#510: CDU hopeful, hostage at Rewe, arms factory protest
Building on Tempelhof affordable?
Dear 20 Percent,
My family vacation almost got ruined yesterday. I turned up at Europcar at the airport to pick up a car I’d reserved for a couple of weeks. To my horror, they told me by license had expired.
“What do you mean expired? German licenses are valid for life.”
“The EU is phasingout old licenses. First the paper licenses. Then the old plastic cards, like yours from 2001. The deadline was in January.”
The guy pulled out a laminated A4 with a complicated list of types of licenses and when they’re no longer valid.
"Huh? I can’t get a car?”
“No.”
Family road trip not happening.
I walked to another rental desk and held up my ancient license. The woman shook her head.
I tried Herz. “Yes, that’s fine,” the lady said. “The worst that could happen is that the police stop you with your old license and you’ll get fined €10.”
Apparently the right to drive a car doesn’t expire, just the format of the license.
And there’s apparently no rule forbidding rental firms from renting you a car.
How ridiculous. But at least my holiday was saved.
Here’s all the info on how to exchange your old license for a forgery-proof new one plus a confusing list of deadlines. Switch languages at the upper right of the page. Naturally, it can’t be done online. You need an in-person appointment and it costs €26.50.
Maurice
🪴🪴🪴Thanks to today’s sponsor, balcony gardener Easy Bee Berlin! 🪴🪴🪴
CDU’s new guy
Following the downfall of mayor Kai Wegner thanks to his poor handling of the huge blackout in January (which included lying about whether he’d phoned Chancellor Merz during the crisis) the Berlin CDU has chosen finance senator Stefan Evers to lead the party in the September 20 election. Evers says he wants to “prevent left and right extremes from tearing at the city”. Evers is facing an uphill battle, with the CDU polling at just 17%. Meanwhile, the leftwing party Die Linke is polling at 20%, the far-right AfD at 18%. Right now, it’s looking like a Die Linke-Green-SPD coalition will take the reins.
12-hour hostage situation at Rewe
Police successfully ended a hostage crisis at a Rewe supermarket in Marienfelde in southern Berlin on Saturday morning. A 29-year-old man had held a woman captive since Friday evening before special forces stormed the building. Authorities have not yet revealed the suspect’s motives. A judge ruled Sunday that the suspect should remain in investigative custody.
Court computer crash
Another day in the painful road to digitalisation: A major IT failure has paralyzed Berlin’s courts since Monday, blocking access to case files and emails. Staff were sent home, and judges are working with pen and paper. The outage was caused by a software licensing issue and risks delaying trials and could even force the release of detainees if legal deadlines are missed. Judges are demanding an urgent IT upgrade, calling the repeated failures unacceptable.
Protest against arms factory
Around 1,800 people, including Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, protested against a Rheinmetall weapons plant in Gesundbrunnen on Saturday. The defence giant will be producing artillery shells in a former auto parts factory in the Wedding neighbourhood. Demonstrators are concerned the munitions will be used by Israel against Palestinians and by the Turkish military against Kurds.
AI textile startup funded
For a change, AI doing something good for the planet. Berlin-based AI textile sorting startup reverse.fashion has raised a seven-figure sum from High-Tech Gründerfonds to expand its automated sorting solutions for the textile industry. The company aims to scale its co.sort software and line.sort automated system, which are used to sort second-hand clothing in preparation for re-sale and upcycling.
Babylon Berlin game
Public TV network ARD says Berlin indie studio Paintbucket has developed a free game based on the hit show Babylon Berlin, set in the last days of the Weimar Republic. “A night in Moka Efti” is scheduled for release on Steam in September, in sync with the fifth season of the show. Paintbucket has won awards for its “serious games” that thematise the crimes of the Third Reich.
Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin
👯 WHOLE Festival
Friday 17 – Monday 20.07 · Ferropolis, 2h from Berlin · Weekend €279 (resale from €222) · Sunday €129 Eighth edition at Ferropolis, two hours from Berlin. Octo Octa live, Tama Sumo, HAAi, Sherelle, Kim Ann Foxman, Juliana Huxtable across six stages between excavators and a lake. But the weight sits with 30+ collectives: Anti-Mass from Kampala, Eau de Cologne from Tbilisi, Bung Lon from Saigon, Sextou from London. Cruising Village and FLINTA* spaces both expanded this year. We wrote a dedicated guide.
🎻 Kiezsalon with Sarah Neufeld and Elif Gülin Soğuksu
8 pm · Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz 4 · €10 Second Kiezsalon night. Neufeld is known from Arcade Fire, but the solo violin work is where it counts. Elif Gülin Soğuksu on electroacoustic.
🎤 SIP! with Reggie Watts & Delwin (live), Justin Shaffer, Dragana
Sunday · 3 pm · Zenner, Alt-Treptow 15 / Treptower Park · free
Reggie Watts brings the kind of musical brain that makes genre irrelevant. Beatboxing, production, comedy, electronics: all of it feeds into DJ sets that go wherever they want to go. Free, riverside, Sunday afternoon. Justin Shaffer and Dragana keep the floor moving.
🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺
🚗 Autobahn speed limit would greatly reduce deaths — study
⚓ Canada orders 12 German submarines
⚽ Klopp agrees to replace Nagelsmann as Germany coach
Factoid
The state-owned Investitionsbank Berlin (IBB) says building housing for 50,000 people on Tempelhofer Feld based on a recent proposal by architects Hans Kollhoff und Tobias Nöfer would cost €7.88 billion. The plan, which sees 21,414 new apartments in the space, would be “feasible and financially viable”. The bank says building at scale would save costs and enable “cold” rents of €16 per square metre. Thirty percent of the units would be cheaper social housing. Interestingly, the architects say their plan would cost €9 billion. To which I say: has any large construction project in this city ever been completed on time and at cost? You and I know it’s going to cost double whatever anyone says now.
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🔗 🔗 🔗 Useful links 🔗 🔗 🔗
🎙️The 20% Berlin Podcast on Spotify
On Tempelhof: https://substack.com/home/post/p-200443139
_Blockwartmentalität_ runs deep in this country. It’s none of their business to refuse you a rental, _and yet they will get involved_. As with most things here, people don’t know the rules but think they do and then all the headbutting ensues.
As for the digitalization issue: Germans probably think the problem is digital technology rather than their endemic incompetence which emerges from complicated bureaucratic processes.