Dear 20 Percent,

Happy Halloween! If you see CDU politician Stefan Evers dressed up as Berlin’s next mayor, it may not be just a Halloween costume. It may yet become reality.

News magazine Der Spiegel this week stumbled into an internal Die Linke discussion where would-be Berlin mayor Elif Eralp (Die Linke) admitted she and her husband feel local pro-Palestinian activist Ibrahim Ibrahim and his followers, who have links to her party, could be a threat to their personal safety.

The magazine then wrote a breathless article based on the comments that is not only an affront to Eralp and Die Linke but Berlin itself.

Eralp’s fear, the magazine wrote, proves organized crime and antisemitic terrorists are in charge of parts of Berlin, not the government. And, if Eralp can’t keep her family safe, how can she protect Berlin from the roaming mobs once she’s mayor?

Adults — professional journalists — fellow Berliners wrote that. Can you imagine?

Der Spiegel is right in that there’s a systemic problem in Berlin’s government, but it’s not organized crime or antisemitism. It’s incompetence guarded by unnecessary bureaucracy. Indeed, Der Spiegel only got their hands on the conversation because of the incompetence of Die Linke’s press department in sending it to Der Spiegel. How very Berlin!

But I’m starting to wonder how long Eralp, Die Linke and their potential coalition partners (the center-left SPD and environmentalist Die Grüne) can fend off the relentless national media campaign against them. Were I Eralp, I would be on the horn to national party bigwigs asking about potential positions in Brussels.

I’m also starting to wonder if the criticism isn’t also related to the fact that Eralp is both a woman and someone whose parents weren’t born in the Black Forest (or elsewhere in Germany).

On a personal note: Thanks to everyone who came out to the comedy night Tuesday. They’re just getting better and y’all add a nice twist to the shows for me.

I especially appreciated the two 20 Percenters who tried to run interference for the South African somelier. Your whole row was a delight. And also thanks to people who came up to me after the show. The next one is November 19.

Have a good, safe weekend, despite the roaming mobs of goblins, ghouls and ghosts.

Andrew

A spooky protest?

And if you think an unusually large number of people have dressed up as Berlin police officers Saturday, those are also not costumes! An extra 1,500 cops as well as water cannons will be on duty amid a Gen Z protest against the rising cost of living, conscription plans and the underfunding of education, according to rbb24. Oh, and climate change, the burgeoning surveillance state and the gap between the rich and poor. I admire their ambition. The protest was inspired by the now-infamous demonstrations in France earlier this month that turned violent. Some stores in Charlottenburg have already boarded up their windows out of fear the protests — set for 2pm Saturday — could also take a more evil turn.

AfD ghouls kept out of top Spandau spots

Some costumes just aren’t funny, which is why Spandau isn’t giving out any candy to right-wing politicians this week. Local politicians from the New Jersey of Berlin Thursday voted on the borough’s new administration after the September elections and two right-wing AfD council members failed to get enough votes to get appointed to the governing board, according to Tagesspiegel. The six-member executive council, the local version of a cabinet, will now only be four because of the shortfall for the AfDers. The AfD had even hoped to get the deputy mayor spot but — nope! An exorcism of sorts. Nice one, Spandau.

12-years-plus for sexual assaults

A Berlin court Thursday sentenced 69-year-old Frank S. to 12 years in prison followed by protective custody for 22 rapes of 14 women between 2016 and 2022, according to RBB24. Protective custody means he’ll remain behind bars until specialists determine he is no longer a threat. Authorities are investigating an additional potential 44 sexual assaults he may have committed. The man would invite the women to his house and then drug them. The victims were unaware of the crimes, which he filmed, until they were contacted by police. Detectives working a similar case in western Germany stumbled onto chats involving Frank and then alerted Berlin authorities.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

😈 Audi exec in idiotic appearance with Trump

👽 Chancellor Merz is worried about North Korea

🇨🇦 Chancellor Merz against “associate” EU membership for Canada

Factoid

65 years ago today the West German government and Turkey signed an agreement to allow Turks to work temporarily in West Germany — the Anwerbeabkommen. About 870,000 Turks (mostly men) came to Germany by the time the agreement ended in 1972, many of whom stayed in West Germany (or West Berlin). The agreement was a major factor in the country’s post-war economic boom and was based on a similar 1955 agreement with Italy, which brought Italian food to many small German towns. The workers are colloquially known as Gastarbeiter (guest workers) because their stay was supposed to be temporary. I’ve always admired the blatant racism of the agreements: “Can we borrow your men for a few years so our country can prosper? We want them to leave once things really get going.”

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Dear 20 Percent,

The back-and-forth about alleged antisemitism within Die Linke is getting on my nerves. Neukölln parliamentarian and pro-Palestinian activist Vanessa Emde is again the subject of discussion. Emde signed a party document recognising the right of Israel to exist but a few days later posted on Instagram that states didn’t have a right to exist, only people. Fodder for Die Linke’s many critics. It’s almost as if Emde wants to prevent her own party from taking power. Today, the party is convening to figure out how to proceed with Emde — she could get thrown out of the organisation or be asked to give up her seat in the Berlin parliament.

Conservatives continue to foam at the mouth about Die Linke’s pro-Palestinian stance as well as its plans to socialise housing. If the left-wing election-winners form a coalition with the Greens and the SPD, Bavarian premier Markus Söder (CSU) wants to block the €4 billion that Berlin receives annually under the Landesfinanzausgleich (a mechanism that redistributes funds from richer states to poorer ones). With a new “extremism clause”. Söder also wants to cut funding for Saxony-Anhalt, where the AfD is poised to take power.

Meanwhile, Die Linke is trying to get its unruly elements in line on Israel-Palestine. It comes down to some wording in statements that is somehow supposed to satisfy its potential coalition partners.

No matter what Die Linke does, conservative politicians and portions of the press will keep criticising its criticism of Israel, because they know the issue touches a nerve for many voters.

The whole thing is very kindergarten and a distraction from forming a government that needs to focus on addressing the housing crisis. While Die Linke surely got some votes thanks to its pro-Palestine stance, they need to ignore the rants from the sidelines, quit the navel-gazing, and put their energy into solving Berlin’s local problems.

News below!

Maurice

🧾This week, in my other newsletter, guest contributor Emma Ramsay has a great story about the history of drug checking in Berlin. Please check it out!

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Berlin–Paris train back for a few weeks

After months of suspension due to technical problems with Alstom’s European signaling system, Deutsche Bahn says it’s relaunching its highly popular Berlin–Paris ICE with the December 13 timetable change. From February to May 2027, the route will close again, for undisclosed reasons. In other travel news, Ryanair stopped flying to 12 routes from Berlin on Monday. But, as BER’s Winter Flight Schedule shows, airlines like Eurowings and Wizz are picking up a lot of the slack with new routes to the Balkans, Finland, Portugal, Italy and the Middle East. Meanwhile, in a small gesture towards the airlines, BER says it’s scrapping additional “noise fees” for late-night flights.

Court upholds school prayer ban

Berlin's administrative court has ruled that a secondary school in Mitte may ban students from “demonstratively practising” religious rituals, including Islamic prayer. The judge dismissed a discrimination lawsuit by the Berlin-based Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (Society for Civil Rights). The court said the ban was justified to preserve “school peace,” citing long-standing religious conflicts at the school.

Airport taxi mess

From January 2027, it will be verboten for Berlin taxis to pick up passengers at the airport. The Dahme-Spreewald district council terminated a deal going back to 2020. The district says only 500–600 cabs based in Schönefeld (in Brandenburg) are now needed to meet demand. They want to boost local taxi firms, in the face of competition from Uber, Bolt and Free Now. So now, taxis registered in Berlin can deliver people to the airport, but have to drive back to town empty. And there’s a loophole: Berlin taxis can still be booked via a hotline or app. Pure chaos— and probably great news for Uber.

Gen Z Halloween demo

Inspired by protests across Europe, thousands of young people are expected to take to the streets on October 31 to protest for lower living expenses, more investment in education and climate protection, and against military conscription. Organisers “Gen Z regelt” (Gen Z will take care of it) say protests will take place in 23 cities. Info in English. Some politicians fear a “French situation” with looting and violence. In my experience, with the exception of Kreuzberg on May 1, Germans are less prone to street violence than our friends west of the Rhine. But expect a huge police presence on Saturday.

🎭 Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin 🪩

Jazzfest Berlin 2026 [live]
🎺Thursday to Sunday · various times · Haus der Berliner Festspiele, Schaperstraße 24, 10719 Wilmersdorf, plus A-Trane, Quasimodo and the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirche · from free to €18-45
Braxton returns after fifty years, Globe Unity turns sixty, and ganavya, Tomeka Reid and a trombone choir in the Gedächtniskirche fill the days between, plus films like Being Hipp and Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat.

🎸TEMPLES + JEWLS [live]
Thursday · 8 pm, doors 7 pm · Columbia Theater, Columbiadamm 9-11, 10965 Kreuzberg · €35
The Kettering psych band bring their fifth album, Bliss, where fuzzy riffs and loops meet the euphoric, slightly sad melodies of late-’90s dance music. A guitar band leaning toward the dancefloor.

🔊SAD PROMPT ENGINEERING A/V SHOWCASE SUPPORTED BY LIMINAL VEIL [frequency]
Friday · 5 pm-2 am · Studio dB, Uferstraße 8-11, 13357 Wedding · €13-23 · 18+
Neo-emo and harsh noise, played live by exmantera, LUNA LIAS, CÁRPATOS and Mithril under visuals from Liminal Veil. Between sets, video games, a LARP and a workshop.

🎃Halloween im Park [gather]
Saturday · 4-9 pm, last entry 8 pm · Britzer Garten, Sangerhauser Weg 1, 12349 Neukölln · included in park admission
Face paint, a Halloween disco, a lantern parade, fairy tales and a fire show, with a headless gentleman and witches roaming the park. Halloween for small kids, with a prize for the best costume.

🤖Family Open Lab – Robots, AI and more: Human beings and machines working as a team [gather]
Sunday · 12-4 pm · Futurium, Alexanderufer 2, 10117 Mitte · free · in German · ages 8+
A drop-in lab for families with kids aged eight and up. Children program small robots, test what machines do well and where they fail, then imagine how technology could change everyday life. Mentors also speak English.

🎤Our stand-up comedy night, 100% Funny, October 27

Ludwig Beneke, Anja Woot, Oliver Polak, Aurel Mertz, Fred Costea and me doing the best English comedy in Berlin at the best club: Downstairs Comedy Club, TONIGHT. Tickets here.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🙄 Audi CEO speaks at Trump rally

🏴‍☠️ AfD hackers speak out

📰 Feminist Alice Schwarzer to close Emma magazine after 50 years

🚒 Hitler’s Alpine retreat set on fire

Factoid

Berliners love a “long night” of something. Museums. Science. Churches. Opera. Now Berliner Bäder Betriebe, which runs the city’s public pools, is celebrating its 30th birthday with a “Long Night of Swimming” meaning 16 pools will be open till as late as 2am this Friday. On the list is Kreuzberg’s outdoor Prinzenbad, where you’ll be able to hop into the sauna after a wintery dip in its unheated pool.

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Dear 20 Percent,

This morning my wife and I stopped for a coffee and there was a bit of a mixup with the barista. We only had coins, and not a lot, and he didn’t quite understand when we asked what it would all cost.

The problem was that his German wasn’t great. Not a problem. I’m happy to talk slower and help people practice. Help them integrate.

But sometimes I also just want to complete a transaction.

