Dear 20 Percent,
On Saturday, my five-year-old son and I went down to the Brandenburg Gate, hoping there would be some festivities to celebrate Germany’s Day of Unity, which I had sold to my son as “Germany’s birthday party”. Instead we found a peace protest.
As we wove our way through the crowd, it became clear it was a certain kind of peace demo, naming a very Russia-friendly once. We encountered a grab bag of BSW supporters, a stand promoting ex-East German newspaper Neues Deutschland, people collecting signatures to abolish NATO, a truck from the Communist Party of Germany and some middle-aged guys carrying Russian and Soviet flags. What really took the biscuit was a man with a “Putin = Peace” T-shirt. That’s when we decided it was time for a donut at Dunkin.
All this on the Day of Unity makes you realise that East and West are, in some ways, still lightyears apart. One woman I talked to at the demo said outright that “life was better in the GDR”. Reunification was traumatic for a lot of people and many still feel life was easier under communism but I still find it quite disturbing that former citizens of East Germany are becoming Putin-pilled three decades later. But, then again, I’m just some Besserwessi (my German family originates from Hesse).
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Maurice
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Top spy spied for other countries?
Just when I thought it was going to be a slow news day: August Hanning, the 80-year-old ex-boss of Germany's foreign intelligence service (BND), has been arrested on suspicion of espionage. Cops are searching properties in Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Berlin. Hanning was BND president from 1998 to 2005. Prosecutors accuse him of obtaining classified information in exchange for cash and producing security analyses for a foreign intelligence service. Any guesses which one?
A curious case involving vaccines and Datenschutz
A Berlin court has ruled that the fire brigade was allowed to report unvaccinated employees to the health authorities during the pandemic. However, the judge found that a blanket form that marked all firefighters as having contact with vulnerable groups violated “data-accuracy rules” since the plaintiffs in the case said they had no direct contact with vulenerable people. The court awarded the three firefighters €100 in damages. They had sought €5,000.
Cat in the Hat fakes
Brandenburg police say images of a creepy Cat in the Hat stalking kids and killing cats in the town of Wittenberge are AI-generated fakes. “Real” Cat in the Hats have been sighted in countries around the world and other parts of Germany going viral on Tik Tok since around June. Police in Hesse and Saxony-Anhalt are investigating actual “horror cat” incidents. We should see plenty of them this Halloween.
Another infrastructure attack?
Who the hell keeps destroying our electricity infrastructure? The police are investigating a suspected arson attack after unknown perpetrators set fire to a pile of old tyres beneath a cable bridge in Marzahn at 4am on Monday. The fire damaged two 110,000-volt high-voltage cables and several medium-voltage lines, briefly interrupting the power supply and forcing 19 businesses in the area to be temporarily disconnected from the grid. No households were affected. Thankfully a repeat of last winter’s blackout did not occur.
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🎭 Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin 🪩
🎞️By Design (FFFB opening night)
Wednesday · 7 pm · Kino Moviemento, Kottbusser Damm 22, 10967 Kreuzberg · €12 · OV with English subtitles
Amanda Kramer opens the Female Filmmakers Festival with a film where Juliette Lewis wants to be looked at like a beautiful chair, and gets it. If Please Baby Please stuck with you, it’s yours. Watch the trailer here.
🥁Ensemble Nist-Nah + Shouji Hara
Wednesday · 8 pm · silent green, Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Wedding · 22,58 €
Will Guthrie leads seven players, three of them women, on gamelan, gongs and drum kits. The patterns repeat and shift slowly, more like a long groove than a concert. Steve Reich fans will hear that pulse in bronze.
🎞️ Next Door
Opening Thursday · 7 pm · Hamburger Bahnhof, Invalidenstraße 50–51, 10557 Moabit · Free admission on the opening
Twenty years after they worked next door, Dean, Demand, Eliasson, Håkansson and Saraceno come back. Dean made a new 35mm film with Bruce Nauman, and Saraceno shows 14 Billions again after fifteen years.
🩰Rattleskin
Friday & Saturday, then 15–18.10 · time and price to confirm · CANK, Karl-Marx-Straße 95, 12043 Neukölln - €35-52
Soraya Schulthess’s Ballet Sur_real dances on pointe to electronic tracks mixed by Ogtrues and Reka Zalan, and asks how much of what we want was ever our own idea. Club kids with a soft spot for ballet will get it.
🍜Berlin Ramen Festival, Vol. 4
Friday to Sunday · Sat & Sun from 11 am, Saturday evening ticket from 6 pm · KOMPLEX, Modersohnstraße 35–45, 10245 Friedrichshain · €9–16, under-12s free
More than ten ramen shops from Berlin, Europe and Japan serve smaller bowls at around thirteen euros, so you can try a few. The kids get their own corner, and on Friday night teshi’s fine hour plays with kidkanevil.
🙍🏽♀️Kubra Khademi & Mortaza Behboudi: Afghan Women: A Desperate Vitality
Friday to Sunday · Fri 7 pm (German premiere), Sat 1, 3 and 5 pm, Sun 2, 4, 6 and 8 pm · HAU3, Tempelhofer Ufer 10, 10963 Kreuzberg · €22, reduced €12 · About 60 min, Persian with English translation · Three flights up, no lift
You sit on carpets in an Afghan living room while four video windows open onto Kabul. Laila runs a secret school for girls, and Narges fights for her husband’s release. Behboudi was held for nine months by the Taliban.
🎹PEOPLE Festival
Saturday 10.10 & Sunday 11.10 · from 12 pm · Funkhaus, Nalepastraße 18, 12459 Oberschöneweide · from €59
180 musicians spend a week in 40 studios with no plan, then somebody opens the doors. Free improvisation and experimental electronics, mostly played once. Limpe Fuchs on her self-built instruments, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s modular ambient and all three Mouse On Mars are somewhere in there.
🍄🟫Fungi Fever Fest Saturday & Sunday · 12 pm–8 pm · Holzmarkt 25, Holzmarktstraße 25, 10243 Friedrichshain · €5, free on Sunday in a mushroom costume
A whole weekend on the queer life of fungi, with a grow-your-own workshop, a mushroom drag battle on Saturday, a fashion show and a pub quiz on Sunday, and yes, mushrooms on every food stall.
🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺
🚨Germany risks being drawn into ‘violent conflict’ with Russia, spy chief warns
🏛️ Saxony-Anhalt parliament sits after AfD win
💡Women given shorts at Oktoberfest to prevent upskirting
🤖 Autonomous driving: VW works with Wayve instead of Nvidia
Factoid
Berlin is home to 15 of Europe’s fastest growing startups, according to the Sifted 250 list. The list is quite diverse and most companies seem to be playing the AI card well. Notables include automation heavyweights like n8n and AI customer service platform Parloa. Healthcare, fintec, climate tech and pet nutrition (The Better Cat) are all in there!
🍻🧠 🏆 I’m hosting the 20% Berlin New Quiz again on October 14th. Early Bird tickets available through tomorrow (Wednesday).
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On Saturday on Greifswalder str. there was a group of young men in 3 old trabi cars, roaring and cheering, holding aloft the East German flag. I honestly couldn't tell whether it was a joke or not.