#184: Teacher strike, drug checking, DC flights, AfD cop
#184: Teacher strike, drug checking, DC flights, AfD cop
The mouse bunker lives!
Dear 20 Percent,
Sorry to bring up the AfD again, but this story’s cocktail of ingredients makes it hard to ignore: A Berlin police officer, Detective Chief Inspector André G., has pressed charges(paywall) against a journalist at Tagesspiegel. The cops are investigating reporter Julius Geiler for “leftwing politically motivated crime”. He also stands accused of “libel, slander and defamation against persons in political life as well as politically motivated false suspicion.”
Geiler’s crime? Writing an article about the detective’s own trouble with the police. While at a hotel in Stralsund in 2021, André G. refused to wear a mask in the lobby. The police were called. He refused to put on a mask and called the police again himself, triggering a charge of misusing an emergency number.
André G. , a member of the far-right AfD, moonlights as a local politician in the suburb of Falkensee. At a council meeting in 2020, he refused to put on a mask and the police were called then as well.
Geiler described the two incidents in an article dated January 16 this year. He wrote that a source in the police said the detective had a reputation for “questionable statements about corona and vaccines”. This is probably what prompted André G. to press charges. The police remain silent over the case.
The affair gives you a sense of what we have in store for us if the AfD ever gets any real power in this country: legal attacks against journalists for doing their job.
More news below!
Maurice
Teacher strike
A teacher strike organised by union GEW is underway and set to last till Thursday. The union is demanding smaller class sizes. Berlin has 34,000 public school teachers, but many are civil servants, which forbids them from participating in strikes. Several thousand have employee status, though, meaning they can take to the barricades. RBB estimates 2,500-4,000 teachers could participate. Pupils aren’t amused. “We find it problematic that the warning strike is taking place during exams. That is not solidarity,” said Paul Seidel, spokesperson of the Berlin school pupil committee.
New flights to DC
BER is a provincial airport for the most part, with most transcontinental connections routed through Frankfurt or Munich. There are exceptions. On Friday, United Airlines launched direct, daily service to the US capital, scheduled through the end of October. It’s the first direct link between Berlin and Washington since 2001, when all flights were cancelled after 9-11. Delta Airlines also began operating new flights to JFK on Friday.
“Drug checking” up and running
From today, three officially sanctioned Berlin locations will perform a free-of-charge chemical analysis on most party drugs (no cannabis, no funghi) acquired on the black market. People need to just show up during the three centres’ opening hours on Tuesdays and listen to a talk on “safer use” to use the service. The analysis takes a few days and the procedure is anonymous. The info is all German but I’m guessing English is spoken at these places.
Brutalist masterpiece saved
The “mouse bunker” in Lichterfelde has been been bestowed protected status by the Berlin’s office for the preservation of monuments (Landesdenkmalamt), which called the gorgeous concrete battleship an “outstanding example of brutalist architecture”. From 1982 to 2020, the building housed the Free University’s Central Animal Laboratories — one imagines the ghosts of thousands of lab rats haunt its grim corridors. The lab now operates at the Charité campus in Buch. The mouse bunker features in the new exhibition on disused 1970s brutalist buildings at Berlinische Galerie titled “Suddenly Wonderful: Visions for chunky 1970’s architecture in West Berlin”, which I can’t wait to check out. 20 Percent co-founder Andrew has more video and history on the place in this youtube piece.
Factoid
It’s June and chances are you’ll find your bike saddle or car windscreen covered in a pungent, sticky substance in the morning. Blame the secretion on the 150,000 linden trees lining our streets (not counting those in parks, graveyards, etc.). Despite the sticky annoyance, I’ve always associated the intoxicating aroma with Berliner Luft and the promise of a beautiful summer.
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ Visit our sponsor! ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
SAVE MONEY WITHOUT GETTING OUT OF BED?!
What easier way to cut costs than by paying less for electricity? With
the OSTROM APP, you can easily keep track of your energy consumption
and adapt your monthly payments any time.
Ostrom is the provider that delivers you green energy at cost price — no
markups, just a flat €6 admin fee. As an Ostrom customer, you can
expect lower electricity bills when market prices drop. To make things
easier, they offer a flexible, month-to-month plan that can be cancelled at any time, with an all-digital experience in both English and German.
Head to OSTROM.DE to sign up in five minutes. Their support team
will deal with your ex-provider and ensure your lights stay on
throughout the entire switching process.
Use code 20PERC3NT5 for a €35 bonus when signing up. After that,
you’ll get a personal referral code to share, meaning another €35
bonus each time someone uses it!
Download the Ostrom app to save on energy costs!
