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J U N E 2 0 2 1
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28.5.
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EXB205
June 2021
SPECIAL
—
Berlin at work
Free to obey
A historian explains how an SS Oberführer
08 shaped modern management
11
The corona gig
A new job market grows out of testing and
vaccinating – but how long will it last?
14
Covid career shifts
Four hustlers find themselves at a
professional crossroads
18
Secure in the saddle
Exberliner takes delivery app employers on
a test drive
21
“I’m a rider myself!”
Gorillas delivery start-up founder Kağan
Sümer on how it all began
22
Coworking goes corporate
How big brands are warming to the idea of
sharing an office
26
The Homeoffice debate
As the novelty wears off, we hear four
different takes on working from home
REGULARS
—
05
Political Notebook
Business as usual with Israel
06
Best of Berlin
A fashion Plattenbau, wine in a can and
home-cooked grub to order
28
What’s On
Our culture editors preview the month
in film, music, stage and art
44
Books
The absurdity of Heimat, East German
diaries and paperback picks
48
Berlin Bites
Four puffy-crusted gems of the pizza-demic
49
The Gay Berliner
Berlin queers are far from idle in the
pandemic
50
Short Escapes
Venturing out to the sandy shores of the
Müritz
CONTENTS
8
18
14
June / July Programme
2.6. / Access via www.berlinerfestspiele.de
42. Theatertreffen der Jugend Berlin
German
Emojiland!
With students from Hector-Peterson-Schule
/ Houseclub presents:
Kareth Schaffer & Dan Lancea
PERFORMANCE
4.6. / HAU4 / Premiere / Available until 11.6. / German
FUX
Premiere (UA)
THEATRE
8.6. / HAU4 / Premiere / Available until 14.6.
German
Die Figur & Showcase
Beat Le Mot
FANS
PERFORMANCE MUSIC FILM
15.6.* / HAU4 / Premiere /
German
onlinetheater.live
Loulu
GAME NET ART
18.6.* / HAU4 / English
Jota Mombaça
The Birth of Urana Remix
FILM
23.6.* / HAU4 / Premiere / English
Forced
Enter tainment
How the Time Goes – Episode 1–7
PERFORMANCE FILM
29.6. / HAU4 / Premiere / Available until 5.7.
Lee Méir
safe&sound
DANCE FILM
2.7. / HAU4 / Premiere / Available until 9.7.
Kadir “Amigo” Memis
Opferschicht – Narben und Namen
DANCE FILM
9.-27.6. / Display window Friedrichstraße 4
Further information on www.hebbel-am-ufer.de
Werkstatt Mehringplatz
As part of the project “Berlin
bleibt! #3”
SITE-SPECIFIC PROJECT
www.hebbel-am-ufer.de
* Afterwards still available on www.HAU4.de
Further content can be found in the HAUthek on HAU4.
˛

PARTNER CONTENT
4 EXBERLINER 205

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COLUMN— Political Notebook
205
J U N E 2 0 2 1
SPECIAL
Jobs &
jobbing in
Berlin
Cover by Katharina Grossmann-Hensel
Editorial
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Nadja Vancauwenberghe
(Verantwortliche im Sinne des Pressegesetzes §7 LPG Berlin)
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David Mouriquand
Books
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Rachel More
Music
Damien Cummings
Design
Art director
Gustavo del Castillo M.
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Lucy Rowan
Food
Jane Silver
Graphic design
Paula Ragucci
Copy editing
Alex Pichaloff, Alexander Wells
Illustration
Katharina
Grossmann-Hensel
Junior contributors
Lucy Rowan, Mark Petrie
Photography
James Huertas,
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Online
Matthew Unicomb, Beth Jones, Benjamin Haughton
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It is a publication of Tip Berlin Media Group GmbH.
Managing director: Robert Rischke
Business as usual with Israel
As German decision-makers wring their hands and mince
their words on the crisis in the Middle East, the arms
companies keep cashing those cheques.
Amid all the talk of bombs and rockets,
here’s a list you might have missed in
the German news:
2018: Combat operation system, all-terrain
vehicles, parts for combat tanks, armoured
vehicles and other military vehicles. Total
value: €101,194,601.
2019: Drones, parts for combat tanks,
engines and parts for helicopters,
ammunition for howitzers,
ammunition for recoil-free
weapons, ammunition for
grenade guns, ammunition
for automatic grenade
launchers, mortar
ammunition, parts for
submarines and warships,
naval mine-clearing
equipment, parts for
torpedoes and missiles,
missile defence systems for
aircraft, parts for infrared
equipment and thermal
imaging equipment (among
other things). Total value: €75,932,282.
January - June 2020: Corvette warships,
parts for submarines and corvettes, airindependent
propulsion systems. Total
value: €533,044,265.
This is the military equipment that
German companies have sold to Israel in
the last three years, as listed in the German
government’s arms export reports. Not
that Israel is the only country in that region
Germany has sold arms to. Turns out there
are a lot of good weapons customers in
the Middle East. The Egyptian military
dictatorship is one of the best; like Israel,
Egypt also bought a German submarine last
year. (Germany is often careful to maintain
balance in these arms races.) There’s also
good business to be made with Qatar (a
direct funder of Hamas), the Saudi monarchy
(dismemberer of journalists, bomber of
Yemen), the UAE (another bomber of
Yemen), as well as Oman, Jordan and Kuwait.
Last month, as Hamas rockets (courtesy of
Iran and Syria) flew into Jerusalem and Tel
Aviv, and as Gaza City was being flattened by
Israel’s (mostly US-made) planes, German
Foreign Minister Heiko Maas wrote a tweet.
Konrad Werner
explains German
politics
It read: “At the moment, ending the violence
in the #MiddleEast is the highest priority.
But we should also talk about how such an
escalation can be avoided in future.”
This tweet is irritating on a few levels,
but one of them is grammatical. Making
use of one of German politicians’ favourite
tools, you’ll notice how Maas slid gently
from the active to the passive voice towards
the end there. How can this horror be
avoided? It suggests that the solution to
the conflict is abstract, in
the air somewhere, like a
balloon floating above all
the belligerents, just out of
reach. If only we could jump
and get it down!
But if you’re supplying
arms, you are involved.
You’ve made a deliberate
decision to help one side
kill people (though you may
also be indirectly helping
the other side through
Qatar, see above). That’s an
active choice and could be
described with active grammar. Of course,
the nature of this kind of involvement means
that you can go easy on yourself, confining
your interest to the only thing that matters
to you: the money German companies can
make.
Germany’s strongest reaction to the terror
in Gaza and Israel in the last few weeks
has been to obsess over anti-Semitism at
home – namely, in the Arab community of
Neukölln – and to suck its teeth and point
to the nation’s historical responsibility to
stand up for Israel. Both of those concerns
are legitimate and important, but they’re
just two elements of a cycle of violence
that Germany actively participates in.
They’re also just shrugs: it’s not us, it’s
the immigrants; it’s not us, it was our Nazi
granddad. It’s very bad. We’re very sorry
about it. Now here’s the invoice. T
If you’re supplying arms,
you are involved. You’ve
made a deliberate decision
to help one side kill people.
JUNE 2021
5

BEST
OF
BERLIN
BERLIN APP
BEST HOME-COOKED GRUB
Lockdown has seen a profusion of passionate
home cooks selling their tantalising concoctions
on Instagram. HomeMealDeal
is an app designed to help them run a bona fide
business from their own kitchen, by connecting
them with Berliners hungry for new and
authentic dishes not available anywhere else
on the foodscape. Against popular belief, it is
not impossible to sell your vegan lasagne or
home-made jollof rice to punters from your
home – provided you have the right paperwork,
that is. After launching trial runs late last year,
Martin Schmidt of Leverkusen and his Slovenian
partner Mario Dugonik officially formed
the Berlin start-up in April to help at-home
chefs get hygiene certificates and the ironically
named “red cards”, which give individuals the
green light to set up shop. Popular offerings
include Vivian Liu’s 20-set of Chinese dumplings
at €11-13 and Evelyn Ebert’s beef, chicken
or veggie waakye, a Ghanaian rice-based dish
cooked with black-eyed peas and covered in a
black chili and tomato sauce (€9.50). And don’t
forget Benjamin the Bavarian’s home-roasted
Schweinshaxe! Anyone living in the north or
east of the city might struggle to score a homecooked
dinner, since offerings are pick-up only
and concentrated in Tempelhof-Schöneberg,
Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg and Mitte for now.
The roll-out is proceeding at a modest pace,
but it’s not for the lack of chefs; Schmidt and
Dugonik are cutting through the red tape district
by district. HomeMealDeal currently supports
40 ‘kitchenpreneurs’, many of them newcomers
to Berlin who are in the process of setting
up a new life here. Another 200 people are on
a waiting list, ready to serve up the authentic
flavours of their home country. — MP
HomeMealDeal, available for Android and
iOS devices
TPSY
HomeMealDeal
HomeMealDeal
SUMMER DRINK
BEST WINE IN A CAN
Berlin isn’t exactly a wine city. Blame that on
Berliners’ inveterate love for street drinking:
whether in the park or at a protest, a Pilsner
seems a lot more practical than a bottle of Riesling
and a set of glasses. Enter TPSY, which has the perfect
solution for outdoor boozers with palates too
refined for Sterni or Radler: canned wine. That’s right
– the handy tipple for the gal on the go has reached
these shores, after taking the Anglophone world by
storm. Putting wine inside a can has always been a
contentious concept, but founders Nico Dierking-
Mihm and Phillip von Gilsa aren’t scared to ruffle
some feathers if it means filling a gap in the Berlin
market. “That’s why we chose a cat as our mascot,”
Dierking-Mihm says, pointing to the bleary-eyed
cartoon puss sprawled across the packaging. “Not
everyone loves the idea of drinking wine from a can,
but a cat does what it wants – it doesn’t give a shit
what other people say.” You might not find TPSY
in your local Späti, but that could be by design, as
these wine rebels say they don’t want their vino
to-go sold in any old corner shop. Priced at €4 per
250ml-can and available in four different varieties
(Riesling and Rosé Bubbles, and Riesling and Rosé
Schorle), it’s more expensive than your average tinnie.
TPSY promises not to falter on quality, sourcing
only from a leading winemaker in Rüdesheim in the
Rhine Valley. “Phillip and I drank a lot of wine to
ensure we didn’t compromise on taste!” Dierking-
Mihm chuckles. The pair have reduced their wines’
alcohol content to 7.5 percent, spritzer or not (the
Bubbles option is mixed with non-alcoholic wine).
This is to mitigate the risks that come with canned
booze, Dierking-Mihm explains. “When it’s from a
can, you tend to chug a lot faster!” The makers are
also working on reducing their CO2 emissions by
planting a tree for every four-pack sold. Sadly, you
won’t be able to sip your TPSY under said tree, since
it’s part of a reforestation drive in Madagascar. — LR
Order online at tpsy.wine
6
EXBERLINER 205

Illustration und Schrift: Hannah Göppel
Putnoki Photo
BEST OF BERLIN
PREFAB EMPORIUM
BEST FASHION PLATTENBAU
From outside, the grotty cement
block at Memhardstraße 8 looks
no different to any other Plattenbau
on the fringes of Alexanderplatz – but
inside, this prefab relic has had a dramatic
revamp. Funded by the district offices of
Mitte and Pankow, Platte Modehaus
is a collective project led by 80 fashion
stakeholders that aims to serve as the new
home for Berlin’s fizzing fashion scene.
The ground floor will house installations,
window displays and pop-ups, while
designers are invited to set up camp in
the lower ground cavern where they can
use fully equipped studios complete with
paper backdrops, natural lighting and
tucked-away hair and makeup booths.
Arne Eberle, publisher of indie fashion
publication ΠMagazine, is among the
hub’s handpicked custodians. “I’m just
a tiny part. The name Platte refers to
the idea that the system is modular,
that different blocks come together,”
he says. From mid-June onwards, the
onsite shop opens, offering designers the
opportunity to sell their creations. But
this isn’t a glorified gift shop; the space
seeks to be “a hub where things happen”.
Talks with Berlin fashion schools are
under way to launch research into the
development of sustainable materials
and there are plans to host panel talks
JUNE 2021
and coaching sessions for designers.
According to Eberle, the project offers a
full 360 degrees of support for creatives,
who can benefit from “a transfer of
knowledge and networking opportunities”.
In order to move in, all they have
to do is submit a concept to the pool
of stakeholders. Eberle admits that the
collective nature at times can be chaotic,
but the more actors who get involved,
the more resources and money can be
pumped into Platte, which has barely
got off the ground but already plans to
expand. The space has its eyes on the
800sqm plot next door, a former pharmacy
that has been boarded up for the
past 10 years; next year it will become
home to Platte’s “special machines”, to
be rented out in time slots. “Designers
don’t typically have buttonhole or seam
machines because they are so expensive
no one buys them,” Eberle explains. He
even sees the potential in Platte’s back
courtyard to host fashion shows. “They
used to do them here in the 1990s!” he
says. Trends may have come and gone
since then, but shabby-chic never goes
out of style in Berlin. Just as well since
the prospective runway is cluttered with
rubbish bins and covered in graffiti. — LR
Platte Modehaus, Memhardstraße 8,
Mitte, instagram.com/platte.berlin
, RLIN
05.06., 48h 05.06., 48h 04.– 04.– | | UKW 05.06., UKW 05.06., 48h 48h 106,4 | 106,4 | UKW 48h UKW 48h | | | VOLKSBÜHNE 106,4 UKW VOLKSBÜHNE 106,4 | 106,4 | | | | VOLKSBÜHNE VOLKSBÜHNE BERLIN
BERLIN
BERLIN
BERLIN
BER
Illustration und Schrift: Hannah Göppel
Illustration und Schrift: Hannah Göppel
04.– 04.– 05.06., 05.06., 48h 48h | | UKW UKW 106,4 106,4 | | VOLKSBÜHNE VOLKSBÜHNE BERLIN
BERLIN
Illustration und Schrift: Hannah Göppel
Illustration und Schrift: Hannah Göppel
Illustration und Schrift: Hannah Göppel
Illustration und Schrift: Hannah Göppel
04.– 05.06., 48h | UKW 106,4 | VOLKSBÜHNE BERLIN
04.– 05.06., 48h | UKW 106,4 | VOLKSBÜHNE BER
04.– 05.06., 48h | UKW 106,4 | VOLKSBÜHNE BERLIN
BERL
VOLKSBÜHNE | 106,4 UKW | 48h 05.06., 04.– Illustration und Schrift: Hannah Göppel
Illustration und Schrift: Hannah Göppel
7
Illustration und Schrift: Hannah Göppel

BERLIN AT WORK
| HUMAN RESOURCES |
FREE TO OBEY
In a short, erudite book recently published in German,
French historian Johann Chapoutot explains how a
former SS Oberführer shaped post-war West Germany’s
business elite, revealing the surprising modernity of Nazi
Menschenführung, as well as the “fundamental hypocrisy”
of modern liberal management. By Nadja Vancauwenberghe
“Obedience makes you
free, a short history
of management from
Hitler to the present”, by
French historian of Nazism
Johann Chapoutot,
came out in German in
late March (Propyläen).
When Reinhard Höhn kicked
the bucket in 2000 at the age
of 95, obituaries mourned
the great theoretician of modern liberal
management, the guru behind post-war
Germany’s economic success. Between
1956 and 2000, some 600,000 West
German bosses, managers and other
business leaders, from BMW to Aldi to
Colgate, attended his business school in
the Lower Saxony town of Bad Harzburg
and trained in the fundamentals of
successful management: participation,
delegation, autonomy,
responsibility. In fact, the
famous ‘Harzburg model’
was developed by Höhn as
he was working to solve
the Third Reich’s organisational
needs at the
Humboldt University’s
Institut für Staatsforschung
between 1939 and
1944. Oberführer Höhn
not only escaped post-war
justice and denazification;
he made a seamless career
transition into post-war
Germany, lending his
skills and expertise to the
new economic elite.
Gehorsam macht frei
(obedience makes you
free) reads like a parable:
through the incredible
career of one man whose
influence presided over two systems
often held as ideologically incompatible,
Chapoutot places the Third Reich
into the historical continuity to which
it belongs – within Germany, but also
within the wider context of liberal economic
history. In the end, Chapoutot
isn’t so much discrediting management
I was shocked by how
current the language
was. I had a little moment
of doubt. Was l
listening to a rabid Nazi
or was I in a business
school lecture hall?
practices through their potential Nazi
roots as he is exposing the duplicitous
essence of modern management.
What inspired this book about
the Third Reich and modern
management? For my last book, Das
Gesetz des Blutes (‘the law of blood’), I
had read the works of Reinhard Höhn
in the 1920s-1930s and come across
his second career. I thought it was
interesting that an SS general could
become a liberal-management guru in
post-war West Germany. It was quite
telling about our world.
But it was a text by Herbert Backe
that really caught my attention [Backe
was the radical Nazi technocrat who,
as minister of food, oversaw the
planning and implementation of the
starvation of millions following the
1941 invasion of the USSR]. It was a
pretty short and abrasive circular in 12
points aimed at the Third Reich’s civil
servants in the East. And what does
he say? He speaks of “performance”
and “mission”, asking them to show
“flexibility”, “agility”, “autonomy” and
“decisiveness”. I was shocked by how
current the language was. On the one
hand, there was the appalling racism
towards Untermensch Russians, colonial
violence, et cetera – which feels very
alien to us today. But on the other hand,
there was the familiar language of a
modern manager. I had a little moment
of doubt. I was wondering where I was.
Was I listening to a rabid Nazi or was I
in a business school lecture hall?
The French title, Libre d’obéir
(‘free to obey’), was already
intriguing, but the German
Gehorsam macht frei is a notch
more daring – even provocative.
Was it your decision to use a direct
reference to Arbeit macht frei,
the Nazi slogan at the entrance of
Dachau and Auschwitz? Actually,
it was a German journalist who’d read
the book in French and translated the
title like that. I thought it was very
good. It’s true: it’s daring and it may
seem a little shocking, but it’s relevant
as it translates very well the Nazi idea
of liberating man through work. The
expression “Arbeit macht frei”, which
for us has become the height of the
criminal cynicism of the Third Reich,
had a real meaning for the Nazis. In the
Nazis’ conception of the Germanic man,
what they call der germanische Mensch,
work realises the individual, creates a
world of civilisation and thus frees man
from nature. It’s a very common idea,
since Hegel, to say that man realises
himself through work, but for the Nazis
it only applied to the Germanic man.
Only he works. The other ‘races’ don’t
really work. This is something that is
repeated over and over again in the
newsreels of the time, which show the
populations of Poland or the East as
idle, negligent people who don’t work
and don’t maintain anything – an old
colonial stereotype that we still find in
attitudes about Africa, for example. So
only the Germanic man works and puts
others to work, and that’s part of the
reason why the Nazis were so interested
in the organisation of work and put so
much thinking into management – or
Menschenführung.
One of the surprising aspects
of your book is how modern
and liberal the Nazi approach
to management was – not at all
authoritarian as you’d expect
from a repressive regime. How did
that happen? In practical terms, you
8
EXBERLINER 205

BERLIN AT WORK
need to consider that the Third Reich’s
ambitions in terms of production
are massive. Take rearmament: an
armoured division must be created, a
navy must be created. It all needs to be
produced – and fast – which involves
an increased Leistung (performance).
The term Leistungsfähigkeit (efficiency)
is a cardinal and recurrent one in Nazi
discourse. They are aware that you can’t
increase Leistung by coercion. Coercion
is good for ‘slaves’, like the inferior
‘race’ of Slavs who live in the East
under the domination of the Judeo-
Bolsheviks in an open-air gulag. But this
isn’t possible for the Germanic man; he
cannot be forced. You have to win his
consent, and his enthusiasm for work
will in turn create more Leistung. To
do this, you don’t force him, you don’t
hit him, you don’t repress him – you
encourage him. This is where the term
Menschenführung comes in. It’s a term
that comes from military vocabulary,
which was used a lot in the context of
World War I. The Führer is the leader
who takes his men into battle, the one
who takes you with him.
The polysemy of the term
‘Führung’ is interesting, isn’t it?
The verb führen is ‘to lead’ and ‘to
direct’, but it’s also ‘to guide’. The
Führer is a boss, a leader, but also a
guide. In French or in English you
have different words; in German
it’s the same thing. Yes, “führen” is
really “mit sich führen” (to lead with
oneself); there is this idea of solidarity
between the leader and the troop. This
notion of Menschenführung is opposed to
the notion of verwalten (to administrate
or manage), which contains the idea
of Gewalt (violence). It’s really the
vertical, pyramidal relationship between
a leader who is totally detached from
his troops and the troops below who
obey mechanically. That’s French-style
management conceptualised by Henri
Fayol at the end of the 19th century.
Reinhard Höhn says it very well – and
he’s not the only one: there is a total
opposition between the pyramidal,
coercive French-style Verwaltung and
the German-style Menschenführung.
One would also associate that
type of hierarchical/coercive
management style with the
Prussian military tradition... Not
necessarily, because what Reinhard
Höhn shows is that after the defeat
of Napoleon, a new form of military
command was invented, called
Auftragstaktik, which was not at all
vertical but consisted of “auftragen”
(assigning, delegating) to a subordinate.
Like the captain who said to the
lieutenant: “Nimm doch das Dorf”
(Go and take that village) – do as you
please, as you can. In the Nazi context,
Reinhard Höhn and his colleagues,
the head of the Gestapo, Werner Best,
and Staatssekretär Wilhelm Stuckart,
put a lot of thought into the most
efficient way of administrating the
ever-expanding Reich, and they realised
the benefits of that approach: on the
ground, the subordinates are free to
take the necessary steps to fulfil the
objective without bothering the Zentrale
in Berlin, which has other things to
worry about.
So are you saying that the
modern theory of management
‘by delegation’ was a Prussian
military invention, perfected by
the Nazis? You could say that. And
it’s no coincidence that Peter Drucker,
the great US management theorist,
develops a similar model in the US
after 1945. He talks about “management
by objectives” (MBO) and Reinhard
Höhn talks about “management by
delegation of responsibilities”. The
idea is the same and the inspiration is
the same. Peter Drucker is an Austrian-
German Jew, of German tradition and
culture, who emigrated to the United
From 1956 to 2000, the business elite of Germany
would flock to the spa town of Bad Harzburg
in Lower Saxony to train in the ‘Harzburg model’,
the objective-based management approach
conceptualised by Reinhard Höhn during the
Third Reich. Höhn, shown here in 1971, loved
teaching and was praised as a great pedagogue.
States. And so he too was inspired by
the Prussian military model.
That’s where it becomes more
uncomfortable. Where you
show a historical continuity of
Nazi management – both theory
and practice – with a Prussian
before and a neo-liberal after.
And Reinhard’s career shows
how seamless it was. What Höhn
advocates totally fits the culture of
the time, and that’s why Drucker will
say the same thing in the US. Both are
completely relevant in the context of
the ‘free world’ against the Communist
Bloc. So to be free in the Western,
Atlantic, capitalist world is to be free
as a voter, free as a consumer and as a
producer. And since I have a margin of
initiative, I am free to obey.
Reinhardt Höhn’s career is at
the core of this book, and it
seems unreal that a former SS
Oberführer and convinced Nazi –
you call him “the Mengele of the
economy” – could become this
great man of modern management
in post-war Germany, not only
unbothered by justice, but able
to find a flourishing career with
Die Bad-Harzburg-Stiftung
JUNE 2021
9

