit corporate landlords to just 3,000 flats each, and force them to sell any surplus to government housing companies.

Politicians have since dragged their feet at implementing the referendum but passing a federal law to counter a legal, democratic referendum is a bizarre leck mich (up yours) to not only voters but also democracy.

Could we stop arguing about housing policy and finally do what it takes to build the residential real estate people need? That would make both potential laws unnecessary.

But it’s also virtue signaling to the rest of conservative Germany that he’s going to do his best to hog-tie what they see as a maniacally woke and chaotic Berlin (ergo: us).

Merz is like a cliche step-parent — when he first shows up, you don’t see what your parent sees in them but you’re willing to try but you ultimately just start counting the days until you’re off to college or, in this case, he gets ousted in the next election. In the meantime, he just keeps telling you how worthless you are.

Have a good, cooler weekend!

Andrew

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Conservatives out, lefties in (again)

While we’re digesting what the mostly-conservative national government just threw at us, Berlin voters have clearly had enough of the conservative policies and disastrous crisis management of our local conservative leader, Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU). The latest “Sunday Poll”, which asks how people would vote were the Berlin election last Sunday, most (20%) said they’d vote for leftists Die Linke, gaining 5 percentage points since the May poll, followed by environmentalists Die Grüne (19%), up 4 percentage points. The conservative CDU, once the city-state’s favorite party, is now fourth, a drop of five percentage points. The CDU won the last election with 28.2% followed by the Grünen and the SPD, which each had 18.4%. The SPD garnered just 13% in the poll, according to RBB24. It looks like we’ll be returning to a red-red-green coalition with the first-ever Die Linke mayor.

From my wife

🛒 Free Topo Design Bag with Workshop
Saturday · 3 pm to 6 pm, HeiplBerlin, Danziger Straße 57 · free Design retailer HeiplBerlin is teaming up with US outdoor goods maker Topo Design for Fashion Week. Personalize your own Topo accessory bag — the first 30 participants get one free. Food, drinks and of course shop HeiplBerlin’s execellent assortmment of German and international design. I’ll be there since it’s my wife’s store. Come say hi and have a Bier.

Cops investigating mule recruiters

From politicians making bad decisions to a nefarious, criminal pair forcing young women into bad situations: Police are investigating a pair for luring women with the promise of cash and free travel to become potentially unknowing drug mules, according to RBB24. The pair recruited women over Signal and Snapchat to take closed suitcases full of narcotics abroad. One 18-year-old Berlinerin was caught at Sydney airport in 2024 with 20kg of crystal meth while two other women were caught at Iceland’s Keflavik airport with 20,000 Oxycodon pills. The Australian case resulted in a four-year-prison sentence while the women in Iceland got a year each — the Iceland court said the women likely didn’t know what they were transporting but should have.

Görli Brücken no more

And one final bad decision — four former train bridges popular with commuters between Kreuzberg and Treptow have been closed. The Görli bridges shuttle commuters into and out of Görlitzer Park — and over the Landwehrkanal — but are rusting and in need of repair. Treptow-Köpenick rents the bridges from owner Deutsche Bahn, who closed the bridges, and the two have been unable to agree on how to save them. Deutsche Bahn will most likely hand ownership to the borough, which will then have to fund and carry out the necessary repairs. See also the drama around the closed-then-opened-again Yorck bridges south of Gleisdreieck Park.

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Meet Kaori Itami

Kaori Itami is a self-taught artist originally from Japan who has called Berlin home for the past six years. She began drawing in 2022 during the COVID lockdowns, starting with whatever color pencils and crayons she had on hand, and she never stopped. Drawing is her way of unwinding after work and on weekends, and her work carries that quiet, personal energy throughout. To see more of her art, please visit Floor 4 of Museum For A Rainy Day, a free download for iPhone, iPad, Android phones and tablets.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

👨‍🦲 The story about the reforms again

🤷 Merkel unvels her own portrait. Bit ho hum.

⚽ Naglesmann is out, is Klopp in?

🪼 Nord Stream saboteur in court

Factoid

How about a little good news? Inflation slowed to a near-normal 2.2% in June, down from 2.5% in May, as energy prices dropped, according to the Berlin-Brandenburg stats people. Food inflation softened for the first time since March 2024 with prices dropping (DROPPING!) 0.3% in June — butter was a whopping 23.8% cheaper and potatoes 13.5%. Inflation continued to climb in services (3.7%) and rent (4.2%), however.

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😢 Six adults killed in shooting at youth welfare facility in Stade

🔫♨️#506: Hitler bunker, kids at Islamist demo, new stuff in July, illegal streamer sentenced

Maurice Frank — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 10:44:37 GMT

Helpful reminder at the doctor’s. “No one is so important that they can’t be friendly to others.”

Dear 20 Percent,

The warmest temperature ever recorded in Berlin was 39.9°C in Tempelhof on Saturday. My weather app said 41°C at some point but who’s counting at that point?

My family and everyone else flocked to bodies of water to cool off. Tragically, two men drowned in swimming accidents, one in the Jungfernheide lake, one in Tempelhof harbour on the Teltow canal.

