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#488: Ryanair shuns Berlin, Jewish group not "extreme", Spree swimming offensive

Maurice Frank — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 10:27:29 GMT

Flussbad Berlin’s plan to turn the Spree swimmable. See below.

Dear 20 Percent,

I was on the S-Bahn at the weekend. Two ticket inspectors entered the train and immediately identified their victims: a Dutch family of four that had a paper ticket but had failed to validate it.

“You have to now pay 60 euros,” one of the inspectors said in poor English.

“16 euros? One-six?”

“60 euros.”

“What for? We just arrived. We have a ticket.”

“You must validate your ticket. If I go to another country I must find this out. You must pay 60 euros.”

“We didn’t realise that. It wasn’t clear.”

Not exactly a great first impression of Berlin for tourists fresh off the plane.

I stood up and and walked over to the inspectors.

“Zeigen Sie doch ein wenig Kulanz!” I said, trying to stay calm. “Show a little goodwill!”

“We should show some goodwill?” the inspector said theatrically. Something had changed in his mood. He turned to the Dutch tourists and explained that he would make an exception just this once and they could validate their ticket at the next station without paying the fine.

The Kulanz thing can work with rigid bureaucrats too, sometimes. When you’re missing that document but urgently need the thing you applied for, try saying, “Please show a little Kulanz. Can you make an exception just this one time.”

Their heart might thaw and they might just grant you that exception — and they’re secretly pleased that they can show the world they’re a good person.

News below!

Maurice

💡Friday is May Day, a public holiday — the shops are closed (except for these ones).

from our partner

Berlin is full of people — and still lonely.

You’re surrounded by millions of people. Events, bars, meetups every night.

And yet, real friendships are hard to build.

Because Berlin is transient. People come and go. Connections don’t stick.

Inner Circle changes everything. You’re matched into a stable group of 8 expats who meet regularly — so relationships actually have time to grow.

Ryanair cuts flights

Just when tourism numbes are falling, Berlin gets another kick in the groin: Europe’s biggest airline is shutting down its Berlin operations base by the autumn and slashing the number of flights serving the capital by half from October. Annual passenger numbers are expected to drop from 4.5 million to 2.2 million. Ryanair exec Eddie Wilson blamed taxes and fees for the move: “German aviation is broken. The government admits that it is uncompetitive, yet there is no strategy to cut aviation taxes or high airport fees.” Dennis Dacke, an official at the Verdi trade union, accused Ryanair of treating its employees as “disposable commodities”. Isn’t that how they treat passengers? Perhaps the new international rail links expected this year can make up for lost travel options?

“Jewish Voice” group not “extreme”

Maybe this wasn’t great for tourism, either: In 2024, the Berlin-based group “Jüdische Stimme für gerechten Frieden in Nahost”, affiliated with “European Jews for a Just Peace”, was categorised as “confirmed extremist” by the “Office for the Protection of the Constitution”. An official report called the organisation an example of “secular pro-Palestinian extremism”. Why? Because the Federal Interior Minstry accuses the Jewish association of “indirectly inciting violence”. This was based on some very flimsy evidence: social media posts by a member that criticised, among other things, the Israel Defence Force (IDF). “Jüdische Stimme” fought the categorisation and won: A Berlin court said Monday there was “insufficient factual basis” to label the group “extreme.” Ach, Deutschland.

Urban swimmers up their game

Maybe this will attract some tourists: The Flussbad Berlin association is planning monthly demo-swims in the Spree at Museum Island this season, with the first action planned for May 20. The date is no coincidence: On May 20, 1925 Berlin banned innercity swimming for the first time. Flussbad Berlin spokesman Jan Edler said: “On most days of the year water quality is sufficient to swim in the Spree.” The group points to other cities that have opened up waterways to swimmers in recent years like Paris, Amsterdam and Copenhagen. Flussbad has also launched a water quality dashboard. The activists hope the local election on September 20 could result in a more swimming-friendly government. SPD, Greens and Die Linke favour lifting the bathing ban.

Another big exit

Even if we’re turning off the tourists, seems like we’ve still got some start-up juice in us. Talon.one, an “incentives tech” provider founded in 2015, has been sold to a Dutch payment app Adyen - for a cool €750 million. Talon.one makes software for loyalty programmes and such and employs 280 people in Berlin and 7 other locations. Yay for them.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

👨🏻‍🦲Merz: US ‘humiliated’ by Iran’s leadership

🇩🇪 Germany: 1 in 4 residents has ‘immigration history’

👩‍⚖️Pro-Palestine activists on trial for arms factory break-in

🛢️Putin mounts oil power play against Germany

Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin

🎞️ Hausfest — Neue Zukunft
Thursday, From 4 pm · Neue Zukunft, Laskerstr. 5, free admission
The Walpurgisnacht warm-up that does everything at once: two cinema screens (film festival showcase, GDR-era screenings, a Berlin Bahnhof documentary premiere), live bands in the garage and concert hall (Saeko Killy, KNAST, Bloodfang), a rave-punk musical, jazz bar, outdoor cinema, and Berliner Ringtheater performing A Wide Open Walpurgisnacht at 6 pm.

🖼️ Gallery Weekend Friday-Sunday
Sixty-plus exhibitions. These are the ones worth planning the weekend around. You can follow our highlights in this map.

🍻 Berghain Garteneröffnung Friday, noon–8 pm, free. Cinthie, Cormac, Ogazón. Garden season opens.

🎷 Nubiyan Twist live ★ [live]
Saturday, 7:30 pm · Gretchen, Kreuzberg · €28
The UK afro-jazz collective is at full force with horns, electronics, percussion, and rhythm that doesn't sit still. One of the most excellent live acts in the post-jazz orbit right now. 🎧 Chasing Shadows

Factoid

In the 1950s, under code name “Operation Gold”, the CIA and MI6 built a 430-meter tunnel from Rudow-Neukölln into East Berlin in order to tap into landlines linked to the Soviet Army headquarters at Karlshorst. The US recorded tens of thousands of conversations but the KGB knew about the project from the beginning thanks to their double agent George Blake. The Soviets waited till April 21, 1956 to officially “discover” the tunnel, to protect Blake.

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👮 Sex assaults up 8.5%, top cop says women should avoid men

🧑‍⚖️ 🏗️ #487: Antisemitism spat, failing commercial real estate, residential skyscraper

Andrew Bulkeley — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 11:16:18 GMT

Quartier 206: My first job in Berlin was in this gaudy, marbled mess (long live FT Deutschland). Photo: Jean-Pierre Dalbéra via CC2.0

Hey 20 Percent!

Sometimes we miss big news items, either because too much is going on, or because they’re too nuanced, or because we just miss them.

I wade into two today — there’s been a battle in the Berlin government for most of this year over possibly illegal subsidies to anti-antisemitism projects that have opposition politicians decrying cronyism in the current government, and today it finally claimed a victim. News below.

The second is a proposed 50-story residential tower at S-Bahn Warschauer Str. The building would be higher than the nearby 35-story Amazon tower but across the street near the station.

Neighbors as well as the district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg say the development is out of character for the area. Annoyed, Berlin stripped the district of planning authority and initiated approvals for developer Atrium Development GmbH.

It would have 1,000 new apartments, including 300 for low-income renters.

On the one hand, Berlin needs lots of new apartments. Now.

On the other, the area between Ostbahnhof and Warschauer Str. is such an urban planning nightmare and thoughtless collection of new construction that I want to side with the opponents.

Any thoughts? Let us know in the comments.

And have a good weekend!

Andrew

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Culture minister out over subsidies

The subsidy scandal: Berlin culture minister Sarah Wedl-Wilson (independent) Friday resigned after a government accounting office said €2.6 million in subsidies paid to anti-antisemitism projects last year may have been illegal, according to Tagesspiegel. The Berlin government has been investigating the subsidies after opposition politicians feared projects with ties to the conservative CDU had been favored. The accounting office said some of the 13 projects weren’t even legally eligible for subsidies. At least one politician pressured Wedl-Wilson to ignore internal rules and approve the payouts in WhatsApp chats — which she did, leading to her resignation. She’s the second culture minister in the current administration to resign.

Quartier failure

Are commerical property values finally starting to collapse in Berlin? The April 17 bankruptcy auction of the supposedly prestigious Quartier 206 mall and office building on Friedrichstraße had to be postponed for a week after the two bids were well-under expectations, according to RBB24. Bidders offered €40 million and €39 million for a building valued at €187 million. It has 8,000 sq/m of retail and 15,000 sq/m of office space, most of it empty. That stretch of Friedrichstraße adjacent to Gendarmenmarkt feels doomed after French department store Galeries Lafeyette (which was attached to Quartier 206 by a marbled subterranean tunnel) left in 2024, 28 years after it opened. An attempt to turn that stretch of Friedrichstr. into pedestrian-and-bike only also failed in 2023.

Landlord registry unlikely

A law proposed by the governing Berlin coalition would require all landlords to register their residential properties online including rent, amenities and size, according to tabloid B.Z. The information would then be reviewed by AI and any potential illegalities would be reported to prosecutors. The law has yet to be passed and while renter associations are in favor, urban development senator Christian Gaebler (SPD) admits the proposal is legally questionable — rental law is usually left to the federal government. Corporate landlord Haus & Grund said the proposal is also problematic because its only purpose is for landlords to provide evidence against themselves — a legal no-no.