BERLIN AT WORK
his Harzburg School. Yes, it
seems incredible, but what you need
to consider is that Germany went
from one war to the next – the war
against the USSR. It may have been
a cold war, but it was still a war. In
this context, the former Nazis are
seen as experienced professionals
– but they are also trustworthy anticommunists.
The entire civil service,
the entire police force, the entire
judiciary, doctors, university professors
are people recycled from the Third
Reich. There was no denazification in
West Germany – that’s a myth! And it
doesn’t only affect West Germany. In
France, the Foreign Legion recycles
thousands of former SS men. And let’s
not talk about the United States! Latin
America... Now we’re getting to know
all that very, very well. It may come
across as surprising, but
historians are no longer
surprised at all. It’s been
well documented.
But he was an SS
Oberführer, a highranking
Nazi! And not
only did he escape
Nuremberg, he didn’t
even have to flee or
hide under a fake
identity to become the
Reinhard Höhn famous and influential
A devout Nazi, SS man he became. He’s
Oberführer and professor
of law at Hum-
had a prosperous career
not the only Nazi who
boldt’s Institut für in West Germany. Hans
Staatsforschung during
Globke, Adenauer’s
the Third Reich, Höhn
had a prosperous second
career in post-war Staatssekretär at the
main collaborator and
Germany as the founder
of the Bad Harzburg man who wrote the
Chancellery, was the
academy of business commentary on the
leadership. He died in Nuremberg Laws with the
2000, celebrated as author of the Nuremberg
a pioneer of modern Laws himself, Wilhelm
management.
Stuckart! People like
Reinhard Höhn were
needed: he was a hard worker, someone
who had developed important ideas.
He managed to re-position himself
through his lectures on military
history. In doing so, he met the
concerns of the era – the Bundeswehr
was finally established in 1955. He also
met the concerns of the industrial
and business elite of the time as the
German economy had adapted to the
new post-war reality – the shift from
being traditionally Ost-orientiert, which
was no longer possible with the Iron
The former Nazis are
seen as trustworthy
anti-communists...
There was no
denazification in
West Germany, that’s
a myth!
Curtain, to becoming ‘Atlanticised’.
It is a matter of flows of goods and
materials, but it is also a question of
methods. Reinhard Höhn was the one
who could do this and liberalise the
organisation of work. He became a
Leiter at a think tank for employers,
and from there he developed the idea
of a “Führerschule” (leadership school)
for the German economy – and so Bad
Harzburg was born in 1956. He was
very happy: he was the founder and
director of this school, he taught – and
loved it – and he wrote and theorised.
You say that 600,000 business
executives were trained at Bad
Harzburg – basically the entire
post-war economic elite of West
Germany. You compare it to the
Harvard Business School. Oh
yes, absolutely. The idea is to have
Fortbildung (advanced education
and training) for people who already
have positions of responsibility, like
managers – to train them in even
more efficient methods. They go there
for seminars, to learn the method of
delegation of responsibility – what we
call the ‘Harzburg model’.
The Harzburg model became
the dominant model in the
German-speaking world until
it was challenged in the 1970s.
Can you explain why then?
Two things happened. There is an
internal criticism of the Harzburg
method, which is accompanied by
precise rules and very precise controls
on the execution of these rules. This
was contested from the 1970s onwards.
This criticism resonated with the
exposure of Reinhard Höhn’s past.
You could tell that it was his own
hubris that lost him. In his desire to
expand his school and make more
money, he started to advocate for his
management model to be applied to
local and federal administrations,
which brings in a lot of money. But
then the step too far: to extend it to
the Bundeswehr. When Willy Brandt
came to power in 1969, it didn’t look
too good for a Social Democrat defence
minister to have a contract with a
school run by a former SS general.
Again, it wasn’t a secret. Spiegel ran a
whole series on “die alten Kader der SS”
(the old cadres of the SS) in the 1960s
and Reinhard Höhn was mentioned
repeatedly. Under the newly installed
SPD, it became more problematic and
Helmut Schmidt ended the cooperation
between the Bundeswehr and Bad
Harzburg. The school continued to
survive and prosper though. The
Tochterschule [Die Akademie für
Führungskräfte] has just closed down
because of corona. Interestingly, when
you look at the school’s website, it
still boasts Reinhard Höhn as one its
great teachers. A few years before his
death, the BDI [Germany’s business
federation] held a big jubilee where
they celebrated the man who theorised
management.
What are the traces of Höhn’s Bad
Harzburg management model
today? I don’t put the problem so
much in terms of filiation. What I
find much more interesting is to ask
what Reinhard Höhn’s career and
the good fortune of his management
model reveal about the organisation
of work the way we know it in our
‘liberal’ system, which aims to make
the relationship of subordination as
acceptable as possible. This is the
essence of management...
…the art of making employees
free to obey? Indeed, and it involves
gifts at Christmas, heating in the
office or the idea that you are free to
choose your means to achieve an end
that was prescribed for you. What I
find interesting is that Reinhard Höhn
allows us to see the aporia, or the
hypocrisy, if you will, of management.
That is to say that you will be made to
believe that you are ‘free’ because you
have the choice of means, even though
the end has been prescribed to you –
and beware, you must obey. Hence the
title. Reinhard Höhn’s career reveals
the fundamental hypocrisy of liberal
management. T
10
EXBERLINER 205

BERLIN AT WORK
| PANDEMIC JOBS |
THE CORONA GIG
Over the past year, thousands of Berliners have found
work in the lucrative testing and vaccination industries
that grew out of the pandemic. But how attractive are
these jobs, and how hard are they to get? And what will
happen after the crisis is over? By Rachel More
An eclectic mix of DJs, bouncers and
bar staff mill around on the floor
of the Arena Berlin in Alt-Treptow.
They check visitors’ documents and take
their coats, and push less able-bodied guests
around the 30,000sqm vaccination megacentre
on wheelchairs. It’s a far cry from the
dance floors they once orbited, but most are
grateful to have found work – and a decent
wage – in this new sector, born of the crisis
that killed their jobs in the first place.
These workers have Jens Quade to thank
for throwing them a lifeline. When the
53-year-old Urberliner found himself in charge
of recruitment for two of Berlin’s six Covid-19
vaccination centres, being president of
the German Red Cross’s Müggelspree branch,
he turned to one of the industries that was
hurting most. “In December, I had the challenge
of having to hire lots of people in a very
short space of time, so I made a conscious
decision to target the arts, culture and club
scene, to specifically recruit people from
that area,” he says during one of his cigarette
breaks. “I turned to the state culture minister
[Klaus Lederer] and got the addresses of
industry associations from this field, and just
started calling them all up.” There was a flyer
James Huertas
No one is working in a
test facility for fun or
because it’s the best job in
the world. It’s because it’s
this or nothing.
campaign; job ads were shared on Facebook
and on industry mailing lists. Now, Quade
estimates, around 800 of the one thousand
employees at the Arena and Tegel Impfzentren
are from those creative industries. The
vast majority of the centres’ staff require no
medical experience, just the willingness to
wear a mask all day and work with the public.
The “worker bees”, as Quade calls them, get
a monthly wage of €2500-2800 for full-time
work on fixed-term contracts, which are
extended depending on how the vaccination
drive is progressing.
Berlin’s six vaccination centres, which employ
2100 people between them, are just one
part of the new job market that has arisen
from the pandemic. Thousands more have
found work in the now-ubiquitous field of
coronavirus testing, with around 740 facilities
– and counting – now listed on the state
health department’s website. This industry
has boomed following the introduction in
JUNE 2021
11

BERLIN AT WORK
It was pretty easy to get
the job here... It’s fun and
I’m outside. I have my
schedule so it gets me out
of the house.
Paula Ragucci
March this year of free rapid testing for all,
with subsidies available for savvy businesses
looking to profit. Today, there are test
facilities all across town, from repurposed
sport stadiums to restaurants whose menu
boards have been wiped clean to make way
for Abstand rules and QR-code registration.
The operators require no prior experience
or medical training to register. By simply
filling out an online form, any business can
request to be added to the ministry’s list of
test spots; if it gets the go-ahead, staff just
need to complete a short training course
before they can begin poking cotton swabs
up strangers’ noses.
Even with these new opportunities,
looking for a job midpandemic
is rough: there are
about a third fewer vacancies
listed on job centre websites in
Berlin than there were a year
ago. The rate of unemployment
in the city has climbed from
7.9 percent in March 2020 –
before the pandemic prompted
struggling employers to start
firing people – to 10.5 percent
this April. Of course, being out
of work doesn’t necessarily mean being out
of a job entirely: ask anyone in the Berlin club
scene, where almost everybody is currently
on Kurzarbeit, the state-funded furlough
scheme covering their wages so their broke
employers don’t have to.
Inside the Arena
Janosch Marder and Christian Kahl, two
of the DJs now working as vaccination
helpers, both lost their bookings basically
overnight when the pandemic hit last year.
After submitting a CV to Quade’s Red Cross
2,100
BERLINERS
staff the city’s
six vaccination
centers
branch and taking part in a brief telephone
interview, they were each hired to start at
the Arena centre in January. “There was a
seminar to give you an introduction and
then it’s a case of learning by doing,” says
38-year-old Marder, once a regular fixture in
some of Berlin’s most popular clubs (Sisyphos,
Mensch Meier, Kater Blau) under the
artist name Janoma. “Of course you have to
do everything correctly, not make mistakes,
but it’s nothing particularly complicated.”
Roughly speaking, the work can be divided
into three areas: registration, not unlike
check-in at an airport; guiding visitors
through the system; and supporting
people who are less
able-bodied.
“You work your eight hours
and get a one-hour lunch break
in the middle,” says Kahl, who
is one part of downtempo
duo Kahl & Kæmena and also
used to arrange bookings for
festival stages including the
FKK floor at Fusion. He says
he likes the vaccination centre
work, before correcting himself.
“I appreciate the work,”
he clarifies, “because the team is so nice. If
the chemistry wasn’t right, I don’t think I’d
stick with the job for as long, because at the
end of the day it’s pretty much like being in
a hamster wheel.” He found out about the
gig through Booking United, an initiative of
over 150 Berlin agencies that was launched
to support musicians and artists through
the pandemic. Now, rather than getting his
social interactions on the dancefloor, at the
bar or in the queues for the club toilet, Kahl
finds himself making small talk at different
stops throughout the Arena’s labyrinth of
registration points, marked walkways and
vaccination booths. “You have lots of these
short conversations – with an elderly gent or
an older lady, then someone else around the
corner – which all tend to be pretty positive,”
he says. “So I guess that’s similar to the club
feeling, because you have those feel-good
vibes at least.”
The Red Cross is still hiring: as vaccination
capacity increases, Quade says he
needs more people, plus replacements for
the 30 to 40 members of staff each month
who find other gigs and leave. Some might
consider the chance of scoring a quick jab a
good enough reason to apply, since such a
job catapults you into the top priority group
for vaccination. But Quade bristles at the
suggestion that this is a perk, pointing to the
infection risk that his staff expose themselves
to – and adding that not all of them
get vaccinated immediately, since they have
to wait for leftover doses in the evenings.
Kahl lucked out and got his first shot during
his first week on the job, while Marder had to
wait two months.
Minijob swabs
While members of Berlin’s club scene were
welcomed with open arms, not everyone
has been able to walk into a job at a Berlin
vaccination centre. Maria, 27, sent numerous
applications for Impfzentrum positions in late
December and early January as a furloughed
flight attendant looking to top up her Kurzarbeit
money. “I never heard back from them,”
she says. “So I thought, well, might as well
try a test centre.” That turned out to be “way
easier”. She found a test facility provider
website with a link to listed jobs, and sent
them a two-line email briefly introducing
herself. “And that was it. They invited me
to an interview and afterwards I worked a
trial shift, which was paid. Then I got the
job.” Maria, who did not want to give her
full name, worked the registration booth on
a Minijob contract for €12 an hour – but she
didn’t last long there. “I ended up at a completely
disorganised company where the shift
planning was a disaster,” she says, without
wanting to give the name of the company.
“We had no rota for the week, so you would
12
EXBERLINER 205

BERLIN AT WORK
find out on the Monday whether you had to
work on the Tuesday.” She quit within six
weeks of starting.
Maria suspects that the vaccination gig
would have been less stressful. “Those
centres are led by proper organisations, like
the German Red Cross – but anyone can
open a test site.” The Covid job market is a
two-tier economy: on the one hand, there
are publicly funded vaccine jobs offered by
established charities with well-structured HR
departments; and on the other,
there are private-sector gigs
in testing, where the working
conditions are as variable as the
companies involved. Some test
centres have cropped up in locations
like clubs, theatres and
restaurants, as shuttered spaces
try to adapt to the crisis – either
to play their part, to keep their
workers in a job or to cash in on
state subsidies. Entrepreneurs
and adaptable businesses can
choose between over 450 different tests
currently listed by the government’s BfArM
institute for drugs to use at their improvised
centre. The state pays non-medical sites €12
per test carried out, plus an additional €6 if
they supply the materials themselves – allowing
for a handsome profit, since some of
the tests can cost as little as €2 a piece.
Benjamin Föckersperger entered the testing
game as an entrepreneur. After launching
a number of different ventures in fields
varying from plastic recycling to esports, he
founded coronatest.de back in November
2020. It now runs 12 sites across the city
and employs around 130 to 150 people. The
company is currently advertising around
a dozen job vacancies, ranging from management
and medical positions to more
entry-level work, like staffing the registration
points and pointing people in the right direction
towards their test. The starting rate for
hourly pay is around €13, Föckersperger says.
“For a lot of people who’ve lost a job with
their regular employer or are on Kurzarbeit,
it’s obviously pretty cool. We’ve been able to
get them earning again and putting food on
the table.”
One of those people was Bruno Epifânio,
who lost his job as manager of Café
Nullpunkt, a slick vegan eatery in Kreuzberg’s
Blumengroßmarkt, after the pandemic hit
last year. “It was pretty easy to get the job
here,” he says as he clocks off from his shift
at coronatest.de’s open-air site at the RAW
Gelände in Friedrichshain. He trained for half
a day at coronatest.de’s Friedrichstraße location
before getting the gig near Warschauer
Straße when it opened in mid-February. “It’s
fun and I’m outside. I have my schedule so it
740
TEST
FACILITIES
have sprung up
across Berlin
JUNE 2021
gets me out of the house,” Epifânio says. He
works daily six-hour shifts, from 7:30 to 14:30,
and has climbed the ladder to become shift
manager for his team, bringing in more cash
from the testing gig – although he refuses to
disclose how much.
Föckersperger is keen to distance his business
from the less regulated side of corona
testing. “Now every Currywurst joint and
chicken grill has opened up its dining room
for testing with the same workers, because
they can’t offer the space to diners
anyway,” the businessman
says, before adding ominously:
“The quality is what you would
expect.”
According to Föckersperger,
his facilities are a cut above the
rest. Firstly, he argues, because
his cotton swab-wielding
employees get more thorough
training: a five-hour induction
followed by a trainee period, as
opposed to the bare minimum
required by the city health authority, which is
a one-hour course provided by the Red Cross.
Aside from that, Föckersperger claims that
there are vast differences in terms of labour
standards: “No one in these Dönerläden has
ever even heard of occupational safety!”
Temping the pandemic
Looking ahead, no member of the new Covid
labour market is expecting – or hoping – to
have a job for life in the pandemic-response
industry. Even those well-paid vaccination
centre workers are itching for Berlin’s clubs
and bars to reopen. In the meantime, they
can at least stay socially connected with the
scene. “There’s not a whole lot of networking
because I think everyone is still quite
reserved about what the future holds,”
Kahl says. “But sure, I’ve met some pretty
interesting people with whom I’d like to
collaborate later.” He and his colleagues only
recently found out that they will still have
vaccination centre jobs this summer. Their
contracts were due to expire at the end of
this month but have since been extended
until late September.
As for the testing jobs, many of those will
only last as long as the state funding for
Schnelltests does. Föckersperger hopes to stay
in the business for longer by offering PCR
tests, which are expected to stick around longer
as a standard requirement for cross-border
travel. But he understands his workforce
of Covid jobbers are waiting for a way out.
“Most of our employees are looking forward
to being able to do their old job again,” he
says. “No one is working in a test facility for
fun or because it’s the best job in the world.
It’s because it’s this or nothing.” T
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WEDNESDAYS + FRIDAYS
7:30 PM, ON GORKI.DE
WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
MAXIM GORKI THEATER
Am Festungsgraben 2, 10117 Berlin
Box Office: 0049 30/ 20 221 115
www.gorki.de
13

BERLIN AT WORK
COVID
CAREER
SHIFTS
As industries
that were once
powerhouses
for jobs began
haemorrhaging
employees during
the Covid crisis,
newly out-ofwork
Berliners
found themselves
at a professional
crossroads.
We speak to
four hustlers
who landed in
completely new
sectors – some
reluctantly, others
less so.
SANDRINO TITTEL
FROM FULL-TIME DJ
TO HOME FURNITURE
FLOGGER
Covid sent many DJs from the club
to the couch when dance floors
closed last year. Sandrino Tittel
was one of them – but for him, it was a
business decision. “Going from eight to 10
gigs a month to suddenly no gigs and no
income – that was so abrupt,” he winces.
“I realised how fragile our ecosystem in
the music world is and I don’t want to
rely only on that anymore.” Now, donning
a coral-coloured flat cap and flamboyant
floral shirt, the new business owner
smiles under his chevron moustache as he
reclines on a stone-grey sofa in einraum.
berlin, the home interior shop he launched
with a friend just around the corner from
Neukölln’s Lohmühlenbrücke.
The 40-year-old, who was born in the
Romanian city of Timișoara, moved to
Berlin in 2010 and became a regular on
the club circuit as one part of electronic
duo Frankey & Sandrino. The pair had a
residency at Watergate, regular Sunday
sets at Kater Blau and also took monthly
trips abroad for gigs. But as the reality of
the pandemic set in, he began spit-balling
ideas about how to fulfil a long-held
dream of setting up a furniture showroom
with his friend Andre Henneberg. The
business partners met 10 years ago while
working at Moove, a furniture store on
Yorckstraße, Kreuzberg. “I was the sales
agent for northern Germany. About six
years ago I stopped because it was just too
much work – gigging and doing a normal
job.” Tittel gesticulates wildly: “I was
always on fire!”
And so, after the pair stumbled across
the perfect spot for their dream to become
a reality – a 100sqm plot with floor-toceiling
glass panels at Harzer Straße
109 – einraum.berlin was born. You may
think that with retail stores being forced
to close, the second lockdown could have
been a fatal blow for a fledgling company.
But it seems like Tittel and Henneberg
chose the right business: the pandemic
was actually beneficial to the furniture
sector. Having saved on holidays and other
luxuries, many Germans have splashed
out on home improvements. “With
people spending much more time at home
during lockdown, many realised, ‘Woah I
really need a new couch,’ or maybe they
needed a new chair for their home office,”
explains Tittel. As things slowly return
to normal, Tittel is optimistic business
will boom: the store sells “sophisticated”,
hand-upholstered couches made in a
small Karlsruhe factory for about €3000
a pop, as well as office chairs, rugs and
repurposed storage furniture. But the
space also promotes local artists, vase
makers and even vintners. “We have
seven or eight natural wines from German
vineyards. We are our own best customers,
we choose stuff we like,” says Tittel. The
store might now be his main source of
income, but that doesn’t mean Tittel will
be turning his back on music any time
soon. In fact, he thinks the transition will
boost his music career. Whereas before
he took on gigs that might not have suited
him or his musical style, with more money
in the bank Tittel says he can be pickier
about where he plays. “Decisions can now
be based on the music itself.” In a sign
that music is never too far away from their
thoughts, the co-founders are also looking
to invest in some high-quality speakers
for einraum. Playing a set while shoppers
mingle over a glass of fizz is certainly on
the cards post-lockdown, although Tittel
concedes that he might need to adapt his
usual style. “I would love to play for our
guests, but maybe not the weirdest techno
– it would have to be something more
ambient or electronica!” T — Lucy Rowan
James Huertas
14
EXBERLINER 205