Infrastructure took a hit. Tram lines 12 and M10 were unable to travel down Bernauer Straße towards Hauptbahnhof because tar in the track bed had softened.

At least the cops put their water canon to good use.

More news below!

Maurice

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New stuff in July

From 1 July, the Elster app offers pre-filled, “one-click” tax returns for single, childless employees and pensioners.
21 million retired folks get a 4.24% pension increase.
Bürgergeld is being renamed Grundsicherung. Benefit stays the same. Stricter rules and sanctions for no-shows, however.
The government’s temporary fuel discount in reaction to the Iran war runs out.
Anti-Temu tax: €3 flat tariff per product category now applies to orders under €150 from non-EU countries aka China.
Kiosks, gas stations, and small retailers must accept used e-cigarettes for free; no purchase required.

Source: rbb24

Movie2k money launderer sentenced

A Leipzig court sentenced a 44-year-old Berlin real estate agent (and childhood friend of one of the guys behind illegal streaming site Movie2k) to 10 months probation for money laundering. Proceeds from the site were reportedly laundered through purchases of property and crypto. In 2024, the state of Saxony confiscated 50,000 Bitcoins from Movie2k’s ex-operators and sold them for €2.64 billion. Fun fact: Movie2k was shut down in 2013. It’s taken this long to bust these dudes.

Tied-up kids at Islamist demo?

On Saturday afternoon, in near-40°C heat, 600 people took part in a Shia Ashura Day march at Gendarmenmarkt in Mitte. Children tied together with ropes were seen walking in the scorching heat, while the adults carried Iranian and Lebanese flags. Berlin’s Interior Affairs Senator Iris Spranger (SPD) said: “Bringing children to demonstrations in extreme heat has nothing to do with freedom of speech but is a threat to child welfare.” According to a spokesman for the demo, the kids were reenacting the historic capture of women and children after the Battle of Karbala in 680 CE. According to the police, officers quickly banned the children’s participation.

Flats vs. Hitler bunker?

Berlin wants to build flats and offices on the last remaining slabs of concrete left over from a bunker in Hitler’s former Neue Reichskanzelei building. Some Berliners are not amused. “Tearing down one of the last remnants of the Nazi power centre is utter madness these days,” says Dietmar Arnold, chairman of Berliner Unterwelten, a non-profit that preserves historic bunkers. City housing minister Christian Gaebler (SPD) countered: “We won’t stand in the way of new housing construction just to preserve a bunker that might even become a place of pilgrimage.”

Deutsche Bank closes Mitte art space

After nearly 30 years, Deutsche Bank is closing its PalaisPopulaire art venue on Unter den Linden. The bank says it wants to focus on supporting young artists and strengthening partnerships with other institutions. A farewell festival is planned for November. Deutsche Bank launched its Deutsche Guggenheim space just down the road in 1997 but the Guggenheim Foundation pulled out of that project in 2012, maybe sensing that Berlin was never going to be a big art city. That institution later morphed into its current form.

Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin

🔊 Berlin–Lagos: Emeka Ogboh's Danfotronics
Thursday 02.07 · 4 pm to 10 pm · Neue Nationalgalerie, Potsdamer Straße 50 · free
Emeka Ogboh converted a yellow Danfo bus from Lagos into a working PA sculpture, parked at the Neue. Live sets to inaugurate the system: KMRU, Jessica Ekomane, Carmen Villain, Ghostpoet and Obaro Ejimiwe. Heads up: the museum's free Thursdays are now first Thursday of the month only

🎤 Mark Leckey: Batter My ❤️ 3-Personed G0D
Friday · 8 pm, doors 7:30 pm · Julia Stoschek Foundation, Leipziger Straße 60 · free · exhibition “Enter Thru Medieval Wounds” through 05.07 Last weekend of “Enter Thru Medieval Wounds”, the closing show of JSF’s Berlin space. Leckey returns Friday with a new talk, performance and screening moving from medieval apocalyptic vision to high-dimensional cloud space, passing through Hip Gnosis, the Cybernetic Sublime, the Y2K Bug and the Cloud of Unknowing.

⏰ 48 Stunden Neukölln
Friday - Sunday · outdoor events until 10 pm, indoor until midnight · across Neukölln · free
The annual neighborhood art festival turns studios, bars, Spätis, empty shops, and parks across Neukölln into temporary exhibition spaces. Visual art, installation, performance, film, digital, sound. Better navigated as a drift than a checklist: pick a corner and walk. Full programme and map on the site.

😅 Jackies Open Air Party
Friday 03.07 · 5 pm to 6 am · Else, An den Treptowers 10 · from €24.20
First Berlin edition of Jackies, the Barcelona house brand founded in 2017. Open air at Else from late afternoon into the night with Ross From Friends (dj set), DJ Boring, Jamie 3:26, Spencer Parker, Piem, jiyun kim and lizaliza.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🔥 Germany news: New heat record at 41.7°C broken for second consecutive day

❄️ Why Germans don’t have air conditioning

🏭 Israeli weapons firm planning production site in Berlin

⚖️ German lawyers: Ban on far-right AfD ‘likely successful’

⚽ Paraguay stun Germany on penalities

Factoid

The reconstruction of Mitte’s Molkenmarkt neighbourhood (wiped out by the war) is taking shape. The winners of the architectural competition have been announced. A handfull of offices will be used to recreate an old-town vibe in that empty spot behind city hall. A state housing company is ploughing €245 million into the project, which includes 220 new apartments.