Berlin landlords hate to share but you could share this newsletter! Don’t be like Berlin landlords.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🦅 German pols growing weary of hawkish Israel

👴 The Shah’s son was in Berlin

Factoid

In search of safe bike paths. Amen. Photo: Stefan Mueller via CC2.0.
Berlin has built progessively fewer new bike lanes over the past years and will only install 8.1 kilometers of new paths for Drahtesel (wire donkeys) this year, according to Tagesspiegel (paywall). The city-state installed 26 kilometers of new paths in 2023 and then 24 in 2024. Last year they managed 20. Next year?

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#486: Rents down, crime down, tourism down?

Maurice Frank — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 11:18:21 GMT

The winners of last week’s 20% Berlin News Quiz with yours truly. Thanks to everyone who showed up at Electric Social! More events coming in May.

Dear 20 Percent,

A shimmer of hope on the rental market: Economic think tank IfW says asking rents in Berlin were 1.8% lower in the first quarter of this year compared to Q4 in 2025.

Does this this small drop reflect the latest wave of Berlin disillusionment? It feels like on social media and in the press, Berlin hype has flipped into Berlin skepticism, even Berlin hate. Endless reports of trash, crime, homelessness, bureaucracy, high prices and bad weather could be finally leaving their mark. Tourism is down (see below). Of course, this is pure speculation. Other factors could be falling refugee numbers — or the economy is stagnant and that people just can’t afford rents. At least Harry Styles still likes it here.

So do I. Berlin’s so not over. Especially in spring when the sky is blue and all the city’s extraordinary people — you! — come outside to inhale some Berliner Luft.

More news below.

Maurice

🎙️Episode #32 of the 20% Berlin Podcast has dropped!

from our partner

Berlin is full of people — and still lonely.

You’re surrounded by millions of people. Events, bars, meetups every night.

And yet, real friendships are hard to build.

Because Berlin is transient. People come and go. Connections don’t stick.

Inner Circle changes everything. You’re matched into a stable group of 8 expats who meet regularly — so relationships actually have time to grow.

Crime down on transport but not all crime

BVG reports that the number of crimes reported on buses, trams and U-Bahns fell by 16% in 2025. Violent crime fell slightly but the number of sexual harassment offences rose to 314. On Monday, BVG boss Henrik Falk announced AI surveillance was now being used in 13 stations, including the infamous Kottbusser Tor. The AI cameras automatically detect unauthorised persons in off-limits areas such as tunnels and tracks. Transport minister Ute Bonde said the technology improves passengers’ subjective sense of safety. BVG wants to expand AI surveillance to platforms as well after consulting with Berlin’s data protection officer. Bonde said she opposed introducing women-only cars on the U-Bahn, an idea that has been floated by Green politicians in reaction to the increase in sexual offences.

New evidence in serial murder case

New evidence has emerged in the trial of palliative care doctor Johannes M who stands accused of murdering at least 15 people as a hospice doctor in Berlin. The suspect has been in investigative custody since August 2024. A judge authorised the police to record his phone calls to his wife. The doc allegedly injected patients with lethal doses of muscle relaxant and claims he received their verbal permission to do so. Defence lawyer Christoph Stoll said the phone calls revealed the “moral” motive behind the killings. “The telephone conversations will paint a very different picture from the one on which the prosecution based its indictment.”

More hotels?

The tourism sector isn’t growing but more hotels are being planned. Answering an enquiry by local Green politicians, the city government says 116 hotel construction projects with a total of 8,100 beds are in various stages of planning. Half of those beds would be in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg if they actually get built; alone 2,600 would be in a single hostel in a converted office building on Rudi-Dutschke-Straße. News of the new hotel plans comes as Berlin reports falling overnight stays. In 2025 hotels registered 29.4 million stays, down by 1.2 million over 2024.

Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin

💿 Kruder & Dorfmeister
Wednesday, 8 pm. Huxleys Neue Welt, Hasenheide 107–113, Neukölln. €60
Kruder & Dorfmeister made 🎧 The K&D Sessions in 1998 and it still sounds better than most things made since.

🖼️ Ruin and Rush: Berlin 1910–1930
Friday, Opening: 4 pm · Neue Nationalgalerie, Potsdamer Str. 50, Tiergarten. Free admission to the opening, exhibition runs till 03.01.2027 · Tue–Sun 10–18h. €14/7
Kirchner, Grosz, Hannah Höch, Otto Dix. Berlin's Weimar years in all their violence and glamour. Emancipation, poverty, queer life and the end of everything. The right exhibition at the right moment.

🪩 Else Opening x Floorplan
Friday, 4 pm - 8 am · Else, Treptow · €17-25
Robert Hood opens the Else season as Floorplan. Detroit techno royalty doing the gospel-house project with his daughter Lyric. 16 hours straight, start in daylight.

🎹 Interwoven — aus & Ken Isoda
Saturday, 6 pm (doors 5 pm) · Atemporal, Friedrichshain · €5 · 30 seats, RSVP required
The Japanese ambient canon, one hour, thirty chairs. A guided listen to Interwoven, the new album pairing Japanese producer aus with Ken Isoda. Piano, soft synths, field recordings, flute passing through. On Atemporal's hi-fi with commentary by Teshi.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🗡️Crime down, murder and sex crimes up

🇷🇺 Germany summons Russian ambassador

📈More trade with Brazil

🔎Nazi party search engine

Factoid

Photo: Istvan, CC-by-sa

East Berlin’s Palast der Republik officially opened its doors 50 years ago on April 23, 1976. The blocky, glass-clad building contructed on the site of the war-damaged, demolished city palace was an innovative combo: entertainment venue with concert hall, galleries, restaurants, clubs, gym, bowling alley — and seat of the Volkskammer, the GDR’s toothless parliament. In the 1980s even western acts like Tangerine Dream and Santana performed here. After the reunification of Berlin in 1990, campaigners pushed for its destruction, and reconstruction of the Stadtschloss, now home to the Humboldt Forum museum. In my view, obliterating such a central East Geman landmark and erasing part of that history was a big mistake. A relaunched Palast der Republik could have been much cooler and interesting than the poor replica of a Prussian baroque palace we’re stuck with now.

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#32: Union's female coach, failing referendums, murderous doctor

Andrew Bulkeley — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 08:25:43 GMT

We spend too much time complaining about things we hate in Berlin like cars and smokers but ultimately praise the place because it’s becoming more international. Bears’ knees: Monster Ronson and the Gardens of the World

🏳️‍🌈🔫 #485: Gärten der Welt robbery, two-day CSD, card-only BVG

Andrew Bulkeley — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 10:39:58 GMT

A windfall for the Gärten and some crooks alike. Photo: Ole Bader/Gärten der Welt

Hey 20 Percent!

My lawyer will be very disappointed. Just as I was readying my Untätigkeitsklage (suit for inaction) the Ausländerbehörde wrote and asked for a few more documents for my Einbürgerung (naturalization). Because to be born again as a German, you first have to drown in paperwork.

Most notably they want updated financial information, which seems unfair — they’re the a̶s̶s̶h̶o̶l̶e̶s̶ bureaucrats who dragged their feet on my application. They should have to go with the information I submitted last summer.

The only one benefitting from all of this is my accountant.

So, there’s finally some movement. Good news heading into what’s looking to be a spring weekend — enjoy it!

Andrew

Many thanks to our new sponsor, the Berlin-wide game TGNG. More from them below!

Garden-level robbery

Four armed robbers burst into an office building at the Gärten der Welt in Marzahn Tuesday at 1.20am and stole more than €100,000 in cash, according to the Morgenpost. The group threatened the two security guards on duty with a handgun and a crowbar before assaulting them and making off with the funds, which was being stored after the weekend’s cherry blossom festival. The two guards were transported to the hospital and officials say the suspects spoke German with Russian accents. Odd that they knew there was so much cash on-hand.

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Card-only public transport

Your Späti and Döner stand may only accept cash but BVG ticket machines in stations have accepted only credit cards for the past few days, according to Tagesspiegel. A technical glitch has made it impossible for the machines to accept cash but it’s unclear when they will be repaired. Alexander Kaczmarek (CDU), Berlin’s top public transport official, would rather do away with the costly machines, since only 1% of travelers now board without a ticket thanks to the Deutschland-Ticket und other discount monthly tickets. The BVG operates 665 ticket machines in our city while the S-Bahn has 500. Deutsche Bahn operates an additional 518 of the confusing machines in Berlin. They cost between €20,000 and €40,000 each and require millions each year in maintenance and repair.

CSD for days

It was called CSD weekend anyway — Christopher Street Day Berlin will now officially be extended to Friday, July 24, the day before the parade, according to RBB24. The extra day will be used for an evening protest at Brandenburg Gate — the entire event this year will encourage people to vote since our government is up for election in September. The parade will take place on July 25. I’m a big fan but always had more fun at the more cozy lesbian and gay city festival in Schöneberg, this year on July 18 and 19.