“Would this be easier in English?” I wondered. “Or would I just insult him if I switched?” When I do the switch I always try to be effusive and act like I’m switching to English because it’s easier for me, not them.

“Does he even speak English?” I then thought. My wife spilled our coins onto the counter. The transaction was moving forward faster than my internal dialogue. “Maybe I should just continue in German,” I thought but the barista was counting out what he needed for an Americano and a Cappucino.

“Das Kaffee bringe ich dann raus,” he said with his accent.

Maybe money is the true lingua franca of Berlin.

Have a good fall weekend!

Andrew

🙏Thanks to today’s sponsors: new training app Outcurve and Get the Flat. More from them below.

Our stand-up comedy night, 100% Funny, October 27

Ludwig Beneke, Anja Woot, Oliver Polak, Aurel Mertz, Fred Costea and me doing the best English comedy in Berlin at the best club: Downstairs Comedy Club, Oct. 27. Tickets here.

Low-income housing in Europacity

This slipped through the cracks earlier this month but a Berlin administrative court ruled that the developer of the Europacity residential project adjacent to the Hauptbahnhof has to offer 215 apartments for low-income renters, according to rbb24. Developer QH2 Development also has to pay €1.84 million plus interest in fines. Berlin sued QH2 as well as the original developer for not keeping to an original contract to offer a portion of the approx. 3,000 new apartments at the site as low-income housing for 20 years. QH2 claimed it didn’t have to fulfill the original agreements as it bought the project years after it started. The court didn’t agree.

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Whose apartments would be socialized?

Die Linke, Die Grüne and the SPD have agreed to limit corporate landlords from owning more than 10,000 apartments in our city-state and want the biggies to sell the surplus to them. But the original referendum from 2021 called for the cap to be at 3,000. Should the suggestion ever become law (experts say appeals could take a decade) which landlords would be affected? Difficult, thanks to Germany’s obsession with privacy. But, Tagesspiegel says the five most likely are Vonovia, Germany’s biggest corporate landlord, with 130,000 apartments in the Hauptstadt; Adler Group, with an estimated 17,500 here (they have had to sell bunches in the past to cover debts and don’t have a great reputation); Sweden’s Heimstaden, with 20,000, though they have plans to build an additional 500; France’s Covivio with an estimated 17,000 apartments; and DVI Gruppe with an estimated 11,000 flats. Is your landlord one of them? Half the reason I wrote this note was to be able to use a semicolon.

We have to talk about the Bierpinsel

I often joke about how boring Steglitz is — it’s almost like having a slice of 1980s West Germany in modern Berlin — but in the back of my mind I always think they have one of the coolest buildings, the beer paintbrush (Bierpinsel). The abandoned brutalist sphere looms over the Schlossstraße shopping paradise like a guard tower. But it’s falling apart and officials have now closed nearby streets to protect people from falling pieces of its facade, according to rbb24. The owner, ImmoMa GmbH, is supposed to take steps to secure the facade. Steglitz could eventually secure the facade itself and send the bill to the owner, who has promised to open a restaurant, offices and even classrooms in the building, though nothing has actually been done. The thing was built in 1976 and hosted a restaurant into the ‘90s but has been vacant since.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🍺 Oh go on: A Sandra Hüller profile

⛽ Yet another Russian spy

😈 German Mittelstand on the auction block

Factoid

Everyone likes to talk about how leafy Berlin is and Treptow-Köpenick has the most nature of any of Berlin’s Bezirke with 40% of its area covered in forest (hello Treptow Park!), according to the Berlin-Brandenburg statistic nerds. Charlottenburg comes in an unexpected second with 25.2% (Grunewald, I guess) and Steglitz-Zehlendorf with 23.9%. By comparison, Mitte, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg and Neukölln are “nearly forest-free,” the agency says.

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Dear 20 Percent,

Die Linke, the Greens and the SPD have inked an “exploratory paper” outlining points of agreement, upon which they’ll base future coalition negotiations.

The local Greens and SPD have already given the green light to further talks but Die Linke will hold a party conference on October 31 to vote on it. I’m guessing the party leadership needs some time to win back the hearts of the pro-Palestinian wing who are angry about a statement on antisemitism which they felt was too Israel-friendly.

So, if Die Linke can heal its internal divisions and move on to coalition talks, here’s what we can expect:

• Socialisation of housing companies that own 10,000+ flats (instead of 3,000 as Die Linke originally wanted) in Berlin; 160,000 apartments would be affected. No more than €16 billion should be spent on those flats (the owners might not take that lying down).

• Rent cap for the 440,000 municipal flats: max. increase of 2% per year.

• Construction of 100,000 new affordable homes by 2031

• Set up a new “rent supervision authority ” aka “rent police” to combat excessive rents.

• No building on Tempelhofer Feld

• Free bulk-waste pickup once a year

• More bike paths

• Public transport social ticket gets cheaper (current cost: €27.50 per month)

• No further construction of the A100 motorway (good news for Friedrichshain nightlife!)

• Phone ban in primary schools

• End cooperation between schools and the Bundeswehr aka no more soldiers visiting your kid’s class.

• No cuts to police staffing, contrary to Die Linke’s calls to defund the cops.

• Better security on public transport, especially at night

• Reintroduction of 16 free museum Sundays per year and the culture card for young people

• Neighbourhood canteens offering cheap meals. I’m curious about the menu.

• For tech people worried Die Linke is introducing communism: The state-owned Berlin Investment Bank will funnel more venture capital into startups.

If they really stick to this programme, I can live with it. My favourite points are the school phone ban and a rejection of the A100 extension through Friedrichshain. Low-hanging fruit, but two things I fully back. Not sure about the canteens.

I predict the most ambitious propject on the list, socialisation of 160k flats, is going be bogged down in a legal battle. Let’s hope a rent cap on municipal flats plus the “rent police” office can make an impact in the meantime.

If we’re lucky, Berlin will have a government by New Year’s Eve.

More news below.

Maurice

🎤 A new episode of our podcast has dropped.

✍️ I made a 20% Berlin crossword.

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Merz pitches Germany

While Berlin considers adding a pinch of socialism to its economy, Friedrich Merz is all-in on capitalism. At the “Invest in Germany Summit” (Monday and Tuesday), the chancellor and other cabinet members are pitching Germany to foreign investors as a great place to park your cash. The government hopes for €130+ billion in private investment, which it would top up with €30 billion in public funding. On Monday, Merz announced a partnership with Nvidia’s Jensen Huang on boosting AI in German industry. Huang has been touring European capitals buying companies and pushing back against AI regulation.

Geothermal energy in Marzahn

This is the kind of investment I can get behind: The city has awarded a licence to utility BEW to drill nearly two kilometres down at a site in Marzahn to test whether hot water from beneath the ground can heat the city. The first plant could go live in 2031. Environment senator Ute Bonde (CDU) commented: “Beneath our feet lies a heat source that is independent of world markets and nearly emission-free.”

Pay bump for uni-workers

A small victory in the battle against rising living costs: A labour tribunal has ruled that Humboldt University must pay about 4,000 employees the Berlin a “capital city allowance” (Hauptstadtzulage), a €150-per-month top-up most public sector workers already receive to help them stomach higher expenses in the capital. Humboldt will have to pay the allowance retroactively going back to April 2025.

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🎭 Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin 🪩

🎞️Film Restored [watch]
Wednesday to Sunday · Deutsche Kinemathek, Mauerstraße 79, 10117 Mitte & Sinema Transtopia, Lindower Straße 20/22, 13347 Wedding · free-10 €
Five days of restored films from twenty countries, from Cyankali to Chameleon Street and Pink Narcissus, shown in the Kinemathek’s hall and studio cinema and at Sinema Transtopia, with talks.

🍽️Atmosphères vinyl and food pop-up [listen/gather]
Wednesday · 5 - 11 pm · Ikii, Herrfurthplatz 8, 12049 Neukölln · donation-based
A label night of records on a hi-fi system, live visuals and food from the Hangry Panther pop-up, with entry by donation. An easy midweek dinner plan with good sound.

Autumn Book Swap with Tea tasting at Desirelines [read/gather]
Wednesday · 6:45-9:30 pm · desirelines books, Fraenkelufer 28, 10999 Kreuzberg · 5 €
Späti Stories closes its meetup season with a book swap: everyone brings an autumn book they loved, writes a note for its next reader and leaves with someone else’s. Eduard/ brews a seasonal tea.

🎸Roomer | Special Guest: Jules Reidy [live]
Thursday · 8 pm · Neue Zukunft, Alt-Stralau 68, 10245 Friedrichshain · 20 €
Roomer releases Staircase Made of Rope, their second album, made mostly from improvisations and first takes. The songs drift between shoegaze and noise, with lyrics like pages torn from an old diary, and Jules Reidy joins as a special guest.

🎷Soundscapes Improv Session Vol.07 [frequency]
Saturday · 4 pm - 4 am · Monopol, Provinzstraße 40-44, 13409 Reinickendorf · 10 € (only cash)
More than a dozen musicians improvise in a painter’s studio from four in the afternoon, with band showcases at night and an ambient room in the cellar. Anyone with an instrument is welcome to join in.

🪩Kids’ Disco Special: Ballroom with House of St. Laurent [gather]
Sunday · 3-5 pm · HKW, John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10, 10557 Tiergarten · free
The House of St. Laurent brings a ballroom to the kids’ disco: an open workshop for fans, masks and headdresses, a short talk on where ballroom comes from, then a runway where every child walks.

🍽️Garten Mitte x Aerde [gather]
Sunday · 7-9 pm · Garten Mitte, Joachimstrasse, 20 10119 Mitte · 75 €
aerde cooks a five-course end-of-summer dinner at Garten Mitte for just thirty guests, with vegetarian options. If the weather holds, the table is set outside, so dress for an October night.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🕵️ Germany summons Iranian envoy after two jailed for spying for Tehran

🚗 France and Germany strike car-industry deal

⏰ Is Germany’s eight-hour workday under threat?

🥩 Steakhouse heirness on trial for abduction of her own children

🎻 Berlin Philharmonic planning to vacate Philharmonie for renovation from 2032-40

Factoid

The city’s most famous Cold War border crossing, Checkpoint Charlie, is getting a makeover. Right now, tourists flock there but all they find is a little replica of a US guard house and a McDonalds. The federal government has earmarked €1.65 million to spruce up the checkpoint as a place of a remembrance. Berlin landscape architects A24 ended up winning the design competition. The winning design seems appropriately bleak. Target for completion is 2030.

🔗 🔗 🔗 Useful links 🔗 🔗 🔗

Update Germany | Handpicked Berlin | The Next Day Berlin | The Berlin Life | Berlin Events Weekly | From Julia’s Desk | Späti Stories | Berlin Literary Events | OV Berlin | WahlheYmat

🦋 20 Percent on Bluesky 🐘20 Percent on Mastadon 🧵 20 Percent on Threads 🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Spotify 🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Apple Podcasts

📈 Advertise in 20% Berlin

Dear 20 Percent,

Maybe I’ve been here too long but I now find the habit of greeting people in the doctors’ office and elevators endearing. “Hello,” we all seem to be saying. “I exist.”

And then everyone acknowledges your existence before going back to their phones or the latest Gala magazine full of German celebrities no one’s ever heard of.

Now that I write this it does seem odd that when you leave the waiting room, you don’t offer a “Tschüss!” like you would leaving the elevator. I always go for an enthusiastic “Tschüss!” when I leave an elevator — like it’s the best time I’ve ever had on one.