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Meet Cristina Carrillo

Cristina Carrillo was born in Madrid, Spain, and has since lived across Finland, Peru, Ireland, and Germany, with Berlin her current home. Growing up surrounded by the rhythms of city life, she developed a deep sensitivity to everyday moments — morning light through leaves, the shimmer of water, the particular way a city wakes up. Her work blends impressionism with the observational instincts of street photography, using light and shadow to reveal the stories hiding in plain sight.

To see more of her art, please visit Floor 2 of Museum For A Rainy Day, a free download for iPhone, iPad, Android phones and tablets.

🔗 🔗 🔗 Useful links 🔗 🔗 🔗

#505: Heat is HOT, flower pot manslaughter, the ICC's future

Andrew Bulkeley — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 11:28:11 GMT

Literally me at the 1987 Tour de France in West Berlin.

Dear 20 Percent,

You know it’s serious when the news agencies start using live tickers to report the news — welcome to the Hitzepocalypse 2026®. Germany — and Berlin — are expected to set new heat records for June this weekend, likely topping out at 41 degrees Sunday (that’s 105.8 Freedom Degrees for those of us raised in Yankville).

Be prepared for the heat — many public events are being cancelled. If you planned to attend or be part of something, make sure it’s still happening. And if you can’t be near water, please make sure you can stay hydrated and in the shade (or in some form of cool indoors).

Deutsche Bahn will refund train trips booked for this weekend that were booked before June 24, because they have a historic problem dealing with any kind of weather, hot or cold. But so does the Autobahn: The A2, which speeds Berliner’s westward, is closed because the asphalt and concrete are bubbling up under the heat.

On an anecdotal note, I bought my Dachgeschoss (top floor)-living daughter a portable air conditoner earlier this week for €349. Amazon now wants €495 for the same unit. Once greedy always greedy.

Stay cool and enjoy the sunny weather. Monday is supposed to be cooler but only slightly.

Andrew

The Kurfürstenstraße Straßenstrich

I’ve been prepared for this clash of gentrification and seedy Berlin since I looked a flat in the neighborhood over a decade ago: Residents of Kurfürstenstraße protested Thursday against a perceived increase in drug dealing and use in the neighborhood, according to Tagesspiegel. The street, which divides Mitte and Schöneberg, has been the city’s red light district with street prostitution since the late 19th century. But it was also one of the last undeveloped neighborhoods and has seen turbo-gentrification since nearby Gleisdreieckpark was upgraded in 2013. While some of the new residents aren’t opposed to the prostitution, they’d like cops to crack down on the drugs. Parents are afraid to let their kids walk alone to schools in the area.

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Charges for falling flower pot

And prepare appropriately if you put flower pots on your balcony — a 32-year-old woman has been charged with manslaughter after a 4.8kg pot slipped off her balcony railing, killing a 61-year-old man below on the sidewalk in April, according to RBB24. The woman allegedly placed the pot on the wall around her balcony but outside the metal railing and without anything to hold it in place. Wind then blew the pot off the balcony.

A possible future for the ICC

One of my fave buildings in Berlin is preparing for its future after it was closed to remove asbestos — the Internationale Congress Centrum, or ICC, in Charlottenburg. The super-futuristic building is to become a cultural center with artist studios, restaurants and galleries. Unfortunately, also (yet) another hotel. Total cost to rennovate the building, first opened in 1979, and build the hotel is estimated at €600 million with an opening planned for 2032 — if Berlin can find a partner to finance the plan. The city-state would rent the site to the new manager but not be part of the investment. The symphony could potenttially move in temporarily as its home near Potsdamer Platz is rennovated and Berlin’s Technical University could also potentially use the space. It’s been closed since 2014. I watched the team presentations for the 1987 Tour de France there during my first-ever visit to (West) Berlin.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🤔 Saudi doctor gets life for Magdeburg attack

⚽ IT glitch hobbles Deutsche Bahn

⚓ Racism just part of life in Germany

Factoid

Sommerbad Wilmersdorf. I’ve jumped off that. Photo: Berliner Bäder-Betriebe

The Berliner Bäder-Betriebe, the government outfit that runs our public swimming pools, will invest about €600 million in renovating, upgrading and building new swimming pools throughout the city-state until 2030, according to the Morgenpost. The BBB, as they’re known, just renovated the Schöneberg pool at a cost of €14 million and Lichtenberg, Treptow-Köpenick, Pankow, Spandau and Marzahn-Hellersdorf will all be getting new pools. The list of planned rennovations is too long to reproduce here. Despite the construction one of the cool quirks of school in Berlin won’t be impacted — swimming as a regular part of the curriculum.

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Garden/balcony clean-up
Low maintenance garden/balcony makeover
Indoor-plant care

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