Not so foxy

Think Berlin’s urban foxes are cute? Not always — Reinickendorf says one of their furry residents killed a dog last weekend and has regularly attacked canines, both on and off leash, according to RBB24. The fox lurks around the intersection of Bruseberg and Klamann streets. The district recommends keeping dogs on-leash in the area.

You shouldn’t share your food with Berlin wildlife but you could share this issue with your friends (or enemies, we don’t care).

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

💩 THE AFD IS GERMANY’S MOST POPULAR PARTY

🐋 Can the Baltic whale be saved?

🩺 Healthcare reform is coming

Factoid

You can smell it just by looking at it. Photo: onnola via CC2.0

I’ve stopped using the Ordnungsamt app to report trash (it felt too Karen-y) but Neukölln residents last year submitted the most reports, which doesn’t necessarily mean the trendy district is Berlin’s dirtiest. Residents there submitted 31,139 reports, according to Tagesspiegel, ahead of the 30,458 in Mitte. Coming in third was (predictably) Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg at 23,987. Marzahn-Hellersdorf was last with just 5,227 reports. State-owned sanitation company BSR gathered 60,000 cubic meters of illegally dumped trash last year, netting it €13.1 million of our tax money.

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#484: First female coach, illegal ads, May 1 demo

Maurice Frank — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:12:32 GMT

Me, desperate for spring to arrive

Dear 20 Percent,

The other day I posted something about the next 20% Berlin News Quiz this Wednesday (get your tickets for €4 here) and someone commented:

“Why would anyone want this? I have enough panic attacks reading news in the peace of my bed.”

“Fair enough,” I replied. “It’s really just local news stuff about quirky things in Berlin. Not the global shitshow.”

News fatigue is real in a messed up era like our own. Here at 20% Berlin we try to carefully select stories Andrew and I feel are relevant to your lives or could at least keep you sufficiently informed about local affairs without overwelming you with a deluge of bad news.

So please help us out:

Always feel free to comment below or simply reply to this email with feedback.

Or join our What’s App Group to connect with other readers (spammers will be blocked instantly).

Or just show up to my quiz Wednesday and chat in person.

News below.

Maurice

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Illegal Lieferando ads

Usually, it’s just drug dealers with a QR code linking to a Telegram account or sketchy used car sellers that cover lampposts and fences with illegal advertising. But this time it’s a large company: Food delivery app Lieferando has been busted hanging up posters across Mitte, according to BZ. Advertising on lampposts is verboten — except for political campaign ads before elections, posters promoting citizen’s referendums and circuses (because of their long history in Berlin!). A spokesperson for Mitte said: “The Ordnungsamt has already launched an investigation. As this is an ongoing case, we are unable to provide any further details. The standard fine for illegal flyposting is 200 euros.” Liederando, which can probably shoulder that fine easily, says it has begun taking down the posters.

Berlin copies sustainable travel concept

Visit Berlin says it’s launching its new BerlinPay programme this summer, a copy of the CopenPay scheme pioneered by the Danish capital. BerlinPay will gamify people’s stay and nudge tourists to perform virtuous tasks like cleaning up trash or getting engaged in a social projects. Visitors can earn little rewards or discounts at partner companies. This year the focus will be on “water tourism” — and here I can wholeheartedly recommend Green Kayak (another idea that began in Copenhagen), where you get to paddle in the Spree River for free if you promise to pick trash out of the water. Really fun!

May day demo route

In Berlin, the kids get to play revolution once a year — one of the things that makes Kreuzberg so fun and liveable. The organisers behind the “Revolutionary May 1st Demo” have announced the route of the traditional and often rowdy anarcho-leftist-antifacist May Day march. It begins, as usual, on Oranienplatz, weaves its way through SO36 and northern Neukölln, ending at Südkreuz. The route deliberately passes Görlitzer Park. The organisers are not happy about the park being closed at night and have promised “actions” on May 1. Maybe park your Tesla elsewhere that day.

⛽ Government announces fuel tax cut and tax-free worker bonus

Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin

🎭 Leila Hekmat: Roses Rising – The Dinner
Wed- Sat, 15-18.04, 8 pm (Friday at 7 pm). HAU1, Stresemannstraße 29, Kreuzberg. €15-38
Four guests at a decadent dinner table, hopes for collective action unraveling into delusion. Handcrafted costumes, live music, baroque satire.

🎸 The Twilight Sad
Thursday, 16.04, 8 pm. Gretchen, Obentrautstraße 19–21, Kreuzberg. €35.
Scottish duo James Graham and Andy MacFarlane present It's The Long Goodbye, their first album on Mogwai's Rock Action label. Visceral guitar rock built around dark subject matter and a rare kind of catharsis.

🖼️ Affordable Art Fair Berlin
Thu–Sun 16–19.04. Arena Berlin, Eichenstraße 4, Alt-Treptow. €15–22
If you want to browse, not just look. Works under €10,000, 70+ galleries.

⚛️ Echoes in Orbit
Friday, 17.04, 9:30 – 11 pm. Zeiss Großplanetarium, Prenzlauer Allee 80, Prenzlauer Berg. €29
Live microscopy showing fluids, particles, and physical processes filmed in real time via ZEISS optics and projected across the full dome. Tara Nome Doyle (voice) and Sofi Paez (electronics) perform alongside. 90 minutes.

🪩 REEF 10 YEARS
Friday, 17.04, 10 pm – 6 am. Berghain / Panorama Bar, Am Wriezener Bahnhof 70, Friedrichshain. €25-27
Ten years of Reef end this year, three editions left after tonight. Calibre, RP Boo, Skee Mask, Dangermami, Marylou, Siete Catorce. The event series that tracked the intersection of UK bass, IDM, and techno is now in its final stretch.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

😬 The AfD’s radical manifesto for Saxony-Anhalt

🖕Germans see decline in public manners

😬 Merz’s reactionary culture guy

Factoid

Marie-Louise Eta has been promoted to head coach of eastside football team 1. FC Union Berlin, becoming the first ever female coach of a men’s Bundesliga squad — and the first woman to coach a men’s football team in the the top-five European leagues. Unsurprisingly, Eta has been targetted by sexist abuse online since her appointment. Union’s Head of Football Horst Held had her back: “We have 100 percent confidence in Louise, complete conviction. I find it insane that we have to deal with this [sexism] in this day and age. We’re talking about a highly competent leader here, and you can be sure that everyone here at Union, whether in the stands or within the club itself, stands 100 percent behind this decision.” Eta will hold the post at least until the end of the season. She was given the top job after the sacking of Steffen Baumgart in the wake of a 3-1 loss to FC Heidenheim on Saturday. Union hasn’t had a great season, and are just 11th in the Bundesliga.

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#483: Flower pot death, Indian deportations, a new ferry

Andrew Bulkeley — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 10:40:02 GMT

Me, in a sea of readers (thanks WahlheYmat!). Photo: WahlheYmat

Hello 20 Percent!

Big thanks to those that came to the Wahlheymat talk on Wednesday. Very good feedback as well as a reminder as to why we do this — helping you stay informed about Berlin. And a special shout out to those that asked questions or chatted with me afterward.

In this working from home era, I’m always surprised how nice and useful it is to also meet in person.

Enjoy the weekend— it’s supposed to get into the teens this weekend (or ‘50s and ‘60s for the celsius-impaired).

Andrew

PS: The latest episode of our podcast is out. It was delayed by Jesus. I probably complain too much about Friedrichshain. And Maurice’s 20% Berlin News Quiz at Electric Social near Alexanderplatz is next Wednesday. Grab a ticket!

Man killed by falling flower pot

A 61-year-old man was killed Monday in Gesundbrunnen after he was struck by a flower pot that fell off a balcony, according to RBB24. Wind is suspected of dislodging the pot, and, at the risk of sounding callous, this terrible accident is a good example of why having Haftpflichtversicherung (liability insurance) is a key component of life in Germany. Should a court rule that the renter was negligent in not securing the pot, the renter could be held finanically liable — though courts could also rule that the wind was an act of god an no one is responsible, a lawyer told the site. An insurance company would help in the legal tussle to make that determination.

The Spandau Express?

Maurice said in our podcast that he loves a restaurant ship on the Havel river and BVG will soon launch a tender for a pilot ferry project on the same waterway to help ease the traffic bottleneck from Berlin’s most-maligned suburb into town. According to Tagesspiegel, the ferry would ship commuters between the new Waterkant residential development and Wröhmännerpark, a name only advanced German speakers can pronounce. The ships are expected to carry up to 1,000 passengers a day. It would do little more than get people across the Havel but maybe that’s the issue in Spandau. The BVG operates about half a dozen ferries, including the F24, which is just a rowboat.

Just pee in the bushes then?

One pilot project begins, another ends: 16 of 24 test composting toilets in Berlin parks were removed in March following a three-year test, according to RBB24. The project was originally set to run for just a year but was so popular that it was extended. The parks department will also launch a tender in hopes of getting public toilets — with better accessibility — in more parks by next year. In case you want to test one, the remaining toilets are:

Lichtenberg: Naturerfahrungsraum Herzberge
Mitte: Kulturforum
Steglitz-Zehlendorf: Stadtpark Steglitz, Lauenburger Platz playground
Tempelhof-Schöneberg: Cheruskerpark, Heinrich-Lassen-Park
Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg: Engelwiese Alt-Stralau
Treptow-Köpenick: Wuhlheide an der Treskowallee

Students face deportation

At least 200 Indian students had had their visas revoked by Jan. 1 because they incorrectly signed up for online university classes rather than a full-time classroom program in Berlin, according to the Forschung & Lehre trade publication. But courts have yet to fully clarify the rule requiring in-person schooling and have at least partially ruled that if students are enrolled in an online program but attend some classes in Berlin, they may still be eligible for education visas. The problem has arisen with at least eight different private universities in Germany — students often pay up to €20,000 per year for the classes and risk being sent home anyway.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🗣️ The end of the SPD?