BERLIN AT WORK
LEA RÖHRIG
FROM CONFLICTED
FLIGHT ATTENDANT
TO GUILT-FREE
ACCOUNTANT
I thought:
‘Ok, two
months’ paid
holiday isn’t
bad.’ There
was no way of
knowing what
was about to
happen.
Paula Ragucci
At just a smidge over 1.57 metres in
height, Lea Röhrig nearly didn’t
make the cut for a job above the
clouds. “When I was younger, I wanted
to be a pilot,” says the 25-year-old, who
moved from her family home in Brandenburg
to Berlin seven years ago. “But
at some point I realised it would be too
tough,” she explains, adding that her feet
might barely have been able to reach the
pedals anyway. “So then I thought about
becoming a flight attendant.” Again, the
height issue came up, but that extra smidge
meant she could just about reach the
overhead lockers. And so she made the
cut, landing a job with a major European
airline in April 2019, where dealing with
400-500 fliers a day (some people’s nightmare)
appealed to her gregarious, outgoing
nature. “Anything can happen!” she
says. “I learned a lot about myself through
interacting with so many different people. I
learned to be more confident.”
In February 2020, just as the pandemic
set in, Lea was on a three-week family
holiday touring Thailand and Vietnam.
“We spent the last week stressing over the
news and checking flights. We really didn’t
know whether we’d make it back home,”
she says. “In the end, we were able to board
one of the last flights back to Germany via
Russia.” Röhrig was less lucky when it came
to her work schedule, though. “I returned
to work to find that my last flights had been
cancelled.” She was furloughed a year after
starting the job, which didn’t seem so bad
at the time. “I thought: ‘OK, two months’
paid holiday isn’t bad.’ There was no way
of knowing what was about to happen.
Somehow, I just completely couldn’t grasp
what was going on.”
By the end of the year, Röhrig had lost
her job completely. “Rumours had been
going around that if the Kurzarbeit went
on for much longer, they would have to let
people go.” Röhrig checked the company
newsletter in her inbox every week for
news. Eventually, her termination came in
the mail; no one from management reached
out to her beforehand. She was one of the
last ones in and one of the first out; as a
young person with no mouths to feed at
home she fell victim to the company’s plan
for “socially responsible redundancies”.
“Once the dismissal notice was in my
hands, it really sank in,” Röhrig says. She’d
already reorganised her life so as to not
succumb to the ennui of Kurzarbeit. “I’d
started renovating my room and stopped
drinking alcohol.” While positive steps for
the short term, Röhrig now had to battle
with a much deeper rut: “I was asking myself,
‘What am I doing? And what do I want to
do?’” Thankfully, her post-school Azubi
apprenticeship in business administration
provided her with a fallback. Plus, she had
always looked back fondly on bookkeeping.
“It sounds so boring but it was the part of
my apprenticeship I enjoyed the most!” she
gushes. Through good contacts, she managed
to land a job in March as an accountant at
a dialogue marketing company that works
with clipboard-clutching charities who run
fundraising campaigns on the street.
The philanthropic nature of the firm
has also given her a unique opportunity to
atone for her carbon-guzzling, air-mile sins.
“I was actually really conflicted because
flying is so shit for the environment. I
struggled with that a lot in the beginning.”
Now, she’s part of an operation that works
with big-name charities like World Vision,
the Norwegian Refugee Council and the
conservationists BUND. “I’m making a
contribution to something good, and that’s
definitely a nice feeling. It makes up for all
that flying!” T — Rachel More
JUNE 2021
15

BERLIN AT WORK
BRUNO EPIFÂNIO
FROM RESTAURANT
MANAGER TO TEST
SITE GAFFER
Bruno Epifânio stands at the entrance
of an outdoor corona test
facility, hair swept to the side and
donning his signature sunglasses. He swaggers
around what was once a beer garden,
straightening signposts and fist-bumping
colleagues at the site, situated next to
the Astra nightclub on the pre-pandemic
cultural hub of RAW-Gelände. After moving
to Berlin from Barcelona four years ago, the
fast-talking self-starter worked in the local
hospitality industry, but when corona hit, he
followed the money. “They’re probably lifting
it up in shovels!” he says of Berlin’s new
test providers.
Since mid-February, the 43-year-old has
been working at Haubentaucher, which
like so many Berlin venues has taken the
leap from event space to test site. “It was
pretty easy to get the job here,” Epifânio
says, reclining on a bench overlooking the
queue for the swabs. He got a friend from
bouldering to recommend him and has
progressed from regular worker to shift
manager. “I was here from the beginning.
I did all the signage and a bunch of stuff
with my hands. I put plexiglass and locks
in.” Epifanio, or Nox, as his friends call
him, is good with his hands. In fact, he’s a
bit of a jack of all trades. Growing up broke
in Lisbon, he learned from his father how
to fix anything so the family wouldn’t have
to shell out for a handyman. He’s been
a photographer, a gardener, a designer
and a teacher. Then came his foray into
hospitality, one that would last almost
two decades before being ended by the
pandemic.
It all started with the launch of Lisbon’s
own Hard Rock Cafe in June 2003. As one
inexperienced waiter in a staff of 150, he
learned the tricks of the trade, working
across three floors of the Cadillac-adorned
eatery. Epifânio doesn’t stay in one place
for long, though. “I get tired of things. Every
couple of years I’m either moving house or
moving city,” he says, twiddling a lighter
between his fingers. “Or changing partner!”
In February 2006, he moved from Portugal
to Barcelona and scored a job at Parco, an
upscale sushi joint on the Passeig de Gràcia.
“The football players from Barcelona
go there, the princess of Spain used to
go there. It’s very posh.” He started as a
busboy. Within a couple of months, he was
head waiter, and not long after that he was
managing the place.
It was a similar story when he moved to
Berlin. Britta Jürgens and Matthew Griffin
– the architect couple behind the Frizz23
cultural co-ownership project, south of
Checkpoint Charlie – had initially been
looking for a cleaner for their Miniloft
design hotel. “I did, like, two shifts of
cleaning but then they needed somebody
to build.” Epifânio ended up doing the
woodwork for the hotel as well as its
ground-floor restaurant, Café Nullpunkt. At
one point, it came up in conversation that
the restaurant needed a manager. Epifânio
dropped the name Parco and got the job.
“Britta and Matthew never looked at my
resume or anything!”
Café Nullpunkt, a plant-based, glutenfree
restaurant with its own garden and
composting system, was up and running for
less than a year when lockdown struck. “We
opened in July 2019 and then everything
went to shit in March 2020,” Epifânio says.
“It didn’t feel good, because I actually loved
the challenge of opening something. It was
almost my baby as much as theirs. It was
their money but it was my sweat that went
into it!” He was ushered into Kurzarbeit
as the bistro struggled to pivot towards
takeaway and ultimately parted ways with
Jürgens and Griffin – “because of course
I was expensive, and we weren’t making
any money”. Epifânio had one depressing
winter, watching Netflix and smoking joints,
before he decided to get back to work. He
got interested in restaurant work “because
it’s never boring”, he says. “You see
different people every day. You’re not sitting
at a desk, it’s physical.” And corona testing,
in a sense, isn’t all that different (apart from
one thing: no one tips you).
As his current employers cash in on the
2021 testing boom (see page 22), Epifânio is
already looking for his next gig. He’s reduced
his hours at the site from 45 to 30-33 a week
and spends his afternoons at a communal
workshop near Hermannplatz where he’s
renting a space. The goal is to turn his knack
for handiwork into a bona fide woodworking
business, Nox Works (@noxworks on
Instagram) – he’s already working on
commissioned pieces for friends. And so, the
eclectic career of Bruno Epifânio continues.
He can run a restaurant, build a house, grow
a vegetable garden and take over a test site.
“I like to say that if the world ends – which
might be now – I think I’ll be OK,” he says
with a laugh. T — Rachel More
James Huertas
16
EXBERLINER 205

BERLIN AT WORK
Paula Ragucci
DORIAN PAIC
FROM JET-SETTING DJ TO DESK-BOUND AGENT
Last July, Dorian Paic found himself
alone in Munich Airport, tired and
sweaty. As he scanned the overhead
displays for his departure gate, clutching a
boarding pass for a Lufthansa flight back
to Berlin, the weight of 15kg of house and
techno vinyl cut into his shoulder. It grew
heavier as he weaved between passengers
on the way to the plane, exhausted but
pumped full of adrenalin at the familiar
prospect of a missed flight. He was on his
way home from his first DJ gig since the
pandemic shut the world down in March
2020, and one of just a handful of dates he
would play in the uneasy period between
Europe’s first and second coronavirus
waves. “I couldn’t believe I’d been doing
that every weekend for more than 10
years,” Paic said over coffee in a quiet
Prenzlauer Berg park, almost one year later.
“It seemed completely nuts.”
Like the rest of Berlin’s DJs, the pandemic
changed the Frankfurt-born Paic’s life
almost overnight. The months leading up
to March last year were some of the busiest
of his career, thanks to a six-week South
American tour that took him to countries
like Brazil, Argentina and Peru. But with
a stream of cancellation emails from his
booking agent, it became clear that the
South American jaunt would be his last
tour for a while. “All my gigs until October
disappeared,” Paic remembers. “From one
week to the next, I was out of work.”
More than 40 job applications later,
Paic started his training on April 20 as a
customer service agent for a well-known US
e-commerce company with several offices
in Berlin. He’d left an industry on its knees
for one of the pandemic’s biggest winners:
online shopping. Amazon and eBay are
Germany’s most-visited internet retailers,
accounting for 40 percent of online
revenues. Both companies announced
record sales during the pandemic.
(Datenschutz rules mean he’s unable to
name his employer.)
It’s Paic’s first desk job in over 30 years,
a period that was full of constant touring,
digging for records and managing his label,
raum...musik. He now works from home
at the desk that once housed his home
studio; his modest MIDI and drum machine
collection replaced by his new work tools:
a keyboard, monitor and headset. “In the
first three months, I really wanted to die,”
Paic says. “It was so hard. To be able to
really work independently took around three
months, which is when you start to see the
same situations repeat themselves. Until
then, everything was new.”
The transition from DJ to office worker
isn’t a common one. Most of the music
scene’s casualties, whether DJs, booking
agents or bar workers, have ridden out
the pandemic on unemployment benefits,
scraping by on Arbeitslosengeld II and
Soforthilfe. But that wasn’t an option for
Paic, whose pre-corona booking fee ranged
between a few hundred euros and €3000.
You could describe his life as comfortably
middle class, paying €850 per month
for his Prenzlauer Berg apartment with
enough money to spare for savings and
a few nice meals per week. He wasn’t a
millionaire by the time corona hit, but he
was no starving artist. “I have savings, so I
wasn’t completely broke, but it didn’t make
sense to just sit around eating kebabs,”
Paic says. “I had it good before, so if life
is a bit stressful at the moment, or I don’t
have time to myself, then that’s just the
way it is – you have to adapt.” In his case,
adapting means five nine-hour shifts per
week, during which he often fields calls
from German-speaking customers deep into
the night. He works in a small team of eight,
all based remotely. And while he hasn’t
caught up with any new workmates socially,
at least one of them is a house music fan. “A
colleague recognised my name,” Paic laughs.
“He spent about an hour asking me about
DJing and my label.”
The last time Paic worked regular hours
was behind the booth in 2008, slinging
records to local DJs at Freebase, Frankfurt’s
former temple of house and techno vinyl.
Like standing behind the counter at that
record shop, DJing provided the buzz that
came with connecting with new cultures and
young music geeks, the things Paic misses
most about the touring life. But he says it’s
nice to be finished with the constant travel
– at least until his customer service contract
expires next April. “Before corona, I’d been
living off DJing for 12 years,” Paic says, “and
living off music for 30 years. I don’t know
many people who managed it over such a
long period.” T — Matthew Unicomb
In the first three
months, I really
wanted to die. It
was so hard.
JUNE 2021
17

BERLIN AT WORK
Wolt
| GIG ECONOMY |
SECURE IN THE SADDLE
The lockdown economy has driven huge growth in
Berlin’s tech delivery sector, filling city streets with
legions of bike couriers, most of them expats out for
limited contracts and flexi-hours. In interviews with
Exberliner, workers report on their first-hand experience
of the fast pace of change. By Andrea Birmingham and René Blixer
Arjun arrives five minutes early, at 15:25,
for his evening shift in the main Gorillas
warehouse on Torstraße in Mitte. He
clocks in using an app, greets his colleagues
with fist bumps, then puts on his mask and
goes inside to receive a key from his supervisor
for one of the sleek, black e-bikes out front.
He checks the bike, grabs a helmet and picks
a break time from a sign-up sheet – and with
that, he’s ready to take his first order. He will
spend the next seven and a half hours hanging
out with his colleagues at the warehouse, then
cruising along nearby streets when he gets an
order, never straying further than 10 minutes
from his base.
Gorillas is the new kid on the delivery
block. Over the past year, Berlin’s homegrown
start-up app has gone from owning
a single warehouse on Danziger Straße in
Prenzlauer Berg to covering 14 different
areas across Berlin and 75 nationwide, as
well as in major cities in the Netherlands,
the UK and France. With one-year contracts
and stylish black attire for its 1000-strong
‘rider crew’, the newcomer has set itself
apart from other apps. Its image is all about
speed, with the stated aim of delivering groceries
“at retail prices” to customers within
10 minutes of ordering. It pays employees
€10.50 an hour and lets them grab free postshift
fruit and vegetables that are past their
selling point.
“It’s really so cool out there, I’m having a
great time,” Arjun says about the 20 hours a
week he spends at the Mitte base. A student
from India, he started his courier career with
Wolt, the Finnish takeaway delivery company
that launched in Berlin in August 2020.
Wolt has grown from its launch in Helsinki
in 2014 to operating in more than 170 cities
across 23 countries and employing 40,000
“courier partners”. It offers workers a shorter
contract than Gorillas, lasting six months,
with a base hourly rate of €10 that can go up
under a bonus system based on how many
orders you complete and how far you cycle.
According to the company, its couriers earn
on average between €12 and €15 per hour.
Finding your crew
Even though the money with Wolt was
higher, Arjun much prefers Gorillas. At Wolt,
he rented his e-bike for €79 a month from an
external company. There was a lot of time
spent waiting outside on his own and his
only contact with his supervisor was through
an app on his phone. At Gorillas, he gets
to hang out with other riders in an indoor
communal area complete with tea, coffee
and snacks. “They’re not colleagues, they’re
like my friends!” he says of the like-minded,
young internationals who work with him,
many of whom, he says, come from South
America. “We communicate in English, but
to be honest I should be learning Spanish!”
says the law and politics student, who wears
his Gorillas-branded t-shirt despite not being
on shift. “It just looks cool, so I wear it all
the time.” Talking up the social benefits of
the job, he shows a video on his phone of a
birthday celebration for his Gorillas colleague
Carlos, with music blaring and a large
spread of snacks and drinks. “I swear, man,
even if there wasn’t any money, I’d still go,”
he says cheerfully. “It’s like my home!”
As various employers jostle for pedal
power, Gorillas likes to paint itself as the
coolest delivery app to work for. The ondemand
grocery service puts its riders “at
18
EXBERLINER 205

BERLIN AT WORK
the core of what we do”, according to its
manifesto, which is peppered with buzzwords
like “community” and “diversity”
and even encourages use of the hashtag
“#riderpride”. Gorillas offers occasional bonuses,
like at Christmas or after it attained
“unicorn” start-up status in late March by
raising €245 million in its second round of
financing, leading to a billion-dollar stock
market valuation.
An uphill climb
Delivery app workers don’t always have
it this easy. Gorillas has joined a market
fraught with disputes and union battles. Tensions
in the booming sector boiled over during
Berlin’s extreme cold snap in February,
when up to 20cm of snow coated the ground
and temperatures lingered far below freezing.
Workers at Lieferando, a Dutch-owned
company that launched in Berlin in 2009 and
has come to dominate the German market as
part of the Just Eat/Takeaway.com conglomerate,
were instructed by their Betriebsrat,
a protected body of employees elected to
represent their colleagues at company level,
to sign in and report that they felt unsafe to
work. The takeaway delivery app’s operations
halted in the city for three days as a result.
Lieferando now recognises its workers’ right
to determine whether they feel safe to work,
according to a company statement on its
employment practices.
In the same statement, Lieferando claimed
to be against hiring “gig workers”. The company
offers a “comprehensive” package to its
10,000 “drivers” internationally as part of
an “employment model that sets standards
in the industry”. Employees get a similar
six-month contract and payment structure
to Wolt with a Germany-wide average wage
of €12 an hour, with the rate increasing to as
much as €16.50 in high-demand areas.
Lieferando’s workforce was originally
offered e-bikes for free, available to collect
for shifts from local ‘hubs’, but since the
pandemic this has been phased out in favour
of couriers renting e-bikes from external
companies at monthly rates of €110, according
to delivery workers who have organised
themselves via the Free Workers’ Union
(FAU). Lieferando says workers who choose
to rent bikes are compensated for the costs.
The improved conditions that most couriers
can now expect in Berlin, like secure
contracts and winter protection, are a result
of union action like that seen at Lieferando,
according to Reza, a representative of FAU’s
Deliverunion who has worked for Lieferando
since late 2019. Couriering was a “relief from
office work” and Reza liked being outside on
a bike for a living. He found the job better
than hospitality work, in which he used to
Paula Ragucci
Riding for a living the lowdown
Want to sculpt those calves? We run through
your options at Berlin’s top four bike delivery employers.
GORILLAS The Berlin-born
unicorn grocery
app has a growing legion
of ‘riders’ thanks to its
cool image, sociable
‘crew’ and secure contracts.
Wage Average €11.50 per
hour, starts at €10.50
Contract One-year contract,
setting out guaranteed
minimum hours.
Riders can share their
preferences before shifts
are scheduled.
Equipment e-bikes provided
to all riders
Perks Communal space
at each warehouse,
where riders get free tea,
coffee and snacks between
gigs, and where
they have direct contact
to a supervisor. Also 25
percent off all groceries
plus free leftover fruit
and vegetables to take
home.
LIEFERANDO The
veteran Dutch-owned
takeaway behemoth has
improved its working
conditions in recent
years and offers big
(-ish) bucks but only to
its busiest cyclists.
Wage Average €12 an
hour
Contract Six months,
flexi-time. Riders can
choose their own hours,
inputting their chosen
shifts on an app.
Equipment The cost of
renting a bike is covered
by the company and
couriers who use their
own wheels can claim
back 14 cents per kilometre
travelled.
Perks Bonus system
means an extra euro per
order after 100 orders
completed. You could
get you up to €16.50 an
hour over the month, but
that would mean doing a
lot of orders.
KHORA This food delivery
collective started by
a Deliveroo renegade in
2020 (formerly Kolyma2)
is the ultra-local, alternative
option to tech
giants, operating mainly
in Neukölln, Kreuzberg
and Friedrichshain.
Wage €11.50 per hour,
flat rate, just like everyone
else in the company
Contract Employees
are hired by the SMart
eG social enterprise and
given fixed contracts.
Equipment No bike, no
branded apparel
Perks Everybody has a
say in how the company
is run, with decisions
made collectively at
meetings held twice a
week.
WOLT The Finnish giant
crashed the Berlin market
in August 2020 and
is giving Lieferando a run
for its money. It offers
a similar pay model for
busy riders, but with
guaranteed minimum
hours for bringing home
the bacon.
Wage Average €12-15
per hour.
Contract Six months.
Most couriers work parttime
but Wolt offers a
flexible model – you can
work part-time, full-time
or as a working student.
Working hours are
scheduled weekly based
on contractually agreed
hours.
Equipment Couriers
have to use their own
bikes for now.
Perks Couriers can take
it easy and still earn the
minimum of €20 for two
hours, or earn considerably
more under a
lucrative bonus system
depending on how
many orders completed.
You get €160 after completing
150 orders.
JUNE 2021
19