I started doing it ironically, as a joke, but it somehow caught on with me. I do that with words too. I say “y’all” a lot because I lived in Texas for the worst six months of my life and saying “y’all” ironically brightened otherwise miserable days. Now it’s part of my lexicon, like cheerfully leaving German elevators.

It’s problematic. The other day I said “Gulf of America” and couldn’t remember for a few minutes what it was really called.

Have a good weekend. Fall break just started so trains and highways will be full.

Andrew

Our stand-up comedy night, 100% Funny, October 27

A mix of professional German and international comedians performing in English at Downstairs Comedy Club, Oct. 27. Tickets here.

Inching (or is it centimetering?) toward a coalition

It would appear Die Linke, Die Grüne and the SPD have negotiated an agreement to begin coalition negotiations — the environmentalist Grüne have invited members to a mini-party meeting Monday, likely to vote on whether or not to enter the discussions, according to rbb24. The SPD doesn’t need member approval and Die Linke already has a meeting planned for Oct. 31 though it’s unclear if they could move that meeting up for a vote. Just what they’ve agreed on remains secret — the SPD and Grüne paused the pre-talks talks earlier this week over concerns Die Linke wasn’t adequately addressing antisemitism among members but that was cleared up quickly.

Centimetering toward the present

Forget about the future, our BVG public transport provider will be joining the present … two years from now. The company will begin replacing its ticket machines with new “validators” starting in 2029 that will require payment by card. Tickets will be stored digitally in a cloud. BVG’s often-thuggish ticket checkers will then scan riders’ payment cards as proof of purchase. You know, like it’s been in every other major city for years. BVG says many of its current ticket machines are over 30 years old and 75% of tickets are bought with a card, rather than cash. Only about 6 tickets are sold per day by machines in trams and three per bus driver per day.

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Crooks everywhere in this city

Bulky waste disposal is the latest cottage industry for Berlin crooks after cocaine taxis and apartment rentals. The cops say the number of complaints about sketchy bulk trash disposal businesses has more than tripled over last year, according to t-online. Crooks create websites that look like the official BSR site and lowball estimates for picking up old mattresses or old furniture (I googled — the sites are scarily real-looking). When the faux trash men show up a few days later, the bill climbs from just tens of euros to hundreds or even thousands, including threats if customers refuse to pay. Just leave your mattress on the sidewalk like everyone else.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🍺 No more drinking in train stations

⛽ Germany trying Nordstream suspect

😈 Minister quits amid public bullying

Factoid

Berlin’s clan criminals pale in comparison to the Captain of Köpenick who, on this day in 1906, made off with an estimated €27,000 from the coffers of Köpenick. The faux-captain, Wilhelm Voigt, first dressed up as a captain in the Prussian army and then went to a barracks near Plötzensee where he convinced two units of said army to accompany him on the S-Bahn to Köpenick, which at the time was a separate city. Yes, he boarded the Ringbahn flanked by two units of soldiers, much like anyone riding an ICE today. He bought them beers and lunch before arriving at the Köpenick town hall, where Voigt ordered the soldiers to seal the building. Voigt then went inside, had a bath and seized all the cash the city had on hand. He then absconded. He was arrested 10 days later because his former cellmate ratted him out. He was sentenced to four years for his minor coup but was pardoned after 20 months by the Kaiser because Voigt had become a folk hero for his caper.

🔗 🔗 🔗 Useful links 🔗 🔗 🔗

Update Germany | Handpicked Berlin | FOMO Berlin | The Next Day Berlin | The Berlin Life | Berlin Events Weekly | From Julia’s Desk | Späti Stories | Berlin Literary Events | OV Berlin | WahlheYmat

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Dear 20 Percent,

Tagesspiegel has a story (€) about a dispute over a large remaining Nazi bunker near Potsdamer Platz. A developer has plans for a mixed-use new-build on Voßstraße, on the spot where Hitler's New Reich Chancellery once stood. The 1,800m² bunker — of which 45% survives — is the largest of four remaining underground structures in the area, including the notorious “Führerbunker”, where Hitler spent his final hours. None of these bunkers have been open to the public (with the exception of guided tours) for fear they would become pilgrimage sites for neo-Nazis. Now the largest of these structures could be wiped off the map.

Berliner Unterwelten, a non-profit dedicated to preserving the city’s bunkers and tunnels, is fighting to at least incorporate the bunker and a documentation centre into the new building. “Dismissing history like this is incredibly embarrassing for Berlin,” says Dietmar Arnold, the association’s chairman. I agree. There must be a way to preserve this history without attracting hordes of extremists. What do you think?

More news below.

Maurice

💡Tomorrow, Wednesday, it’s time test your knowledge of Berlin and Germany at the 20% Berlin News Quiz at Electric Social near Alexanderplatz. Hosted by me. I’d love to see you there! RSVP here.

Blocage du lycée

Pupils at Berlin's Französisches Gymnasium, a bilingual French-German public high school, held a strike Monday in solidarity with French students, who have been demonstrating for over two weeks for better school funding and more substitute teachers. Not everyone is amused. Berlin's education senator Katharina Günther-Wünsch (CDU) called the strike unacceptable because students blockaded the building. Free speech does not justify blockading a school, she said. Fun fact: My daughter attended the school, Berlin's oldest. I’m sure she’d be striking.

Builders spooked

While everyone's talking about the new "INVESTORS KILL" graffiti at Kotti, real-life property investors aren't feeling so great about Berlin. Construction industry president Olaf Demuth says Die Linke’s plans to socialise housing in Berlin are already having “devastating effects”: building firms seeking loans in the capital can no longer access fresh capital, with even international investors pulling back. Expropriating large property firms would cost €20–30 billion for 200,000 flats while building or renovating nothing, he said — and foreign investors are getting nervous similar moves could occur in Hamburg and Munich. Demuth argued the only way out of Berlin's housing shortage is to make building attractive again for private owners, cooperatives, and institutional investors. I guess he would say that.

False alarm

Last weekend at the Hallesches Tor U-Bahn station in Kreuzberg, two police officers armed with machine pistols stormed through several carriages after a woman called emergency services reporting that a man was threatening passengers with a gun. Fearing an active threat, police swept the train. One officer briefly pointed his weapon at a passenger. No suspects were found.

Flixtrain ups its game

Riding Flixtrain’s old refurbished trains feels like Interrailing in the 1990s, but at least they’re cheap. While Deutsche Bahn is unable to drag its punctuality stats out of the basement, its most formidable private competitor is expanding its Berlin routes. Starting December 13 Flixtrain will offer up to 20 trips per day between Berlin and Hamburg, six daily trains to Frankfurt, and up to 10 on its new Berlin–Bremen route. Flix is promising improved onboard comfort and a guaranteed seat with every ticket.

🎭 Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin 🪩

🎺Pastards
Wednesday 14.10 · 6 pm, concert 8.30 pm · Giri, Hermannstraße 14, 12049 Neukölln · €18 (pasta + concert)
Fabio Radermacher’s quartet plays the jazz they grew up on, right after a plate of casarecce with mushroom cream, roasted pear and crispy leek. Dinner and concert on one ticket, vegan option too.

📺KW Autumn Opening: Susan Hiller, KOO JEONG A, Rafik Greiss
Friday 16.10 · 7–10 pm · KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Auguststraße 69, 10117 Mitte · free
Three shows open the same night. Susan Hiller’s first Berlin survey has UFO voices and floating bodies, KOO JEONG A brings walls that vibrate, and Rafik Greiss premieres a film shot in the desert.

🎞️⚡ Smoke and Fire and Electricity
Friday 16.10 · 3 pm–midnight · Stadttheater Luckenwalde, Grünstraße 14, 14943 Luckenwalde · €21
E-WERK honors David Lynch and his love of electricity with an evening of his films and live sets in between, by Sainkho Namtchylak, Franziska Aigner and Olga Hohmann with Yannik Wittmann.

🍽️The Indian Table Berlin: Autumn Edition
Saturday 17.10 · 6–9 pm · Krausenstraße, 10117 Mitte · €35–39
A home cook serves Indian dishes you rarely find on Berlin menus, at one shared table in Mitte. Three hours, a set menu, and the kind of dinner where you end up asking the cook for recipes.

🪩Lewie’s Acid House
Saturday 17.10 · 10.30 pm · Sameheads, Richardstraße 10, 12043 Neukölln · Around €15-20
Tornado Wallace, the Melbourne producer of warm, slightly psychedelic house, hosts his own acid house night with Ellie Stokes. A small Neukölln room with an easy door, where dancing is the whole plan.

💕🔥Annie Sprinkle & Beth Stephens: Playing with Fire
Sunday 18.10 · 7 pm · HAU1, Stresemannstraße 29, 10963 Kreuzberg · €15-22
Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens have already married the earth, the sea and the moon. On the last night of HAU’s Love is a Verb festival they marry fire, an ecosexual wedding for a burning planet.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🤝 UK and Germany will face threats together, says Burnham on Berlin trip

📈 German government raises growth forecasts for 2026 and 2027

💻 Court in NRW overturns web blocks for Pornhub and YouPorn

⚽ Bayern’s Kimmich defends Jürgen Klopp

Factoid

Last week Friedrich Merz revealed that he got pretty much the worst Abitur grade you can get without failing — a 3.8. The Abitur is the school-leaving cert you need to attend university. The best possible grade is a 1.0. Anything below 4.1 is a failing grade. Merz went on to study law from 1976-1981. Nice to know you can get crap grades and still make it to BlackRock and the office of chancellor. Merz had been reluctant to reveal his grade because he didn’t want to give his seven grandchildren the wrong impression. 💩

🔗 🔗 🔗 Useful links 🔗 🔗 🔗

Update Germany | Handpicked Berlin | The Next Day Berlin | The Berlin Life | Berlin Events Weekly | From Julia’s Desk | Späti Stories | Berlin Literary Events | OV Berlin | WahlheYmat

🦋 20 Percent on Bluesky 🐘20 Percent on Mastadon 🧵 20 Percent on Threads 🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Spotify 🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Apple Podcasts

📈 Advertise in 20% Berlin

Dear 20 Percent,

I can almost stomach excessive bureaucracy when it leads to a result. A building permit. A new slide on a public playground. German citizenship. But pointless bureaucracy makes me want to leave.

For the past three weeks I’ve been exchanging correspondence with a not-the-Finanzamt tax authority over an invoice I sent to Amsterdam. First, I forgot to submit a related cross-border tax declaration. The tax authority admonished me and fined me €250 for the transgression.

After I filed the declaration they then wrote to say I’d entered the wrong number — why didn’t they just enter the right number for me? I asked ChatGPT and it told me the number I needed to enter on the declaration was 0. ZERO. I was skeptical but I did it and resubmitted.

Two days later I got a letter from the weird tax person that all was good. I had entered the right number and they were returning my €250.

All of that for what? Who did any of that benefit? I had to tell them I had nothing to tell them? Make it make sense!

That won’t be the case at the next 100% Funny, the 20percent.berlin comedy night at Downstairs Comedy Club, Oct. 27. Several German and international comedians will tell you funny things that matter. Tickets here.

Have a good weekend, as always,

Andrew

✨ Maurice is hosting his 20% News Quiz next Wednesday! ✨

Pre-coalition talks are a go!