🗞️ Über-publisher Axel Springer’s US ambitions

🍺 A Lidl … PUB😮?

👶 One-in-five young Germans want out

Factoid

Subways always look better from above. Photo: Tenzin Peljor

The BVG had planned to buy 1,500 new subways by 2035 to boost the frequency of subterranean trains to one every 3.3 minutes during peak hours but may now cut that order in half, according to Tagesspiegel (paywall). The current target of one subway every four minutes at peak is sufficient, transportation officials claim, because fewer people are commuting thanks to working-from-home. The public transport service would then just need to buy 768 new trains from nearby train maker Stadler — it has budgeted €1.16 billion for new subways by 2035, rather than a previous €1.9 billion. It may also extend the service life of some trains bought in the ‘90s to maintain that goal.

📯 📯 📯 Postkutsche (reader mail) 📯 📯 📯

Jillian York is the reader I wanted to point out with the excellent book about how internet giants control what we read.

I think I'm the writer you mentioned, and my book is Silicon Values :)

And the latest on what floor is the ground floor from yet another reader:

A small note that Norway can also be added to the list of countries where the ground floor is considered the first floor :)

🔗 🔗 🔗 Useful links 🔗 🔗 🔗

Get on the Wedium wait list here.

#31: Legionnaires', CASH ONLY, Instagram bans, escalators still broke

Andrew Bulkeley — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 08:15:18 GMT

Maurice likes some restaurant ship in Spandau and Andrew's into a little bar in Friedrichshain

#482: Mandatory card acceptance, dodgy water, homegrown social network, escalators

Maurice Frank — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 10:59:43 GMT

Spargelzeit is upon us and a Brandenburg football team has been vandalising my neighbourhood with its asparagus stickers.

Hi there!

I hope you got through Easter weekend in one piece. My kids and I overdosed on chocolate, thanks to an over-generous bunny.

Today, some interesting news from the world Berlin start-ups: a new short-video platform called Wedium.

“Bot-free, fake-news-free, kids-safe, data-protective and made in Europe for Europe.”

So far, so good.

It’s a tough market to crack, though, considering the addictive nature of the big players’ products and the network effects baked into social networks.

That hasn’t fazed Wedium co-founder Nele Meissner: “Setting up and running a social network isn’t rocket science, and it’s affordable too.”

I’m not sure about the brand name but I love the attitude.

They really want to compete with the toxic giants from California. Berlin needs more of this kind of ambition.

And, in case you’re up for more radical action against the dominance of big tech, Berlin’s got you covered with the Cables of Resistance festival at the end of the week.

And for some more light-hearted fun and competition, I’ll be back with another 20% Berlin News Quiz at Electric Social near Alexanderplatz next Wednesday. It could be the last one in a while, so grab a ticket! I’d love to see you there.

Maurice

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Contaminated tapwater

The latest story on deadbeat Berlin landlords: Residents in a building owned by the Adler Group in Lichtenrade in southern Berlin have been told they can’t shower thanks to legionella bacteria found in the water, reports Tagesspiegel (paywall). Around 900 units are affected. The bacteria can cause legionnaire’s disease — a potentially lethal lung infection — especially in people with compromised immune systems. Adler told the paper it had informed the Tempelhof-Schöneberg health authority about the finding but that office said it hadn’t received any news from the corporate landlord. According to Tagesspiegel, Adler has repeatedly popped up in the news for negleccting to perform basic maintenance.

Escalators fixed?

Speaking of maintance and its systematic neglect: The faulty escalators at Hauptbahnhof are finally up and running again. A Deutsche Bahn spokesperson said: “According to our information, there are no longer any significant clusters of escalator malfunctions in Berlin or across the country.” I encountered two broken escalators on my commute this morning — both in DB-run S-Bahn stations. Not exactly a cluster and, besides, I’ve gotta get my steps in. So fine. I guess.

Berlin for mandatory card acceptance

The CDU-SPD coalition running the city wants to require retail and food/bev businesses to accept at least one digital payment method. The hope is that more card payments would reduce tax evasion. Berlin is lobbying the other 15 German states to sign up to the idea. Local CDU politician Dirk Stegener said: “I can’t think of any other reason why someone would insist on cash payments other than to avoid paying tax.” Only 1% of Berlin’s 80,000 cash businesses have their cash recordkeeping inspected by tax authorities every year. Lost tax revenues go into the double-digit billions of euros annually, according to estimates.

Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin

🎸 glider
Thursday, 09.04, 6 pm – 11:30 pm. Ikii, Herrfurthplatz 8. Free
Nick Höppner and Bill Santoro celebrate a life-changing moment with spacey, reverb-soaked guitar floaters. Bean bags, rugs, semi-repose. Ambient drift, shoegaze edges; Höppner off the decks and into fuzz.

👗Sisyphos Frühlings-Flohmarkt
Friday 10.04, 6 pm – 2 am; Sat–Sun 11–12.04, 2 pm onwards. Sisyphos, Hauptstraße 15. Free entrance.
Spring flea market spread across three days at Sisyphos with vintage, oddities, food, and drinks. Sunday closes with the afterparty from 8 pm.

🔊 Tresor meets Resonance of Dub
Friday, 10.04, 11 pm – 12 pm. Tresor / Globus, Köpenickerstrasse 70, Mitte, 10179. €22
Globus handed to Resonance of Dub with DJ Sotofett and Gilb'R playing across twelve hours. Two encyclopedic selectors deep in dub, echo and sound system culture. Tresor floor with Ireen Amnes, Mary Lake and Matrixxman.

🥁 Mohammad Reza Mortazavi
Sunday, 12.04, 8 pm (arrive by 7 pm). Between Bridges, Adalbertstraße 43. Donation (€15 suggested) - RSVP is needed here.
Iranian virtuoso who invented over thirty new techniques for tombak and daf — Philharmonie, Panthéon, Sydney Opera House on his CV. Here in an intimate room at Wolfgang Tillmans' space, RSVP only. Persian percussion bridging classical rhythm and contemporary sonic meditation.

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🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🪖 Germany looks to soften controversial military registration law

🤖 Penguin to sue OpenAI over ChatGPT version of German children’s book

🦔 Mayors want to ban nighttime robo-mowers to protect hedgehogs

🛕 Germany’s new religious diversity

☀️ Germany is a leader in plug-in solar

Factoid

US radio DJ and local legend Rik de Lisle has passed away at the age of 79. The ur-expat moved to West Berlin in 1978 as a discjockey for AFN, a station catering to US troops. There he was known for starting his early-morning show with the words: “I’m Air Force Sergeant Rik de Lisle – reminding you that rock’n roll is just a state of mind.” After the US withdrew its forces from Berlin, de Lisle stayed in the city and worked for several German stations. His final post was at Berliner Rundfunk 91.4. The “alter Ami” — loved for his strong American accent in German — hosted a morning show at the station until last December.

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🐇🚀 #481: Artemis 2 and Berlin, Uber buy, Sex-positive Insta ban

Andrew Bulkeley — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 11:20:56 GMT

Happy holidays, y’all! Photo: Kai Schreiber via CC2.0.

Hi gang —

Welcome to the Jesus season, when we celebrate an ancient Harry Potter and his friends (one of whom is somehow just the ancient Harry Potter as a ghost).

Luckily, it means lots of days off but also closed shops, including today (Friday) and Monday. We have our list of what’s open when everything’s closed to help you survive.

Enjoy your holiday weekend and see you Tuesday!

Andrew

PS: I’ll be on a panel about English-language media in Berlin at 6pm April 8 at the Amerikanische Gedenkbibliothek. I’ll be talking about why we do this (because of you readers, duh). The event is free and there’s networking afterward! I don’t think I’ve ever networked.

PPS: Please give this issue’s sponsors a gander: balcony-scapers Easy Bee Berlin and flat-hunters Get the Flat.

Berlin on the moon

You know that Artemis 2 moon mission? A Berlin startup is onboard. The Tacheles satellite from Charlottenburg-based Neurospace will be released into the earth’s orbit as part of the mission, according to Der Spiegel (paywall). The satellite will test gear intended for the company’s HiveR moon rover that it hopes will be used in future moon missions. The satellite is named after the former Tacheles squat and art space in Mitte that is now little more than a gaudy tourist trap. Neurospace founder Irene Selvanathan came to Berlin in 1985 with her family, who were fleeing a civil war in Sri Lanka. She said she picked the name because she wanted to send a piece of Berlin into space, not the “tired name of some Greek god”. Amen.

