Dear 20 Percent,
Tagesspiegel has a story (€) about a dispute over a large remaining Nazi bunker near Potsdamer Platz. A developer has plans for a mixed-use new-build on Voßstraße, on the spot where Hitler's New Reich Chancellery once stood. The 1,800m² bunker — of which 45% survives — is the largest of four remaining underground structures in the area, including the notorious “Führerbunker”, where Hitler spent his final hours. None of these bunkers have been open to the public (with the exception of guided tours) for fear they would become pilgrimage sites for neo-Nazis. Now the largest of these structures could be wiped off the map.
Berliner Unterwelten, a non-profit dedicated to preserving the city’s bunkers and tunnels, is fighting to at least incorporate the bunker and a documentation centre into the new building. “Dismissing history like this is incredibly embarrassing for Berlin,” says Dietmar Arnold, the association’s chairman. I agree. There must be a way to preserve this history without attracting hordes of extremists. What do you think?
More news below.
Maurice
💡Tomorrow, Wednesday, it’s time test your knowledge of Berlin and Germany at the 20% Berlin News Quiz at Electric Social near Alexanderplatz. Hosted by me. I’d love to see you there! RSVP here.
Blocage du lycée
Pupils at Berlin's Französisches Gymnasium, a bilingual French-German public high school, held a strike Monday in solidarity with French students, who have been demonstrating for over two weeks for better school funding and more substitute teachers. Not everyone is amused. Berlin's education senator Katharina Günther-Wünsch (CDU) called the strike unacceptable because students blockaded the building. Free speech does not justify blockading a school, she said. Fun fact: My daughter attended the school, Berlin's oldest. I’m sure she’d be striking.
Builders spooked
While everyone's talking about the new "INVESTORS KILL" graffiti at Kotti, real-life property investors aren't feeling so great about Berlin. Construction industry president Olaf Demuth says Die Linke’s plans to socialise housing in Berlin are already having “devastating effects”: building firms seeking loans in the capital can no longer access fresh capital, with even international investors pulling back. Expropriating large property firms would cost €20–30 billion for 200,000 flats while building or renovating nothing, he said — and foreign investors are getting nervous similar moves could occur in Hamburg and Munich. Demuth argued the only way out of Berlin's housing shortage is to make building attractive again for private owners, cooperatives, and institutional investors. I guess he would say that.
False alarm
Last weekend at the Hallesches Tor U-Bahn station in Kreuzberg, two police officers armed with machine pistols stormed through several carriages after a woman called emergency services reporting that a man was threatening passengers with a gun. Fearing an active threat, police swept the train. One officer briefly pointed his weapon at a passenger. No suspects were found.
Flixtrain ups its game
Riding Flixtrain’s old refurbished trains feels like Interrailing in the 1990s, but at least they’re cheap. While Deutsche Bahn is unable to drag its punctuality stats out of the basement, its most formidable private competitor is expanding its Berlin routes. Starting December 13 Flixtrain will offer up to 20 trips per day between Berlin and Hamburg, six daily trains to Frankfurt, and up to 10 on its new Berlin–Bremen route. Flix is promising improved onboard comfort and a guaranteed seat with every ticket.
🎭 Events this week, curated by The Next Day Berlin 🪩
🎺Pastards
Wednesday 14.10 · 6 pm, concert 8.30 pm · Giri, Hermannstraße 14, 12049 Neukölln · €18 (pasta + concert)
Fabio Radermacher’s quartet plays the jazz they grew up on, right after a plate of casarecce with mushroom cream, roasted pear and crispy leek. Dinner and concert on one ticket, vegan option too.
📺KW Autumn Opening: Susan Hiller, KOO JEONG A, Rafik Greiss
Friday 16.10 · 7–10 pm · KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Auguststraße 69, 10117 Mitte · free
Three shows open the same night. Susan Hiller’s first Berlin survey has UFO voices and floating bodies, KOO JEONG A brings walls that vibrate, and Rafik Greiss premieres a film shot in the desert.
🎞️⚡ Smoke and Fire and Electricity
Friday 16.10 · 3 pm–midnight · Stadttheater Luckenwalde, Grünstraße 14, 14943 Luckenwalde · €21
E-WERK honors David Lynch and his love of electricity with an evening of his films and live sets in between, by Sainkho Namtchylak, Franziska Aigner and Olga Hohmann with Yannik Wittmann.
🍽️The Indian Table Berlin: Autumn Edition
Saturday 17.10 · 6–9 pm · Krausenstraße, 10117 Mitte · €35–39
A home cook serves Indian dishes you rarely find on Berlin menus, at one shared table in Mitte. Three hours, a set menu, and the kind of dinner where you end up asking the cook for recipes.
🪩Lewie’s Acid House
Saturday 17.10 · 10.30 pm · Sameheads, Richardstraße 10, 12043 Neukölln · Around €15-20
Tornado Wallace, the Melbourne producer of warm, slightly psychedelic house, hosts his own acid house night with Ellie Stokes. A small Neukölln room with an easy door, where dancing is the whole plan.
💕🔥Annie Sprinkle & Beth Stephens: Playing with Fire
Sunday 18.10 · 7 pm · HAU1, Stresemannstraße 29, 10963 Kreuzberg · €15-22
Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens have already married the earth, the sea and the moon. On the last night of HAU’s Love is a Verb festival they marry fire, an ecosexual wedding for a burning planet.
🍺 🥨 Germany-wide news 🥨 🍺
🤝 UK and Germany will face threats together, says Burnham on Berlin trip
📈 German government raises growth forecasts for 2026 and 2027
💻 Court in NRW overturns web blocks for Pornhub and YouPorn
⚽ Bayern’s Kimmich defends Jürgen Klopp
Factoid
Last week Friedrich Merz revealed that he got pretty much the worst Abitur grade you can get without failing — a 3.8. The Abitur is the school-leaving cert you need to attend university. The best possible grade is a 1.0. Anything below 4.1 is a failing grade. Merz went on to study law from 1976-1981. Nice to know you can get crap grades and still make it to BlackRock and the office of chancellor. Merz had been reluctant to reveal his grade because he didn’t want to give his seven grandchildren the wrong impression. 💩
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I mean, he’s straightforwardly correct that someone’s got to build a shitload more housing, and I really don’t care if it’s private or public. I don’t know when or why building homes for people to live in became somehow a dirty job.
If Braunau am Inn can preserve his effing birthplace, surely Berlin can preserve the bunkers and use them to help tell the story the AfD and its fellow travelers are trying so hard to rewrite.