Babylon Berlin
- @jpolizei
- Aug 26, 2018
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 3, 2019
In the manic final episode of Parts Unknown precluding its host's suicide, the late, great Anthony Bourdain presents Berlin as the "last, real liberal city." A city torn apart by three generations of successive twentieth-century wars. Once little more than a provincial backwater in the Kingdom of Prussia, risen from the bloody ashes of Hitler's Welthauptstadt [world capital] "Germania," and almost thirty years removed from its status as Frontstadt [capital of the Cold War], #Berlin remains a city of contrasts. With a modern history of transcultural tolerance dating back to the 1812 Prussian Edict of Emancipation granting Prussian #citizenship to German Jews, Berlin remains the most vibrant example of Germany's oft-contested policy of multiculturalism.
Germans will tell you that Berlin is not a pretty city. Raped and ravaged by Soviet and Allied occupations alike, and rebuilt by the hands of Vertrags- and Gastarbeiter [contract and guest workers] brought in from afar to compensate for the lost generations of Germans in the wake of World War 2, there is a haphazardness (or is it spontaneity) about the modern city that underscores its long-divided past. And like all great cities of the world, contemporary Berlin suffers from the blight of #gentrification. Foreign investors chafe to buy up the ramshackle Soviet Bloc housing in the city's East while Southern Germans with their deep pockets and Käsespätzle or digital nomads escaping the rising prices of London, New York, or San Francisco outbid and out-compete the local denizens for their slice of the Berlin skyline.
And yet there is an optimism here that belies the Germans' propensity for doom and gloom. The Berlin winter alone suffices to keep the more weak-willed transplants at bay. A deeply-entrenched #history of local politics maintains a semblance of Berlin-for-Berliners policy sentiment in the face of the most rampant projects of urban renewal. The omnipresence of "Fuck off Google!" stickers and leaflets (complete with detailed instructions on how to function digitally in a Google-free world) -- reactions to the proposed Google Campus in Berlin-Kreuzberg -- betrays the city's lukewarm appreciation for continued foreign occupation. But what does it mean to be a Berliner anyway?
The city perpetuates a sense of urban renewal -- in all its many incarnations -- ranging from glitzy high rises pulled seemingly without effort from the sprawling concrete by the city's blinking multitudes of cranes to the latest sidewalk installation of mattresses and gutted futon beds. Berlin's flea markets proliferate like fungus between its rains, promising an endless repurposing of other people's memories and lives: too-personal collections of old photographs, antique comic books of questionable moral character, and vinyl records melted and reconstituted into mixing bowls. When the sun shines, Berlin can be the freest place in #Europe, a multigenerational carnival of recycled and revolving histories.
But there is a certain sense of permanence here, as well. Move over, Checkpoint Charlie, someone get these folks a beer (or better yet, an ayran or a tea). Berlin's long history of #migration ensures that ('random' ID-checks and the less-than-random airport security scans practiced on coffee-colored residents like me aside) no one can judge a Berlin local by the color of their skin. The millions of post-War guest workers (and their children, and their children's children, and so on...) have injected new life into the once skeletal remains of the capital city, providing poetic justice but little consolation for Berlin's many thousands of Jews, Roma, communists, LGBTQ+, Catholics, disabled, and other perceived enemies of the State who lost their livelihoods and/or lives in the dark days of Nazi rule.
Crowded into substandard living quarters under the shadow of the Berlin Wall, just meters from the constant threat of nuclear annihilation.. When the War ended, the first generation of guest workers in West Berlin joined its potato-starved survivors to quite literally pave the way for Berlin's post-Reunification emergence as the great world city it is today. But Berlin has always been a meeting place: a microcosm of a larger Germany sandwiched between the Scandinavian, Mediterranean, and Slavic worlds. On January 1, 2000, through significant reforms (modernization) of its previous citizenship law (which had for far too long stipulated nationality-by-German-blood alone), the modern Federal Republic of #Germany has begun the shaky transition into officially recognizing its long-obvious position as a perpetual country of immigrants.
Berlin's colorful past (and future), and the very living memory of occupation and war continue to shape its politics, providing a particularly strong argument for compromise and cooperation. Perhaps the thought might make you squirm that the leader of Germany's largest conservative party, the CDU, is now widely considered the progressive leader of the Free World. My, how times have changed. Perhaps that's also a bit of poetic justice, or a sign of just how far the pendulum can swing. It's also a crucial reminder of the fluidity of political reform.
It's 2 am, and I've spent the last eight hours browsing through collections of erotic mineral formations, marveling at the eternal magnetism of our galaxy, and trying to maintain an objective viewpoint on displays of pickled fetuses in jars. No, despite how that might sound, I haven't woken up in Berghain or any other of the city's infamous all-night clubs. I'm absorbing its 'high' culture during the annual Lange Nacht der Museen [Long Night of Museums] -- albeit, fueled by more than a few Wegbiere [beers to go], Club Mate, and a healthy portion of currywurst and fries.
True, Berlin's art and music scenes are legendary. Its clubs need never close. And its street #food -- from döner to pierogi -- could give L.A. or Bangkok a very serious run for their money. But Berlin's communal roots run deeper than the casual hipster's palette might appreciate. The living legacy of migration here has spawned a creative renaissance molded by the city's so-called 'postmigrant' culture (more on this later), helplessly and hopefully entangled with the city's dynamic Germanic inheritance. There is a distinct personability to the folding table hospitality of the city's Späti [late night convenience store] culture, an honesty to its friendliness matched only by its impatience for pleasantries.
Perhaps looking for salvation himself in the dark clubs and seedy dreams of Berlin's endless nightlife, Anthony Bourdain did stumble across a few revelations here, even if they weren't ultimately enough to change his fate:
‘Berlin is never Berlin,’ they say. Pounded into rubble by Allied bombs and Russian artillery in World War II, surrounded, then hacked in two during the Cold War, then reunited and reborn, Berlin is a city of ghosts, an ever-evolving space where memories and new ideas live side by side.
The city retains a sentiment of community, a sense of sarcasm and hope in the winds of change that have long whitewashed or pixelated away the sense of a communal purpose in the glittering glass towers of other capital cities of the Global North. There is a feeling here that (almost) anyone can be a part of the Berlin project, can share in the dream of a world community that has brought and continues to bring so many of this planet's best and brightest to seek out a fighting chance beneath the linden trees.
But until you've found your niche here, you'd better wear your thinking cap. There's still a pecking order within the urban, communal living space. Close (or fill) your mouth and open your ears and eyes. Be prepared for shock and awe, and try to learn a thing or two. It's cheap here, but nobody rides for free.
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