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Yet another startup sold

Did you say Startup? Ride share giant Uber agreed to buy Berlin luxury chauffeur service Blacklane this week to expand into high-priced chauffeuring. Uber didn’t say how much it will pay but a 2024 financing valued Blacklane at €500 million, according to Wirtschaftswoche. The service was started in 2011 and now includes über-German financier Carsten Marschmeyer, Mercedes-Benz and several Gulf funds among its owners. Two stories about startups in one newsletter? Probably says something about the maturity of Berlin’s entrepreneurial scene.

Not-so-free speech for KitKat and Insomnia

My home country (US of A) may love to make noises about freedom of speech but its companies love to enforce its puritanical underbelly: KitKatClub and Insomnia had their Instagram pages taken offline this week by über social media company Meta, according to RBB24. The sex-positive clubs were accused of violating community standards but were offered little other information. Kitkat was able to get its page back but Insomnia’s main is still down and is relying on a backup site — it said its discussing its options with a lawyer. Insomnia is annoyed as as it regularly uses the platform for ticketing. Insta has become an unavoidable information site for businesses (we’re trying to do more on ours, for example). Actually, didn’t one of our readers write a book about this topic (remind me and I’ll gladly give a shout out)?

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🥦 The muddled truth about weed in Germany

👴 Nobody likes Merz

🐳 Things are not looking good for the whale

Factoid

AI’s interpretation of Good Friday in Berlin.

Dancing is officially VERBOTEN on Good Friday in Germany because of the whole Jesus thing but Berlin has the most liberal interpretation of the ban — swinging your hips to loud music is not allowed between 4am and 9pm, which is pretty much when clubbers aren’t dancing anyway. And, like most laws in Berlin, no one’s really enforcing that one either. In the past, many code enforcement officers weren’t around to even do their jobs because (wait for it) it’s a holiday, according to an older Morgenpost article. Officers in Neukölln have also never actually found a violation when they looked — Schrödinger’s dance ban?

📯 📯 📯 Postkutsche (reader mail) 📯 📯 📯

Reader Hawley MacLean had this to say about my comment on whether a first floor is a first floor:

Great content! thanks for the newsletter. Just wanted to give you a note that Russians also use the 1st floor = ground floor like us (commonalities in the most unexpected places)

*We love reader mail so feel free to comment below or write with comments, criticism and compliments.

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An ad for a campaign to ban ads

#480: 📈Jobs up, 📉butter down, explosion, Syrian visitor

Maurice Frank — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 10:44:24 GMT

Dear 20 Percent,

Because it’s Easter, this coming Friday and Monday are public holidays, which means closed shops Friday, Sunday and Monday. If you do need to get groceries on those days, here’s our guide to what’s open when nothing’s open.

Last week, I sadly had to cancel my pub quiz due to sickness… but I’ll be back with a fresh 20% Berlin News Quiz at Electric Social near Alexanderplatz in two weeks, on Wedesday, April 15th. 🎟️Get your tickets🎟️

20% off ends tomorrow (1 April)

Our new Syrian friend…

Syrian president and ex-Al-Qaeda member Ahmed al-Sharaa was in town Monday — visiting Chancellor Merz and other big shot politicians. Merz has a twin agenda: getting as many Syrian refugees to return to their homeland — and drumming up some business for German firms that could be involved in rebuilding Syria after that country’s devastating civil war. Protesters voiced outrage over the meeting and its agenda in several demonstrations: Refugee advocacy organisation Berliner Flüchtlingsrat, held a protest in Tiergarten under the slogan “No deportation deals with human rights abusers”. Meanwhile, a group of demonstrators at Hauptbahnhof expressed support for al-Sharaa.

Machete-Nazis

About 15 years ago, a skinhead chased me down the street with a machete after a minor dispute related to his SUV. Terrifying experience. Enough about me. Last week, two 19-year-olds were being verbally harrassed by two men outside leftwing bar Supamolly in Friedrichshain when one of the men pulled out a machete and hit both young people. The woman suffered a serious cut in her arm and had to be hospitalised. In case you were wondering whether they were really neo-Nazis: The suspects shouted “Sieg Heil!” before disappearing. Recent years have seen a resurgence of neo-Nazi violence in “left-wing” neighbourhoods, taz reports.

Explosion in Schöneberg

A hobbyist bombmaker or what? An explosion in a fourth floor apartment in Schöneberg triggered a fire in the entire building on Monday — making it largely uninhabitable. Rear parts of the building could collapse, say authorities. Social services have been tasked with finding new accommodations for affected residents. The cops are investigating on suspicion of aggravated arson.

Jobs up, butter down

Unemployment fell in March. According to the latest official stats, 224,081 people were registered unemployed in the city, 2,800 fewer than in February. The jobless rate fell by 0.1 percentage points to 10.5%, up from 10.2% at the same time last year. Meanwhile, according to the Berlin-Brandenburg Statistics Office, the inflation rate nudged up to 2.5% in March up from 2% in February— thanks to rising petrol prices, thanks to Trump’s Iran war. Silver lining: Butter is 22.9% cheaper than a year ago.

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Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin

🖼️ Marlow Moss: Creating Space
Opening: Wednesday, 01.04, from 6 pm. Georg Kolbe Museum, Sensburger Allee 25, Westend. €8.
First major show in Germany. Born Marjorie, he lived as Marlow. He was queer, Jewish, a constructivist. Influenced Mondrian, was credited as his follower. History is catching up.

🪩 Experimental Broadcast
Friday, 03.04, 11:30 pm – 7 am. Fitzroy, Holzmarktstr. 15, Mitte. €15
Grime-rooted night built on raw textures featuring Renata, Sara Persico, rubbishhh, Miri Malek, AMMNEJAH. The party moves through breakbeat, d&b and footwork.

🎺BIXIGA 70 *live
Saturday, 04.04, 7:30 pm – 11 pm. Gretchen, Obentrautstr. 19–21, Kreuzberg. €28
São Paulo big band translating afrobeat, cumbia, funk and spiritual jazz into a sweating, horn-heavy live show. Collective composition, polyrhythmic precision. Seven albums deep and still untouchable on stage. 🎧 Vapor

🎸 Hexvessel + Aluk Todolo + Nihil Nihil
Monday, 06.04, 8 pm – 1 am. Urban Spree, Revaler Str. 99, Friedrichshain. €25
Finnish occult folk meets French avant black metal noise. Hexvessel's nature mysticism and Aluk Todolo's hypnotic, repetitive intensity make for a rare double bill. Nihil Nihil returns to Berlin after a decade. Not for everyone.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

✈️ Merz: Most Syrian refugees will return home within three years

😨 Germany grapples with decline fears

🚘 Speed limit? Nein, danke!

🚒 Fire rips through German nightclub

🐋 Humpback whale still stranded

Factoid

Another indicator that the city’s housing market is seriously dyfunctional: According to data from crowdfunding platform GoFundMe analysed by Tagesspiegel, the number of campaigns posted by Berliners seeking financial help with housing costs has doubled over the last two years. A third of all Berlin-based GoFundMe appeals are linked to keywords like “rent”, “utility charges”, “homeless”, “eviction” and “housing shortage”. Tagesspiegel identifed 1,073 such campaigns that raised a total of €722,945 in 2025, up from €576,302 in 2024 and €266,163 in 2023. Meanwhile, a separate analysis of the housing market found that a third of flats on offer are being rented for a whopping €21.50 / square metre (“cold”, before side costs). High time the city government stepped in and did something to get some more housing built.

Finally: the prediction markets have discovered Berlin’s local election in September and seem to believe mayor Kai Wegner’s CDU will win. Betting verboten in Germany, btw.

🔗 🔗 🔗 Useful links 🔗 🔗 🔗

⚽ St. Pauli coach outs himself, criticizes pro football

#479: Neukölln fire, unreported sex assaults, Wegner apology

Andrew Bulkeley — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 10:58:32 GMT

Rave or firefighting? Photo: Berliner Feuerwehr

Hey all —

Lots of news today so I’ll keep it brief: Indivisible Berlin and American Voices Abroad are organizing the third No Kings protest Saturday at 2pm at Babelplatz. So much to protest these days — would be nice if politicians (both US and German) would start listening.

The half-marathon is Sunday. Your best transport bet is the subway or your own feet (including yer bike).

Have a good weekend!

Andrew

Neukölln fire

If you, like our WhatsApp group, wondered what all the emergency services hullabaloo was about in Neukölln Thursday, it was a fire in a courtyard building that officials had feared would turn into a mass casualty event, according to the fire department itself. A fire in a third-floor (or fourth if you’re American) apartment spread into the attic and adjacent flats, prompting first responders to force their way into a number of apartments to look for possible victims. One resident was discovered with life-threatening — and another with minor — injuries. One interesting detail that highlights the German compulsion for order: Apparently a wardrobe truck was in use to allow firefighters to change out of their dirty clothes. Ordnung muss sein (order is a must)!

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Supervisors failed to react to sex assault

Both a childrens services councillor in Neukölln as well as the director of a youth center on Wutzkyallee are under police investigation for obstruction of justice after they failed to inform police about two alleged sexual assaults on minors by other minors at the center last year, according to Tagesspiegel. Two employees of the center are also under investigation for refusing to render aid. Officials from both the center and Neukölln’s government allegedly didn’t want to report the crime because it would reflect badly on migrant youths, who are already under fire from conservative and right-wing politicians. At least one of the victims turned to the Madonna Girls Center for help, who then informed the center of the crimes.