Welcome to Germany where politicians have to agree that they maybe could agree to work together before they talk about agreeing to work together. Die Grüne, Die Linke and the SPD Thursday agreed to enter preliminary coalition talks after leftists Die Linke promised to abhor antisemitism and be wary of any members’ links to organized crime, according to rbb24. Die Linke has been under fire for alleged cases of antisemitism as well as the appearance of organized crime figures at its election-night party. The talks will begin immediately and — unbelievably — aren’t actual coalition talks. They first have to see if they agree on what’s important in these Sondierungsgespräche talks and then they’ll enter Koalitionsverhandlungen coalition talks. Agreeing to see if you could agree so that you can finally agree. Our current CDU-led coalition took two months to form in 2023, so maybe we’ll have a new Berlin administration by Christmas.

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Quick, approve these buildings!

While the future coalition is in talks, Berlin’s outgoing coalition has green-lighted two high-rise construction plans out of fears the next coalition might halt the controversial projects, according to Tagesspiegel. The urban development department approved four skyscrapers between 75 and 110 meters tall on the vacant land north of Bahnhof Zoo that will include a new building for the Technical University, two office buildings and a residential building. The residential project will include 500 student apartments and 210 apartments for normal people that will be built by one of Berlin’s public property companies. The department also used a legal loophole to approve a 167-meter tower east of Warschauer Brücke that will have 1,000 new apartments including just over 300 for low-income families. F-Hain-X-berg had rejected the project as too grandiose for the neighborhood (the Amazon tower is just 142 meters tall) so Berlin usurped planning responsibilities and has now effectively approved the project.

Tunnel sickie

And in non-coalition yet oh-so-Berlin news, the Tiergartentunnel, the tunnel that shuttles cars beneath the Hauptbahnhof and Postdamer Platz, was only open mornings this week because the city-state didn’t have enough healthy employees, according to rbb24. The tunnel requires eight employees to monitor traffic but two are out on lengthy sick leaves and another called in sick this week, leaving just five to stare at traffic livestreams. I would imagine personnel-related closures will only increase as Germans age and retire.

Four killed in horrific crash

And because I don’t think it’s getting enough attention in national press — a 61-year-old man is facing charges of manslaughter after he killed four teenagers on mopeds in Biesenthal, about 45 minutes north of Berlin, Wednesday, according to rbb24. The man tried to pass several cars on a two-lane road and his car then collided head-on with three mopeds, killing all three drivers, aged 15, 16 and 19, as well as a 14-year-old riding piggyback. A fourth moped was able to swerve and avoid the collision. The man’s car then caught on fire and he had to be airlifted to Berlin for treatment.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🚨 Former intelligence head behind bars

💩 Former chancellor Schröder is a douche who parties with Putin

🔫 Two officials killed while checking hunters’ guns

Factoid

They used to make computers in Berlin. Well, West Berlin. The Nixdorf Computerfabrik was built adjacent to Volkspark Humboldthain in 1986 for 300 million deutsche marks (€153.4 million) and was to make the area Silicon Wedding (can you imagine?). Nixdorf made computers there until 1991. The building’s golden windows remind us Berlin veterans of the Palast der Republik, which was replaced by the historical and architectural disgrace that is the Humboldtforum in Mitte. The Nixdorf factory is being destroyed to make way for yet another collection of office buildings at the site even though the factory now is literally an office building and the site is already surrounded by office buildings.

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Update Germany | Handpicked Berlin | FOMO Berlin | The Next Day Berlin | The Berlin Life | Berlin Events Weekly | From Julia’s Desk | Späti Stories | Berlin Literary Events | OV Berlin | WahlheYmat

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📈 Advertise in 20% Berlin

Dear 20 Percent,

On Saturday, my five-year-old son and I went down to the Brandenburg Gate, hoping there would be some festivities to celebrate Germany’s Day of Unity, which I had sold to my son as “Germany’s birthday party”. Instead we found a peace protest.

As we wove our way through the crowd, it became clear it was a certain kind of peace demo, naming a very Russia-friendly once. We encountered a grab bag of BSW supporters, a stand promoting ex-East German newspaper Neues Deutschland, people collecting signatures to abolish NATO, a truck from the Communist Party of Germany and some middle-aged guys carrying Russian and Soviet flags. What really took the biscuit was a man with a “Putin = Peace” T-shirt. That’s when we decided it was time for a donut at Dunkin.

All this on the Day of Unity makes you realise that East and West are, in some ways, still lightyears apart. One woman I talked to at the demo said outright that “life was better in the GDR”. Reunification was traumatic for a lot of people and many still feel life was easier under communism but I still find it quite disturbing that former citizens of East Germany are becoming Putin-pilled three decades later. But, then again, I’m just some Besserwessi (my German family originates from Hesse).

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Maurice

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Top spy spied for other countries?

Just when I thought it was going to be a slow news day: August Hanning, the 80-year-old ex-boss of Germany's foreign intelligence service (BND), has been arrested on suspicion of espionage. Cops are searching properties in Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Berlin. Hanning was BND president from 1998 to 2005. Prosecutors accuse him of obtaining classified information in exchange for cash and producing security analyses for a foreign intelligence service. Any guesses which one?

A curious case involving vaccines and Datenschutz

A Berlin court has ruled that the fire brigade was allowed to report unvaccinated employees to the health authorities during the pandemic. However, the judge found that a blanket form that marked all firefighters as having contact with vulnerable groups violated “data-accuracy rules” since the plaintiffs in the case said they had no direct contact with vulenerable people. The court awarded the three firefighters €100 in damages. They had sought €5,000.

Cat in the Hat fakes

Brandenburg police say images of a creepy Cat in the Hat stalking kids and killing cats in the town of Wittenberge are AI-generated fakes. “Real” Cat in the Hats have been sighted in countries around the world and other parts of Germany going viral on Tik Tok since around June. Police in Hesse and Saxony-Anhalt are investigating actual “horror cat” incidents. We should see plenty of them this Halloween.

Another infrastructure attack?

Who the hell keeps destroying our electricity infrastructure? The police are investigating a suspected arson attack after unknown perpetrators set fire to a pile of old tyres beneath a cable bridge in Marzahn at 4am on Monday. The fire damaged two 110,000-volt high-voltage cables and several medium-voltage lines, briefly interrupting the power supply and forcing 19 businesses in the area to be temporarily disconnected from the grid. No households were affected. Thankfully a repeat of last winter’s blackout did not occur.

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🎭 Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin 🪩

🎞️By Design (FFFB opening night)
Wednesday · 7 pm · Kino Moviemento, Kottbusser Damm 22, 10967 Kreuzberg · €12 · OV with English subtitles
Amanda Kramer opens the Female Filmmakers Festival with a film where Juliette Lewis wants to be looked at like a beautiful chair, and gets it. If Please Baby Please stuck with you, it’s yours. Watch the trailer here.

🥁Ensemble Nist-Nah + Shouji Hara
Wednesday · 8 pm · silent green, Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Wedding · 22,58 €
Will Guthrie leads seven players, three of them women, on gamelan, gongs and drum kits. The patterns repeat and shift slowly, more like a long groove than a concert. Steve Reich fans will hear that pulse in bronze.

🎞️ Next Door
Opening Thursday · 7 pm · Hamburger Bahnhof, Invalidenstraße 50–51, 10557 Moabit · Free admission on the opening
Twenty years after they worked next door, Dean, Demand, Eliasson, Håkansson and Saraceno come back. Dean made a new 35mm film with Bruce Nauman, and Saraceno shows 14 Billions again after fifteen years.

🩰Rattleskin
Friday & Saturday, then 15–18.10 · time and price to confirm · CANK, Karl-Marx-Straße 95, 12043 Neukölln - €35-52
Soraya Schulthess’s Ballet Sur_real dances on pointe to electronic tracks mixed by Ogtrues and Reka Zalan, and asks how much of what we want was ever our own idea. Club kids with a soft spot for ballet will get it.

🍜Berlin Ramen Festival, Vol. 4
Friday to Sunday · Sat & Sun from 11 am, Saturday evening ticket from 6 pm · KOMPLEX, Modersohnstraße 35–45, 10245 Friedrichshain · €9–16, under-12s free
More than ten ramen shops from Berlin, Europe and Japan serve smaller bowls at around thirteen euros, so you can try a few. The kids get their own corner, and on Friday night teshi’s fine hour plays with kidkanevil.

🙍🏽‍♀️Kubra Khademi & Mortaza Behboudi: Afghan Women: A Desperate Vitality
Friday to Sunday · Fri 7 pm (German premiere), Sat 1, 3 and 5 pm, Sun 2, 4, 6 and 8 pm · HAU3, Tempelhofer Ufer 10, 10963 Kreuzberg · €22, reduced €12 · About 60 min, Persian with English translation · Three flights up, no lift
You sit on carpets in an Afghan living room while four video windows open onto Kabul. Laila runs a secret school for girls, and Narges fights for her husband’s release. Behboudi was held for nine months by the Taliban.

🎹PEOPLE Festival
Saturday 10.10 & Sunday 11.10 · from 12 pm · Funkhaus, Nalepastraße 18, 12459 Oberschöneweide · from €59
180 musicians spend a week in 40 studios with no plan, then somebody opens the doors. Free improvisation and experimental electronics, mostly played once. Limpe Fuchs on her self-built instruments, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s modular ambient and all three Mouse On Mars are somewhere in there.

🍄‍🟫Fungi Fever Fest Saturday & Sunday · 12 pm–8 pm · Holzmarkt 25, Holzmarktstraße 25, 10243 Friedrichshain · €5, free on Sunday in a mushroom costume
A whole weekend on the queer life of fungi, with a grow-your-own workshop, a mushroom drag battle on Saturday, a fashion show and a pub quiz on Sunday, and yes, mushrooms on every food stall.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🚨Germany risks being drawn into ‘violent conflict’ with Russia, spy chief warns

🏛️ Saxony-Anhalt parliament sits after AfD win

💡Women given shorts at Oktoberfest to prevent upskirting

🤖 Autonomous driving: VW works with Wayve instead of Nvidia

Factoid

Berlin is home to 15 of Europe’s fastest growing startups, according to the Sifted 250 list. The list is quite diverse and most companies seem to be playing the AI card well. Notables include automation heavyweights like n8n and AI customer service platform Parloa. Healthcare, fintec, climate tech and pet nutrition (The Better Cat) are all in there!

🍻🧠 🏆 I’m hosting the 20% Berlin News Quiz again on October 14th. Early Bird tickets available through tomorrow (Wednesday).

🔗 🔗 🔗 Useful links 🔗 🔗 🔗

Update Germany | Handpicked Berlin | The Next Day Berlin | The Berlin Life | Berlin Events Weekly | From Julia’s Desk | Späti Stories | Berlin Literary Events | OV Berlin | WahlheYmat

🦋 20 Percent on Bluesky 🐘20 Percent on Mastadon 🧵 20 Percent on Threads 🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Spotify 🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Apple Podcasts

📈 Advertise in 20% Berlin

Dear 20 Percent,

Saturday is a holiday, so go shopping today/tonight because it’s two days without stores. Otherwise here’s our list to get what you need on Saturday and Sunday.

I like the shops closed on Sunday. A holiday-like silence sets in and I like it. Capitalism doesn’t always have to win.

So many shops are now open at nearby train stations that a Sunday grocery emergency is now just an inconvenience. You need 10,000 steps anyway.

Speaking of shops: Maurice and I always give two tips for places or things we like in Berlin in the Bear’s Knees segment on the 20 Percent Berlin podcast — this week’s is out now and it’s a lot of election talk (plus me recommending Emmy scooters and Maurice a Mitte brasserie).

Have a good weekend!

