#518: Landlord fined, club death, mall homes, Nazi concert

Spätis host a mock election for foreigners

Aug 11, 2026

Hey 20 Percent,

According to a new study by the Club Commission, only 61% of Berlin’s club operators say they’re breaking even; 23% say they’re thinking about throwing in the towel and closing their club.

A number of factors play a role: higher rents; higher wage and energy costs; people buying fewer alcoholic drinks and going home earlier.

Call me nostalgic, but this is not good news for Berlin. Since I arrived here in the Dark Ages, the diverse buffet of independent nightlife establishments has been the city’s defining USP. Berlin’s ability to attract young talent is directly linked to nightlife and alternative culture.

Time to divert more of Berlin’s €600 million in culture funding towards clubs?

YES.

The city ploughs €172 million into its three opera houses alone each year. It’s hard to say exactly how much goes into clubs, but operators say just 2% of their income comes from state funding, probably funding for one-off special projects. I don’t want to pick on opera, but does it make sense that the taxpayer covers 72% of the cost of an opera ticket while clubs get mere crumbs?

Clubs are more essential to Berlin’s identity, image and reputation than opera. Besides, opera — being a fancy, posh artform — can surely attract more private sponsorship funding than currently. Or just stomach slightly higher ticket prices.

Funnel €20-30 million to the clubs. A lot could be done.

Meanwhile, we should just go clubbing more often, even us oldies.

What do you think?

News below.

Maurice

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Landlord fined for rent gouging

A Berlin district court has fined a landlord €1,000 for rent gouging (paywall) under Germany’s Commercial Criminal Law’s (Wirtschaftsstrafrecht) “exploitation of scarce supply” provision. The case involved an apartment in Kreuzberg’s Katzbachstraße where the landlord was found to have “exploited Berlin’s housing shortage”, according to judge Wolfgang Konecny. This ruling could strengthen district authorities’ ability to combat illegal rent increases. The rent at the start of a new tenancy cannot exceed “the local comparative rent” (“Ortsübliche Vergleichsmiete”, which can be found in the Mietspiegel) by more than 10%. If you suspect excessive rent, you’re entitled to a consultation with the Rent Review Office (info in English and other languages) who will advise further steps. In a few cases, districts themselves have sued landlords, with Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, in particular, having some success.

My place at the mall

Another way of chipping away at the housing problem: The owner of the Boulevard Berlin shopping centre in Steglitz is converting former retail spaces into 217 mini-apartments. The project is repurposing 16,000 sqm. With e-commerce battling malls and home office reducing the need for IRL offices, this is part of a growing trend of converting commercial property into residential units.

App to avoid ticket Kontrolleure

A new web-based app allows public transport patrons to warn others against active ticket checkers to help Schwarzfahrer dodge fines for riding without a ticket, according to Berliner Morgenpost (paywall or this summary by T-Online). The Freifahren app has a map of Berlin public transport routes with red warning signs highlighting where checkers have been spotted — they appear to be very active on the U5 today. The BVG has said it loses up to €25 million per annum to Schwarzfahren and said those using the app “lack solidarity”. Probably better to buy a ticket but also: BVG needs to stop hiring sometimes-racist thugs to enforce ticketing.

Nazi rock in Lichtenberg

At the other end of town, extreme rightwing party Die Heimat (formerly NPD) held an unregistered rock concert at their Köpenick office on Saturday (paywall) featuring bands like Lunikoff Verschwörung. Around 250 people showed up, including known neo-Nazis from across the country. People wore Ku Klux Klan masks or T-shirts with Nazi slogans. Police intervened following noise complaints and arrested a 52-year-old man for shouting Nazi propaganda and assaulting a photographer.

Another unicorn in the stable

Despite all the economic gloom, Berlin founders continue to rake in investment. Mitte-based fintech firm Moss just raised €30m, boosting its valuation to over €1 billion. Moss is a “digital spend management platform for European SMEs” aka a nifty AI-automation finance tool to keep a grip on business lunches. Moss says it has 5,000 customers and employs 350.

Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin

😶‍🌫️ Sound in the Garden
Thu-Sun · 6:30 pm · Neue Nationalgalerie, Potsdamer Straße 50 · €23 to 30 per night, series ticket available Curated with CTM around Fujiko Nakaya’s fog sculpture. Dopplereffekt live with Space Afrika Thursday, Hildur Guðnadóttir and Sam Slater with Slauson Malone 1 Friday, Michael Rother playing NEU! and Harmonia Saturday. Sunday is recorded works sounding inside the fog all day, and the vapour behaves differently after dark

🎪 Berlin Circus Festival
Saturday-Sunday · Tempelhofer Feld, entrance at S+U Tempelhof
The twelfth edition ends this weekend, and its spine this year is a Catalan focus built with the APCC and the Institut Ramon Llull. Cia Manel Rosés plays Akri at half seven and Cia Totapedra does Pifia twice a day, with Collective Rage closing at half eight. Three tents and an outdoor stage, plus a show of work on circus, body and city.

💃🏽 Rave The Planet Parade 2026 Saturday · 2 pm · Straße des 17. Juni · Free - you can check the floats here Dr. Motte has called this a demonstration since 1989 and won techno its UNESCO heritage listing, arguing exactly that. Thirty floats leaning hard techno and trance, the whole axis closed.

🪩 GROOVE x Studio Liberté
Sunday · 2 pm · Sonnenraum, Eichenstraße 4A · €17-22
DJ Assault and DJ Godfather carry Detroit ghettotech; Detroit in Effect and SLIC Unit carry the older lineage; Danny Daze comes from Miami; Modeselektor and SALOME play at home. Electro in every dialect, running 14 hours.

🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺

🚨 US intelligence believes Russia was behind Leipzig drone

🚨 Germany battling ‘daily’ hybrid warfare attacks, minister warns

🚨 Far-right AfD extends its lead in nationwide polls

📉 Germany’s long industrial decline

⚽ Bayern’s Harry Kane to receive Golden Shoe award

Factoid

About 1.4 million Berlin residents are excluded from the September election, including non-German citizens and children under 16. And so, the Migrationsrat (migrant council) and Berliner Späti e.V. are organizing an unofficial election at Spätis where non-eligible residents can cast symbolic ballots. Give it a go! Also, check out the work of our friends at WahlHEYmat, which focuses on getting more non-citizens involved in Berlin politics.

📫Postkutsche (mail coach)

20% Berlin subscriber Lucy wrote to us about an observation she made at Hauptbahnhof:

“Thanks for all your fantastic reporting. Regarding the tragic CSD attack, I wanted to also share something I saw yesterday when I passed through Hauptbahnhof. The ad screens around the station were displaying a flickering candle (without text) followed by a stock photo of rainbow coloured pigment exploding. A vague tribute, I thought, but at least some form of showing reverence following the attack. But then - and this is what shocked me - these images were followed by an advert for some car/car rental company which displayed the words “Egal was passiert ist (whatever happens)” and then more text saying something like “bleib entspannt (stay relaxed)”. This juxtaposition was so disrespectful, somehow even worse than if it had only been ads on the screen.”

If you missed it, here’s out latest pod — with better audio, made with proper equipment!