#391: Spandau stabbing, Görli fence, Most expensive street in Berlin
A death reminded me of my favorite Berlin eatery/store
Lieber 20 Percent!
I guess we should be careful what we wish for. That whole moving Berlin bureaucracy online thing? It seems to be doing little good.
The parking permit for my car expired April 30 and I gleefully went online to renew it (btw, it’s stupidly cheap at €20.40 for two years — please, please, please make cars more expensive).
That was two weeks ago. They’ve since taken my money but done nothing else. I fear they’ve teamed up with Deutsche Post, who seem to only deliver twice a week and then only things that were supposed to arrive the previous week.
It would have been easier to just get an appointment and go in.
And: Digital photos became compulsory for residence permits and German IDs May 1 and the Ausländerbehörde as well as Bürgerämter installed photo booths that connect directly with the bureaucrat handling your paperwork — they charge €6 for the photos. Progress! But many accounts say the booths don’t always work and even Berlin’s own site says don’t depend on them: Go to a certified photographer instead.
Who’s the certified photog? DM. Seems legit — get a photo for a government ID card, some avocado face scrub and cheap organic food at the same time. So Berlin.
Have a good weekend.
Andrew
The Görli fence
While the online push may be stumbling forward, our CDU/SPD coalition is making good on promises to fill the holes in the fence around Görlitzer Park, according to taz. A construction company has started work on the €1.5 million project, which is to be complete by the end of the year — a year later than mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) had hoped. Politicians want to close the park at night to dampen narcotics sales as well as other lacivious activities but need a fence and gates to keep people out. Residents fear the fence will push dealers and related crime into adjacent neighborhoods.
Unusual crime in Spandau
Police are looking for a 13-year-old suspected of stabbing a classmate in the cloakroom of a Spandau elementary school Thursday morning, according to Tagesspiegel. Both the suspect and the victim are sixth graders at the school and had argued before the attack — the victim is in stable condition in hospital. The suspect’s parents said their child hasn’t returned home and police have used dogs as well as helicopters to search for them — the cops are also keeping an eye on relatives in the western state of North-Rhein Westphalia in case the suspect fled there. A kitchen knife was found near the school and is the suspected weapon.
Deli owner died in fire
Rogacki, a deli and butcher shop in Charlottenburg, is as much a part of my Berlin as inept bureaucrats. The place has seemingly every piece of nearly every farm animal — so much so that I almost threw up once just glancing in the display cases. They’ll also gladly fish a trout or eel out of a nearby aquarium and end its life in front of you. The thing started as an eel and fish smokery in 1928 and has evolved into a food store as well as daytime restaurant with intricate Italian concoctions with matching wines as well as just french fries and a coke. It feels like West Germany in the 80s, which is good because it’s full of Germans in their 80s. All of this is to say that current owner Dietmar Rogacki perished in a fire in his villa in Stakken in eastern Berlin Tuesday, according to RBB24. Give his place a visit if you haven’t.
🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺
🚫 Cops arrest more right-wing loonies
🪖 Lithuanian deployment first since WWII
👵 Merkel hates Merz immigration policies
⛹️♂️ The next German hoops star
Factoid
To be fair, gold is right there in the name: The most expensive street for real estate in Berlin is Goldfinkenweg in Grunewald, according to an Immowelt study, surprising no one who’s been in Berlin for any period of time. An apartment (or villa) will set you back €9,157 per square meter, nearly double the €4,828 city-wide average. The No. 2 and No. 3 most expensive streets are also in the same leafy suburb — Amselstr. at €9,128 per sqm and the cool-named Luchsweg at €8,962. An Amsel is a blackbird and a Luchs is a lynx, my fave wild cat.
🔗 🔗 🔗 Useful links 🔗 🔗 🔗
📈Connect with 11k+ international Berliners. Sponsor 20% Berlin!
The Bürgerämter at Mitte certainly don't have a photobooth installed. They sent me to the DM at Alex, which it turns out there's three but I didn't know where any of them were, and by the time I got back I was in Kafka land, I've even blogged about it https://joanna-bryson.blogspot.com/2025/05/burgeramt-terminvereinbarung-berlin.html
Last weekend I travelled by car to Czech Republic and back. No border controls at all returning to Germany other than an empty police car at the side of the road.