No more BVG strikes (probably)

Yellow public transport provider BVG and union Verdi have likely reached a fresh labor agreement, ending the need for more strikes, according to Tagesspiegel. An announcment on the new contract for BVG’s 16,500 employees is expected any minute. Hopefully the contract covers more than just a year, which would mean the spectre of strikes would be off the table until it expires. For BVG at least. The union wants more minimum down time between shifts and more vacation days as well as more vacation pay.

Mayor Wegner is sorry(-ish)

And, in election news: Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) apologized to Berliners (ergo: us) for failing to communicate properly about how he acted during the early hours of a blackout in southeastern Berlin Saturday, Jan. 3, according to BZ. After first claiming to have been at his desk from about 8 in the morning coordinating, it has gradually come out that he played tennis for an hour, took his dog for a walk and didn’t make the phone calls to other offices he claimed to have made. He also had to answer piercing questions Thursday during a city council meeting — he chose his words carefully because it’s an election year and things aren’t looking good for him.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🐳 Heavy equipment frees Baltic whale

🤵‍♀️ Politicians call for change after celebrity porn assault

Factoid

It’s a Jeff Koons piece that was once at Hamburger Bahnhof photographed by Marc Wathieu.

Berlin will be one of 16 European cities that will host a European NBA basketball team starting in 2027, according to the Morgenpost (paywall). The US pro league has already lined up banks to finance a new, more-than €100 million, 15,000-seat arena in Adlershof. Alba Berlin, Berlin’s No. 2 ranked pro team, will switch to the new league and arena. No word on when the thing will be built and how the NBA is explaining its new league’s moniker: European National Basketball League makes little linguistic sense.

🔗 🔗 🔗 Useful links 🔗 🔗 🔗

🪖 Germany signs military cooperation deal with Japan

#478: Online violence demo, pharmacy strike, rampaging high-schoolers

Maurice Frank — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 11:58:11 GMT

Dear 20 Percent,

“Why not German, too?” I’ve seen these stickers in a few places. This one was at a restaurant in Mitte. I guess it’s a reasonable question.

Germans have been complaining about the intrusion of English into advertising since forever. Sloppy slogans like “Come in and find out” (Douglas) and “Nice to sweet you” (Lindt) have been infecting public space for decades.

It’s not just ads, it’s the people working at Berlin businesses that irks some Germans.

CDU politician Jens Spahn sparked a little debate in 2017, when he was forced to order his dinner in English in a Berlin restaurant.

Personally, I feel you should make an effort to learn the local language if you stay somewhere for more than a few months. But tourists, digital nomads etc just aren’t going to. If you want to advertise lunch in Mitte, you’re going to say “lunch” and not necessarily “Mittagstisch”.

I suspect the real point of those stickers is to stir up a bit of Kulturkampf — culture war— to provoke a bit of indignation in “regular Germans”. I don’t think it’s going to work, at least not in Mitte.

More news below.

Maurice

PS: We celebrated our 30th podcast episode by going video. Now you can hear AND watch us, or just hear us. Either way we talk about the news. The latest is here.

Demo against online violence

Thousands of people gathered at Brandenburger Tor for a demonstration “against sexualised digital violence”. The protest comes after German actress and TV moderator Collien Fernandes last week revealed that she was filing criminal charges against her ex-husband, the actor Christian Ulmen in Spain (they lived in Mallorca). Charges include identify theft, insults, threats and physical abuse. She says Ulmen created fake accounts under her name, shared deep fake sexual images of her to his friends and even approached them sexually online while pretending to be his wife. The affair has prompted German justice minister Stefanie Hubig (SPD) to announce the government was working on new legal protections against digital violence. Men can apparently still get away with these disgusting crimes in Germany — Fernandes filed charges in Spain because it offers more comprehensive legal protections against online violence.

Striking pharmacists?

Three thousand Berlin pharmacists went on strike and held a demo at Potsdamer Platz on Monday. Really? These people are making okay money, often around €60,000 per year, a comfortable middle class salary in Germany. Nonetheless, pharmacy owners complain that it’s becoming tougher and tougher to operate a pharmacy profitably. Twenty percent of Berlin pharmacies closed over the past decade. Why? The fees they get per medication from the Krankenkassen hasn’t gone up in 13 years. Which I guess is why they’re flogging all those expensive skincare products on the side. Maybe it sounds heartless, but I’d be okay if they liberalised the pharmacy business and let drugstores like DM and Rossmann sell medication. Or at least allow the sale of painkillers at supermarkets or Spätis like in other countries.

Police raid leftwing spaces

Cops searched several radical leftwing spaces in Berlin and other Germans cities in connection with the two arson attacks that took out the power grid in the Adlershof technology park last September. One spot raided was the Kalabal!k anarchist library in Reichenberger Straße, Kreuzberg. Five hundred cops took part in raids of 17 properties. According to an online letter claiming responsibility, Adlershof was targeted to harm tech companies working in defence. It’s unclear whether the attack is linked to the sabotage of power infrastructure that caused the massive blackout in January. The September power cut is estimated to have caused €30-€70 million in damage to the 1,300 firms located at Adlershof.

High-schoolers attack police

On Friday, 350 fresh high school graduates were partying in the park next to the Planetarium in Prenzlauer Berg. It was getting a little out of control so the cops tried to break it up and then it got more out of control. The kids threw bottles and fireworks at the police. They eventually left the park totally trashed but by Monday some students had returned to the scene of the party to pick up garbage. A woman at the park interviewed by the Tagesspiegel used the lovely untranslatable word Wohlstandverwahrlosung to describe the incident, meaning something like “affluence vandalism”, hinting that that these Prenzl Berg kids were just a bunch of spoilt brats.

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Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin

🏳️‍🌈 Queere Kunst in der DDR?
Opening Thursday, 26.03, 6–9 pm at Mitte Museum, Pankstraße 47; Friday, 27.03, 6–9 pm at ngbk, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 11/13. Exhibition through June 28.
Group show across two venues on queer art production in the GDR — a largely suppressed history now examined across both institutions simultaneously.

🎹 Gleo presents Elaine Howley
Friday, 27.03, 7 pm – 2 am. 90mil, Holzmarktstrasse 19-23, Friedrichshain. €15
Irish vocalist and producer Elaine Howley works with drum machines, synths, voice and tape — her debut solo record was named album of the year by The Thin Air. Berlin duo gleo open with live improvisation and field recordings.

🎭 Call me Paris by Yana Eva Thönnes
Fri-Sun 27-29.03, 8 pm. In DE and EN with DE and EN surtitles. Schaubühne, Kurfürstendamm 153, 10709 Berlin. €7-60.
A young woman discovers unsettling parallels between her own story and Paris Hilton's — consent, image rights and early internet misogyny examined through memory and media.

🪩 SESSION
Saturday, 28.03, 2 pm – 3 am. C115, Messedamm 23, Charlottenburg. €20
Twelve hours in the abandoned AVUS grandstand. Minimal and house on a hi-fi system calibrated to the brutalist concrete. Barbara Preisinger and Foehn & Jerome on the bill.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🗳️ CDU wins Rhineland-Palatinate election, but AfD surges

👨‍🏭 Germany recruiting more workers from India

👮 Historian posts Hitler image as warning — and gets a visit from the police

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Factoid

Image: berlin.de

The Funkturm, Berlin’s 150-metre radio tower, opened 100 years ago during the 3rd German Radio Exhibition (still going strong as IFA today). The world’s first TV images where transmitted from the tower in 1929. Albert Einstein held a speech at the foot of the tower in 1930 to open the 7th Radio Exhibition — the scientist features in the tower’s 2026 “What the Funk” marketing campaign. Radio was the internet of its time. The Nazis mastered its use for propaganda with its Volksempfänger, a cheap “people’s receiver” device that was in virtually every German home during the Third Reich.

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🍷 The election in winey Rhineland-Palatinate Sunday

#30: Cocaine use, pharmacy strike, the Ulmen case

Andrew Bulkeley — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 11:44:02 GMT

Maurice and I talk about Berlin’s crime family getting revenge on prison officials, an out-of-hand graduation party, the pharmacy strike and Berlin’s cocaine usage. Our bi-weekly podcast! Now in video!

🪧❄️#477: Supporting Indian students, discount travel, more strikes

Andrew Bulkeley — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 12:31:54 GMT

This 28-year-old PrenzlBerg cafe is insolvent and will close March 29. RIP Sowohlalsauch! Photo: Me

Hey 20 Percent!

Thanks to all of you who reached out last week about my pending Untätigkeitsklage (suit for inaction) against the Berlin Ausländerbehörde for taking their jolly old time with my application for citizenship. As one reader, who is also an attorney, pointed out — I can file it on my own, which is my goal.

But as he also mentioned — I should just threaten them first. I was travelling a lot last week so I’ll threaten with the suit Monday. Then they have two weeks to respond before I lower the lawsuit hammer.

And if that fails I now have a trustworthy list of attorneys I can turn to.

I really appreciate the responses and was impressed with the 20 Percent community (once again).

Have a good weekend!