BERLIN AT WORK
work nights and be expected to do unpaid
overtime. He became involved in union activity
“more out of a conviction” than a complaint,
he said.
Left in the cold
However, Reza’s opinion of the food delivery
company has since gone down, particularly
after a recent rift. While delivering orders, he
received a text message from the company
saying that he had been “standing in one
place too long” and that he would receive a
formal warning. This was due to a persistent
glitch on his work app which was not updating
the GPS. When he called his supervisor
to explain, he was told to email the company,
which responded with a copy-and-paste
warning of the consequences of not working
while on duty. Although the matter was
later resolved, it left Reza thinking that the
company did not value its couriers.
Lieferando was acquired by Takeaway.
com in 2014, which merged in February 2020
with the UK-based Just Eat to form a food
delivery behemoth consisting of several
companies, operating under different names
in different countries
(but just Lieferando in
Germany). The merger
was controversial; the
UK Competitions and
Markets Authority
delayed the merger until
April 2020 due to concerns
that it would result
in “a substantial lessening
of competition”.
More seasoned Berliners
may also recall Foodora, which originally
Overall, it wasn’t
a bad job except for
two horrible winter
months.
started in Munich in 2014 and was bought
out the following year by Delivery Hero,
which itself was purchased by Takeaway.com
in 2018. Following the finalisation of the deal
in the first half of 2019, the parent company
decided to discontinue the Foodora brand
and merge all businesses under Lieferando.
Next, Deliveroo pulled out of the market, unable
to compete with the Dutch heavyweight,
leaving Lieferando with a quasi-monopoly
on the Berlin market – until last year’s Wolt
intrusion.
Noah, a UK expat who moved to Berlin to
work in the music industry, has experienced
this creeping consolidation of the market in
Berlin first hand. Struggling to support himself
solely through music, he started working
for Foodora in 2017 through to their merger
with Lieferando in 2019. “Overall, it wasn’t
a bad job except for two horrible winter
months,” he says. He was able to work there
while he learned German through podcasts.
The job is less social than among the rider
crew of Gorillas, but not having to deal with a
boss or coworkers “suited me as an introvert”,
Noah says. Plus, the job was “very easy
to get”.
Noah felt his job change drastically after
Foodora changed hands. Gone was the startup
culture, with the offer of free yoga classes
and a real-life human to talk to when you had
issues. He noticed a new and cold company
environment, where you could receive warning
messages like the one Reza got if you
were deemed to be standing around. Delivery
areas increased dramatically in size, so now
you could be “finishing a shift at 23:30 in
Neukölln then get an order in Wedding”. The
flexibility Noah had enjoyed about courier
work was suddenly gone – and with it, his
enthusiasm. He was not offered an e-bike
when they began to be phased into the Lieferando
model and when his Foodora contract
expired he was not rehired.
Bicycle race
Today, the couriers of Berlin are predominantly
tricolored: orange for Lieferando, blue
for Wolt, and black for Gorillas. Things are
set to get more colourful – and more crowded
– as new companies join
the market. Flink, another
Berlin start-up, is positioning
itself as a challenger
to Gorillas, while Uber
Eats has also arrived in the
Hauptstadt. Meanwhile, the
DAX-listed Delivery Hero
is planning its return to
Germany under the name
Foodpanda, two years after
it sold its business here.
CEO Niklas Östberg has said the company
will be delivering takeaways and “everything
else”, with a test phase to start this month.
Amazon got the green light from regulators
to take over Deliveroo in April 2020, leading
to an influx in funding and plans to publicly
list the company. As a result, we may soon
see that teal-coloured, beleaguered brand
return to Berlin’s streets.
And then there’s the grassroots offering
Khora, an underdog by design. This food
delivery collective was founded by former
Deliveroo rider Stefano Lombardo and
promises its riders better conditions as
autonomous freelancers. The takeaways are
more expensive with this local alternative,
which has shirked investment but struggled
to break out of its sparsely covered territories
in Neukölln, Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain
as a result. Digital giants like Lieferando,
Wolt and Gorillas are hardly quaking in their
boots as they focus on their own battles for
dominance. So it’s go big or go home in this
highly competitive sector – but the legions of
couriers are here to stay. T
Gorillas
20
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BERLIN AT WORK
“I AM A RIDER MYSELF. I HAVE
HUGE RESPECT FOR THE GAME.”
Gorillas has been on a roll since Kağan Sümer launched the
groceries app in June 2020 from the living room of a Prenzlauer
Berg flat. We caught the busy 33-year-old between
meetings in London to ask him how it all began.
You founded Gorillas in March 2020.
Thirteen months later, the company
achieved unicorn status (a valuation
of at least $1 billion). That’s faster
than any other start-up in Germany.
It’s now present in Hamburg, Cologne,
Paris, London, Amsterdam and
a host of other major European cities.
It’s a huge success! I know, it’s the buzz
[laughs] – too much buzz, if you ask me!
We’re just doing something amazing, something
that evolved organically. We didn’t try
to force a model or a framework on people.
We just have this basic belief: now we’re able
to travel into space, we shouldn’t have to
get dressed and stand in a queue to get food.
So my idea was to deliver groceries at retail
prices in under 10 minutes.
Was this your idea? I don’t think Gorillas
is my or anyone’s idea. It’s about fulfilling
basic needs. We humans ought to have two
things: a home and food to fuel us. Those are
the same needs that cavemen had 20,000
years ago. By now we’ve reached a stage
where we have everything on demand: we
watch TV on demand, get meals on demand...
But one of our most primitive needs,
to shop for food, is not on demand, and we
want to change that.
You’re from Istanbul. Why Berlin? Why
not? I love the music, I love the city.
Also, there’s a lot of German
influence in our family.
Everyone speaks
German.
My uncle was a professor teaching German
management. My grandfather was the first
employee of Siemens Turkey. These were my
role models and somehow they all intersected
with Germany. I finished studying
engineering after I came to Germany, which
was when I realised, firstly, that I don’t actually
like engineering, and secondly, that I had
to do something creative.
Riders are at the core of your business
model, right? There’s that #riderpride,
and a lot of the riders we talked to
seemed happy with that chill atmosphere
and the techno… I’m a big techno
fan. Music was keeping us alive in the beginning
when we didn’t have that many orders,
with maybe five-hour breaks in between.
Then everyone who opened a warehouse had
their own playlist. Also, I’m a rider myself.
I lived on my bike for six months travelling
around Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkey,
Kurdistan and finally China. I have huge
respect for the game.
When you reached unicorn status, is
it true you shared some of the money
with your riders as a bonus? Yes, it was
a $1-million bonus and it was distributed
based on how long crew members had stayed
with us. Normally, I don’t like giving money
as a gesture but I thought it was right here.
Your riders also look pretty stylish
compared to other delivery companies...
Definitely! I mean, I’m super comfortable
in all black and that’s something
that connects me to Berlin. But the most
important thing is making our crew proud of
what they’re doing and who they are.
I heard you have the reputation of
jumping on your bike to help out if
necessary. Is that still something you
do? Yes, of course. Each warehouse we open,
I help out there. Our first HQ ever was actually
in the living room of my flat in Prenzlauer
Berg. I was one of our first riders!
So it all started from a Prenzlauer
Berg flat, what, a year and a half ago?
Yes, it was in January/February last year. I
was at minus 3k on my N26 account… and
the year before had been a pretty dark one
for me, I was as low as it gets. I actually
have a funny anecdote I never told anyone
before: you know the Positions art show at
Tempelhofer Feld? I was there in September
2019 and spotted a piece that I was just
crazy about. I said, “You’re gonna get this.
You’re down 3k but you can find the money
for it.” I ended up finding and calling the
artist Maria Wallenstein and telling her, “I
am at rock bottom, I have no money, but
that piece…” She said,“It’s as black as it
gets?” and I replied: “Yes!” Then, she told
me the piece was actually called ‘As Black
As It Gets’. [laughs] She agreed on installments
and I gave my last bit of money
to buy this piece. I brought it back to my
room. One month later, I’d built the Gorillas
warehouse.
It was Berlin’s very first dark store,
in Danziger Str. How many were you
back then? It was Jörg [Kattner] and my
wife, who also helped a lot. It was the three
of us, plus an intern who helped as a rider.
I’d met Jörg through a common friend. He
was the perfect person to bring this vision
to life and help build the business. He’s not
involved in the business any more but he’s
around. Sometimes we bounce ideas off
each other.
What was your first delivery as a rider,
do you remember? Did you get a tip? It
was Franziskaner beer, some other beer and
one salty and one sweet snack. I did get a
tip, yes! In general, I was getting really good
tips actually!
Unions have been a frequent problem
in the past for other delivery companies.
Are you scared of them at Gorillas?
Actually, no. We support unions big
time! I believe there are things as a society
that need to change and we will act on these
as a company, because we have the power to
change things.
I heard you gave $50,000 to the World
Wildlife Foundation in a nod to your
namesake? Where does the name Gorillas
come from? At first, we called the
company “getgoodys”. But I never liked that
name. I asked myself: what characteristics
do we have? We are bold, agile, definitely
strong but also well-intentioned. So I guess
we’re gorillas! – N. Vacauwenberghe
JUNE 2021
21

BERLIN AT WORK
| OFFICE LIFE |
COWORKING
GOES
CORPORATE
From an underground
hackerspace to flexible
offices on the 10th floor of
Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof, the
coworking scene in Berlin
has altered dramatically
over the last 20 years.
Now with Covid changing
the way we work, some big
and unexpected names are
entering this competitive
market. By Mark Petrie
Berlin is a city that exudes freedom and
liberty; Berliners are not the types to be
tied down and stripped of their rights
(unless consented to, of course). This is perhaps
part of the reason why the ‘artistic freelancer’
has flourished in the city, bouncing from one
venture to the next, stringing a living together
while enjoying the allure of the city’s subcultures.
Over the years, a network of remote workers
has emerged – there were an estimated 260,000
self-employed Berliners in 2019 – and, naturally,
workspaces waiting to accommodate them. With
around 150 spaces – from independent, not-forprofit
spots all the way up to international brand
names – Berlin is home to the third most coworking
locations in Europe, after London and Paris.
While the tech boom has seen coworking
go from strength to strength, corona and
the shift towards working from home have
completely changed the landscape again.
Once strictly the domain of tech start-ups
and creative types, coworking spaces have
now moved into the mainstream, attracting
the attention of big-name corporate players –
both as customers and investors.
WeWork
Hackerspace history
Although in vogue in recent years as a symbol
of Berlin’s hip, tech-tinged, neo-liberal
modernity, the practice of communal working
in the city has actually been around much
longer than many might think. In 1999, what
could be seen as the very first coworking
space in the world emerged on Berlin’s
Rungestraße at c-base, a ‘hackerspace’
established to share knowledge about the
emerging world of computer hardware and
data software. Literally an alien concept at
the time, a myth shared by members purports
that the base was formed in the remnants of
an ancient space station that crashed from
orbit. By 2002, the organisation began to
offer free wi-fi to its guests and in 2006 the
Pirate Party Germany was founded there.
While c-base was a club for those in the
know, the first steps towards what many
today would recognise as a coworking
space came in 2005 with St. Oberholz at
Rosenthaler Platz – the original laptopfriendly
café. Back then, there was no iPhone,
wi-fi was a novelty, laptops were large and
heavy, and remote working was really only
possible for freelancers. Also, unlike today,
buying a cheap coffee at a café, pulling out a
laptop and getting to work was not the done
thing. But St. Oberholz changed this with
the very first space where it was not only
cool to be working in a café, it was strongly
encouraged. “It was definitely the first café
that had work as part of the concept, that was
really providing workspace to people that
was not an office,” says co-founder Ansgar
Oberholz. “That was an exciting time and we
saw that something was growing.”
St. Oberholz grew into something of a
Berlin success story. Demand for workspace
at the coffee shop was coming from not
only individuals, but companies who had
developed businesses around their coffee
tables. Soundcloud, the music-sharing
platform, was the first growing tech company
to request meeting rooms. After acquiring
more space in the building, it wasn’t long
before demand for offices started to emerge.
“We were definitely the first place in Berlin
that kissed alive this coworking, workeverywhere
thing. The word ‘coworking’
didn’t even exist then,” says Oberholz.
Over the next 10 years, expansion continued
with a similar building on Zehdenicker
Straße, and the company now has 15 of its
own coworking and ‘flex-office’ locations. It
has also advised traditional companies like
Sparda-Bank and Deutsche Bahn on how to
reinvigorate their own office set-ups.
From hot desks to flex-offices
St. Oberholz is a prime example of how
coworking spaces have changed and grown
22
EXBERLINER 205

BERLIN AT WORK
St Oberholz
over time. Initially conceived as a lively place
for remote workers to soak up the vibrant
start-up spirit and entrepreneurial vibes,
they offered a solution to those fed up with
being stuck at home. As a result, coworking
spaces were traditionally made up of ‘hot
desks’ where people could occupy a work
space for the day, paying by the hour or
taking out a membership. This evolved to
include meeting rooms and event spaces for
larger organisations that needed a temporary
solution for company gatherings, as well as
office space for 100-percent digital start-ups
with no physical HQ looking to congregate on
an ad-hoc basis.
As the demand became greater, the needs
of clients started to shift. Companies looking
for a semi-permanent space with all the
amenities of a traditional office could now
expect flexible offices, or ‘flex-offices’, as
a feature at coworking spaces. This gave
companies looking to anchor their team in an
attractive central location the chance to have
the look and feel of an established company,
without needing to take out a costly 10-year
lease. And with rental prices soaring in recent
years, flex-offices were highly sought after by
start-ups and small companies.
For example, a traditional office for a
typical start-up of 20 people in Kreuzberg,
home to Berlin’s ‘Silicon Allee’, would cost
around €12,000 in monthly rent, plus a
long-term contract with a down payment
and overhead costs. However, a flexible
office arrangement in the same area could
be secured for around €8000 per month,
including a flexible contract for as little
as two months, a reception area, cleaning,
security, kitchen, high-speed internet and all
the required furniture.
For these reasons, over the past five years
around 256,000sqm of office space has been
leased to flexible office providers across
We were definitely the first
place in Berlin that kissed
alive this coworking, workeverywhere
thing. The
word ‘coworking’ didn’t
even exist then.
Berlin, accounting for around eight percent
of the city’s annual office space market.
The epicentre of the trend has been Mitte,
followed by Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg and
Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. But this is
just the beginning. By 2030, flex-offices are
set to account for around 30 percent of the
office market.
The corona effect
While the coworking ecosystem has
continued to grow over the past decade and
a half, 2020 proved to be a defining year.
With the global pandemic bringing the 9-5,
office-based working week to its knees, the
coworking landscape has shifted dramatically
from a niche product for baseless freelancers
and young start-ups to a competitive flexoffice
industry vying for Berlin real estate and
corporate contracts.
One of the companies looking to cash in on
this shift is WeWork. The global coworking
company, founded by Adam Neumann and
Miguel McKelvey in New York in 2010, has
more than 800 locations worldwide, and
since 2016 has rented around 40 percent of
the entire flexible-office market in Berlin.
In 2019, a $42-billion IPO criticised for its
‘yoga babble’ was laughed out of Wall Street.
Neumann and McKelvey were sidelined as
the value of the company dropped to below
$10 billion, making way for real estate expert
Sandeep Mathrani to take over as CEO.
Under his leadership, WeWork will soon open
its 10th Berlin location at Alexanderplatz
followed by another on Chausseestraße,
showing that the pandemic, despite bringing
new memberships to a halt, hasn’t stopped it
from expanding.
In fact, Covid has led to an increased
appetite for flexibility among workers –
something that coworking spaces stand in
prime position benefit from. Research from
last year found that 47 percent of employees in
Germany now want to decide for themselves
where they work and only four percent want
to work completely from home in the future.
To help sweeten the deal for those
returning to the office after the long
winter of working from home, coworking
spaces have adapted their memberships
to become even more flexible in terms of
price and accessibility. WeWork launched
an ‘All Access’ membership that allows
members to work from any of the company’s
offices around the world – a benefit that
previously cost extra. Meanwhile, it is also
experimenting with an ‘On Demand’ option
so that anyone can meet at a WeWork
location without becoming a full member.
As employees grow accustomed to their
newfound flexibility, it’s clear that it’s
not just artsy freelancers and scruffy tech
entrepreneurs who are looking towards
coworking. Many larger companies are trying
to adapt to the new trends in order to retain
staff and remain attractive to new talent by
hiring flex-office spaces for their workers.
“The pandemic has accelerated what had
always been our core business,” says Nikolay
Kolev, managing director for northern and
central Europe at WeWork. “When Adam
and Miguel started WeWork in 2010, it was
predominantly meant for freelancers and
start-ups. But we always believed that this
was the future of how people and companies
Techspace
JUNE 2021
23

BERLIN AT WORK
Coworking in Berlin A timeline
1999 The world’s first “coworking”
space opened on Berlin’s Rungestraße
at c-base, a “hackerspace” established
to share knowledge about the emerging
world of computer hardware and
data software.
2005 Berlin’s first “coworking café”
was opened at St. Oberholz, Rosenthaler
Platz.
2009 The first official coworking
space in Berlin was opened on
Moritzplatz by betahaus, offering an
unconventional office environment to
the city’s freelancers.
2015 Coworking giant WeWork
moves into the Sony Center, its first
location in Berlin.
2020 Deutsche Bahn launches its
everyworks business for professionals
on the move at Hauptbahnhof.​
2021 Today, there are around 150
coworking spaces in Berlin. In terms
of numbers, the city ranks third in
Europe behind London and Paris.
of any size will work.” This trend of flexoffices
becoming mainstream has had a
considerable impact on the company’s
client list. “It wasn’t that easy to bring the
big corporates on board in a pre-pandemic
world,” says Kolev. “They said: ‘It’s nice, very
interesting and creative, but not quite right
for us.’ That’s why if you look back a couple
of years, we had 12-15 percent enterprise
business, and today it’s over 50 percent of
our members who are large enterprises.”
Another coworking player picking up on
these post-Covid changes is Techspace.
Established in London in 2012 with a specific
focus on catering to up-and-coming tech
businesses, the company moved into the
Berlin market in 2017, lured by the availability
of disused warehouses that fit nicely with
their industrial aesthetic. Co-founder and
sales and marketing director Philip Ellis said
Berlin was an obvious choice for expansion
due to thriving investment in technology,
the possibility to do business in English, and
Berlin being a “culturally similar but larger
version of East London”.
And while the company’s first flexible
office space in town – spread over 4200sqm
on Lobeckstraße in Kreuzberg – was made
up of a balance of large and smaller tech
companies before the pandemic, Ellis notes
that the companies they have been working
with over the past year are “much bigger”.
Although it can’t reveal names, Techspace is
in negotiations with a large corporate brand
that's “well known across the world” about
taking up some of their flex-office space –
something that would have been unthinkable
before corona.
Indeed, many large companies who had
expensive offices sitting vacant during corona
are now on a cost-cutting mission to offset
their losses. Amid restructuring to hybrid
models of working, they are now looking to
swap the traditional office for cheaper, more
flexible space that is also less risky due to the
short notice periods for cancellation.
All aboard the coworking trend
One German business behemoth that has
long known the benefits of coworking – both
as a customer and an owner – is Deutsche
Bahn. The national rail provider might have
more than 200,000 employees and be one of
the country’s largest employers, but over the
past few years it has rented desks, offices and
even entire spaces in coworking sites from
various providers in Berlin.
To show that it wasn’t just interested in
a hot desk or two, in late 2018, the group
established the DB Digital Base at WeWork’s
Potsdamer Platz site, just a stone’s throw
from its own headquarters. Explaining the
decision, a spokesperson for the company
Everyworks
said that “suitable office space is not always
available at short notice” and that “coworking
spaces are therefore a good way for DB to
flexibly meet this need for workplaces”. DB’s
WeWork office is spread over 5000sqm on
nine floors and houses some 250 employees
working on digital innovations.
DB is not just a coworking customer: in
2015, the group set up its own coworking
space, DB mindbox, a 720sqm site under
the arches of Berlin’s Jannowitzbrücke
station, where DB employees work together
with start-ups to innovate the digital side
of the business. Then, in August last year,
the company became the latest big name
competitor in Berlin’s coworking market.
Sitting pretty on the 10th floor of the city’s
central station is everyworks, DB’s coworking
space targeting individual travellers and
businesses looking for a flex-office in a
central location. The space is explicitly not
for their own employees, but is a new venture
for DB into the world of coworking and flexoffice
real estate.
The entry of big players like DB into the
coworking and flex-office world doesn’t
necessarily mean that the post-corona world
will be a cash cow for the coworking spaces
themselves. For one, the pandemic has made
potential customers more selective when
it comes to finding a space. “One of the
biggest shifts from the last 12 months is that
companies want better quality space and
less of it – they are going after quality, not
volume,” says Techspace’s Ellis.
Oberholz agrees, saying that corona
has turbo-charged the changes that were
already under way. “Now people really ask
themselves, ‘What kind of office and work
environment do I need?’”
Compounding this is the increase in
coworking space on the market. With the
launch of everyworks, WeWork and St.
Oberholz’s expansion and Techspace’s recent
opening of its second Berlin location in a
renovated ice factory on Köpenicker Straße in
Mitte, there are a lot more hot desks, meeting
rooms and flex-offices to choose from.
“Before corona it was really easy to
rent out office spaces to enterprises –
small, medium and even large – because
everyone was struggling for office space.
That changed; it’s really upside down and
today we are only in the beginning of an
oversupply,” says Oberholz.
Far from the days of collaborative
hackers in underground space ships and
laptops with lattes, coworking in Berlin is
now a big corporate battlefield that is set
for cut-throat, post-Covid competition.
“It was competitive before, but it’s more
competitive now,” says Oberholz. “I’m sure
not everyone will make it.” T
24
EXBERLINER 205

PARTNER CONTENT
GREENER
THAN GREEN,
BIKINI BERLIN!
This green oasis in the
middle of the capital makes
sustainable shopping easy.
BIKINI BERLIN stands for innovation and zeitgeist. Since its
opening, the unique concept mall has offered an exceptional
kind of shopping experience. It fully supports the current shift
in society’s values towards a more eco-conscious lifestyle. This
green oasis in the middle of the city focuses on locality, authenticity
and transparency with its tenants. It makes taking a step
towards a more sustainable, eco-conscious lifestyle easier for
its customers than any other shopping mall in Berlin.
The sustainable aspects are already evident in the extraordinary
architecture. Even during the transformation of the
Bikinihaus into today’s BIKINI BERLIN, ecological thinking was
at the forefront at all times. Features include concrete walls
mixed with glass fragments from the former building facade,
mirrored windows to reflect sunlight, a skylight front that can
be opened as needed for air-conditioning and even a toilet
flushing system that works with rainwater. In addition, BIKINI
BERLIN saved an incredible 299 tons of resources as well as
nearly 36,000kg of greenhouse gases in 2020.
The long-awaited dream of a green oasis in the capital has
become a reality. This concept shopping mall invites established
Berliners as well as curious tourists from all over the
world to stroll through the unique site and linger in the sun
on the greened 7000sqm roof terrace, inspired by New York’s
High Line Park. It nourishes our modern-day desire to be
close to nature in the city and offers a spectacular view over
Berlin Zoo.
Sustainability doesn’t stop at dining and enjoyment, and at
the in-house food market KANTINI, it’s not only the delicious
dishes and refreshing drinks that are green. With the innovative
design of the furniture, BIKINI BERLIN and design studio
Aisslinger have ensured that recyclable raw materials such
as wood and metal were used, materials that are robust
and very durable. What’s more, plastic tableware and
cutlery is, of course, avoided completely. Visitors appreciate
the high-quality tableware, which matches the culinary
style of each individual restaurateur.
BIKINI BERLIN is thinking ‘green’ in many areas and supports
other innovative sustainable projects. These include the
CityTrees of Green City Solutions, which at first glance look
as if they have come from another planet. However, these
structures absorb the fine dust
in the pedestrian zone in front
of the mall through a patented
biotech air filter. BIKINI BERLIN also has an official
partnership with the Fashion Council Germany and
supports sustainable design talents from the Germanspeaking
realm as part of the German Sustain Concept.
It is easy to see that BIKINI BERLIN is a great place
to shop, stroll and enjoy – all guaranteed without a
guilty conscience.
JUNE 2021
25

