#364: Election, stabbing, three years of Russia's war
Another podcast episode is out
Dear 20% Berlin,
My sick kids are taking the day off from kindergarten today. 🙄This might be briefer than usual.
Germany voted Sunday. The key takeaways:
Our next chancellor will be a very tall ex-corporate lawyer called Friedrich Merz of the conservative CDU.
The CDU won the election with just under 29% of the vote, giving them first dibs when it comes to forming a government.
Very likely is a coalition with still-chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, who scored a miserable 16%, their worst-ever result since World World II.
The good news: The far-right AfD won’t be part of the government, despite the efforts of Elon Musk and Co.
The bad news: They doubled their share of the vote to 20%. In former East Germany, they became the strongest party.
While Germany shifted to the right, Berlin went the other way. In the capital, left-wing Die Linke won the most votes, not just in their traditional strongholds in the East but also in areas like Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg and Neukölln. Their savvy social media game got a boost from Merz’s dodgy flirt with the AfD in parliament a few weeks ago. Most commentators wrote off Die Linke after star Sahra Wagenknecht launched her own anti-immigration splinter party, BSW, last year. BSW as well as the pro-business FDP (who were part of Olaf Scholz’s traffic light coalition), failed to reach the 5% threshold parties must surpass to enter the Bundestag.
Die Linke, Die Grüne and the CDU divided up most of the city amongst themselves while SPD and AfD were relegated to the fringes. The resurgence of Die Linke as strongest political force in the city is definitely cause for concern for mayor Kai Wegner. Find out how your neighbourhood voted with Tagesspiegel’s fancy interactive map.
For exhaustive election coverage in English, check out DW.
Andrew and I discuss the results in a special edition of the 20% Berlin podcast — sponsored by Berliner Berg brewery. Great beer, but probably responsible for us frequently veering off topic.
Maurice
Recount in Tempelhof-Schöneberg
In 2021, the Berlin government ran the Bundestag election with exceptional sloppiness — running out of ballots, letting people vote after the closure of polling stations, etc., etc. And then blaming the marathon that happened to be on the same day. The vote had to be repeated in some districts. So it’s probably good news that this time around officials ordered a recount in Tempelhof-Schöneberg, where Die Grünen candidate Moritz Heuberger had a lead of just 61 votes over Jan-Marco Luczak of the CDU after the first count. A lot of stuff is broken in Berlin. At least they’ve fixed this.
Stabbing at the Holocaust Memorial
Oh no, not again. A 19-year-old Syrian man suspected of stabbing a 30-year-old Spanish tourist at Berlin's Holocaust Memorial on Friday evening had planned for weeks to target Jewish people, according to Berlin police. The suspect was arrested nearby with bloodstains on his hands and clothing, carrying a prayer rug, a Quran, and the suspected weapon. The victim, who was stabbed in the neck, underwent surgery and is in an induced coma but is now out of danger.
Three years Ukraine war
About 1,000 demonstrators marched past the Russian embassy to the Brandenburg Gate on Monday, the third anniversary of Putin’s full-on invasion of Ukraine. Protesters held placards with slogans such as “Russia is a terrorist state” and “Russian peace is genocide”, reports Tagesspiegel. At a separate event, Berlin mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) said: “The truth is that the war has been going on for much longer. The aggressor from Russia has been in Ukraine for eleven years, murdering, killing and deporting children to Russia. This is inhumane, this is disgusting, and we in Europe must never allow it again.”
Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin
🤖 Berlin AI Meetup
Thursday, 27.02, 6:30 pm - 10 pm. Location TBA. Registration is required for location details.
For those curious or already immersed in AI, an evening of discussions on production-ready agents, on-premise LLMs, and AI in the browser. It’s hosted by Tejas Kumar and Tim Pietrusky, with space for networking, food and drink.
🎷Zig Zag’s 10th Birthday Party
Saturday, 01.03, from 9 pm. Zig Zag Jazz Club, Hauptstrasse 89. Tickets: €30
A night with some of the finest musicians from Berlin’s jazz scene, celebrating a decade of Zig Zag. The house trio—Uri Gincel, Andreas Lang, and Magro—sets the stage, joined by special guests.
🥳Carnaval - Baile da Bossa
Saturday, 01.03, 1 pm - 4:30 am. Festsaal Kreuzberg, Am Flutgraben 2. Tickets: €12-€20. Discount ticket 10%: THENEXTDAY
While Brazil celebrates its biggest party of the year, Berlin 🎧gets a taste of this amazing energy with a day of samba, maracatu, and carnival rhythms. Costumes, glitter, and dancing all night set the tone for a festive atmosphere with live music from Carnaval Orquestra, Sapucaiu no Samba, and more.
📷 EMOP Berlin – European Month of Photography
Opening Days: 27.02 - 02.03. Until 31.03. Check out the full program here.
If you love photography, EMOP Berlin is all over the city, with around 100 exhibitions in museums, galleries, and project spaces. The 2025 edition opens with what stands between us, exploring photography’s role in documenting political and social divides, with talks, films, and an opening party at Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg (27.02, 7 pm - free admission).
🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺
😟 AfD: proxies for Russia and Trump
🏭 Green light for Dresden semi-conductor plant
🎞️ Norwegian film Drømmer wins Berlinale Golden Bear
Factoid
As we just had a Bundestag election in which a racist, far-right, conspiracy-peddling party was kept at bay, it’s apt to remember the fire in the Reichstag (which houses the German parliament, the Bundestag), on February 27, 1933. The fire gutted the building’s plenary chamber and was exploited by the Nazis to consolidate power and suspend civil liberties. “This is a God-given signal,” Hitler said. “If this fire, as I believe, is the work of the Communists, then we must crush out this murderous pest with an iron fist.” Consequently, thousands of leftists were arrested, imprisoned and tortured. Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe was arrested for arson. He confessed to the crime and was sentenced to death. Historians are still debating whether he acted alone or whether the Nazis themselves orchestrated the blaze.
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Amazing how Linke took over from AFD in Pankow & NE Prenzlauerberg!! Wow!! Thanks for sharing the map again! This says to me even more what I long suspected – AFD and Linke are doing well in the East because they are the only ones paying attention to the East. That a whole lot of people in Pankow happily switched to Linke after BSW forked means they were holding their nose to vote SPD or Green against AFD, but really wanted more directed attention. These are the poorer areas; the more (US, not UK!) middle class regions still voted Green.
Calling the BSW an "anti-immigration splinter party" is wild.