#262: Strikes, discontent, Tesla attack, news quiz

Some Frauentag culture!

Our next party will be here. Maybe. Story below. Photo: Christian Schirrmacher, CC BY 2.0 license.

Dear 20 Percent,

Another week in The Year of Discontent®: strikes, protest and a possibe attack on Tesla. And a literal sh*tstorm on a Brandenburg highway.

I can’t recall a time since I first moved to Berlin in 1999 that so many different people were so angry about so many different things. So much for Germany being the “grown up country” that always remained sanely lodged in the political centre while the rest of Europe and the world lost its marbles.

The war in Ukraine, inflation, the tanking economy, the climate crisis, the AfD, the fraught discussion over immigration, and the general sense that Germany can’t keep up with the times in so many ways — it’s a mess out there. Trust in leaders and other institutions is withering. Most worrying, political leaders don’t appear to have the vision, energy or wherewithal to sort stuff out.

Despite it all, I don’t think we’re going through Weimar 2.0. Daily life still feels mostly “normal”, doesn’t it?

And at least we live in Berlin.

The news is below.

Maurice

P.S. Tomorrow (Wednesday) night, it’s time for another round of our fabulously funny News Quiz at Comedy Cafe. We’d love to see you there. Tickets.

P.P.S. Thank to this edition’s sponsor, Ironhack!

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More strikes. No, really.

Deutsche Bahn passenger trains, including the Berlin S-Bahn, will be out of service nationwide for 35 hours starting 2am Thursday and ending around 1pm Friday. Train drivers’ union GDL has called a strike because it still hasn’t reached an agreement with DB over reduced working times. The union’s key demand is a 35 hour workweek, with no reduction of pay (hence, the 35-hour strike). DB says the strike wasn’t announced early enough to organise a limited emergency timetable but will allow passengers who have purchased train tickets to use them at a later date. Without DB’s FEX or the S-Bahn, getting to BER airport will be more difficult. Privately run ODEG trains on the R8N line(pdf) will operate from central Berlin to BER roughly hourly but expect them to be very full. Another option is to the take the U7 to Rudow and then the X7 bus to BER. If you’ve booked with Lufthansa, don’t bother going to the airport: the airline’s German ground staff will be striking from 4:00am Thursday to 7:10am Saturday.

Slurry-storm

Meanwhile, out in the country, several drivers were injured in accidents on a highway in Brandenburg late Sunday after irrate, protesting farmers dumped manure and slurry along hundreds of metres of roadway. Five people involved in the accidents had to be treated for injuries in hospital.

Police violence at climate protest

Those farmers probably won’t be treated like this: at a climate protest on Saturday, a policeman allegedly kneeled on a teenaged protestor’s head, sparking accusations of police brutality. A group of 16 Letzte Generation activists threw paint at the walls of the Kanzleramt, where Chancellor Scholz (SPD) has his office. As the Bundespolizei (federal police, responsible for guarding government buildings) were arresting the teenagers, one cop could be seen kneeling on a girl’s head — a scene that sparked outrage on social media. The Bundespolizei said they would “critically scrutinise our colleague's actions during the operation.” I have my doubts.

Events in the pee tunnel?

Graffiti. The reek of urine. Orange retro columns. The bleak vibes of a 1970s episode of Tatort. What’s not to love about the Messetunnel (photo above), that desolate underpass you may have walked through to get to either the Messe (fairgrounds) or the central coach station (ZOB)? Now, the district of Charlottenburg says it wants to spruce up the spot by turning it into an event location, according to RBB. First try will be during the ITB tourism fair, when the tunnel will be turned into a music venue for a few days.

Ehouse shutdown

A sad local business story was shared exclusively with 20% Berlin last week when one of the newsletter’s friends discovered they’d have to find a new distributor for their product: On February 29 the small businesses that used the Ehouse fufillment centre and co-working space in Weißensee received an email from the company saying that the facility was closing and the users had to remove their wares from the warehouse by the end of the day — which did not go down well with the largely international entrepreneurs that used the centre. “Despite our relentless negotiations and efforts until the final moments, which concluded yesterday night,” the email said, “we regret to inform you that we were unable to secure the continuation of our operations. Today marks the unfortunate closure of our facility.” Apparently, Ehouse, an Israel-based company with locations around Europe, was unable to raise further venture capital, “owing to the ongoing conflict in Israel, the location of our parent company.”

And this just in: Telsa power cut

The Tesla factory in Grünheide out in Brandenburg — as well as neighbouring areas — were hit by a huge power outtage around 5am Tuesday morning. The entire plant was evacuated, the company told Tagesspiegel. The police suspect an arson attack on a utility pole. “If the initial findings are confirmed, this is a perfidious attack on our electricity infrastructure,” said Brandenburg's Interior Minister Michael Stübgen (CDU). It’s clearly to early to confirm anything. Tesla has been criticised by local environmentalist protesters over plans to expand the plant and possible impact on the local water supply.

March 8 is International Women’s Day (Frauentag) so that’s the theme of today’s event tips from our friends at The Next Day Berlin:

Fever Ray
Thursday, 07.03, 7:30 pm. Theater des Westens, Kantstrasse 12, 10623 Berlin. Tickets: €71.50.
Fever Ray, led by Karin Dreijer, presents a radical and romantic artistic proposal that feels otherworldly. This concert is so beautiful, creating an atmosphere of delirious love. 🎧 Radical Romantics

Va(Riot)y
Thursday, 07.03, 11 pm - 8 am. Renate, Alt Stralau 70; Friedrichshain. Tickets: €16.50.
Circus Va(Riot)y celebrates International Women's Day with exciting electronic beats and exclusively female artists on the decks, including 🎧 Apolonia and 🎧 Krawalle & Liebe. It will be a night of solidarity and empowerment amidst vibrant decorations and lavish costumes.

Angry Women
Friday, 08.03, 7 pm. Zwölf-Apostel-Kirche, An der Apostelkirche 1, 10783. Tickets: €19.
🎧 Joanna Gemma Auguri, Anchoress, Hazel Iris, and 🎧 ANIQO draw inspiration from "Angry Women in Rock" for their concert, exploring female empowerment and anger on International Women's Day in a predominantly male-dominated music industry.

Power of Female Art
Fri-Sun, 8-10.03, 11 am-8 pm. Teufelsberg, Berlin. Tickets: €10/15/day or €35/3 days.
Over three days, more than 40 female artists working in music, street art, and poetry will be celebrating March 8th in one of the most iconic places in Berlin.

More on The Next Day Berlin.

Factoid

Screw you, generative AI, we can make weirder sh*t than you. I went to this random gallery opening at DITTRICH & Schlechtriem on the weekend. Pretty cool.

After going to this fancy opening in Mitte, I wondered: even though big art fairs seem to have turned their backs on Berlin, there still seem be a huge number of galleries. But how many? Way more than any other German city, it turns out. At last count, there was 284, more than triple the number in runners up Munich and Hamburg. Admittedly, that stat is pre-corona, but it gives you an idea.

📯📯Postkutsche 📯 📯

Reader (and Patreon contributor) Majella has an Irish music film fest to recommend, which makes sense considering the losses the scene has suffered recently:

“The four films are on icons Sinead O' Connor and Shane Mc Gowan, along with a German premiere of the Camino Voyage and a journey through the music of Dublin's North Inner City.” More info here.

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