BERLIN AT WORK
“YOU WORK FASTER
WHEN PEOPLE ARE
SITTING NEXT TO YOU.”
Thekla Heineke, founder, CEO and
creative director of advertising
agency Kakoii, is learning the art of
home office the hard way.
When we switched to working from
home last year, we had to create
completely new structures, and
I’m not just talking about hauling our giant
screens into people’s homes and hosting kickoff
meetings on Teams. The first lockdown
was extremely exhausting because we hadn’t
learned the lessons of home office yet. We’d
work until late at night and still not get all
the creative things done. We couldn’t go on
like that. We are a creative agency
and working together as
a group is fundamental.
It wasn’t just
difficult for the team;
it impacted the clients
too. The chemistry
with them has to be
right, almost like
dating! We lost
that getting-toknow-you
process,
which led to some
misunderstandings.
You’d show a client a sketch on the
computer – so it looks more final than a
pencil sketch – and they’d take it at face
value and say, ‘Oh god, I’m disappointed!’
By the time the second lockdown came
around, we’d switched to a more didactic
approach. Our presentations now are more
lush, like a film, and we show clients more
finished designs so that they’re not looking
at a screen thinking, ‘Eugh, what’s this?!’
As for our 17 employees, they now have
the option of whether they work from
home – which only three have taken us up
on. The rest prefer to come into the office;
they want the dopamine and adrenaline
that comes with working together on
something creative. Plus you work faster
when people are sitting next to you. You
check out what they’re doing, do a quick
sketch, have a look at that, someone has
great input and – bang! – you’re onto the
next one. If you move that process online,
you have to explain it, then wonder if the
person understood. You take a screenshot,
annotate it, send it back… There’s a lot
more effort involved. So creative workers
who choose to stay at home or who have
had to stay at home for health reasons are
at risk of being somewhat excluded. Even if
we try to counteract it. That just happens.
It’s like if someone lives in another city;
you just don’t think of them as often.
THE HOMEOFFICE
26
For Cat Davis, a 32-year-old project
manager at a FinTech start-up,
endless Zoom calls in the same room
where she sleeps are slowly driving
the Neukölln singleton mad.
“I WORK WHERE
I SLEEP. THERE’S
NO SPACE FOR
OTHER THINGS.”
I
wake up in the morning and the first
thing I do is turn on my computer and
immediately I’m at work. I’m still in my
pyjamas, I haven’t had a shower, I haven’t
done anything – but I’m already switched on.
I work full-time from home in a high-stress
job, and because it’s a studio apartment, I
work where I sleep. There’s no space for
other things.
Sure, there are aspects of working
from home that are pretty great: I can go
shopping in the middle of the day, run
to the post office, receive parcels. But I
miss the social aspect of going into work.
I’d never live with flatmates again – I’m
too old for that! – but I definitely see
the benefit of having someone there so
that you’re not having a conversation
with your cheese in the fridge. I’m
constantly in meetings, but I hate Zoom.
It’s expected in my company that you
EXBERLINER 205
turn your camera on, which is just a
nightmare. You’re constantly being seen
and it’s exhausting. It just mentally drains
you and makes you less efficient. It’s
also distracting being on camera. You’re
constantly having to be aware: How am I
sitting? Do I look weird right now? God,
I look tired! Plus you miss out on that
jokey, in-the-office, getting-a-coffeetogether
relationship with people.
Locked in your own house with the
walls slowly closing in, you start to get
crazy brain. At the end of the day, I have
so much energy but nowhere to put it.
It’s definitely having a detrimental impact
on my mental health. Plus I don’t finish
work on time because my computer is
right there. It’s a finance company so they
demand long hours. But with home office,
you’re always there, so you just keep
working and you don’t stop.

BERLIN AT WORK
I’ve been exclusively working from home
since I took over my new job last November
and I love it. When you’re a
software engineer, there isn’t much interaction
involved: you’re mostly sitting at your
computer completing tasks, and to be honest,
I can’t stand being interrupted. In fact,
every time this happens, it can take up to 30
minutes to get back into the flow. Working
from home gives me that head space to work
five hours straight without any distraction.
At the office, management can sometimes
interfere with my work, asking questions
about things to be done in the future. I also
hate when some employers see you as their
mercenary to be sent on little side missions.
Home office means no one is on my ass on
a daily basis.
There’s also what I call ‘dead time’ in an
office, which is when you’re in-between
tasks or waiting for someone’s task to be
completed. When I’m at home, I have that
time to use at my own discretion. I can go
out for a walk, or I can practice playing
music. I’ve really upped my piano game
now that I can play during my one-hour
lunch breaks. And it’s during the day while
my brain’s still active. As an office worker,
I might only find an hour or two in the
evenings to practice, but I’d also be pretty
tired. The other plus side of home office
is having the opportunity – and the liberty
– to work from the park when it’s sunny.
That’s really nice and gets me some
vitamin D. I’ll head out with a blanket and
my laptop to find a nice spot under a tree.
I can stay there for a few hours, until my
battery runs out.
“NO ONE IS ON
MY ASS ON A
DAILY BASIS.”
For Guillaume Hermet, a 27-yearold
software engineer, working
from home lets him cut through
the noise and stay away from
overbearing bosses.
DEBATE
When
Berliners got sent from the office into
the hygienic bubble of their own homes, many
welcomed the novelty. One year later, opinions
are more ambivalent. We talk to four Berliners
about how working from home has affected them.
This has been the most challenging year
of our lives. All the lines got blurred.
Home office in general works better for
single people, living alone, where they don’t
have other roles and tasks to fulfill on a busy
workday. For women with families, it’s impossible
to separate home duties from work life.
I get to be a different person at my
company: I make executive decisions, I
lead people, I figure complex things out, I
am respected for my knowledge. This past
year took that other person away, I didn’t
get to be her. I found it way harder to work
with my team from a distance. I’m a very
hands-on manager and I liked having the
opportunity to just chat to my colleagues
about everyday stuff and learn more about
them through that. But coordinating
projects from a distance is rough.
My husband has a government job so
he could barely stay at home. We didn’t
want to blow half of my salary on childcare
(we also have a huge mortgage to pay).
So I was juggling the work, the kids and
the house. It was not going smoothly. My
daughter just started school last year. Now
I’m responsible for these early educational
milestones. And the team that I manage
at work. And the household and ordering
groceries and taking care of all the meals
because my husband has to go into work
and I am – as he says – “in home office
anyway”. I am full of resentment to be
honest. Our marriage has suffered a great
deal. I’ve often talked to my kids in a way
I despise. On top of it all, some of my
childless co-workers have expressed their
disliking of me having my
children around while we are
doing Zoom meetings. By the
end of last year, I was at my
wits end, close to a nervous
breakdown, so I asked for
mornings off at work and we
decided to hire a babysitter
for the afternoons. I hope
things will get back to normal and I can
find that strong woman in me again who
I used to be at work. We are also starting
couple’s counselling next month.
Alexandra Ager, a 44-year-old mother
of two, has been struggling to balance
working from home for a start-up
company with keeping house and taking
care of the kids.
“I WAS JUGGLING THE
WORK, THE KIDS AND
THE HOUSE.”
JUNE 2021
27

WHAT’S ON — Film
Off to the Freiluft
Berlinale we go!
It’s full steam ahead for this year’s unprecedented summer
THE
BERLINALE
SPECIAL
June 9-20
edition of the Berlin film festival. With 16 venues and 127 films,
our film editor gives you the lowdown. By David Mouriquand
Cinema is not
only films but
other people;
however, the
quality of the
programme –
especially the
Competition
titles – just
about made
up for the
lack of an
IRL festival
experience.
Courtesy of Sandra Weller
Finally, some good news. The
decision has come down that
the Berlinale’s Summer Special
will take place in the previously announced
slot of June 9-20. Hooray for
renewed optimism in the shape of falling
coronavirus infection rates and rising
vaccine numbers, as it’s no hyperbole
to say that the 2021 vintage is without
a doubt one of the strongest line-ups
in recent memory.
It was touch and go there for a
while. Last March, the Berlinale
became the first of the ‘Big Three’
film festivals (Berlin, Cannes and
Venice) to go down the online
route. The five-day streaming
event, held exclusively for film
industry professionals, was
something of a mixed bag, with
home viewing proving once again
that it was no substitute for the
communion that occurs in theatres.
Cinema is not only films but other
people; however, the quality of
the programme – especially the
Competition titles – just about
made up for the lack of an IRL
festival experience.
Last month, the festival had
warned that it might have to cancel
the second leg of the 71st edition
– what Artistic Director Carlo
Chatrian dubbed “the real moment
of celebration” – citing concerns
over the pandemic restrictions.
And for a festival that always prided
itself on being a public event,
its good reputation was at stake.
The suspense is now over, as the
Berlinale stated Part II will be an
in-person, open-air festival, with
Chatrian confirming what he told
us earlier this year: the Berlinale
had “the desire, but also the duty,
to give something to Berliners,
especially after all the grey
lockdown days”. The outdoor June
event is “geared towards re-igniting
the desire to go to the cinema
and contributing to the revival of
cultural activities with an audience”.
It will be held at 16 venues scattered
across the city, with hygiene
and security plans coordinated
with the venues (natürlich).
The “Kiez-Kino” screenings will
take place at old favourites like
Freiluftkino Kreuzberg, Freiluftkino
Hasenheide and ARTE Sommerkino
Kulturforum, and will be joined by a
specifically created outdoor cinema
at Museum Island as the main
venue – where the awards ceremony
honouring this year’s winners will
be held on June 13.
Audiences will finally get to see
and discuss the winners, including
Radu Jude’s 2021 Golden Bearnabbing
Bad Luck Banging or Loony
Porn, as well as unearthing the great
discoveries to be found across all
the sections. It’s not every festival
that our coverage is a look-back
void of surprises: the winners have
already been announced and critics
know what’s worth seeing. The
plus side is that we can confidently
point you towards the must-sees,
and thankfully, Berliners will be
treated to a significant chunk of
28
EXBERLINER 205

WHAT’S ON — Film
the original programme. So while
there might be fewer screening
slots available for certain titles,
at least audiences will not be
robbed of seeing award-winning
films within the context of their
sprawling sections. That said, when
looking at the list of this year’s
main winners, the awards were
handed out to the deserving films
and filmmakers. The only two main
sticking points are the Silver Bear
for Best Director – more on that on
page 31 – and the fact that Berlinale
darling Hong Sang-soo won
Best Screenplay for his pleasant
but uninspiring Introduction, a
decision that reeks of an ongoing
love story going stale. It’s worth
noting that the 71st edition is an
especially interesting year for
German cinema: I’m Your Man,
Mr Bachmann And His Class and
Georgian-German co-production
What Do We See When We Look At
The Sky? are all standouts, and have
firmly put Maria Schrader, Maria
Speth and Aleksandre Koberidze
on the map as some of the most
exciting home-grown/trained
directorial voices to keep a close
eye on. There are always going
to be disappointments: Christian
Schwochow’s timely political
thriller Je Suis Karl starts off
promisingly but gradually devolves
into eye-rollingly silly territory,
ham-fistedly defusing any tension
by spelling-out all tantalizingly
ambiguous beats; as for celebrated
German-Spanish actor Daniel
Brühl, his valiant first-time effort
behind the camera for the hotly
anticipated, Berlin-set Nebenan
(Next Door) would’ve worked so
much better on stage, and never
truly embraces the promise of
its log line: “A tribute to the
contradiction of Berlin in the 21st
century”.
But not even these minor
blemishes spoil this year’s vintage.
So, it’s off to the Freiluft-Berlinale
we go! Tickets go on sale on June
3. Check out our top picks (pages
30-32) and get ready to watch these
films the way their authors intended
them to be seen: not from home
with your attention divided between
emails, texts, tweets and flagging
wi-fi, but in a shared cinema
experience. Let’s hope the weather
is also in a celebratory mood. T
A LOST GENDER CONVERSATION?
The festival’s first-ever gender-neutral acting awards were doled out
online this March, without the fanfare they deserved and robbing
the public of an important discussion on how (and if ) the new prizes
champion diversity in cinema.
This year, the Berlinale became the first major
international film festival to go genderneutral
for its acting prizes. However, due to
the lack of an IRL festival, it feels like the desired
conversation around this landmark decision may
have been lost in the white noise of lockdown.
Berlinale directors Mariette Rissenbeek and
Carlo Chatrian announced back in August
that the four acting awards – Best Actor, Best
Supporting Actor, Best Actress
and Best Supporting Actress
– are no more, and that there
would now be just two prizes:
Silver Bear for Best Leading
Performance and Silver Bear for
Best Supporting Performance.
Rissenbeek stated that the
decision to have genderless
awards was intended to spark
further discussions around
gender justice, something
Chatrian confirmed in our
interview with him: “This
decision is in many ways the
result of living in a city like
Berlin which is very much at
the forefront of progressive
elements in our culture. We don’t want to get
rid of cultural difference and identities, but it’s
good when these things are not barriers.”
The decision was welcomed by screen stars
such as Cate Blanchett and Tilda Swinton, with
the latter saying that the Berlinale’s decision to
consign gendered acting awards to history was
“eminently sensible” and that it is “inevitable”
that gender-neutral awards will become the
standard across the film industry.
While Swinton’s word is gospel for some, I
can’t deny I go back and forth on this matter.
When the decision was announced, my first
reaction was to cheer. Too right, I thought,
you wouldn’t have a gendered distinction for
directing awards so why should there be one
for acting? If Chloé Zhao and David Fincher can
compete for a directing prize, then logic would
dictate that Carey Mulligan and Riz Ahmed can
do the same for acting. A performance is great
regardless of gender and the Berlinale’s decision
can only be a forward-thinking one.
That said, consider the unintended
consequences of doing away with sex-specific
categories. Overarching sections mean fewer
statuettes, reducing the potential for visibility;
fewer worthy performers may get short-listed
and removing barriers may inadvertently
strengthen institutional disadvantages for
women. Gender-neutral awards can be seen as
socially-progressive and may help transgender
and non-binary performers but the issue goes
deeper than awards. The film industry is an
uneven playing field, rife with institutional
sexism, and one which favours cisgender men
for lead roles. This year may have seen Maren
Eggert (pictured above) win the Berlinale’s first
ever gender-neutral Best Performance prize
for her role in the ironically titled I’m Your
Man and Lilla Kizlinger win Best Supporting
Performance for Forest – I See You Everywhere,
but with men still having more opportunities to
perform leading roles, it’s only a matter of time
before all acting awards in a given year go to
male performers. Just imagine the potential for
justified outcry.
While an important part of the process in
their own right, awards are only the glossy
final step and equal opportunities need to start
earlier in the filmmaking process. If genderneutral
awards can further discussion and lead
to meaningful change (which means more
diverse studios, funding institutions and voting
bodies), then they are to be championed.
Without proper conversation and a decent
amount of fanfare however, we run the risk
of gender-neutral awards becoming a virtuesignalling
cherry on a cake in dire need of
better ingredients. Gender-neutral awards
may be a welcome, well-intentioned start but
filmmaking as an industry has a lot of work
to do before it warrants the applause it so
desperately wants. T — DM
Courtesy of Berlinale
JUNE 2021 29

WHAT’S ON — Film
TOP BERLINALE COMPETITION PICKS
You can’t go far wrong when it comes to
booking tickets for this year’s especially
strong Competition. That said, here are
our top recommendations.
Hot
Berlinale
tickets
Book online
from June 3
BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN Dir. R Jude
A well-deserved Golden Bear
The Berlinale has always been fond of radical filmmaking that leads audiences to confront their
prejudices, and this year was no exception: the Golden Bear for Best Film went to Romanian
filmmaker Radu Jude for his biting satire Babardeala cu bucluc sau porno balamuc (Bad Luck
Banging Or Loony Porn). Described as a “sociological sex film”, it’s a trenchant – if messy
– critique of contemporary Romanian society through the story of a schoolteacher (Katia
Pascariu) who lands in hot water after her sex tape leaks online. Unpredictably constructed
like a triptych, the film touches upon the social hypocrisy societies continue to have against
women and is to be applauded for going beyond mere provocation and actually providing
scathing food for thought. The jury stated that the film has “a rare and essential quality of a
lasting art work”, and it’s hard to argue. It’s also one of those films that needs to be seen with
an audience, as live reactions to the risqué content and its humorous beats will be a vital factor
when it comes to fully appreciating this year’s frequently outrageous winner. — DM
WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY Dir. R Hamaguchi
The must-see Competition title
Our favourite film of the Competition is without a doubt Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Guzen To Sozo
(Wheel Of Fortune And Fantasy), and if Radu Jude hadn’t provoked with Bad Luck Banging Or
Loony Porn, this surely would have taken the Golden Bear. Instead, it was awarded the Silver Bear
Grand Jury Prize. Billed as a collection of “short films about coincidence and imagination”, this
superbly executed Japanese film is split into three unique chapters: a tortuous love triangle, a
‘honey trap’ seduction that backfires, and a chance encounter set in a world where a computer
virus has disabled most of the internet and sclerosed virtual lives. Equal parts Rohmerian
and Murakamian, with all three dialogue-driven stories revolving around women, the overall
tapestry it weaves brims with understated poetry and explores human dynamics with recurring
motifs of chance, doubles and regret that echo and flow into each other in a remarkable way.
It’s unpredictable, oddly tender and nothing short of an absorbing masterpiece, one that will
be tough to avoid when it comes to end-of-year ‘best film’ lists. — DM
MR BACHMANN AND HIS CLASS Dir. M Speth
German documentary filmmaking at its best
This year’s Competition selection was an impressive showcase of quality German films, and
nowhere is this better seen than with the winner of the Jury prize, Maria Speth’s Herr Bachman
Und Seine Klasse (Mr Bachmann And His Class). It is an expansive yet intimate observational
documentary that will delight fans of Laurent Cantet’s Palme d’Or-winning Entre Les Murs,
and answers the question “What if Frederick Wiseman had directed School Of Rock?” It
looks at the classroom as a microcosm of German society, following a defiant 65-year-old
teacher, Dieter Bachmann, in the small German city of Stadtallendorf in the state of Hesse,
and his work with first- and second-generation immigrant pre-teen pupils. It’s a window into
the German educational system, as well as a powerfully moving exercise in empathy that
addresses the essential place of multi-ethnicism in the face of nationalist oppression. Don’t
be discouraged by its runtime (it clocks in at nearly four hours): the journey is full of heart
and humanity, and is worth every minute. — DM
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WWHAT’S WHAT’S ON — Film
I’M YOUR MAN Dir. M Schrader
The German crowd-pleaser to beat
While Mr Bachmann… might not to be everyone’s tastes, Ich Bin Dein Mensch (I’m
Your Man) stands as the German crowd-pleaser to beat this year. Maria Schrader,
best known for her Netflix series Unorthodox, gives a twist on the traditional
romcom; the results are delightful, sincere, and yet cheekily wry. Her Berlin-set,
high-concept romantic comedy can be loosely described as a gender-flipped Weird
Science. It sees Alma (Maren Eggert) enter into a trial relationship with an android,
Tom (Dan Stevens). The chipper latter has been designed to be her ideal partner;
the resistant former sees the experiment as a means to professional ends. The script
is sharp, its meditations on longing, satisfaction and individuality ring true, and
both central performances are excellent. British actor Dan Stevens embraces his
role with an uncanny verve, impressing with his physicality and delivery (in perfect
German, no less) and places the viewer in a worrying crawl space between “Hmmm,
powerful manly eyebrows” and “Stranger danger, stranger danger”. As for Eggert,
she was awarded the first gender-neutral acting award for Leading Performance, and
deservingly so. — DM
All stills courtesy of Berlinale
PETITE MAMAN Dir. C Sciamma
The Bear that got away
The Silver Bear for Best Director may have been awarded to Dénes Nagy for his
absorbing Hungarian WWII drama Natural Light, but many felt that French
filmmaker Céline Sciamma should have nabbed the prize for the follow-up to her
stunning Portrait Of A Lady On Fire. Petite Maman is a transportive autumnal reverie
that steals your heart in the space of a lean 72 minutes. It tells the story of an eightyear-old
girl (Joséphine Sanz), whose grandmother has just passed away and who
encounters a young version of her mother (Gabrielle Sanz) in the woods outside
of her adult mother’s childhood home. Its fantastical premise has hints of magic
realism and translates into a timeless fable that toys with classic fairy tale imagery
to beautifully explore the grieving process and articulate the importance of the
fleeting moment. Sciamma described it as a “time travelling film without the time
travelling machine”, and while it’s undoubtedly a more low-stakes affair within her
filmography (it was filmed towards the end of 2020 following the lifting of France’s
lockdown restrictions), it’s by no means less affecting than her previous films. It
certainly deserved better than to leave the Berlinale empty-handed. — DM
WHAT DO WE SEE WHEN WE LOOK AT THE SKY? Dir. A Koberidze
The other uncrowned gem of the Competition
Alongside Petite Maman, another snub by the main awards jury was DFFB-alumnus
Aleksandre Koberidze’s stunning Ras vkhedavt rodesac cas vukurebt? (What Do We
See When We Look At The Sky?). The Georgian-German co-production is a gorgeous
fairy tale which explores the magic of chance encounters… and the World Cup. We
witness a Bressonian meet-cute between pharmacist Lisa and footballer Giorgi,
who arrange a date. Disaster strikes when the Evil Eye casts a spell on them and
transforms their physical appearances, meaning that when the two cursed wouldbe
lovers show up to the rendezvous the next day, they no longer recognise each
other. The lush cinematography by Iranian DP Faraz Fesharaki makes the Georgian
town of Kutaisi feel like a timeless bubble through his mix of digital and softgrained
16mm camerawork, creating a dream-like haze which unblurs in a gently
poetic resolution that can be interpreted as an ode to cinema and its transformative
effects. All in all, it’s a beautifully romantic, warm and at times mischievous folktale
whose ruminations on identity, perception and the magic of the everyday strike an
invigorating chord. Miss out on letting its magic wash over you on a summer evening
and you too will be deserving of the Evil Eye’s dastardly ways. — DM
JUNE 2021 31