Andrew

Train talk: Hannover-Berlin

A train trip to Hanover will now take 80 minutes longer as Deutsche Bahn overhauls the stretch amidst a nationwide infrastructure upgrade to clear its name. Trains will detour over Braunschweig and Magdeburg for the next 14 months until the work is complete, according to Der Spiegel. That deadline will likely be extended — a similar project on the line between Hamburg and Berlin wasn’t completed on time. DB is now doing blitz-upgrades where they redo everything from tracks to stations to related infrastructure at the same time because work with adjacent operations proved to be both costly and lengthy.

Coalition talks, criminal links

Die Linke, the SPD and Die Grüne met Thursday to talk about entering coalition talks to rule Berlin and will meet again this weekend after the initial chat yielded little, according to rbb24. The trio met in the newly renovated Haus der Statistik on Alexanderplatz and discussed how to approach the accusations of antisemitism within Die Linke as well as the party’s potential links to Berlin crime families. Issa Remmo, the patriarch of Berlin’s most famous crime family, got thrown out of Die Linke’s election party and later told Der Spiegel journalists he was just there to ask a woman for a date, not curry political favor. Linke politician Ferat Kocak also stepped down from his position on the federal interior committee after Issa’s son Firo published chats between him and the politician, who said his connection to the family was related to the donation of mobile phones for politically active youth.

Election mistake

What would a Berlin election be without a mistake? At least this time it’s not fatal. Officials in Spandau reported the wrong numbers on the phone on election night, and an audit means Berlin’s next Abgeordnetenhaus (parliament) will now be five seats smaller for reasons I vaguely understand. The AfD’s Tommy Tabor was directly elected to a seat in the Berlin parliament for Spandau, not the CDU’s Bettina Meißner, as initially reported, according to rbb24. Voters in Berlin have two votes — one for a party and one for a local candidate. Parties create lists of candidates who get seats based on the first vote but those elected by the second vote get the seat regardless. However, sometimes a party gets more seats via direct election than their party would have had, which are then known as Uberhangmandate (bonus seats) and they have to be offset with seats for other parties. Since Meißner was a bonus seat, now that she’s out, so are the related offset seats. I hope nobody gave quit their jobs thinking they were now parliamentarians.

Rents up for public housing renters

Berlin’s public housing companies are raising rents for 90,000 renters by between €15 and €30 per month, according to the Morgenpost, to offset a 93% jump in maintenance costs between 2016 and 2025. Die Linke officials said the move was political since it has pledged to institute a strict rent cap at the seven companies and suspect the companies hope to sneak in the raise in case Die Linke becomes the senior coalition partner. A spokesman for the companies said that was Quatsch — the companies have so far only raised rents 22% between 2016 and 2025.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🪨 The town banning stumbling blocks | My Reel about it

⚽ Klopp’s first win as coach

🚀 Deutschlandticket going up

Factoid

I guess it depends on your definition of young: Berlin is Germany’s second-youngest state with an average age of 42.8 years, according to the Berlin-Brandenburg stats folks. Only Hamburg is younger at an average 42.3 years while Saxony-Anhalt is the oldest at 48.4, which maybe explains their problem. I’m picturing an old man shaking his fist and screaming in Saxony-Anhaltish : “You immigrants get off my grass!” Mitte and Kreuzberg-F-Hain are the youngest Berlin hoods at an average 39.5 while Steglitz-Zehlendorf is the oldest at 46.7.

🔗 🔗 🔗 Useful links 🔗 🔗 🔗

Update Germany | Handpicked Berlin | FOMO Berlin | The Next Day Berlin | The Berlin Life | Berlin Events Weekly | From Julia’s Desk | Späti Stories | Berlin Literary Events | OV Berlin | WahlheYmat

🦋 20 Percent on Bluesky 🐘20 Percent on Mastadon 🧵 20 Percent on Threads 🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Spotify 🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Apple Podcasts

📈 Advertise in 20% Berlin

Dear 20 Percent,

Right-wing and conservative German media went into Linke-bashing overdrive last week, hyperventilating about Berlin being transformed into an “Islamo-Socialist Caliphate” and so on. It’s all pretty infantile. Bavarian CSU bigwig Markus Söder called likely mayor Elif Eralp an “antisemite” on a TV chat show and Eralp is suing him for defamation. Meanwhile, Söder and several CDU state premiers have threatened to axe federal funding for Berlin should Eralp become mayor.

Not to say there aren’t things to be concerned about. Issa “The Godfather” Remmo and Ibrahim Ibrahim, a Palestinian activist associated with the PFLP, which is classified as a terrorist organisation by the EU, waltzing into Die Linke’s Neukölln election party doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the broader public.

Letting these guys into the party was such an own goal and shows Die Linke needs to professionalise in a hurry if it wants to form a government and stay in power long enough to get anything done.

The conservative Axel Springer press (the same folks who just gave Palantir-psychopath Peter Thiel a fancy award) and others, predictably, smelled blood. I’m guessing their tabloid BILD has a team of 10 people investigating ways that Die Linke and Elif Eralp are too radical to run the city.

It will be interesting to see how the coalition talks with the Greens and SPD go — they’ll be using the antisemitism debate as leverage to pull Die Linke towards the centre. I predict Die Linke’s promise to socialise 240,000 flats owned by corporations could fizzle away in the process.

Meanwhile, a housing researcher made an interesting but unrealistic proposal: the federal government should just buy up a majority stake in Vonovia (Germany’s largest landlord) on the stock market and thereby gain control of its 470,000 flats across the country. According to the researcher behind the idea, it would be cheaper and on firmer legal ground than Die Linke’s plan to expropriate Vonovia’s property in Berlin.

We’ll keep you posted.

Maurice

🍻🧠 🏆 I’m doing my 20% Berlin pub quiz again on October 14th. Early Bird tickets on sale for a mere €3!

Legalise undocumented migrants?

The 40 migration and anti-racism initiatives behind the “Legalisierung Jetzt!” initiative have sent an open letter to Elif Eralp as well as Green and SPD politicians, demanding the legalisation of an estimated 60,000–100,000 undocumented migrants living in Berlin. Their demands include introducing a “City-ID” card, granting group residence permits, strengthening individual right-to-stay mechanisms, and abolishing mandatory reporting of undocumented people to immigration authorities. The campaigners say undocumented residents live in constant fear of police checks and deportation, and suffer from poor or no access to healthcare, education, housing, and work.

WG tut weh

A room in a shared flat (WG) in Berlin now costs €600 per month including utilities, according the Empirica research institute, making Berlin (along with Freiburg) the fifth most expensive college town in Germany — behind Munich (€790), Hamburg (€659), Cologne (€630), and Frankfurt am Main (€620). Flatshare rents have risen by €130 in five years, up from €470 in 2021, and by 94% since 2012. The cheapest university towns are Wolfsburg (€306) and Greifswald (€350). Sorry about the German headline.

Speaking of…

A law firm representing property listings site ImmoScout24 has written to the Berlin administration (Senat) objecting to Mietenscan, the city’s automated monthly analysis of rental listings. The lawyers argue that the state's use of ImmoScout24’s data is legally problematic and harms the company's reputation. In the scan's first run in June, 7,700 listings were scraped and assessed. Around 46% showed indications of possible violations of the rent brake or other regulations. Flagged landlords are receiving warning letters.

Easy Adriatic

While Ryanair has shown BER the middle finger, Easyjet will have more flights from Berlin from next summer, with an additional 14 flights per week. New routes will serve Slovenian capital Ljubljana and Italian coastal city Rimini. With 11 aircraft based at BER, Easyjet is now the largest airline at the airport.

Tesla pay up

Pay for employees at the Brandenburg Tesla plant is going up by 4-5% on October 1. According to RBB, the entry-level salary for a worker on the factory floor is €45,750, actually higher than union rates. About 12,000 work at the plant but it hopes to hire 3,500 people to bump production up to 7,500 cars per week, 1,000 more than currently. Elon Musk’s open support for the AfD and other polarising populist prats doesn’t seem to be scaring off customers.

🎭 Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin 🪩

🎺 MOP MOP ft. Anthony Joseph
Wednesday · 7:30 pm · Gretchen, Obentrautstraße 19-21, Kreuzberg · €27
Trinidadian poet Anthony Joseph fronts Mop Mop’s blend of jazz and Afro-Caribbean funk, his voice and the horns trading the lead all night.

🧑🏾‍🩰Transkontinentale
Wednesday to Sunday · Humboldt Forum, Schloßplatz, Mitte · from €10
Five days of dance from four continents. Our highlights: Air Mass, Ai Weiwei’s stage design for Alfred Döblin’s 1924 novel; Perto de Nós, an emotional headphone walk, and the Afrobeat pulse of Lagos is a R.A.V.E.

🎞️ MUBI Fest Berlin
Friday to Sunday · silent green + Kino Arsenal · €11
Fatih Akin premieres his new movie Ghost Song (Sunday, 3:15 pm), Lukas Dhont talks after Coward premiere (Friday, 8 pm), and Murnau’s Faust runs to a new live score (Sunday, 7:30 pm).

🏳️‍⚧️ Historical City Walk: Trans* History under National Socialism
Sunday · 2 pm · meet at HKW, John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10, Tiergarten · €3-10, 3 hrs
Three hours on foot through the trans lives the Nazi state tried to erase, built around the biography of Käte Rogalli, in English.

👯 Kinder Rave, Bossa FM
Sunday · 12-6 pm · Festsaal Kreuzberg, Am Flutgraben 3, Treptow · €16, kids 12-17 €8
A real rave scaled down for kids: proper sound system, real DJs, and a room where a five-year-old and a parent move to the same track.

For a weekly selection of art, music, food and other things worth leaving the house for, subscribe to The Next Day Berlin.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

👴🏻As Merz scrambles for support, Germany’s identity crisis is laid bare

🤔 Germany’s Wadephul meets Russia’s Lavrov amid tensions over ‘escalation’

😟German town bans ‘stumbling stone’ memorials to Nazi victims

🛒Lidl on the island of the rich

👁️ Interior Minister and two opticians receive the Big Brother Awards

⚽ Klopp’s Germany team lose to Greece

Factoid

The temporary swimming pool in front of the Volksbühne theatre in Mitte closes for good on Thursday. Free swimming slots are booked out till then. Over two months, 20,000 people swam at the pool. The showers broke. Racist AfD (and some CDU folks) began frothing at the mouth about a harmless swim event for black youth which had to be cancelled because of security concerns. And the whole thing, naturally, went over cost. The bill for the project ended up at €410,000 instead of the budgeted €300,000. Worth it?

🔗 🔗 🔗 Useful links 🔗 🔗 🔗

Update Germany | Handpicked Berlin | FOMO Berlin | The Next Day Berlin | The Berlin Life | Berlin Events Weekly | From Julia’s Desk | Späti Stories | Berlin Literary Events | OV Berlin | WahlheYmat

🦋 20 Percent on Bluesky 🐘20 Percent on Mastadon 🧵 20 Percent on Threads 🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Spotify 🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Apple Podcasts

📈 Advertise in 20% Berlin

Dear 20 Percent,

Let’s take a pause from the election coverage.

Social anxiety is a cultural feature, not a bug, in Germany, which leads to a repressive society. Everyone is afraid of being different and those who fall outside Teutonic boundaries are quickly called to order (Es ist Rot! - the light is red!).

And so Germans really lose their Scheiße when they are allowed to lose their Scheiße — Karneval, anyone? Oktoberfest?

Berlin didn’t have a similar party and look how that went. Although Christopher Street Day and the various Love Parade variations now fill that void.

