#501: New Goebbels villa owner, Müggelsee island for sale, driverless cars
Eels. Lots of eels.
Hey 20 Percent,
And in the end it all went very fast — I am now German.
I sent in the extra documents (and paid my accountant for producing them) on June 2 and woke up Monday, June 8, to an invite to my naturalization yesterday, June 11.
Compared to most Ausländerbehörde interactions, the naturalization was very pleasant and was held in a renovated factory in Wedding.
It felt a little like when I got married at city hall. My wife was there both times but I didn’t wear socks with Birkenstocks at my wedding.
We then celebrated last night with a concert at a venue I didn’t even know existed (Hole 44) — thanks for the tix FluxFM!
The whole process took 8 months and 4 weeks and a little over €1,000. Thanks for accompanying me on this frustrating trip! Looking forward to voting in September!
Have a good weekend.
Andrew
PS: Please come celebrate with me at 100% Funny, the 20% Berlin comedy night at Downstairs Comedy Club June 18! Some of the best comedians from the German and English scenes in one of the few air conditioned venues in Berlin. Tix here.
from our sponsor
Waiting on your residence permit or citizenship application?
You don’t have to.
Get a free case assessment and find out what your options are.
It will always be the Goebbels villa
A villa that was built for Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels will become a new center for the New York-based Counter Extremism Project, according to RBB24. Star architect Daniel Libeskind, who built the Jewish Museum, will help with the renovations. Several buildings were constructed near the villa north of Berlin near Wandlitz by East Germany and the campus was run as a college and training center for the Communist party. The site has been empty since 2000 and the city-state of Berlin, as the owner, was willing to hand it to the right potential owner. The German army is likely to take over the remaining buildings as part of its expansion following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
For sale: Müggelsee island
While the Goebbels villa may finally have a new owner, Treptow-Köpenick is worried what the new owner of a 16,000 square meter island in Müggelsee might build. Germany currently owns Müggelwerder, as the island is known, and is seeking bids, according to RBB24. It was home to a hotel in pre-war Germany and later became home to East German scientific institutions but is now a protected preserve and is being slowly absorbed by nature. Treptow-Köpenick mayor Oliver Igel (SPD) said his government would do all it could to prohibit large-scale construction by any new owners.
Driverless cars? On our Straßen?
The Technical University of Munich early this month ran three tests of its autonomous Edgar vehicle in Berlin in hopes of introducing driverless cars to the Hauptstadt’s busy streets, according to T-Online. BVG and VW unit Moia hope to soon introduce driverless vehicles to Berlin, though experts say it isn’t likely until 2028 at the earliest. The BVG tested autonomous buses in Tegel but it was quicker to walk. TUM’s Edgar drove from the Federal transport ministry on Invalidenstrasse in Mitte to Radialsystem in Friedrichshain along the Spree three times without incident.
🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺
✈️ France and Germany ground joint fighter
🍕 Ludwigshafen baker takes pizza crown
💩 Neo-Nazi loses election, but only just
Factoid
Berlin releases up to 1 million eels in local waterways each year to counteract global poaching operations. 200,000 young eels were relased early this month in the Havel and just as many elsewhere at a cost of €138,000 — they’ll live here for up to 14 years before heading out to the Sargasso Sea to reproduce. Asian poachers have fished the slimy sea creatures nearly into extinction as diners clamor for their meat.
📯📯Postkutsche 📯 📯
Reader Andrew writes:
The World Cup is coming up, and people are pretty annoyed with everything around it right now - the politics, the money, the general bullshit. As a kind of opposition, we’ve put together a collective football festival which is putting on stage people who are actually doing interesting things in football in Berlin and around Europe: people who do it out of passion, for good reasons, but also combine the grassroots work with creativity and culture in mind. Link to the project here.
🔗 🔗 🔗 Useful links 🔗 🔗 🔗
🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Spotify
Put my bid on Müggelwerder, of course. The chances are good - I shall turn it into my den;-)
And congrats to Andrew, of course! Welcome to German Citizens Club.
Sugar! Was it great? Bummed I missed it. And congratulations!