WHAT’S ON — Film
OUT-OF-COMPETITION GEMS
Ten films in the sidebar sections that should be on your radar.
with its attitude towards First Nations.
Goulet manages to sustain a gripping
mood throughout her mother-daughter
story, crafting a clever parable
about ethnic cleansing and the
destruction of pluralism while avoiding
clumsy exposition dumps and upending
tired ‘chosen one’ tropes.
All stills courtesy of Berlinale
FESTIVAL
SECTIONS
BERLINALE SPECIAL
The versatile section
is usually famous for
its Gala Premieres
and attracting A-list
stars. The international
productions
remain, even in the
absence of red-carpet
glamour.
PANORAMA
Arthouse gems by
international auteurs,
seen by many
as a Competition
selection that has a
historically involved
theme of LGBTQ+
issues.
GENERATION
Films that are
children and
youth-centric, but
definitely not just for
kids.
ENCOUNTERS
The newest section,
now in its second
year, billed as a
platform to foster
daring works and
support new voices
in cinema.
FORUM
Curatively independent
and part of the
Arsenal (Institute for
Film and Video Art),
the section’s films
boast experimental
and risk-taking fare.
BERLINALE SHORTS
Domestic and
international short
films – this year’s 20
shorts are of high
quality and are split
up in four sections
which deserve your
attention.
TINA Berlinale Special
Dan Lindsay and TJ Martin’s terrific
Tina Turner documentary is an
empowering ride that’s tailor-made to
be seen in outdoor settings. The film
doesn’t merely dwell on the cursed
shadow that abuse casts on a life; it
celebrates determination and love.
Whether you’re a card-carrying Tinaholic
or just up for a rollickingly good
and frequently emotional music doc,
Tina is… excuse us… simply the best.
NORTH BY CURRENT Panorama
Angelo Madsen Minax’ skilfully constructed
essay film follows the trans
filmmaker returning to his Michigan
home town after the mysterious death
of his two-year-old niece and the subsequent
arrest of his brother-in-law as
the culprit. By grappling with the fact
that “when you speak the pain’s name,
it dissipates”, Madsen Minax movingly
delves into themes of childhood, grief,
addiction and transgender masculinity.
CENSOR Panorama
Prano Bailey-Bond’s stylish debut
feature is a valentine to Video Nasties.
Set in Thatcher’s Britain, it follows a
film censor who becomes obsessed
with uncovering the secrets behind her
sister’s disappearance. At times reminiscent
of Peter Strickland’s Berberian
Sound Studio, it ingeniously injects
some timely social commentary by
addressing Britain’s then tabloid-fuelled
moral panic. A must-see for horror
aficionados, who can champion
Bailey-Bond as a thrilling new voice
in female-led horror, alongside Relic’s
Natalie Erika James and Saint Maud’s
Rose Glass.
NIGHT RAIDERS Panorama
Executively produced by Taika Waititi,
Danis Goulet’s feature debut Night
Raiders is a Canadian film which
would make for a fine double-dill with
Beans (see next column). It’s a dystopian,
Children Of Men-echoing feminist
parable that sees Canada grapple
BEANS Generation
The Berlinale made a point of announcing
that younger audiences
would not be left out during the
Summer Special, even if you don’t
have to be a young’un to enjoy some
of Generation’s excellent line-up. With
this in mind, everyone should rush
to watch Tracy Deer’s debut feature,
Beans. Based on true events of the Oka
crisis – the 78-day stand-off between
Mohawk communities and government
forces that took place in 1990s Quebec
– Beans is a big-hearted and beautifully
acted coming-of-age masterpiece.
CRYPTOZOO Generation
American animator Dash Shaw returns
to the Berlinale following his wonderfully
idiosyncratic My Entire High
School Sinking Into The Sea. Co-directed
with Jane Samborski, their latest
animation adventure sees a veterinarian
rescuing fantastical creatures. Trouble
arises when the military schemes
to capture the greatest cryptid, the
dream-devouring chimera Baku, in
order to destroy the dreams of the
ever-growing alternative culture. Inspired
by the psychedelic underground
comics of the 1960s, this is a vibrant
animation film that questions ideas of
preservation and humanity in a trippy
and wonderfully oneiric way.
THE SCARY OF SIXTY-FIRST
Encounters
We weren’t exactly bowled over by
the maiden voyage of the Berlinale’s
newest section in 2020, but this
year’s Encounters selection had us
convinced. Part of the 2021 treasure
trove is The Scary of Sixty-First, a daring
gem directed by Dasha Nekrasova,
who is best known as the co-host of
the Red Scare podcast. It is a giallo
pastiche set in the aftermath of Jeffery
Epstein’s suicide (or was it murder?),
which embraces conspiracy theories,
anti-royal family sentiment, and tips
its hat to early Polansky and Kubrick’s
Eyes Wide Shut. It sounds like a messy
hodgepodge but ends up being an
invigorating breath of fresh air.
THE GIRL AND THE SPIDER
Encounters
Swiss directing duo Ramon Zürcher
and Silvan Zürcher won the Best
Director award for The Girl And The
Spider, a window into the comings
and goings of lonely souls, who constantly
stare at each other like lunatics
and stumble across each other in
the corridors of a shared flat. It is a
beautifully filmed, claustrophobic gem
that will either strike you as deceptively
profound or exasperatingly hollow.
Love it or loathe it, it’s the kind of
unusual work Encounters should be
championing.
SKI Forum
The Forum section can be a bit of
an acquired taste, with its line-up of
challenging and experimental filmmaking
often testing the boundaries of
convention. But patience is rewarded,
especially with Manque La Banca’s
ambitious feature-length debut Esqui
(Ski), which won this year’s FIPRESCI
Award. Initially a documentary on Bariloche,
whose snowy mountains have
made it Argentina’s go-to destination
for ski tourism in the Andes, the film
morphs into a multi-layered thriller
of sorts that blurs fact and fiction. Its
breathtaking landscapes and palpably
disturbing atmosphere make this a
captivating watch.
MY UNCLE TUDOR
Berlinale Shorts
One of our main tips during this
summer Berlinale is to embrace the
festival’s oft-overlooked section by
heading to a night of short films. Special
mention goes to Olga Lucovnicova’s
devastating Golden Bear winner
My Uncle Tudor, which combines observational
filmmaking with a focus on
the warped poetry of human emotions.
The filmmaker takes an initially idyllic
trip back in time through her childhood
in order to question the past and eventually
confront a family member who is
responsible for her trauma.
32
EXBERLINER 205

WHAT’S ON — Stage
Interview
“Let’s
try this!”
As theatres make a
return this month, HAU
artistic director Annemie
Vanackere reveals how
she has kept momentum
going. By Lucy Rowan
Congratulations on your first
public/analogue premiere of
2021. How does it feel? As soon as
we got the news we may be able to
play in front of an audience again, we
immediately tried to figure out what
was possible, given the enormous
organisational issues involved – production,
technical and communication
costs, et cetera. So, we’re really
pleased we were able to schedule the
premiere of Joy of Life at HAU1. It’s
Ersan Mondtag’s first dance production!
In addition, the HAU4 programme
announced for June will also
run, which is also very complex, but
so well worth seeing!
As we spoke last September, you
were preparing to reopen to the
public. Two months later, the
theatre had to shut again and
your plans were halted. How did
it feel back then? After months of
lockdown, being able to play for an
audience was just lovely. That was a
good moment for us, to regain our
sense of purpose. Then we injected
that sense of purpose into our online
stage, which is something we’ve been
taking very seriously. We invested
and researched a lot on how to translate
a performing arts mindset into
an online world, where the contact
with the audience is made remote. Of
course, the yo-yo expectations – will
we re-open? Or half reopen? Or not
at all? – have been quite draining.
But working on new digital propositions
helped a lot to think about
the future. This pandemic moment
showed us how necessary it is to have
a frame change somehow. We didn’t
do streams of live shows - Constanza
Macras’ Stage of Crisis was an exception.
I’m not against putting a show
on stage and streaming it, but that’s
not what we wanted to develop. We
were more interested in working with
a new language, figuring out opportunities
with those able to use the
digital grammar.
How hard was it for your artists
to adapt and ‘digitalise’ their
practice? Some adapted easily, turning
their work into film for example,
as Kat Valastúr did. She made a very
beautiful film with a collection of
solo pieces, which we will present
in the fall as an analogue piece. For
other artists, it was much more painful,
and they really struggled transforming
what they had created for a
live audience into something online.
So we had the whole spectrum from
artists who were like “let’s try this!”
to people who really were not happy
at all. This has made the past year
quite emotional for everyone. It was
a lot of work – it always is! – but this
time without having that catharsis
‘Audience’
isn’t even
the best
word any
more, because
sometimes
it’s
participants
or users.
JUNE 2021 33

WHAT’S ON — Stage
DON’T MISS
Hof-Theater
Berliner Ensemble
have launched their
open-air, courtyard
stage with over two
weeks of theatrical
and musical performances.
Schedules
are published a week
in advance online.
May 27-Jun 20
La Fanciulla del West
For the first time since
November, the Staatsoper
welcomes back
Berliners with the
premiere of Giacomo
Puccini’s Fanciulla.
Director Lydia Steier
makes her house
debut with this notso-typical-tale,
set in
California during the
gold rush. Live performance
at Staatsoper
Unter den Linden
but also available for
online streaming.
June 13, 16, 19, 24, 27
Krieg und Disco
For 48 hours, Volksbühne
will cover
controversial discussions
about the abuse
of power, racism
and discrimination in
theatre with a series
of German -language
performances, readings
and discussions,
as well as concerts,
including live DJ sets
and a performance
from the VB’s house
band.
Jun 4-5
we feel when we finally join in the
theatre with the audience and launch
the piece into the world.
How has it been for you? Was
it hard to keep motivated all
along? I feel it’s my damn duty! As a
leader of a state-sponsored cultural
institution, I could not let go. I had
to consider every single person’s
situation, which were all so different.
Our private lives became much more
present, the particular situations of
each member of the team, their families,
et cetera. It was a chance for us
to think about how we work, and how
do we want to work? I always spoke
about the holistic approach – it got a
whole new meaning this year!
So what else will stick with HAU
after the pandemic is over? What
we learned from working with digital
tools will not disappear. This whole
idea of more remote working – we
won’t go back to 100-percent duty of
presence in the offices for example.
The possibilities offered by digital
art won’t disappear either. When the
first lockdown took place, we were already
experimenting with Spy on Me
2, a festival dealing with the digital
present; so it forced us to move further
into exploring the digital field.
Last time we spoke, you were
pretty optimistic about the
advantages of remote or digital
theatre. Are you still? It has
to do with reach and accessibility.
There are people who are not mobile,
who may want to enjoy our theatre.
Maybe they have no babysitter, a
disability, maybe they’re sick or just
simply don’t want to leave the house.
Then they can choose when they
watch something. It’s quite enticing
to think, ‘Ooh, I can watch this later.’
We’ve even discussed the possibility
of branching out internationally,
working with non-German audiences
in mind, for example. So there are
great aspects to that digital reach.
I remember you saying this
forced digitalisation was also a
chance to become more inclusive
of younger generations. Has
this thought materialised? Even
before the pandemic, my wish to invest
in this full industrial revolution
of digitalisation had to do with not
wanting to lose touch with a younger
Even before the pandemic,
my wish to
invest in this full industrial
revolution
of digitalisation had
to do with not losing
touch with the younger
generation.
generation that has grown up with
this digital extension of their bodies.
So it started there: and to thinking
with formats, and with theatre artists
who are interested in that. The
feminist digital collective dgtl fmnsm
is the perfect example - they are not
necessarily theatre people but they
connect with us.
This month, you’re also launching
the app-based Loulu, a hybrid
of game and theatre aimed
at teenagers. Right? Yes, it’s an
app we developed with onlinetheater.
live and it’s aimed at young people, 15
to 17 year olds. You download the app
for free and you’re able to follow the
interactive story of a fictional lifestyle
influencer called Loulu who is
investigating research on right-wing
milieus. It’s an interactive game that
develops over a few weeks, so you
have to stay tuned. That’s another
exciting way of how we can use and
communicate with these digital tools.
How do you see the future of
digital theatre in economic
terms? People aren’t necessarily
used or prone to paying for
online content. What has been
your experience so far? Our
first experience with that was Gob
Squad’s Show Me A Good Time, it
actually was the first in Berlin with
a paywall, and it got 711 bookings
at the premiere in June 2020. The
three revivals in November 2020
sold between 150 and 215 tickets.
Of the more recent productions,
in March 2021, Kat Válastur’s Eye
Lash sold 230 tickets and Adrian
Figueroa’s film Proll sold 240. So
it’s going pretty well. Meanwhile,
we’re still investigating our results
with free-access productions. It is all
so new for us, we need the time to
think things through. Also our ticket
service team was not really prepared
to think through what it means if
people are buying online tickets
only. If it’s on demand, then what
does that mean? So it’s really about
finding the needs of people and
matching that with what we think
is important. Some people say we
should work like Netflix and upload
more: for example, it would be €10
per month and you can see everything
that HAU is producing. But
we’re still investigating options.
In our digitally saturated times,
theatre is also about escapism
and having some time away
from your phone. Aren’t you
afraid to go too far down the
digital lane? No, we will keep creating
pieces for our stage, there are
so many artists we love in the city,
and we want to keep working with
them. We have a great new piece by
Gob Squad, which will premiere in
the fall. We’re also working on two
big productions with the feminist
singer Christiana Rösinger – we
know this piece only works with a
full house… Meanwhile, we had a
very inspiring talk with our team
about rethinking what analogue
presence means. To be able to come
together again has another resonance.
We can have hybrids – coming
together to look at something digital.
I’m almost afraid we didn’t learn
enough from the pandemic. There’s
so much to think about!
Do you think theatre will be
moving towards a dual system,
by which there will be analogue
productions catering to
traditional theatre goers, and
digital offerings for younger
audiences? It’s not either-or, different
people can be reached through
different channels. In fact, ‘audience’
isn’t even the best word any more,
because sometimes it’s participants
or users. I would not want to miss
the chance for an institution like
HAU to not look further into these
developments, it’s important to stay
tuned there! But no matter what, the
theatre should remain a place where
you can switch off from your own
thoughts and get inspired again. T
34
EXBERLINER 205

WHAT’S ON — Stage
Preview
Stage under the stars at
Luxurious open-air settings at
Deutsches Theater
Few theatres in Berlin can boast one epidemic-proof
open-air stage – never mind two! After much anticipation
and months of online streaming, Deutsches Theater
revived the squandered season with the premiere of
PeterLicht’s Tartuffe or The Wise Men’s Pig at their cobbled
Vorplatz stage last month.
In June, there will be two more outdoor performances,
this time in the Innenhof. Both will showcase winners of
the annual Autor:innentheatertage festival, a competition
for budding playwrights to have their script performed
for a month on stage. The full 2021 instalment has been
postponed to September, but Berliner theatregoers will
be given a taste of the talent with Chris Michalski’s When
There’s Nothing Left To Burn You Have To Set Yourself On
Fire. It tells the story of Petra as she investigates why
Jan L, a former school friend and Bundeswehr soldier in
Afghanistan, decided to self-immolate. The Australianborn,
Leipzig-based Michalski explores issues of loss
and trauma, while asking how we communicate and
process experiences in a fast-paced world. Then there’s
Gaia googelt nicht (Gaia doesn’t Google), by previous
Autor:innentheatertage winner Nele Stuhler, which
transports the audience to the beginning of time. This is
only the latest adventure with Stuhler’s mythical creator
Gaia, who tackles life’s most pressing questions and
confronts existential myths: why is the world built the
way it is? Where do things begin? Where do they end?
For those lucky enough to snatch a ticket to either
one of these premieres, remember to pack your FFP2
mask because you’ll need it – yes, even during the
performance. – LR
When There’s Nothing Left To Burn You Have To Set
Yourself On Fire, June 5; Gaia googelt nicht, June 9, German
with English subtitles, Deutsches Theater, Mitte
Review
Method to meta-madness
Hamlet live stream at Gorki
D: Christian Weise ★ ★★★★
To see or not to see, that is the question. After premiering
in February 2020, Christian Weise’s Hamlet
makes a live-stream return this June. Weise effortlessly
breathes life into this classic tragedy with a kooky
cast and comedic rewrite of the familiar script. It’s
a stylistically ambitious, playfully post-dramatic and
intellectually compelling approach to Shakespeare’s
most performed play – making it a must-see production.
Horatio, an artistically frustrated student
from New York based in Berlin, is directing an avantgarde
Hamlet film in which he hopes to make some
profound statement about Germany. What exactly,
even he’s not quite sure. The haunting of Hamlet by
what appears to be the spectre of Karl Marx – played
by Gorki veteran Ruth Reinecke in her last premiere
performance – is just one ironic, cul-de-sac attempt
at enriching this meta-narrative. It’s associative, not
definitive, and that plays to the piece’s strength.
Then there’s the wall: a literal barrier that separates
the action and the audience, as scenes are filmed
on a painted movie set full of distorted perspectives,
before being projected back onto the stage façade
in an IMAX-style experience. Of course, this wall is
broken several times, itself a metatheatrical act, and of
course a historically symbolic one for Berlin. Particular
highlights are Aram Tafreshian’s stone-cold, intense
performance as Claudius and Svenja Liesau’s Hamlet,
who replaces Shakespearean soliloquies with Gorkistandard,
out-of-character rants, here caricatured
in an exaggerated Berliner dialect with icks and juts
aplenty. Overall, Weise delivers a refreshing, selfreflexive
piece that is both surprisingly faithful and
daringly innovative. Expect cartoon-esque knitted wigs,
a touch of breast-grabbing and a lot of laughter. June
9 with English subtitles - 7:30pm available online for 24 hours
DON’T MISS
How the Time Goes
Forced Entertainment
is back with a
video performance
in seven parts.
Recorded between
March and May
2021, it explores
and pokes fun at
the strangeness of
the pandemic, from
Covid tests to Zoom
quizzes. Each episode
lasts between
25 and 60 minutes.
Episode one kicks
off on June 23,
20:00, free VOD
Pugs in Love 2021
Gorki’s annual
Queer Week will
be fully digital this
year, meaning you
can celebrate,
commemorate and
educate yourself
about Berlin’s LG-
BTQIA+ community
from the comfort of
your sofa. Podcasts,
workshops, theatre
films and live talks
can all be accessed
from Gorki’s website.
Events in English
and German.
Jun 17-19
DEUTSCHES
THEATER
BERLIN
For programme and tickets visit
deutschestheater.de/en

WHAT’S ON — Music
More than music and mojitos
Fête de la Musique has always had a special place in the heart of our
music editor. Now Berlin’s favourite street party is finding its stride as a
world-leading online event. By Damien Cummings
That the Fête de la Musique is
happening at all this month ought
to be considered some kind of
miracle. Think about it: a free-form
street party, an expulsion of urban
drudgery, a musical manifestation
of the power of community – all of it
accepted, encouraged even, only in
this city. The challenge, of course, is
moving all that online.
When I first moved to Berlin,
some days after unpacking my meagre
selection of ill-fitting jumpers
onto the floor of an unfurnished
room, I saw my flatmates rushing
out the door with a viola, a trombone
and several kilos of limes.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “It’s
the Fête, come!” The door slammed
closed, limes hit the deck, and –
bewildered, if not a little excited – I
stumbled into my first experience of
live music in Berlin. My flatmates,
while accomplished musicians, were
there to flog mojitos, get drunk and
play some music in the streets – in
that order. Of course, not all the
Editor’s Choice
musicians, venues and institutions
taking part that day had such a
laissez-faire attitude to liquor licensing
laws, but all of them agreed:
summer is unthinkable without the
Fête de la Musique.
So of all the events to be struck by
pandemia, this was the hardest to
take. This year, just like the last, the
event moves online through a series
of partner venues, from the worldrenowned
Friedrichstadt-Palast and
the Deutsche Oper to Kiez initiatives
like Unpluggedival Pankow and
the charming Wendenschloss lido.
Community is at the core of
everything the Fête does. In 2021,
the festival partners with Marzharn-
Hellersdorf, and in doing so, drags
its infectious influence to an underloved
part of our city. Björn Döring,
curator of Fête de la Musique, says,
“We launched the concept of the
partner district three years ago to
show what’s happening in districts
that are not usually the centre of
attention when it comes to music.
Marzahn-Hellersdorf will present
itself as a musically diverse and
surprisingly green district with
music at 13 different venues.” The
Fête will be live-streaming from
these locations, with plans to host
balcony concerts in the courtyards
of housing estates and bring live
music to the Schlosspark Biesdorf,
Marzahner Bockwindmühle and the
Gärten der Welt.
While it might enjoy the reputation
of being a carnival free-for-all
(which it is), the Fête’s organic appearance
is down to an exceptional
The live-stream
concert era has only
improved as these
last two years have
gone by.
36
EXBERLINER 205