I say all of this because I am in Munich, and heading to Oktoberfest as soon as this goes out. I can recommend it. On paper, I should hate Oktoberfest but I love it. My family, live music, beer and some Käsespätzle.

And better yet, it all ends at 10pm. By law, which adds some German-ness to all of the un-German-ness.

There’s something to be said about parties with a set end. It’s also what I always liked about the marathon — show up with some coffee mid-morning Sunday, cheer on the stragglers and then go on with your day as the roadblocks disappear.

Which is my way of reminding you that the only way to get around Berlin Sunday will be subways … because of the marathon.

Have a good weekend. I know I will.

Andrew

One Olympics was enough, thanks

Berlin Thursday rescinded its application to bid for a future Olympic Games, with disgraced mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) blaming Die Linke’s overwhelming election victory, according to RBB24. Elif Eralp, Die Linke’s mayoral candidate, has said she would kybosh the plans. But Berlin officials said the DOSB, the German agency that will apply to bring the Olympics to Germany, preferred concepts proposed by Munich and the state of North-Rhine Westfalia over Berlin’s and that it was trying to save face by backing out, pouring water on Wegner’s poor loser outburst. Voters in NRW and Munich both approved those bids in referendums while opposition to having the Games in Berlin was growing. I’m shocked how many people come to Berlin for events, both sporting and musical. The Olympics could have been good for local artists. Also, my son has been living in former Olympic housing in Munich for the past three years (see above).

Waiting on Die Linke’s Go

About the election: Die Linke members are meeting today and are expected to approve coalition talks to rule Berlin with the environmental Die Grüne and the center-left SPD, according to Tagesspiegel. They’re actually voting to approve pre-talk talks, because this is Germany and everything has to be complicated. But talks should be simple because the three ruled together from 2016 to 2023, albeit not with Die Linke as senior partner. Should the talks fail, a CDU-led coalition with the SPD and Die Grüne is also possible but we’re a ways away from that at the moment.

The idea could work, partially

The expropriation of apartments from major landlords could help the government have a bigger influence on the rental market and not affect the city-state’s ability to raise financing, according to a study by the Hans Böckler Foundation, which is affiliated with Germany’s biggest unions. The government would likely have to pay €13.5 billion for the approx. 240,000 apartments, the foundation said in the study published Friday, which would be offset with rents. Berlin would then gain more control over the rental market by braking the index (Mietspiegel) used to establish legal rent levels. However, the move, approved in a 2021 referendum and hyped by Die Linke, would do nothing to help the lack of apartments in Berlin. The foundation said expropriations also shouldn’t distract from a much-needed push in new construction.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

👨‍🦲 Taxes lowered on gas (petrol) to ease price jumps

⚽ Klopp’s debut a draw

🚀 Economic growth to double but still low, low, low

Factoid

Annoyed at all the election posters hanging on lampposts? Thanks to a chat in the 20% Berlin WhatsApp group, I now know (and so do you) that parties have a week to remove them — so by this Sunday. If not, parties can face a fine and the cost of removal. But this being Berlin, they can probably hang for as long as it takes the party to take them down because enforcement is a four-letter word here.

🔗 🔗 🔗 Useful links 🔗 🔗 🔗

Update Germany | Handpicked Berlin | FOMO Berlin | The Next Day Berlin | The Berlin Life | Berlin Events Weekly | From Julia’s Desk | Späti Stories | Berlin Literary Events | OV Berlin | WahlheYmat

🦋 20 Percent on Bluesky 🐘20 Percent on Mastadon 🧵 20 Percent on Threads 🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Spotify 🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Apple Podcasts

📈 Advertise in 20% Berlin

Dear 20 Percent,

As you probably all know by now, the left-wing party Die Linke won the Sunday election with their lead candidate Elif Eralp, who could become the first mayor with a Turkish background. It’s also the first time Die Linke has won in Berlin. Eralp’s campaign was focused on cost-of-living and the housing crisis, which Die Linke hope to address with rent caps on state-owned flats, a “rent police” office to enforce existing rules and socialisation (aka expropriation) of housing owned by large companies (I wrote about this in my other newsletter).

All established parties lost votes. The AfD grew its support, but not as much as polls had suggested. It did disturbingly well in the northeast of the city, where it got over 50% in many districts.

The interesting part begins now: Will Die Linke form a progressive city government with Die Grünen (Greens) and SPD? The Greens have signalled their willingness but the SPD isn’t so thrilled about the prospect. While the Greens support socialisation of housing, the SPD is lukewarm at best. Die Linke might have to compromise on one of their key demands if they want to run the city. The alternative would be a CDU-Green-SPD government, probably not a great idea after such a big CDU loss.

The negotiations will take weeks. We’ll keep you updated.

More news below.

Maurice

🍸 Shout out to our friends at Handpicked Berlin and Berlin Events Weekly. They’re doing their Autumn Get-Together at Impact Hub on October 2, so get your tickets now. Should be fun!

Greens lose big in former stronghold

Kreuzberg has been a bastion of the ecologist Greens pretty much since they came on the scene in the 1980s. This election, voters in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, for the first time ever, swung massively from Die Grünen to Die Linke. In the state parliament election, the Green share of the vote fell to 20.7% (down from 33.5% in the last election) while support for the left-wing party doubled to 40.5%.

Neukölln Linke w/ organised crime?

Issa Remmo, the head of the Remmo crime family, didn’t do Die Linke a favour by showing up at a Linke victory celebration on Sunday. Remmo told Morgenpost he felt “supported” by Die Linke. A party spokesperson said he hadn’t been invited and was asked to leave. That should have been the end of it but then Issa’s son Ferat posted some chats he had exchanged earlier this year with Ferat Koçak, who represents Neukölln in the Bundestag. Koçak said he didn’t know whom he was chatting with, though he wrote “Give my respectful greeting to your father,” meaning Issa Remmo. Koçak apologised on Instagram: “This has unsettled the public. And rightly so: There is no justification whatsoever for elected officials to have ties to individuals associated with organized crime.” The Remmos were responsible for a number of spectacular robberies like the 2017 heist of a 100kg gold coin from the Bode Museum.

Express-approval of controversial high-rise?

Tagesspiegel (€) reports that the outgoing CDU-SPD Senat (the confusing name of the city government) is striving to give the go-ahead to a new 167m residential tower near Warschauer Straße despite local opposition. The tower would contain 1,060 flats, a third of which would be social housing. The Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg council opposes the project because the neighbourhood lacks social infrastructure so the central department for urban planning took over responsibility for the project against the district’s will. Outgoing finance minister Stefan Evers, the CDU candidate in the election, is pulling all the strings he can to get the project approved, according to taz. Project developer Atrium Development donated €20,000 to the CDU in 2023.

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Protest against job losses

About 1,500 autoworkers in and around Berlin protested on Monday against job cuts in the struggling car industry. German carmakers are struggling thanks to competition from Chinese brands and the trend towards electric vehicles. The industry employs 30,000 in the region at Mercedes, BMW and Tesla plants as well as dozens of smaller suppliers.

🎭 Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin 🪩

Maya Ongaku [live]
Wednesday 23.09 · 7:30 - 11 pm · Gretchen, Obentrautstraße 19-21, Kreuzberg · €25
Three musicians from Enoshima who blur jazz, psychedelia, and ambient into one drifting thing, closer to spontaneous generation than to songs. Their new album, Nothing Space Music, is warm and unhurried.

Campus Concert: Georgia [concert]
Thursday · 7–9.15 pm · James-Simon-Galerie, Museum Island, Mitte · €11–22
Young players from Tbilisi and Germany on Museum Island, Beethoven beside Georgian music you rarely hear, and a premiere by Tsotne Zedginidze, 17 and one to watch. A panel first on art in Georgia now.

Foraging Frohnau Walk [gather/food]
Friday · 1–5 pm · meeting point Frohnau S-Bahn (S1) · €35, dinner (from 7 pm) €30 · in English
This is for anyone who’s found the city too loud lately. Composer Gabriel Francisco Lemos walks the Frohnau forest in long silent stretches, following sound as much as mushrooms. The group gathers what they find and shares it over dinner under the trees after the forage.

Atelierhaus Mengerzeile: open studios [gather/look]
Saturday · 2–7 pm studios, 11 am–6 pm m3 · Mengerzeile 1-3, Treptow · free
The easiest way to meet artists without the gallery-opening nerves. Forty studios are open, Nanne Meyer, Haleh Redjaian and Juliane Henrich among them, with the Spanish group show “And Then, I Woke Up” at Kunstraum m3. Coffee and cake by day, a bonfire once it gets dark.

Taste of Africa [gather/food]
Saturday & Sunday · 12–10 pm · Factory Berlin, Rheinsberger Str. 76/77, Mitte · €3, kids free
Two days of African cooking across the Factory grounds, afrobeats and amapiano on the soundsystem, a fashion and art market, drum workshops, and a kids’ corner.

For a weekly selection of art, music, food and other things worth leaving the house for, subscribe to The Next Day Berlin.

from our partneŕ

Spent too much this summer?

September is a good time to get your budget under control. In the latest issue of Smart Living in Germany, a newsletter that helps English speakers in Germany get more value for money, you’ll learn how to get free help with pension planning, which app gives you 15 workouts for free, how Visa promos can get you €30 in just a few minutes, and more.

Subscribe here.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

👴 Merz calls state election a ‘disaster’ for his party but vows to stay on

👴 Merz’s dilemma: Redraft German economic reforms, or go down defending them

📺 Why Germany’s political centre is losing ground

🎙️ Rise of the far right in Germany: how worried should we be?

Factoid

The next government will have to make some hard choices and contend with the fact that Berlin is broke. The budget deficit for this year is €4.6 billion and is set to grow to €6.3 billion in 2027.

🔗 🔗 🔗 Useful links 🔗 🔗 🔗

Update Germany | Handpicked Berlin | FOMO Berlin | The Next Day Berlin | The Berlin Life | Berlin Events Weekly | From Julia’s Desk | Späti Stories | Berlin Literary Events | OV Berlin | WahlheYmat

🦋 20 Percent on Bluesky 🐘20 Percent on Mastadon 🧵 20 Percent on Threads 🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Spotify 🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Apple Podcasts

📈 Advertise in 20% Berlin

Dear 20 Percent,

Our election Sunday will be pretty ho-hum compared to how historic the Sunday election in Mecklenburg Western Pommerania could be. That election on the Baltic Sea coast could break Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) if his party performs poorly.

Meanwhile, the only immediate effect our election will have on our lives will be bike paths.

Sure, everyone’s made the election about housing policy, but policy is slow and even if we end up with a Die Linke-led coalition which sets off to socialize/expatriate tens of thousands of privately owned apartments, the law itself will take months if not years to pass.

And then it’ll need an estimated 10 years to sludge its way through German courts.

The only thing a left-leaning coalition could do immediately is reverse the current coalition’s car-first policies and return to bike-pathifying Berlin. Which I couldn’t be more in favor of.

Leftists Die Linke and the conservative CDU are neck and neck in the polls which means either one could lead Berlin following the election depending on coalition discussions.

We’ll either get the status quo after Sunday’s election (a CDU-led coalition) or a return to a coalition of the center-left SPD, the environmental Die Grüne and leftists Die Linke that ruled prior to the 2023 election with one important caveat — Die Linke, not the SPD, would propose the mayor.

Either way it’s a historic election because it’ll be the first time I vote in Germany (🤯).

Have a good election weekend!