Andrew

Indian students receiving poor guidance

The German government is also doing too little to help Indian students who want to study here, according to Tagesspiegel (paywall). The students often fall victim to unregulated agents who connect them with low-quality universities, whose degrees aren’t recognized by German companies. The fees often exceed the fees at public universities, forcing the students to work for equally unscrupulous delivery companies. The UK and US already have proven university recruitment programs and networks as well as local communities to support students. But Indians only recently began coming to Germany in large numbers to study and the government has yet to develop the necessary safeguards — such as regulating or fining unscrupulous private recruiters.

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More discount travel options

And for those wanting to actively flee the inaction — it’s getting easier (and cheaper) to leave Berlin. Dutch Govolta now offers discount rail trips between Gesundbrunnen and Amsterdam’s Centaal Station on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sunday. The trip is longer than Deutsche Bahn’s ICEs at eight instead of six hours but tickets cost just between €19 and €45, including a seat reservation, according to RBB24. And discount rail travel king Flixtrain is also adding more trains to its Berlin-Stuttgart and Berlin-Frankfurt routes, says Tagesspiegel.

The strike next week will be …

There’s accidental inaction and willful inaction: Berlin’s pharmacies will be inactive Monday as part of a nation-wide strike to protest what they see as government indifference to difficult economic conditions, according to RBB24. The fee the pharmacies receive for selling prescription medication hasn’t changed in 13 years as inflation and other costs increased. About 20% of Berlin pharmacies have reportedly closed because of the difficult financial waters.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

📚 Who was this Habermas philosopher anyway?

🍳 Berlin’s HelloFresh isn’t doing well

🚓 German comedic actor in off-the-hook sex scandal w/ wife

Factoid

Berlin’s isn’t as awash in cocaine as it seems — the city ranks 38th out of 128 European cities in an annual study by the EU Drugs Agency that uses wastewater to gauge narcotics usage. We also came in 11th in MDMA usage but third in Ketamine. However, the researchers discovered that while most drug use spikes on weekends, cocaine is apparently in use consistently throughout the week in Berlin. The most MDMA is consumed in Amsterdam while Bristol and Middlesborough in the UK lead in Keta and Coke, respectively.

🔗 🔗 🔗 Useful links 🔗 🔗 🔗

#476: BER strike, Nazi demo, fake euros

Maurice Frank — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 12:31:27 GMT

Dear 20% Berlin

Someone in my neighbourhood has resorted to posting multilingual flyers in a desperate attempt to stem to the flood of un-picked-up dog poops.

It’s not working.

Just like this year's higher fines aren’t stopping the dumping of trash in my neighbourhood nor the smoking at my local S-Bahn platform.

Berlin, city of rebels or city of zero civic pride?

This time of year, before the leaves come out, Berlin shows its ugliest side.

Is the urban decay and neglect and trash worse this year or is it just me?

Answer revealed at my pub quiz next Wednesday. Test your knowledge random Berlin and German trivia, history and news at the next 20% Berlin News Quiz, hosted by yours truly. Get your tickets here!.

News below.

Maurice

No flights on Wednesday

Another strike, folks, this time at the airport. About 445 landings and take-offs are being cancelled at BER on Wednesday, affecting 56,000 passengers. Union Verdi is calling on workers at the airport fire station, office workers and maintenance staff to skip work. Security and baggage handling won’t be affected — but I guess you can’t run an airport without a firefighting crew. The “warning strike” takes place a week before the next round of Verdi negotiations with the airport over the pay for 2,000 employees. The union is demanding a 6% pay rise or at least €250 more per month.

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Nazis, conspiracy theorists, one crap singer

A hodge-podge of right-wingers and conspiracy-peddlers gathered at the Siegessäule in Tiergarten on Sunday to see Q-Anon fan and German pop singer Xavier Naidoo and other speakers from the scene air their grievances — with a focus on the Epstein affair and Germany’s alleged deep links to it. Reportedly, some in the audience wore actual tin foil hats. The organisers had registered a protest with the official name “Transparency, the Rule of Law, and the Protection of Minors – An Analysis in the Context of Potential German Connections to the International Epstein Case” for 10,000 people but only 750 came, according to police. A woman was arrested for showing what people in this scene call the “forbidden greeting”, also known as the Hitler salute.

One dumb thief

About zero percent of bike thefts are solved. But you can get lucky. Half a year after her bike was stolen a Berliner happened to recognise her stolen bike in an online ad thanks to certain scratches and a misaligned reflector. She informed the police, who arranged to meet the seller, arresting him on the spot. The cops found more stolen bikes in his flat. It’s recommended that bike owners register their bikes with the police so they can later be identified in the slim chance they show up somewhere.

Bike to Dresden?

A new, officially signposted 250-kilometer bike route now links the Frauenkirche in downtown Dresden to the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin. The route, which has been in development since 2012 by the volunteers at the Dresden ADFC cycling association mostly follows existing paths such as the Dahme river and Spree bike trails, passing through scenic areas like the Spreewald, famous for canals and pickles. The ADFC says fast cyclists can complete the journey in two days. Families could need a week. Here’s the map!

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Adrienne’s comedy is perfect for fans of bold New York stand-up and comedians who aren’t afraid to go where other comics won’t.

Event details

📍 Kara Kas Bar – Berlin
🗓 Saturday, March 22
⏰ Doors: 19:30
🎤 Show starts: 20:00

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Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin

🎸 Altın Gün
Thursday, 19 and 20.03, 8 pm. Huxleys Neue Welt, Hasenheide 107–113, Neukölln. €41
Altın Gün fuses Anatolian 70s psych-folk with baglama, organ and live funk. Their new album “Garip“ is a tribute to folk bard Neşet Ertaş — strips back the synths for something rawer and more physical.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scottish Connections Burns Night Thursday, 19.03, 6:30pm, Kalle Halle, Karl-Marx-Straße 101, Neukölln, free entry with registration BerlinA celebration of Scottish connections in Germany through the lens of national poet Robert Burns and the women who shaped his life and work. Comedy, music, spoken word, whisky from female-founded distillery NcNean and traditional Scottish ceilidh dancing in Neukölln. Anyone curious about Scottish culture is welcome to join.

🪩 Disco Tehran – Nowrouz in Berlin
Friday, 20.03, 9 pm – 4 am. Gretchen, Obentrautstr. 19–21, Kreuzberg. €18
Persian New Year in Berlin, fundraising for VPN access inside Iran. Dauwd, Hassandra and African Acid is the Future - music between diasporic memory, electronic funk and deep dance.

📽️ Congo Cinematic Times
Saturday, 21.03, 6 - 7:30 pm. SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA, Lindower Str. 20/22, Wedding. €10
Five short films curated by artist Sammy Baloji — spanning doc, fiction and animation — tracing DRC's resource extraction, ecological memory and resilience. Filmmakers include Léonard Pongo, Dorothee Kreutzfeldt and Nelson Makengo.

🎹 Voices From The Lake (live)
Saturday, 21.03, 7 pm – 11:30 pm. ZENNER, Alt-Treptow 15, Alt-Treptow. €34
Donato Dozzy and Neel are back in Berlin for their first live show since II — a decade on. Deep hypnotic electronic music performed live: slow-building harmonics, and dub-inflected techno.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

☢️ Merz: No return to nuclear power

⛅ Germany misses climate target

😑 The far-right takes aim at CSDs

🪦 RIP Jürgen Habermas

Factoid

200s especially popular with forgers. "Billetes" by Eric Caballero, CC BY 2.0.

According to Morgenpost, 6,925 counterfeit banknotes were discovered in Berlin last year, a 77.1% increase over 2024. The notes had a total face value of €680,000. The police warn that a common trick is for criminals to pay cash for objects advertised in classifieds; offer to pay full price immediately and hand over notes in low light. Some tips on how to recognise counterfeit notes from the Bundesbank.

🔗 🔗 🔗 Useful links 🔗 🔗 🔗

The 2025 Berlin crime stats are in!

🍺🪜#475: Bars open later, escalators unrepaired, lots of crime

Andrew Bulkeley — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 12:01:27 GMT

Artist Gunter Demnig laid a Stolperstein in front of our building Sunday. Photo: Sabine Heipl-Bulkeley

Hey 20 Percent!

I haven’t given an update on my bid to become a German citizen in six months because … nothing’s happened. But since it’s been six months it’s now time to file an Untätigkeitsklage (suit for inaction), wherein I sue the Berlin government for its inaction, further clogging up the wheels of government in hopes of unclogging them for me.

This could have easily been my third Untätigkeitsklage but I was unaware of them the other two times the Hauptstadt ghosted me. In effect, this is a revenge Untätigkeitsklage.

Maybe Germans aren’t passive-aggressive by nature. Maybe their culture forces them to be.

My citizenship updates will henceforth be Untätigkeitsklage updates — I just need to find a good lawyer first. A cottage industry has already sprung up with ambulance-chasing lawyers frothing at the mouth to once again make an unethical profit off the Berlin government’s inability to govern.

Have a good weekend!

Andrew

Many thanks to today’s sponsor, balcony and small-space gardener Easy Bee Berlin! and our new partner, Inner Circle.