WHAT’S ON — Music
Album reviews
Fritzi Ernst - Keine Termine
Bitte Freimachen
One half of what was Schnipo Schranke, Fritzi Ernst’s
solo debut album Keine Termine stands surprisingly firm.
Like a dusky Kneipe karaoke lock-in, this brave record
wobbles to centre stage all red wine and Pils, tears its
eyes from the floor, and where some might croak, Ernst
belts it out. “Everyone wants to experience something,
I might throw up,” goes the opening line, setting the
tone for the whole album. Keine Termine heaves and
swells. Sloshing melancholic ballads and toe-tapping
charmers go hand-in-hand here, and in its dauntless
lyricism, you’d have to be pretty cold not to find a glint
of camaraderie. Whether it leaves you with your head
on the bar or weak at the knees, everyone deserves a
wish in the well, and this, without doubt, is hers. June 6
amount of hard work and political
wrangling. The motto of this year’s
celebration is “making music possible”.
That applies not only to the
exceptional live-streaming technology
built to accommodate more than
50 channels and hundreds of livestreamed
concerts simultaneously;
but also to the swaths of musicians,
music lovers and concert houses that
have signed up to ensure that this is
no Fête de la Musique-light.
This is a fully-fledged and
fabulous event whose existence
can be seen as one of the pioneering
achievements of the live-stream
concert era, which has only improved
and become more dynamic
as these last two years have gone by.
It is by far the most ambitious and
diverse music-streaming festival in
the city, if not the world. And that
aspiration is vital because the Fête
has always been a space of joyous
encounter. Not just for sounds, but
for cultures and now for a metropolis
in crisis. When people must
stay locked inside, paranoia slowly
creeps as solidarity wanes. Today,
the global happening that is the Fête
de la Musique feels more important
than ever. T
Fête de la Musique, June 21, online at
fetedelamusique.de.
Jim Kroft
VA - No Photos On The Dance
Floor! Berlin Techno 1992-Today
Above Board Projects
Heiko Hoffman’s who’s who hits all the right notes but
somehow struggles to strike a tune. Yes, there are some
proper cuts on this comp, bona fide crowd melters
even, but the longer it plays, the more you wonder why
it came about in the first place. On the surface of it, a
double album stacked with bangers from Berlin’s best
and brightest, past and present, shouldn’t go down badly,
but then again, the tracks on this record have already
earned their own plaudits. Crucially, there’s a distinct
lack of elbow room here. Where the multimedia project’s
photographs and book revelled in the rich vitality
and diversity of Berlin’s techno culture, the album itself
falls short. Club culture is culture, it says. There was an
exhibition to prove it and everything. Now, kindly exit
through the gift shop. June 25
Anez - Haze
Self-released
A 10th-anniversary release for Anez, Haze casts its line far
into the inky void. Crank by crank by crank, it becomes
apparent that something far brawnier has its saw-toothed
jaws clamped on the other end of the line. That thing
is what Anez does best. Haze is unsettling, sparse and
uncertain, but always rich in power and theatrics. Make
no mistake: these are the further edges. But out there,
the oddball duo finds the breadth to rewild the genres.
It’s one of those records where if you can follow the
thread, you’ll never forget it. For most of us, the hope
that we might just catch a glimpse of what lies on the
other side is more than enough for a good few spins.
And a definite reason to dig back through the catalogue
of one of the stalwarts of Berlin’s smouldering independent
music scene. June 25
JUNE 2021 37

WHAT’S ON — Music
Interview
“We want to reinvent ourselves
with each project.”
André De Ridder is the artistic director of Stargaze, an international
orchestra of accomplished musicians that like to do things differently.
Ahead of the eponymous festival, we caught up with him to find out
what makes his institution tick. By Damien Cummings
Everyone
brings skills
to the group
as individuals
but the result
is greater
than the sum
of its parts,
and that’s
fascinating.
We’ve seen Stargaze in so many
settings, from Boiler Rooms
to orchestral halls. What is
Stargaze to you? It’s a moving
target, almost chameleon-like, a
system for adapting to different
situations and collaborating with
different musicians or bands. When
we started, Stargaze was more
like a think tank: a group of likeminded
curators and a collective
of primarily classically trained
musicians with a broad mindset.
It then developed quite quickly
into a fixed ensemble of 12 people
and created satellite groups of
musicians, not just in Berlin, but
also Dutch musicians, people in
Italy and London. It’s grown into
this European network of musicians
that have grown up with both
classical but also electronic, folk
and indie music.
How important is fluidity in
organising an orchestra? We
want to reinvent ourselves with each
project. This is the third festival
we’re doing at the Volksbühne
and each one had a very different
idea behind it. We see ourselves
as both initiators of genre-defying
projects and as interpreters,
collaborators, musicians and multiinstrumentalists.
For example, the
horn player is a superb arranger and
plays the drums brilliantly. We thrive
on that and we enjoy that most.
Why did you create Stargaze?
Before Stargaze, I’d been working
as a conductor in a more classical
career with big institutions. Most of
them are fairly heavy organisms and
heavily subsidized, so it can be quite
bureaucratic. Their plan can run
three or four years in advance, and
I was like, “How do I know what I
want to do musically in four years?”
Maarit Kytöharju
Stargaze is a kind of escapism for
my more instinctive, immediate
creativity. It’s also about authorship.
Classical musicians often just get
other people’s music put in front
of them and are told what to do.
There’s this idea of the composer
in their ivory tower, who writes the
symphony, and then passes it on
to the musicians. We work more
like a band and hear the ideas; we
compose, collaborate, and then we
all own it so much more.
Classical music is often viewed
as a genre in stasis. How does
Stargaze challenge that? We
always keep our ears to the ground
in terms of what’s going on and
where there are new voices, like
up-and-coming composers who are
working in more experimental ways.
We build networks of musicians,
composers, venues, promoters and
producers across the world who
share the same passion for these
liminal zones.
And how do you manage to keep
refreshing your work? Over
the years, we’ve put a lot of effort
and time into honing trust and
developing a particular reputation,
but at the same time we try not to
repeat ourselves. It is hard because
some might say, “Oh, Stargaze,
that’s the classical group that works
with bands.” Well, we do that
sometimes, but we also created a
dance piece for Irish dance company
[Teaċ Daṁsa], and we toured it to
Australia and New Zealand, and
London. We do so many things
because we are more interested
in the whole creative process and
trying to be active through that.
Is there an issue with rigidity
in classical music? Rigidity in
higher institutions is like a business
model: you become known for doing
something exceptionally well and
get hired for that. And that’s okay.
People can make a living from it. But
the symphonic world and the opera
38
EXBERLINER 205

houses are relatively rigid.
There’s basically a grid that
tells you how many concerts
you do a year. Guest conductors
or soloists get flown in from
week to week, which is very
questionable, especially right
now with the pandemic and the
climate crisis. So there are a lot
of elements questioning that
system.
How is Stargaze different?
Stargaze is about a meeting
of minds. It’s about thinking
outside the box and creating
new formats. It’s a laboratory
of experimentation, and all
of us have access to that tool.
Everyone brings skills to the
group as individuals but the
result is greater than the sum of
its parts, and that’s fascinating.
Is it a question of creating
new juxtapositions? In our
time and decade and century,
it’s all about finding new
hybrids of different styles that
create new genres. We enjoy
those clashes that lead you on
a different path from where
you’re coming from. Suddenly,
there’s something else there,
and you can bounce off those
boundaries, and that’s what I
find exciting.
Tell me about the Stargaze
festival. The idea for this came
when the programme for the
250th Beethoven anniversary
was almost wholly cancelled.
For most orchestras, playing all
the symphonies of Beethoven
is the pinnacle. At first, I
thought, “Spare me another
Beethoven cycle!” But then I
realised we’re the last group
you would expect to do that.
So, naturally, Stargaze does a
Beethoven cycle – with a twist
of course. Each symphony has
a different collaborator and
artists from various art forms.
We were asking ourselves what’s
left of Beethoven in music, of
his thinking, musical influence
and philosophy. Is there pop
culture? Is there a line that we
can find going back to then
from today? We’re looking at
Kraftwerk, we’re looking at
Stockhausen, and we’re looking
at that German electronic
scene around Cologne. There’s
something about a culture
in itself with these insistent,
intense, repetitive rhythms,
which is typical of Krautrock
and then Kraftwerk and then the
Neue Deutsche Welle. We have
a project with Boards of Canada
that has never been played in
Germany. When you come to
this festival, you don’t need to
understand the context; you
realise right away that it is going
to be a fascinating journey.
How have you gone about
putting the festival online?
What’s exciting about our
stream concept is that we’re
working with a new pioneering
concert stream provider, zart.
tv. They create different rooms
you can move between. You
can hang out in the lounge or
you can enter another room.
We’re going to put the sound
installation based on one of
the movements of Beethoven’s
9th in a space you can enter
virtually, so you feel like you are
at a live gig.
Does this city feel like
‘home’ for Stargaze? Berlin
is an interesting one for us, and
for me personally. Volksbühne
has felt like our natural home
for a while now, even though
we’ve only done three festivals
there in seven years. With
the classical establishment in
Berlin, it’s different: we’ve tried
to approach them, but they’re
not coming towards us. There
is great potential for audiences
in Berlin who like this kind of
music. But we lack production.
There’s no independent artistic
director who would have an
open mind for these different
streams of consciousness. I
think Berlin could thrive on
something like that. The city
has the vibe, the subculture,
everything. I just wonder how
– and when – it will be taken
advantage of. T
Stargaze Festival, Volksbühne
Am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, June
9-10, 19:00, zart.tv.
BERLIN’S ONLY OPEN-AIR CINEMA
WITH MOVIES IN ORIGINAL VERSION
MOST GERMAN FILMS WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
www.freiluftkino-berlin.de
#freiluftkinoberlin
EXB_AZ_FH_115x152_5_04.indd 1 21.0
JUNE 2021

WHAT’S ON — Art
Editor’s Choice
Beuys
believed that
every time
the human
mouth spoke
and moved
air it was
producing
‘real
sculptures’.
Joseph Beuys at 100
A new exhibition celebrates the birth of the
artist by focusing on his unique use of language.
At the opening of his landmark
show at the Schmela Gallery
in 1965, Joseph Beuys could
be seen whispering inaudibly into the
ear of a dead hare that he cradled in
his arms like a Madonna and child.
With honey and gold leaf stuck to his
face, he moved from one picture to
the next, his muffled words drowned
out by the scrape of a metal sole he’d
tied to his right foot. Beuys’ seminal
performance, ‘How to Explain Pictures
to a Dead Hare’, was not meant to be
interpreted by words or linguistic expression.
Instead, it aspired to a more
natural form of communication that
required the viewer to feel their way
into his ideas.
This so-called ‘Action’ was typical
of the imaginative, complex and
idiosyncratic manner that Beuys
approached communication: to
lead humans beyond the rational
and to expand their potential for
thought and expression. “Even a
dead animal,” Beuys later wrote,
“preserves more powers of
intuition than some human beings.”
Communication and language is at
the centre of Starting From Language:
By Duncan Ballantyne-Way
Joseph Beuys at 100, a new exhibition
opening mid-June at the Hamburger
Bahnhof that’s been timed to
coincide with the centennial
anniversary of the artist’s birth.
“Language was very much a
sculptural tool for Beuys,” says
Nina Schallenberg, the curator
of the exhibition. “And at the
beginning of his artistic process
was always an idea, which needed
to be expressed through language.”
Beuys believed that every time the
human mouth spoke and moved air
it was producing “real sculptures”.
It ties in with his most famous and
revolutionary belief that “everyone
can be an artist”, says Schallenberg,
“as long as they act in a conscious
way and with conviction then
everyone has the potential to create
and potentially change society”.
Beuys was a mercurial figure
in part because of his selfmythologising,
elevating himself
and the role of the artist to a kind
of modern-day shaman with the
power to heal the world’s ills and
re-energise spiritual thinking. After
his death in 1986, he left behind an
extraordinarily eclectic body of work
which despite its huge significance
is often considered abstract and
impenetrable to those unfamiliar
with his oeuvre. To address this and
to allow visitors to get a foothold
into his back catalogue, each room in
the exhibition has been thematically
choreographed to bring some
coherence, starting with ‘Silence’
until finally reaching ‘Speaking’ in
the final room of the museum.
This language-focused exhibition,
which brings together sculptures,
drawings, installations, films and
posters from the Nationalgalerie’s
own collection, is coming at a
critical moment, according to
Schallenberg: “The discourse on
language can so easily take a polemic
direction. It seems that now you
are either for something or against,
when with Beuys he is always in the
in-betweens! Instead of seeing two
separate positions, we need to think
about what connects them.” This
is where Beuys comes in, revealing
language’s plastic possibilities,
moving beyond binary oppositions
to connect to a deeper, more
spiritual existence.
Starting From Language: Joseph
Beuys at 100 From June 13 through
September 19 Hamburger Bahnhof,
Mitte.
Winfried Göllner
40
EXBERLINER 205

WHAT’S ON — Art
Review
​Berlin goes dotty!
Haven't scored a ticket for the Yayoi
Kusama exhibition? Our art editor fills
you in on what you're missing out on…
Yayoi Kusama is a phenomenon, renowned
for her kaleidoscopic installations filled with
mesmeric polka dots and reality-defying
mirror-rooms. But for all their poppy vitality,
don’t think for a second this is just Instagram
cannon fodder. Scratch beneath the surface and
you’ll find yourself drawn into a hallucinogenic
cosmos that is unsettling, challenging and often
far from joyful. With this being the first German
retrospective of the Japanese-born artist,
the Gropius Bau has spared no expense and
commissioned a new site-specific installation,
‘A Bouquet of Love I Saw in the Universe’, for
the central quad of the Gropius Bau. Off limits
until the end of the exhibition, its vast luminous
tentacles extend like poisonous fungi up to the
mezzanine above. It’s a taste of what’s to come.
The exhibition is arranged chronologically
and kicks off with works the artist made in the
immediate aftermath of World War II. Sombretoned,
with twisted and barbed vines, nothing
you’ve seen before prepares you for these bleak,
menacing landscapes of postwar Japan in the
1950s. Things begin to change by 1958 with her
move to New York, and the appearance of her
infinity net paintings. ‘Pacific Ocean’ is a white
apparition made of gently curving white lines
and is the first indication of her self-obliteration
where her obsessive painting often led her to
paint beyond the canvas, spreading out onto
the table, the walls, even onto her own body.
Later, in one gaudy yellow room, identical black
dots cover every available surface like some
visualised psychosis. There’s nothing upbeat
about them. You feel this even more in ‘Infinity
Nets (TZA)’ with its blue lines of interlocking
cells or shattered ice that stretches out across
five canvases. It’s so painstakingly put together
it’s almost a shock to get up close and see the
brushstrokes.
There are six infinity rooms, filled with either
lights, orbs, pumpkins or phalluses. Some are
more successful than others – but the couple
that are truly transportive somehow make you
feel self-conscious and isolated all at the same
time. If there’s a drawback to the exhibition, it is
perhaps the rigidity of its structure, adhering so
closely to the course of her life it can at times feel
a bit stifling. The weight of responsibility is heavy
and this is clearly a show they didn’t want to get
wrong, which on the whole they haven’t, and the
documentary photographs and films reveal the
revolutionary zeal of the artist, especially in the
1960s and 1970s. When the show breaks out, it’s
dazzling, like in the last room, which is stuffed to
the rafters with 60 or more canvases spread from
floor to ceiling. By the end, after barely pausing for
breath, you’ve seen an entire art museum’s worth
of installation, happenings, collages, drawings,
clothing and paintings. The same unyielding
intensity runs through them all.
Yayoi Kusama’s A Bouquet of Love I Saw in the
Universe Through August 15 Gropius Bau, Mitte
Online Live Tour
Every Saturday at 6.30 pm
Luca Girardini
Online Tour via Zoom
50 min, € 3
www.museumbarberini.de/en/
JUNE 2021

WHAT’S ON — Art
Interview
Europe on display
Things are getting crowded under the roof of Tempelhof’s Hangar II
ahead of the Diversity United exhibition. We talk to curator Walter
Smerling about what this ambitious show can achieve. By Duncan Ballantyne-Way
You’re squeezing 90 artists
and the whole of Europe into
one art exhibition. What’s the
motivation here? The continent
of Europe has at least 47 countries,
depending how you count, and each
one has its own character, its own
mentality, its own problems, its own
people. Each country is independent
from each other in a way but they
all belong together. That makes this
show very strong.
The artists
decided
what came
into the
show and
what didn't
– not the
curators.
It’s a hugely impressive list of
artists, and it promises to be
a blockbuster of a show. What
can visitors expect to see? It's
a broad and timely intercultural
dialogue between artists from 34
European countries. When did that
last happen?! We’re not focusing
on one specific issue. Each artist
describes their individual positions,
which then shed light on our
societies. We want to provoke a
dialogue, and you can see that with
Lucy and Jorge Orta's 'Antarctic
Village', whose tents symbolise a way
of living without borders. Then we
have Monica Bonvicini taking over a
whole room with her neon tubes that
bring illumination and truth. Anselm
Kiefer’s 'Winterreise', a never-beforeseen
work, shows the dangers hidden
in romanticism. It’s a vast list.
The Berlin-based Olafur Eliasson
is also present. His work
will be the first thing visitors
encounter, right? Yes, at the entrance.
It’s quite an experience: a yellow
light that wipes away all distinction
between people, that neutralises
difference and in doing so questions
our relationship towards travelling
and citizenship and the environment.
The exhibition is by no means
limited to Western Europe;
Eastern Europe and the Balkans
are well represented. Any names
to watch there? In Europe, you
don't need to travel far to be in a totally
different world. This is what we
see in Shoes for Europe, a film made
by Moldovan artist Pavel Brăila,
which shows how a train is lifted
onto a new base while its passengers
wait. For a long time, Moldova was
part of the Soviet Union and so it
had the wide railway tracks shared
by other republics that made up that
huge federation. As a result, Moldovan
carriages had to be hoisted onto
new wheels before they went on to
neighbouring Ukraine or Romania or
other European countries. The film
is a visual description of the competing
interests of Europe's different
blocs and the problems we have
communicating between them.
You mentioned a new piece by
Anselm Kiefer. Are there any
other stand-out works debuting
at the exhibition? I think around
30 percent of the works haven't been
shown before. And it's important to
note that the artists decided what
came into the show and what didn't
– not the curators. For instance,
Chinese painter Yan Pei-Ming had
proposed paintings about Napoleon;
but then the pandemic started so he
decided to add a new piece to the
show: an unbelievable painting of a
cave from which the viewer looks out
into a dangerous world. It's really an
impressive work.
How else have artists responded
to challenges faced by Europe
today? One of the strongest works
for me is by Fernando Sánchez Castillo.
The Spanish artist came across
the famous photograph of a crowd
of men giving the Nazi salute. Only
one man, thought to be the Hamburg
labourer August Landmesser,
refuses. He stands bravely in the
crowd, arms crossed, with a sceptical
look on his face, and the artist has
built an unusual monument to him.
He reproduced 5000 plastic figures
of the labourer and lined them up as
an army of pacifist resistance. Where
is there a need for moral courage or
resistance like that today? The point
is that every visitor can take one of
the small figures in return for writing
their idea of democracy on the wall.
Lucy and Jorge Orta
42
EXBERLINER 205

WHAT’S ON — Art
Over time, a whole new work of art
will emerge from the audience's
comments. That's fantastic, I think.
So the exhibition sheds light on
modern-day authoritarianism.
How does that square with criticism
you've come up against for
collaborating with the Russian
foreign office to put on the
show? Diversity United is a good
basis for bringing people together,
because art brings people together.
We do not collaborate with the politicians
of Russia. We collaborate with
the curators of the Tretyakov Gallery.
We had a very good experience with
them and I think it's very important
to create a basis for communication
in this way. Ultimately, art gives us
a fantastic chance for dialogue. Of
course, art is not the only way to
communicate, but it adds something
crucial to scientific and economic
discourses: it can allow things to be
seen differently. Art can help us find
solutions – there’s no guarantee, but
we might have a chance.
After Berlin and Moscow, the
exhibition will show in Paris…
Why these cities, and not London,
for example? We wanted the
exhibition to be shown at the very
heart of Europe’s cultural scene,
so Berlin and Paris were obvious
choices. They are on the axis of
central Europe and connect east and
west. By bringing the exhibition to
Moscow, we hope to encourage cultural
dialogue, especially in light of
current political differences. It would
also be great for the show to travel
to London, a city that will always
remain part of the European cultural
sphere. The exhibition actually has
a wonderful Grayson Perry work,
‘Battle of Britain’, which focuses on
Brexit
The pandemic has put European
solidarity to the test and
EU countries seem to be constantly
at loggerheads. How
does this exhibition address
these tensions? Jean Monnet, one
of the founders of the European
Union, once said that Europe will
always be a work in progress. It is not
complete; it is an identity conveyed
by fundamental ideas such as respect
for people, and embracing diversity.
But of course there are problems and
we need to talk about them, like for
example the fear of foreigners and
refugees. This exhibition aims to address
these highly complex issues by
inspiring debate as well as conveying
the freedom and respect that are a
part of the European identity.
Diversity United, June 9 through
September 19, Flughafen Tempelhof,
Hangar 2+3
Over time, a whole new
work of art will emerge from
the audience's comments.
That's fantastic, I think.
YanPei Ming
Review
Oliver Roura
Solid Earth, Liquid Wind
Through August 28 ★ ★★★★
With its cavorting humans and unexplained circus-inspired installations, what
may at first seem like a terrifically fun exhibition by German-born artist Ulla
von Brandenburg soon turns into an enriching one as you find yourself swept
along with its infectious energy. Investigating the fine line that exists between
play and earnestness, the soundless video work ‘Solid Earth, Liquid Wind’ pays
homage to an early Swiss dance school that pioneered the use of contemporary
dance as a form of artistic expression. It’s a wonderful watch, the dancers
moving in unison, hurling themselves in and out of shot, then suddenly standing
deadly still but always performing with abandon. The artist believes that
expressive dance can lead the body and spirit to a state of ecstatic experience
– and watching this film, you can believe it. Upstairs, alongside multi-colourful
watercolours, life-sized fabric models of the dancers are slumped together in
a heap, no doubt exhausted by their excursions. There’s a palpable feeling of
expectation to the show, a sense that’s perfectly encapsulated by the circuslike
installations made up of vivid blue and red fabric, pointed cones, confetti,
fans and an assortment of dice and photographs. What alchemy is all this, you
wonder? — DBW
Meyer Riegger, Charlottenburg
JUNE 2021 43