Andrew

PA: Want some relief from election news? Come out to 100% Funny, the 20% Berlin comedy night at Downstairs Comedy Club Sunday. Fitz Gessler, Pavlo Voyt, Carmen Chraim, Massoud Akbarzadeh, Michael Jäger and me! Tickets.

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The Chancellor is not one of us

The election news isn’t all boring — it can also be weird. Chancellor Merz claimed Thursday in his only Berlin election appearance that he likes riding our S-Bahns, which only proves that he never takes the S-Bahn. “And then I get out of the S-Bahn at Pariser Platz and walk through the Brandenburg Gate,” he said, noting that he sometimes stops at a plaque honoring former US President Ronald Reagan. His Berlin apartment is at Potsdamer Platz so even if he really did take the S-Bahn, it would be just one stop.

Voiceless internationals

And while we’ll all be affected by the election, not everyone can vote — even though most would like to. Our friends over at Wahlheymat found that 90.8% of the expats and immigrants that are not allowed to vote Sunday would like to, according to its unofficial StimmlosTrend 2026 poll. And 72.4% of those who responded said they were somewhat or very concerned about Berlin’s future. About half say housing and rents are their biggest concern and only 15.8% are satisfied with Berlin’s current government. Maybe we need a referendum to allow long-time Berliners with non-EU passports to vote? Comprehensive poll results here.

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BER thug charged

Not all the news is election-related. Brandenburg prosecutors have charged a 22-year-old Estonian with attempted manslaughter after he attacked at BER employee in a drunken rage, according to RBB24. The suspect and his traveling companion were angered when they arrived too late to their gate and were not allowed to board a plane to return to Estonia. The man attacked the worker, punching the victim repeatedly, even after he fell to the ground. This being the social media age, it was all recorded. The suspect remains in custody in Brandenburg and the 48-year-old victim remains in intensive care.

Alex’s library

Some of the news sounds like election news but isn’t: Finance senator and mayoral candidate Stefan Evers (CDU) signed a letter-of-intent for the Zentral- und Landesbibliothek (ZLB) to move from Kreuzberg to Alexanderplatz in the Kaufhof building, according to the Morgenpost. Financing and a final lease will have to be finalized by the next government. Politicians tried unsuccessfully to relocate the library to the old Galeries Lafayette building on Friedrichstrasse.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

👨‍🦲 Merz cancels UN appearance ahead of election(s)

⚽ Coach Klopp announces national team, opinion on election(s)

🚀 Poland says Russian attacks are coming to NATO

🛺 Electric cars up, fuel taxes down

Factoid

What’s an election without a little election crime? The right-wing AfD party is the most common victim in Berlin, according to RBB24. Police recorded 39 attacks on campaigners during the run-up to the Berlin election, including assaults on 18 members of the right-wing AfD party followed by 8 attacks on members of Die Grüne. And of the 1,252 recorded cases of vandalism to election posters, 801 AfD posters were damaged while second place went to CDU posters with 148. 16 cases of vandalism against campaign offices were also recorded, including 9 attacks on AfD offices. Reminder: Right-wing hoods commit the most politically motivated crimes.

🔗 🔗 🔗 Useful links 🔗 🔗 🔗

Update Germany | Handpicked Berlin | FOMO Berlin | The Next Day Berlin | The Berlin Life | Berlin Events Weekly | From Julia’s Desk | Späti Stories | Berlin Literary Events | OV Berlin | WahlheYmat

🦋 20 Percent on Bluesky 🐘20 Percent on Mastadon 🧵 20 Percent on Threads 🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Spotify 🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Apple Podcasts

📈 Advertise in 20% Berlin

Dear 20 Percent,

I’ve been binging on election trivia while prepping for my 20% Berlin Percent News Quiz - Election Special tomorrow (Wednesday) night. It would should be a lot of fun.

I’ve dredged up more election info in English:

Slow Travel Berlin has a detailed guide to the main parties, candidates and manifestos.

And in case you are allowed to vote but are still unsure whom to vote for: the Berlin 2026 project is useful tool to compare the parties on the issues. In eleven languages!

Some interesting historical voting data…

And the latest Wahltrend, showing the average of the latest polls, in a single graphic — from September 14.

It’s going to be a nailbiter.

Andrew and I discuss possible election outcomes in the latest episode of the 20% Berlin Podcast, out now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and Substack. Thanks to our podcast sponsor, Votefromabroad.org.

News below.

Maurice

❤️ Thanks also to our newsletter sponsor SettlyGo. More from them below.

Upcoming 20% Berlin events

🧠 Maurice’s 20% Berlin News Quiz Election Edition on Wednesday!

🎤 Andrew’s 20% Berlin English Comedy show on Sunday!

March against right-wing extremism

The “Sterndemo” (Star Demo) on Saturday consisted of seven protest marches that began in different parts of town and converged at the Rotes Rathaus (city hall) near Alexanderplatz. An estimated 35,000 marched, presenting the choice of “an open, progressive Berlin or an intolerant, regressive one”, in reference to the worrying AfD victory in Saxony-Anhalt on September 6.

Berliner want rent control

More evidence that housing and cost-of-living are the decisive issues in this election: A new survey found that 72% of Berliners support price caps on rent and essential groceries. Sixty-three percent back expropriating large housing companies to lower rents while 62% of city dwellers feel housing quality in their neighbourhood has declined.

Dubai deal

There’s a little war going on in the Gulf, but that didn’t stop the airline Emirates from securing the rights to fly daily between Dubai and BER. The deal is part of a new €40 billion package of investment between Germany and UAE. Emirates already serves Frankfurt, Munich, Düsseldorf and Hamburg. Labour unions and Lufthansa complained about the agreement. Germany’s flagship carrier already covers the Berlin-Dubai route with its subsidiary Condor.

RAW deal

The district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg has become the main tenant of the RAW Gelände. Under a deal signed with the property's owner, the district will cover the entire rent for two years, securing clubs, cultural spaces, and community projects from eviction after a decade-long dispute. The district will fork over €2 million to cover rising rents (nearly tripling from €4 to €11.20/m²🫠) and urgent repairs, buying time while a development plan which includes 300 apartments and a 100m-high office building is finalised. Conflicts remain over noise protection and the long-term co-existence of housing and nightlife.

🎭 Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin 🪩

🤖 Theresa Reiwer: Internet Explorer
Friday: 6 pm and 8:30 pm; Saturday and Sunday: 3.30 pm / 6 pm / 8.30 pm, 15–18 €, reduced 9–12 € · 80 minutes
HAU3, Tempelhofer Ufer 10, 10963 Kreuzberg · English with German subtitles. Audience video is used during the performance and deleted afterwards.
A cyber café you walk through, populated by mini-games, video essays and a speculative AI that runs the place. Reiwer returns to the internet’s promise of participation and asks whether it was ever kept, or whether the same power simply moved house. Your own participation becomes part of the question.

🎹 Organ Anatomy
Organ + electronics · Free, donations welcome
Thursday, 8 pm · Gedächtniskirche, Breitscheidplatz, 10789 Charlottenburg
Saturday, 8 pm, Paul-Gerhardt-Kirche, Hauptstraße 48, 10827 Schöneberg
Wanying Lin on organ and Lula Romero on synthesizer play three new works by Yiran Zhao, Romero and Lin Yang. Pipes, air and mechanism become the material, and the electronics enter as a foreign body that widens what the instrument can do inside the church.

👩‍🎤 Zoon Phonanta + Cobra Killer
Sunday · 8–11 pm · 15 € Neue Zukunft, Alt-Stralau 68, 10245 Friedrichshain
Cobra Killer play their first show in almost fourteen years, as guests at the Zoon Phonanta album release. Emergency Lies came out two days earlier on Bronzerat and runs through krautrock, big beat and pop bent out of shape, with A.S. Fanning and Gemma Ray passing through.

🎤 20% Berlin Comedy Night Sunday · 6:30 pm · Downstairs Comedy Club, Oranienburger Str. 67, 10117 Berlin English standup in Berlin’s best comedy venue. Line-up: Fitz Gessler, Pavlo Voyt, Carmen Chraim, Massoud Akbarzadeh. Host: Drew Portnoy.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🤨 Berlin businesswoman charged with spying for Russia

🪖 Far right’s rise in rapidly re-arming Germany gives Poland cause for concern

📈 UAE pledges to invest €40 billion in Germany, with a focus on data centres

🚀 German rocket reaches orbit

💡 AfD wins in Germany: What this means for internationals now

Factoid

16 and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in the Berlin state parliamentary elections for the first time on Sunday! The age for participating in the BVV (Bezirksverordnetenversammlung or district council) elections was lowered to 16 in 2011.

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Real people. Transparent prices. Book online.

👉 https://settlygo.app/go/20percentberlin

🔗 🔗 🔗 Useful links 🔗 🔗 🔗

Update Germany | Handpicked Berlin | FOMO Berlin | The Next Day Berlin | The Berlin Life | Berlin Events Weekly | From Julia’s Desk | Späti Stories | Berlin Literary Events | OV Berlin | WahlheYmat

🦋 20 Percent on Bluesky 🐘20 Percent on Mastadon 🧵 20 Percent on Threads 🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Spotify 🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Apple Podcasts

📈 Advertise in 20% Berlin

And a huge shoutout to our sponsor this week: Democrats Abroad!

Hey 20 Percent,

Be careful what you wish for.

I’m writing this in Paris, where former mayor Anne Hidalgo built 1,500 kilometers of bike paths and ushered in a revolution in two-wheeled transport.

But Hidalgo also ushered in a level of cycling chaos that would send Germans to the hospital. Bicycle lights aren’t seen as mere suggestions here, they’re not even acknowledged. Cyclists speed through intersections when and however they see fit.

As a pedestrian, you’re on your own and you never know where the next Drahtesel (wire mule or bike) will come from.

Also, most of the cycling traffic seems to be rental e-bikes with the occasional parent bike taxi and e-scooter thrown in. They’re all zooming along at electricity-assisted speeds Berlin’s cargo bikes couldn’t even dream about. To be fair, I’m in the Arondissements in the middle, so I have no idea what’s going on out of sight of the Seine, but I can’t imagine it’s much different.

I love a cycling future, I just didn’t realize the level of anarchy attached to it.

Still, we did see one cyclist stopped at a traffic light last night coming back from dinner — it was green.

“He’s waiting for it to turn red so he can go,” my (German) wife said.

Maybe ride a bike this weekend?

Andrew

🧠 Maurice’s 20% Berlin News Quiz is back next Wednesday!

Krach (SPD) chaos

The center-left SPD in Berlin is experiencing its own form of chaos after Hannover prosecutors searched the home of the party’s Berlin mayoral candidate Steffen Krach less than two weeks before the September 20 election. Prosecutors are accusing him of corruption for providing secret documents to an allegedly friendly company bidding for a vacant piece of government property, according to RBB24. Krach himself said a donation made by the company to the Berlin SPD was immediately returned and denied any wrongdoing in the tender, which the allied company lost. The chaos will have little effect on the election — the SPD hovers at fifth place in polls, meaning Krach has no chance of becoming mayor.

Furnished, temporary rentals can be banned, sort of

And now there’s a tiny bit less rental-chaos after a Berlin court ruled that districts can prohibit temporary, furnished rentals, a loophole that allows landlords to charge higher rents. But districts can only reject the rentals in Milieuschutzgebiete, according to T-Online. Milieuschutzgebiete are designated areas in each district where renters enjoy extra protection to maintain a neighborhood’s social fabric and support lower income households. A Neukölln landlord sued after the district had forbidden her from renting out 15 furnished apartments temporarily at between €23.26 and €32.63 per sqm — the allowed rent for an unfurnished abode in the area is €10.37 per sqm. The landlord lost, giving officials yet another tool to fight greedy, greedy landlords.