Bars to stay open late(r)

For all of its inaction, it feels odd when the Berlin government finally does something. The senate introduced a bill Tuesday that will allow bars and restaurants to serve outside in popular areas until 11pm during the week, and midnight on weekends and ahead of holidays, according to RBB24. A 1970 law forbids it after 10pm currently. The bill should be passed by summer and comes after a resident lost a case trying to force the government to enforce outdoor closing hours on Kastastanienallee in P-Berg last summer. The bill will also simplify and unify the permitting process for bars and restaurants into a single office — would-be restaurateurs and barkeepers should be up and running within six weeks rather than several months once the law passes. If the government would only show as much interest in the housing shortage.

from our partner

Making real friends in Berlin is hard. Especially for expats in their 20s to 40s.

No one to call in an emergency. No group that truly has your back.

That’s why we created Inner Circle. A hand-selected group of 8 expats who meet regularly.

You meet the same people and have deep conversations. Over time, you build deep connections with them. They become people you can rely on.

Apply to join

No word on broken escalators

The government, via its Deutsche Bahn railway, also acted quickly to close 35 escalators at Hauptbahnhof, creating a new level of inaction since no one knows when they’ll be repaired, according to Tagesspiegel. The debacle is quickly becoming another BER, Hamburg concert house or the national embarrassment that is the Stuttgart 21 train station (delayed by at least nine years with an exploding budget). Cogs on the 20-year-old escalators have worn out, sparking them to fail and halt the escalators or, in one case at the train station, roll backwards. Finland’s Kone made the Rolltreppen (literally rolling stairs) but hasn’t been responsible for their maintenance since 2016. But it is now supplying replacement parts. Nobody seems to know when.

Scooter parking lots … in 2035

This next item is so laughable I’ll just get out of the way: Berlin has promised to create special zones for the return of rental scooters and bikes to keep them from clogging sidewalks, according to RBB24. But the 3,000 zones needed won’t be in place until 2035. TWENTY-THIRTY FIVE. I thought it was a typo the first time I read it. Most cities already have them — you just need a bit of paint and a sign. And before Berlin whines about costs and a lack of personnel, let me introduce you to the public-private partnership. The scooters pay no fee to use our streets and sidewalks even though they account for less than 1% of our traffic. Bolt and Lime should pay and do the work for at least half of the sites. Next week.

Weed = €€€

And though I’m the opposite of a neo-lib, the private sector does at least get things done, even when they like their dope: Canada’s Organigram will buy Berlin medical marijuana startup Sanity Group in a deal that values Sanity at €250 million. The Mitte-based startup has raised a total $135 million, according to Crunchbase, including millions from Organigram. Sanity Group’s investors include German pro footballer Mario Götze, model Stefanie Giesinger and überkiffer (a guy who smokes a lot) Snoop Dog, according to Tagesspiegel. Congrats on the exit, y’all!

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🛬 Lufthansa stays aloft during strike, mostly

🏎️ Life is hard for VW and Porsche, mostly Porsche

🔌 German won’t be returning to nuclear power

Factoid

Shout out to the Last Generation protestor. I like your work. Photo: Stefan Mueller via CC.

Overall crime fell 6.7% last year, the lowest leveal since COVID.
Gun crime is way, way up (68% to 1,119 firearm offenses, including 515 cases where shots were fired).
Homicides up 41% to 165 cases but 79 are linked to a murderous palliative doctor.
Sexual assault up 15% to 8,652 cases, partially due to an increase in child pornography cases sparked by international investigations.
Politically motivated crime (including homophobic attacks) rose 7.8% to 3,021 cases.
44.9% of all cases were solved.

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🎙️Episode 29 of the 20% Berlin Podcast featuring Drew and myself just dropped!

#474: 500,000 missing workers, AI cameras, drownings

Maurice Frank — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 12:12:07 GMT

On Sunday, International Women’s Day, there were demos across Berlin, the largest, organised by unions, was in Kreuzberg and attracted 30,000. Photo: DGB/Simone M.Neumann

Dear 20 Percent,

Last night, I dropped in on a German stand-up show at Downstairs Comedy Club . My 20% Berlin co-writer Andrew aka Drew Portnoy was hosting — and confirmed once more that he’s the funny one on the 20% team. Pretty impressive how Drew, a native of Denver, worked the German crowd in German. And the German comedians he introduced were mostly hilarious. Definitely recommend. And they have an English show this Thursday.

A few announcements:

💡 Two more 20% Berlin News Quizzes, hosted my yours truly are confirmed: Wednesday, March 25 and Wednesday, April 15. Grab your tix early!

💸 Finally, please help out our good friends at Handpicked Berlin. They’re surveying Berliners for their now famous Berlin Salary Trends 2026, and need your input!

More news below!

Maurice

❤️ Thanks to today’s sponsor, Feather!

Half a million workers needed?

By 2035, Berlin will need to fill approximately 560,000 job vacancies, a quarter of the city’s current workforce, according to Tagesspiegel. Why? The boomers are retiring en masse. It’s unclear how many of those roles can be replaced by AI — regardless, we’re gonna need more people in working age. On Tuesday, Berlin’s Senator for Labour, Cansel Kiziltepe (SPD), announced her “skilled labour strategy” an initiatve to attract more youngsters to work in public administration, hospitals, trades, industry, and the transport sector, which are all struggling to find qualified staff. Key to solving this problem: Affordable housing!

AI police cameras

Berlin is launching a pilot project to test AI-powered video surveillance at three locations: the Red City Hall (Rotes Rathaus) near Alexanderplatz, the city parliament (Abgeordnetenhaus), and the Berlin’s local Interior Affairs Ministry . The AI system will analyse behavioral patterns and trigger alerts if it detects suspicious activity. Data will be anonymised and no biometric info will be collected. Die Linke criticised the plan to monitor public space outside the parliament. Die Linke representative Niklas Schrader said the cameras infringed upon the rights of politicians and their visitors: “There was no debate about whether we wanted to be their guinea pigs.” From July, more AI cameras go online at “high-crime” locations Kottbusser Tor and Warschauer Brücke, with Görli and Alex to follow.

Super Bowl nothingburger

Berlin’s Senator for the Interior and Sport, Iris Spranger (SPD), travelled to the Bay Area in February together with police chief Barbara Slowik Meisel. The NFL invited Spranger to watch the Super Bowl (the league now plays a yearly game in the Berlin Olympic Stadium) after which the pair visited a fire station, a homeless shelter and talked to San Fran officials about the opioid crisis. Info about the trip emerged following an inquiry by Die Linke and Die Grünen. Opposition politicians attempted to cook up a scandal out of the trip’s price tag: €35,500 for the two women and the two assistants. They flew BUSINESS CLASS. Scandalous? Not really. If you’ve ever flown halfway around the world in cattle class and tried to stay awake in a meeting upon arrival, you’ll have some sympathy.

Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin

🪩 Future East
Thursday, 12.03, 10 pm – 6 am. OHM, Mitte. €15
SWANA-rooted techno with Nene H headlining - she's about to drop her second album on UMAY and curated a Palestine fundraising compilation last year. Pooja B and Ginza Seven on the decks, Sam Eyvaz opens the night with a live set.

🩰 For the Time Being: Sasha Waltz & Guests
Fri-Sun, 13-14.03, 6 pm; and 15.03, 4 pm. Radialsystem, Holzmarktstr. 33 10243. €20-35.
Sasha Waltz dives into deep listening, altered states and collective ritual in a hypnotic new piece where dancers drift between memory, voice and movement.

☘️ Irish Film Berlin Friday, 13.03 - Wednesday, 18.03. Babylon Mitte. €10 per film Irish Film Berlin returns for its annual festival of Irish cinema during St. Patrick’s Week at Babylon Berlin. The program includes feature films, documentaries, and short film selections spanning comedy, drama, and music. Tickets are €10 per film, with multiple screenings each evening.

🎹 Mary Ocher presents Weimar
Friday, 13.03, 6:30 pm doors / 8:30 pm concert. Galiläakirche, Friedrichshain. €15–23
Mary Ocher releases her most intimate record with solo piano on an 1870s instrument, minimalism meets chamber-pop. The title is political: Weimar as in the republic, as in the shadow of what came after. Panel talk on censorship before the show.

🪩 T35: Tresor's 35th Anniversary
Fri-Sun, 13-15.03, 10 pm – 1 pm. Tresor / Globus / OHM, Mitte. €30-35
30+ hour marathon across four spaces for the club that helped define Berlin techno feat. Helena Hauff b2b Imogen, Kerrie, DJ Bone, Moritz von Oswald, Chloe Lula, Barbara Preisinger, and VRIL live. Detroit-to-Berlin lineage, three decades deep.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🗳️ Greens beat CDU in Baden-Württemberg election

☢️ The cost of Germany’s long and painful nuclear regret

🏭 German economy hit by Iran war

⚡ 200,000 EV charging points in Germany

Factoid

A sad stat today, sorry: Last year 16 people drowned in Berlin’s bodies of water, the same number as last year, according to DLRG, the German Life Saving Association. In Brandenburg, 25 died in lakes and rivers. DLRG President Ute Vogt stressed the need for better children’s swimming lessons: “Most children are not confident swimmers when they leave primary school. From then on, they are under less and less parental supervision and are at greater risk in and around water for the rest of their lives.” Be careful out there this summer, folks!

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🐘20 Percent on Mastodon