BOOKS BY ALEXANDER WELLS
SPOTLIGHT
“This book is
me saying, I’m
a subject, not
an object!”
Prize-nominated essayist
Asal Dardan on prejudice in
Germany, the absurdity of
Heimat and the value of selfcriticism.
The furore over the Leipzig Book Fair Prize’s
all-white shortlist has prompted many to
reflect on the wealth of great literature by
diverse authors in Germany today. One recent
standout is Betrachtungen einer Barbarin
(Observations of a Barbarian, Hoffmann &
Campe) by the Tehran-born Berliner Asal
Dardan. This series of linked personal essays
interweaves reflections on Dardan’s
own life – beginning with her childhood in
Cologne as the daughter of Iranian refugees
– with insightful commentary about race,
migration and gender in modern Germany.
Dardan called us to discuss her book, which
has been nominated for the prestigious German
Non-Fiction Prize.
Essays are not a very established literary
genre in Germany. Was this a hard sell
to publishers? It’s true. A lot of publishers
I approached said, “Oh, we love it, but could
you make it into a novel,or a memoir?” But it’s
not really a book about me – I didn’t set out
to tell my story, although it is often about me.
Were you ever tempted to write a memoir
as they asked? I’m interested in other
people’s memoirs, but not my own. I wanted
to offer myself up as an example – I wanted
to say, this is me in the world, here is how
I perceive things, and here is how these
specific debates and themes affect my life.
I wanted to make it more approachable, and
less abstract. And there are extra dimensions
when you write yourself in. For example,
when writing about the NSU trials, I discuss
how as a migrant to Germany, I have stories
of guilt and family trauma of my own – my
father worked for the Iranian secret police.
And I feel it’s a political act, sort of, to show
yourself and make yourself vulnerable.
There is a lovely part about the importance
of seeing yourself in other people
and other people in yourself – and how
challenging that is. Are you advocating
more empathy? For me, it’s not really about
empathy. If you’re talking about ways of living
together, about solidarity, then I think it’s
much more about looking at oneself – about
being self-disciplined and self-critical. For
example, I can never completely understand
what it’s like to be a trans person. I can never
truly understand what dysphoria is, though I
can read about it. But do I really need to say
I fully understand it in order to feel solidarity
with someone – and to demand a world
Sarah Berger
I wanted to say that this is
my language, and I know
how to use it. And the
barbarian is talking back,
looking at you. Poor you.
And I’m pretty sure it hurts.
where they are more visible, have more rights,
face less obstacles in their lives? So with the
book, I didn’t want to manipulate feelings.
I just wanted to make people start thinking
about themselves, by seeing how I do that.
My hope is that it lingers with someone who
reads it – that it starts a conversation they
then have with themselves.
In the opening essay, you use the contradictions
and confusions of your Ger-
FROM THE DUSSMANN BOOKSHELF
“A spy, like a writer, lives outside
the mainstream population. He
steals his experience through
bribes and reconstructs it.”
Thus wrote John Le Carré,
grandmaster of spy fiction. The
spirit of Le Carré pervades A
Lonely Man (FSG/Macmillan),
a novel by British writer and
critic Chris Power that begins
with two Englishmen reaching
for one Bolaño in a Prenzlauer
Berg bookstore. One of them,
Richard, is a failing author who
feels his family is impeding
his ability to write; the other,
Patrick, claims to be on the run,
having seen too much while
ghostwriting the memoirs of
a now-dead Russian oligarch.
The two become friends, with
Richard increasingly fascinated
by Patrick’s tales. But who is
telling the truth – and how high
are the stakes? Like Le Carré,
Power intertwines elements of
the thriller and literary novel.
But Power’s novel, for all its
cloak-and-daggery, doesn’t
quite transcend its basic theme
of what it means to write another
person’s story – a theme
more interesting to critics and
novellists, one suspects, than
readers.
From contemporary Berlin
to last century: The Dead Girls
Class Trip (NYRB Classics) is a
fine collection of short fiction
from Jewish-German communist
author Anna Seghers,
translated by Margot Bettauer
Dembo. These diverse stories
– written from 1925 to 1965 –
represent Seghers’ early steps
as an author, her wartime exile
in France and Mexico, and her
life in East Berlin as a GDR intellectual.
The collection shows
off Seghers’ considerable narrative
skill, her ethical clarity and
her innovative spirit. The title
story is particularly excellent: it
weaves the life trajectories of
the narrator’s classmates – one
of whom betrays another to the
Nazis – into an account of a
prewar school outing. “No one
ever reminded us of this trip we
took together while there was
44
EXBERLINER 205

man childhood to interrogate
ideas about belonging, migration
– and above all Heimat. Isn’t it
an outmoded idea? Well, I think
Heimat is a German obsession –
even more when I was growing
up in pre-Wende West Germany. I
really wanted to show how absurd
the idea of Heimat is. I thought, if I
want to talk about otherness, about
the ‘barbarian’, then I’ll have to address
how absurd it is to call a kid
who was still a tiny child when she
arrived here a ‘migrant’. It’s also
about how, if you are the child of
refugees, then you grow up with a
kind of nostalgia for the old homeland,
which can repeat nationalistic ideas. I
wanted to confront that and say maybe there
should be no Heimat for anyone. There’s
definitely none for me.
Instead of Heimat you use the idea of
Fastorte, ‘almost-places’, which you
come to terms with individually. That
sounds like a more engaged kind of
belonging… Totally. Belonging, society
– it’s a process, it’s something you have to
actively partake in. It’s also about building
relationships, including to myself, and to
the language and culture and political and
material realities of a place. What defines
me more? That Goethe and Schiller once
lived in this proximity and wrote in more or
less the same language? Or that I’m living
now in this place where I know people are
struggling to pay their rent, or dreading racist
attacks? It’s important for writers to make
still time. No matter how
many compositions were
to be written about our
homeland and its history
and one’s love for the
homeland, no one ever
mentioned that our group
of girls, leaning against
one another while sailing
upstream in the slanting
afternoon light, first and
foremost belonged to and
were part of this homeland.”
Another communistera
classic is Mircea
Cărtărescu’s Nostalgia
(Penguin). One of Romania’s
most celebrated
authors, Cărtărescu has
never commanded much
of a readership in English
– but hopefully this Penguin
Classics edition of
his 1989 masterwork, in
Julian Semilian’s translation,
will boost his reputation
among Anglophones.
Nostalgia is a remarkable
novel in five stories, which
are linked less by plot or
setting than their recurring
themes of stories,
games, imagination and
fate – although the rundown
apartment blocks
of 1980s Bucharest make
numerous appearances.
Cărtărescu’s playfulness
and love of language will
remind some of Umberto
Eco or Jorge Luis
themselves aware of how they’re connected
to the real place out there, instead of some
abstract notion like Heimat.
How did you come up with your title?
Well, it was first inspired by Heinrich Böll’s
novel Ansichten eines Clowns (Opinions of a
Clown): the clown, like the barbarian, is a
figure that is looked at – the clown entertains
you while the barbarian lets you define
yourself as superior. But ‘Betrachtungen’
sounded better. The barbarian, I mean, I
only really think about my otherness in this
society because someone else has treated
me like that, whether knowingly or not. So
I thought, OK, I’ll talk back as that figure –
as what you view me to be. I’ll talk as her,
and show that she can look back as well.
And maybe the other doesn’t have to be so
threatening.
‘Barbarian’ comes from the ancient
Greeks, as a word to call people who
didn’t speak their language. Writing
this book in German as an extremely
cultured German – is that part of the
irony? It’s cheeky, isn’t it? [laughs] I wanted
to say that this is my language, and I know
how to use it. And the barbarian is talking
back, looking at you. Poor you. And I’m pretty
sure it hurts, when you’re used to being the
one that looks and rates and decides – and
chooses who gets to speak and be heard
– then it’s painful when people suddenly
turn around, and they have autonomy, and
they’re a subject not an object any more. In
a way, this book is me saying: I’m a subject,
not an object! T
Borges, but there is a
gritty, vertiginous side to
Cărtărescu that distinguishes
him from more
genteel postmodernists.
Some of his meditations
on sex and gender feel
decidedly outdated, but
readers who want a break
from the clipped, savvy
minimalism currently
dominating the literary
Anglosphere will be
cheered by this boisterous,
unusual and deeply
compelling work.
All books are available at
Berlin English Bookshop
EDITOR’S NOTE
REDISCOVERING REIMANN
Alexander Wells has been
reading the diaries of
unconventional East German
author Brigitte Reimann.
Last month, Seagull Books published the
second volume of Brigitte Reimann’s
1960s diaries under the title It All Tastes
of Farewell (translated by Steph Morris). Following
last year’s I Have No Regrets (translated
by Berlin’s Lucy Jones), these books bring
to life a highly talented and unconventional
author, a woman determined to live life to its
fullest despite the constrictions of her time.
Now is a fine moment to (re)discover Brigitte
Reimann (1933-1973).
Reimann wrote from a young age and
had a promising career within official GDR
literature, yet she never published a novel:
her great, unfinished Franziska Linkerhand
(1974) was only released following her early
death from cancer. Published during her life,
Riemann’s diaries recount the everyday life of
an author (and chronic adulterer) with great
wit and style. She goes to Berlin and hobnobs
with luminaries; she has money problems,
gives readings, gets hit on by dreadful older
men; she complains that only talentless hacks
get prizes, and is thrilled when she herself
wins one. “Oh and yet again Berlin finished us
off,” she writes. “That city eats people. ... The
stress is mind-bending, the agitation, the gossip,
all the convoluted intrigues our friends
report.” So far, so classic for the literary life.
But East German politics relentlessly
intrude. Reimann grows “increasingly alienated”
by GDR authorities demanding obedience
from the nation’s authors; she never
stops being a socialist. Ultimately, her loyalty
– above all political and romantic entanglements
– is to her art. This passion comes
through in her diaries, haunted as they are by
her frustrations and failing health. Reimann is
a brilliant observer of social milieus, a ruthless
self-analyst and often strikingly humorous.
One hopes Franziska Linkerhand will be
translated soon.
Meanwhile, we have her diaries. They are,
in a sense, the other unfinished novel of her
life. “I know full well the book is made up
solely of digressions,” she notes of Franziska,
“but I can’t explain why I want to write it that
way right now: intense clusters of life, the
everyday with the random and unnecessary. A
protest against plots, against the novel form,
which seems too crystalline, too purified, too
artificial, too clear in our unclear world.” — AW
JUNE 2021
45

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JUNE 2021 47

BERLIN BITES BY JANE SILVER
Jaja
Mamida
selling out before you get there (low versus
considerable), Jaja gets the nod.
Weichselstr. 7, Neukölln, check @jaja.berlin
on Instagram for next pizza dates
Nea Pizza 1889
The Neapolitan pizza-demic
Pizzas never went out of style, but these days it's puffycrusted
pies or nothing. Here are four newbies to try.
Best pastries Nea Pizza 1889
This is how ridiculous the pizza situation in
this city has become: when someone says,
“Meet me at the new Neapolitan pizzeria
across from the German federal intelligence
headquarters,” you have to ask, “Which
one?” Nea Pizza 1889 and the very un-
Googleable Pizzeria opened several months
apart on the same bleak-looking stretch of
Chausseestraße, the former a tiled takeout
nook just barely bigger than its Izzo oven,
the latter a slick beige-bricked date spot
with a full bar. At Pizzeria, flashy combos
like the truffle-scented Della Casa Bianca
and the egg yolk-topped Fiorentina can’t
make up for a too-salty crust. Nea Pizza
1889, on the other hand, is as religiously
Italian as Silvio Orlando in The Young Pope,
with a performance to match. Chef Oscar
Eisa and most of his staff were born and
raised in Naples, and every ingredient
gracing the chewy, blistered dough comes
straight from the motherland – from the
organic olive oil on the exemplary Queen
Margherita to the Cetara anchovies and
wild Sicilian oregano spicing up the Napule.
And while sweets at most pizzerias are
an afterthought, the traditional pastries
baked here will make your nonna sigh with
recognition. Pick up a ricotta and candiedorange
tart for dessert, and a cornetto or
two for tomorrow morning.
Chausseestr. 49, Mitte, daily 8-22
Gambino’s Pizza
and Highballs
Best pop-up Jaja
Have you heard of the Roccbox? It’s a
portable UFO-looking gizmo that heats up to
nearly 500 degrees, and it’s the reason why
you’re suddenly seeing pizza at restaurants
that never had it before. That includes places
like the natural wine bar Jaja in Reuterkiez,
whose former chef and new co-owner Hannes
Broecker has been firing up absolutely stellar
pies on an irregular basis since late November.
The crust is sourdough, flavourful and chewycrisp,
but it’s the ingenious, always-changing,
local, seasonal and artisanal topping combos
that keep Neuköllners coming back for
more. Depending on the weekend, your pizza
might come with homemade sauerkraut and
sustainably caught Nordic sardines, morel
mushrooms and cheese from Brandenburg
dairy Urstrom Kaese, or – the one that
won me over – a spicy-meaty-earthy mix
of fennel salami, padron peppers, buffalo
mozzarella and hot sauce. Locavore scene
star Otto has been doing something very
similar across town, but for the price
(€10 versus €12-15) and risk of the pizza
Best pregaming Gambino’s
Pizza and Highballs
For a place that sounds like it belongs in
a strip mall off the New Jersey interstate,
Gambino’s Pizza and Highballs takes its
food seriously. Head pizzaiolo Robert D’Elia
has made the rounds from Cecconi’s in Soho
House to Moabit gem Mangiare, and he’s
got the crust to show for it: perfectly formed
and ultra-light, an ideal canvas for tangy
tomato sauce and smoked mozzarella or a
gut-busting four-cheese blend with knifelike
shards of baked Parmesan. It’s not for
vegans – the sole meatless, cheeseless pie on
the menu, the Vegana, is a rather sad affair –
and Futura up the road might have a better
overall product. But given Gambino’s cluband
bar-adjacent location, its scene pedigree
(the tatted-up, Naples-born owner was last
seen co-running Mitte BBQ and nightspot
Chicago Williams) and those highballs
(basically long drinks served in smaller
glasses), expect it to be a whole lot of fun
once restaurants are back in full swing.
Sonntagstr. 30, Friedrichshain, daily 12-21
Best promise Mamida
Those who unleash strings of Italian curses
at the sight of pineapple on pizza should
probably avoid Prenzlauer Berg’s Mamida.
The menu starts with margherita and
marinara, then immediately veers into wilder
territory: pickled pears, crumbled almond
tarallo (mini breadsticks), or – vaffanculo! –
pulled pork and pineapple ketchup. Blame
former Gazzo head chef Mikel Plasari, who’s
going for a “contemporary international”
vibe with this new project and stresses that
his pizza is not Neapolitan, despite sharing
some crust similarities. About that crust: it’s
sourdough, a new formula developed with
the help of a chemist, and dominates to the
point where I had to ponder whether I was
eating pizza or puffy-edged flatbread with
stuff sprinkled on it. But there was something
alchemically delicious about the combination
of celeriac veloute, wild garlic pesto and
truffle oil on the vegan Truffle Sensation, or
the pureed asparagus, bacon spread (from
Gazzo salsiccia supplier The Sausage Man
Never Sleeps) and violet-coloured potato
chips on the Purple Jam. Toppings change
every few months, and you can bet I’ll be
back to see what else the crew has in store.
Dunckerstr. 80a, Prenzlauer Berg, Tue-Sun 17-22
48 EXBERLINER 205

| 100% MADE IN BERLIN | PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER |
| €4.90 |
COLUMN— The Gay Berliner
A different kind of grind
As lockdown measures bear down on queer
communities, the Gay Berliner pays tribute to hustlers
who are down but not defeated.
“She works hard for the money,”
wailed Donna Summer in her 1983
signature song of the same name.
Just over a year ago, no one would have
thought the diva’s drudgery jam applied
here. In shiftless Berlin, the town where
(pre-pandemic) nobody seemed to work
and people spent all day sitting around
in cafes, the reality is that queers were
keeping that illusion alive with, well,
hard work. It takes sweat
to make life look this
cheap. Think about it:
the people working the
stages, the drag shows,
the bars, the DJ decks;
the staff corralling people
into the things we called
nightclubs; the folks that
organise the parties; then
there’s the waiting staff
and restauranteurs…
They’re all queers, busting
their asses to keep
Berlin and its reputation running!
When corona hit though, they were the
first to feel the pain. It certainly wasn’t
bankers or start-ups whose livelihoods
were put on pause; queer businesses
took the hit. Many bars and clubs are
fighting for their lives, and two of the
city’s most beloved have bitten the dust
since the pandemic hit: Prenzlauer Berg’s
gay watering hole Greifbar and cult dive
institution Barbie Deinhoff’s (one of the
first places I used to fall apart in when
I arrived here) have both hung up their
feather boas. SchwuZ, perhaps Berlin’s
most recognisable queer institution, has
turned to some surprising merchandising
to stay afloat, including coffee mugs that
say “Homo Office”. Aren’t clubs the places
we go to in the hope of forgetting the
mundanity of our jobs? Then again, who
can blame them? Honestly, with a glittery
gold and pink finish, the mugs are pretty
cool. I got one.
And what about the livelihoods of
queer people on the ground? Many
lost things key to their identities. My
friend Sandy ran a popular rock club in
a Friedrichshain darkroom bar which
was abruptly ended by the pandemic.
She’s not the only queer I know who had
to give up their own slice of that tasty
JUNE 2021
nightlife pie. She’s now taken up courses
in coding, which is tough and pretty rad
and almost pandemic-proof. Queers
are nothing if not resilient, but I’m sure
she would have appreciated not having
the rug ripped out from under her feet.
One of the city’s biggest underground
drag queens has grown exhausted of
the live-streaming runaround and now
works in a vaccination centre. This is
obviously commendable
– a much-needed hustle
at the moment – but she
was doing well enough
before the pandemic hit
and would have continued
down her own yellow brick
road had she not been
forced to find something
else.
Walter Crasshole
The sectors hit the
on queer Berlin hardest by the pandemic
were the culture and
restaurant industries,
sectors staffed overwhelmingly by queers
– and there’s been barely a bail-out done
about it. It’s heartbreaking, really. Like I
said, queers are resilient, but it’s tough.
We are used to being failed by the systems
and people around us. Most of us grew
up failed by parents, schools and the
communities we were born into. Now
we are being failed yet again. But not
necessarily defeated. You bet when this
thing is over, we’ll be the grafters working
hard for that money, honey. So treat us
right. T
One of the city’s
biggest underground
drag queens has
grown exhausted of
the live-streaming
runaround and
now works in a
vaccination centre.
13.06.— 19.09.2021
Hamburger Bahnhof
Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin
www.smb.museum/hbf
Von der
SPRACHE
JOSEPH
BEUYS
aus
zum 100.
Geburtstag
Starting from
LANGUAGE
JOSEPH BEUYS
at 100
205
J U N E 2 0 2 1
SPECIAL
Jobs &
jobbing in
Berlin
49

SHORT ESCAPES BY EMILY MCDONNELL
MECK-POMM
A whole
lot of lake
For months, even a trip
to Wannsee has felt like a
daring journey beyond the
city parameters. As summer
sets in and lockdown eases,
Exberliner’s travel columnist
takes us further afield to the
sandy shores of the Müritz.
Hands up who’s been taking the
same weekend day trips. Aren’t
we all guilty of visiting a handful
of forests and lakes on a rotating schedule?
And as amazing as they are, maybe
it’s time we remind ourselves of a world
beyond Berlin and Brandenburg, even if it
is just Mecklenburg-Vorpommern for now
(baby steps).
Now that the weather is getting
warmer, take yourself to the Müritz to
get that summer seaside feeling without
the overwhelming crowds. Just 1.5 hours
by direct train from Berlin, you’ll find
the biggest lake inside Germany (Lake
Constance, or the Bodensee, is larger, but
we share that with Austria and Switzerland).
The Müritz is at the heart of the
Mecklenburger Seenplatte and sits on
the western edge of the richly bio-diverse
Müritz National Park, known as the ‘Land
of a Thousand Lakes’.
Get the train to the medieval spa town
of Waren, the perfect base for exploring.
It’s easily accessible from Berlin, there
are lots of restaurants serving fresh fish,
and there is kilometre after kilometre of
unspoiled nature, from forest to lakes.
One of the most perfect things about
the Müritz is that you feel as if you’re in
another world, and the longer you stay,
the more stress you feel slip off your
body. The lack of manmade noise in the
forest is restorative, you can eat fresh fish
that’s sustainably caught, and there is
always a selection of lakeside beaches on
which to laze.
Favourite swimming spot Badestelle
Feisnecksee looks as if it’s straight from
a Wes Anderson movie, thanks to its
colourful lifeguard lookout that stands
atop a small sandy cove and is backed by
pine trees.
Must not miss fish You have to get a
Fisch-Brötchen (ask for whatever is freshest!)
from the Fischerhof Waren, it is an
institution. Warm bread rolls, smoked fish
and tangy pickles: it’s the perfect taste of
the region.
Take your bike You can cycle around
the entire Müritz, or escape the crowds
by following the paths south of Waren,
on the right side of the lake, where you
can ride through forests past smaller
lakes and adjacent to meadows full of
wildflowers. T
TMB
OFF TO BRANDENBURG!
TMB
Family water fun
The sun is peeping out, the
lockdown is easing up – time
for your little ones to embark
on some outdoor adventures.
Luckily, Brandenburg doesn’t
just offer lots of green space,
but also over 3000 lakes and
endless water activities. Why
not make the most of it?
For instance, Ziegeleipark
Mildenberg has its own
adventure park where there’s
a cable ferry over Herzbergstich
lake for children to pull
themselves from one bank
to the other; there’s also
the opportunity for them to
drive a train and make brick
sculptures in the old industrial
building. Two particularly
family-friendly canoe tours
are the 9km loop at Hohennauener-Ferchesarer
See and
the 4km Burger Fischpass-
Tour in Spreewald. For those
with older kids, stand-up
paddleboarding is ideal; head
to the Wassersport-Center
at Wolziger See or Hotel
Döllnsee-Schorfheide to rent
boards and cruise around
lakes that are never too
crowded.
Go to brandenburg-tourism.
com for a complete list of
family fun and water activities,
as well as real-time
updates on Covid restrictions
and travel and tourism
regulations.
50 EXBERLINER 205

How the
Time
Goes
(Episode 1–7)
FORCED ENTERTAINMENT
23.6., 20:00 / Premiere /
Online on www.HAU4.de
➞ www.hebbel-am-ufer.de

Photographs by Fred Stein
Report
from Exile
11.12.2020–20.6.2021
Pei-Bau, Hinter dem Gießhaus 3, 10117 Berlin
dhm.de/FredStein