Tie the knot in a tram

We’ve all at least once wished the BVG would do a little less marketing and a little more to combat its own chaos but this publicity-ploy is kind of funny — Berlin’s public transport provider is looking for three couples to get fake married in a tram Oct. 11. You can apply here (German only) and they make it clear that the marriage won’t be legally binding but will be used for marketing. And you can bring guests! I applied, because why not?

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

👨‍🦲 Merz takes aim at AfD, Trump

⚓ Germany’s connection to 9/11

🪖 Tusk warns of Russian incursions into NATO states

Factoid

Depending upon who you ask, Berlin’s shortest street is either the unimaginatively named Straße 54 in Heinersdorf or the Eiergasse in Mitte. Straße 54 weighs in at 17.2 meters, according to Tagesspiegel (paywall), and is sandwiched between a Tedi discount store and the Freies Land garden allotment colony. The adorable Eiergasse in the Nikolaiviertel has been heralded as the shortest at 16 meters for years, but some sources say it’s actually 18.

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Hey 20 Percent,

The dust has yet to settle after Sunday’s election in Saxony-Anhalt. It looks like the BSW, the small populist party founded by former left-winger Sahra Wagenknecht, could enable the first AfD-led state government. The mind boggles.

Forever-grinning AfD lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund, who spent the election campaign puttering around from village to village on his East German motorscooter, has achieved cult status in the state. Behind his perfume-salesman cheer are some seriously hard-right policies: Separate classrooms for refugee kids. Deportation-maxxing. A ban on rainbow flags at schools. Defunding institutions that promote “anti-German” art, whatever that is. Life for refugees, immigrants, queer people, artists and many others who don’t fit in with the the far-right idea of Germany could soon feel uncomfortable if not less safe in Saxony-Anhalt.

The fact that 44% voted for the AfD is alarming enough. Equally worrying is the bottomless well of anger this movement has tapped into. This is a moment when non-fascist German leaders need to engage in some soul-searching and ask themselves “What went wrong?” — and what can be done differently.

How much will of this anger is there nationwide? The next elections, in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on September 20, will offer some indication.

🚨Thursday is Bundesweiter Warntag (warning day). Don’t worry if your phone starts buzzing and flashing at 11am — that’s just Germany testing its emergency alert systems.

🧠 The 20% Berlin News Quiz — my pub quiz based on the content of this newsletter — is back on Wednesday, September 16th. Save the date. Grab your tickets now. I’d love to see you there.

News below.

Maurice

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Anti-AfD protest

Following the Saxony-Anhalt result on Sunday, thousands of Berliners congregated at the Brandenburg Gate to protest against the rise of the AfD. Organisers said about 15,000 showed up for the peaceful demo. The local lead candidates for the Greens and Die Linke spoke before the crowd. Meanwhile, CDU mayoral cadidate Stefan Evers rejected in an interview any collaboration with the AfD in Berlin. Evers said “Berlin stands for openness to the world, internationalism and solidarity across cultural boundaries. The AfD wants to destroy precisely that.”

Hackers publish Berlin data

Rhysida, the ransomware group allegedly behind the August cyberattack against Berlin’s administrative network, has published 1.2 million stolen files on the dark web after the city said it wouldn’t pay the 30-Bitcoin ransom. Chief Digital Officer Florian Hauer said the leaked data is classified as "VS-NfD" (confidential for internal use only), the lowest of four secrecy levels, and does not pose a threat to national security. Well, that’s a relief, isn’t it? Hauer also said officials were still in the early stages of analysis, as downloading and processing the files alone is expected to take a week due to the sheer amount of data. So how do they know what’s really in there? He also said Berliners should remain vigilant about identity theft (change your passwords, beware of phishing). Opposition politicians called the cyberattack a disaster for Berlin’s critical infrastructure.

More sabotage?

Police are investigating a fire in Moabit that began on a construction site but spread to a neigbouring electricity substation. The fire hasn’t been classified as sabotage but comes against the backdrop of five recent suspected acts of sabotage against the power grid across Germany. Police say a 48-year-old man from North-Rhine Westphalia known as Daniel V. has claimed responsibility for the attacks outside of Berlin but remains at large.

CSD memorial defaced

Both a memorial tree and a rainbow-coloured bench honouring the victims of the July 25th attack on the CSD event in Tiergarten were vandalised in separate incidents, taz reports. Unknown perpetrators uprooted the tree and damaged its protective fence. The rainbow bench was destroyed earlier this month. The Mitte administration quickly replanted the tree. District mayor Stefanie Remlinger (Greens) said the tree and bench will be restored repeatedly if necessary: “We will not be intimidated.”

Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin

🎨 Berlin Art Week 2026
Wed-Sun 09-13.09 · over 100 venues across the city
Five days, more than a hundred venues, and for once a clear centre of gravity. New this year is the Berlin Art Week Garden at the Kulturforum, tying the Neue Nationalgalerie and the Gemäldegalerie into one open ground with performances by Ersan Mondtag and talks with Nadim Samman. Around it, the usual rhythm: Gallery Night on Thursday with around 50 galleries open until 10 pm, Featured Night on Friday with roughly 30 independent projects, and the Positions fair at the Tempelhof hangars from Thursday to Sunday, 96 galleries with Turkey as country focus. We have a special guide for Berlin Art Week for those who follow the sound.

📷 Carrie Mae Weems. The Heart of the Matter [look]
Opening Friday 11.09 · 9 pm · C/O Berlin, Hardenbergstraße 22-24 · free
Carrie Mae Weems' first full retrospective in Berlin, over a hundred photographs and videos across four decades of putting personal life against the historical record. Running alongside, Stelios Kallinikou and Susanne Kriemann on contaminated ground. Kíkẹ́lọmọ plays the opening.

🎤 Soft Power Festival
Friday 11.09 to Sunday 13.09 · Haus der Visionäre, Eichenstraße 4A · €25-35
Caique Tizzi threads through all three days: a tea ceremony to open Friday, Cakes and Politics with rustcakes on Saturday, and a communal meal to close on Sunday. Saturday is the day to catch Dimitri Hegemann, Norman Ohler, and Alice Hasters on nightlife as infrastructure, Fred P and Ghostpoet on the floor. It's part of Berlin Art Week.

🏭 Tag des offenen Denkmals 2026
Saturday 12.09 and Sunday 13.09 · over 300 monuments, around 700 events citywide · free
This year's motto is NetzWERKE: Denkmale & Infrastruktur. Skip the palaces. This is the working city: tracks, substations, waterworks, greenhouses, things built to function that turned out to be architecture.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

👨‍🦲 Merz says AfD result ‘changes all of Germany’

💩 Musk celebrates, Tusk despairs: How the world reacted to the AfD’s election win

📈 Is Germany’s economic slump finally over?

🤖 Autonomous OpenAI agents reportedly hijacked German wiki

🏛️ Russia shuts German consulate in St. Petersburg in tit-for-tat move after Leipzig drone incident

Factoid

As Germany, in some ways, begins to resemble the Weimar Republic of the 1920s and early 1930s, the fifth and final season of hit show Babylon Berlin starts streaming at ARD on September 10th. The series, Germany’s most expensive and internationally successful, has been sold to around 140 countries. English-language streamers are expected to release season 5 early next year.

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Update Germany

Handpicked Berlin

FOMO Berlin

The Next Day Berlin

The Berlin Life

Berlin Events Weekly

From Julia’s Desk

Späti Stories

Berlin Literary Events

OV Berlin

The German Review

WahlheYmat

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🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Spotify

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Hey 20 Percent,

Germans maybe love the laminated sign more than bread.

Back when we were producing an English edition at the now pro-Russia Berliner Zeitung, they even updated their laminated signs reminding employees to clean up in the kitchen and use the toilet brush to include English.

And so I was surprised when the woman handing me my citizenship certificate two months ago warned me against laminating or punching holes in it.

“That will invalidate it and you’ll have to get a copy that says ‘COPY’ on the front,” she said. “This is the only one you’ll get that looks like this.”

For a brief moment I wondered why I had even become German. A large part of the now-German me wanted to laminate anything paper that came into my grip. And if not laminate then punch holes in it and put it in an ORDNER (two-ring binder).

She then said the thing to do was to get a plastic sleeve and put it in that and then put it in the Ordner. So that’s what I did. I can’t imagine I’ll ever actually look at it again — maybe I’ll show it to my grandkids, if the world survives that long.

And just a quick reminder that you can get tickets for 100% Funny, our English comedy night (Pavlo Voytovych, Fitz Gessler, Carmen Chraim, Masoud Akbarzadeh) here, and our latest podcast here.

Have a good weekend y’all! Maybe laminate something for fun.

Andrew

Russisches Haus closing, sort of

And is there a more German thing than wanting to sanction someone but having bureaucracy get in the way? The German government said it would close the Russisches Haus on Friedrichstraße in Mitte as part of a handful of sanctions against Russia for an attempted drone attack at the Leipzig airport last month, according to Die Zeit. But it’s unclear when exactly the building will close because an agreement between Germany and Russia guarantees the largest Russian cultural center outside Russia can use the building until July 2027 — Germany has begun the official process of ending the agreement in July. Russian employees at the site have been given until Sept. 18 to leave the country but Germany wants to keep to the agreement even though you’d think attempting to bomb cargo plans in Leipzig would allow you to terminate it immediately. The building itself belongs to Russia while the real estate belongs to Germany.

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Union to play at Olympiastadion longer

Berlin’s only top league soccer club has fallen victim to Germany’s love of paperwork. 1. FC Union Berlin will have to play home games at the Olympic stadium six months longer than expected after the bureaucracy coupled with the expansion of its Alte Försterei stadium in Köpenick pushed back construction. Union had expected to play home games at the Charlottenburg stadium, home to cross-town rival Hertha Berlin, during the 2027/2028 season but it will now have to play home games away until early 2029, when the construction is expected to be finished, according to RBB24. The club is spending €190 million to expand its home stadium to 40,000 seats from 22,000.

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The news is already ridiculous. The Kee News makes it worse.

Five comedians bring brand-new jokes about this week's headlines, then let the audience throw news stories at them to riff on live. It's in English, this Saturday at 17:30 at The Wall Comedy Club.

Entry is free, but reserve a seat.

The cuffs are too tight, Andreas

The Berlin cop arresting you is most likely named either Andreas or Nicole, according to the Morgenpost. Those are the two most popular first names among Berlin’s 28,000 officers followed by Anja, Julia, Claudia and Sabine for female officers. For men it’s Thomas, Michael and Christian. Asking about first names is a loaded question in Germany since conservative (and often racist) politicians often call for the release of first names in high-profile cases in order to prove the perps aren’t German and/or come from immigrant families. In this case, I just thought it was funny.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

👷 VW’s engorged workforce

😟 Minorities fear AfD win in Saxony-Anhalt

👩‍🦳 Russia closing local Goethe Institutes

Factoid

The Funkturm, Berlin’s other television tower, turned 100 Thursday. It opened Sept. 3, 1926, complete with restaurant and visitor platform. The 146-meter tower transmitted its first radio show in 1926 and the first test television signals in 1929. It even transmitted the world’s first-ever TV show in 1932.

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🦋 20 Percent on Bluesky 🐘20 Percent on Mastadon 🧵 20 Percent on Threads 🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Spotify 🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Apple Podcasts

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