Kreuzberged: Berlin Companion

YOU ARE HERE: GRAND HOTEL ALEXANDERPLATZ

Berlin Companion — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 10:18:09 GMT

What forty years, one world war, fall of the monarchy and massive financial crisis triggered by raging hyperinflation can do: behold Berlin's “Grand Hotel Alexanderplatz”, designed by Martens, von Ho…

GOOD BYE MEISTER: HEINRICH VON STEPHAN IS DEAD

Berlin Companion — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 15:53:52 GMT

On this day in 1897 Germany lost one of its most prominent reformers: Imperial Postmaster General, Heinrich von Stephan.

Portrait of Heinrich von Stephan by Georg Barlösius. Via Museumsstiftung Post und Telekommunikation.

Von Stephan’s name might not ring many bells today, but the man was a household brand in the second half of the nineteenth century. And not without a reason…

He was actively involved in the development of pneumatic post, almost singlehandedly pioneered the introduction of the postcard (he is often called its inventor but one should always remember that no invention has just one father/morher); he was the main power behind the establishing of Berlin’s first telephone network as well as the standardisation of postage prices, also worldwide.

GRENOUILLE A LA BERLINOISE or BERLIN HUNGER GAMES

Berlin Companion — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 15:14:43 GMT

On this day in 1945 the Berlin NSDAP Office for Public Nutrition launched new emergency guidelines - necessary in the view of the catastrophic supply situation of the Berlin population.

On top of everything else (meaning the city in ruins, the Red Army practically ante portas and the Nazi-in-Chief, Adolf Hitler, hiding in his bunker since January that year together with many of his closest helpers and supporters), Berlin was witnessing recurring bouts of both foot and mouth disease among its remaining cattle, hog cholera among its pigs and various unpleasant viral infections of its remaining horses.

The frightening prospect of famine could no longer be ignored…

THE FLYING BEAUTY TAKES A BOW

Berlin Companion — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 12:55:54 GMT

On this day, April 2, 1935 the LZ 127 “Graf Zeppelin” - one of the most remarkable airships ever built - arrived in Berlin from Friedrichshafen, reaching the capital at 3 PM. It was not the first visit of the giant (236 metres long and 30.5 metres in diameter) in the city: its long-distance maiden flight in 1928 took it to Berlin as well.

LZ 127 after landing in Berlin-Staaken in 1930, with the Haltemanschaften holding its tow lines.

In fact, the flight nearly ended even before it began: the start of the LZ 127 was planned for 9 AM, but shortly before that a massive storm and rainfall hit the area of the Bodensee (“Lake Constance” for our British readers). Capitan Lehmann, in charge of the airship, decided to dare the elements…

YOU ARE HERE: MÜHLENGRABEN

Berlin Companion — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 10:17:38 GMT

Until eleven years ago, when a new cupola had been installed on top of Berlin’s Stadtschloß replica, this view would have been a tough one to place on the map.

You could have passed this place a hund…

DID YOU KNOW THAT ABOUT BERLIN: HEALING POWERS

Berlin Companion — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 07:01:42 GMT

Electrocardiographic test in Charite's Laboratory at the Clinic II in 1910. Image via Institut für Geschichte der Medizin und Ethik in der Medizin, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. Bibliothek Me…

ENTER THE IRON DOZEN - THE NATIONAL MEMORIAL IN KREUZBERG

Berlin Companion — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 12:59:04 GMT

On March 30, 1821 – on the seventh anniversary of the Prussian charge of the Montmartre and of the conquest of Paris, which unavoidably triggered Napoleon's demise – King Friedrich Wilhelm III arrived on top of the Tempelhofer Berg (then still known as the Weinberg or the Runder Berg). The highest natural elevation in what is now central Berlin but back in the days belonged to a district outside the city known as Tempelhofer Vorstadt.

Accompanied by an illustrious guest, Russian Tsar Alexander I (Friedrich Wilhelm’s brother-in-arms in the conflict with Napoleon Bonaparte), the king came to witness the unveiling of a monument commemorating their mutual victories in the Wars of Liberation.

A monument that remains one of Berlin’s most recognisable sights until this day…

ADLON GOES ROGUE

Berlin Companion — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 10:59:13 GMT

Hotel Adlon on Pariser Platz corner Unter den Linden int he 1920s. Photographer unknown.

Lorenz Adlon, a man with ambitions, a plan and Kaiser Wilhelm II’s ear, was the founder of what must be Berlin’s best-known hotel. The “Adlon”, even though a replica, stands for elegance, quiet but honed to perfection service and discreet air of celebration.

The hotel has seen them all: Tsar Nicholas II, Enrico Caruso, Josephine Baker, Thomas Mann, Charlie Chaplin, Marie Queen of Romania, brilliant US reporter to Berlin Dorothy Thompson, and Michael Jackson (his waving that poor baby out of the window is something most of us, including the “Adlon” itself, would wish to be able to unsee).

Unsurprisingly, the hotel’s reputation has always been highly treasured - it is the make-it-or-break-it of such institutions.

So when in 1922, of all people, it was Lorenz’s son, Louis Adlon, the hotel’s new director, who caused one of the greatest scandals of the 1920s Berlin, all eyes turned onto the “Adlon” again…

ROUND AND UP AND ROUND AND DOWN: SCHÖNEBERG'S PATERNOSTER CIRCLE

Berlin Companion — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 16:30:51 GMT

On March 25, 1914 the city of Schöneberg (it would become incorporated into Berlin only six years later) celebrated the first meeting of its city council. A very special occasion, indeed: the meeting was held in the new city hall - the now famous (thanks to History and film-making) Rathaus Schöneberg…

BERLIN QUOTES: OSWALD SPENGLER

Berlin Companion — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 12:17:03 GMT

Berlin-Alexanderplatz with the Nuttenbrosche (real name: “Freundchsftsbrunnen”, Fountain of Friendship) down in the centre and the Weltzeituhr in the upper left corner, seen from the hotel “Stadt Ber…

YOU ARE HERE: TEMPELHOF or OF FRENCH PUDDLES AND ENGLISH ISLES

Berlin Companion — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 11:37:36 GMT

Here is part of Berlin which on one side hardly changed at all (relatively speaking, of course - we are in Berlin after all), while the other became practically unrecognisable. You are looking at th…

FIRE AND FURY: THE BURNING OF 'DEGENERATE ART' IN BERLIN-KREUZBERG

Berlin Companion — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 14:50:29 GMT

On March 20, 1939 in Berlin some 5,000 artworks stamped off by the Nazis as Entartete Kunst - "degenerate art" - are said to have been set on fire and burnt1 in the courtyard of Berlin’s Main Fire Station in Lindenstraße 40/41 in Berlin-Kreuzberg.

The caution is necessary as - unlike with the book burning of May 1933 - hardly any physical evidence exists today proving the fate of the artworks. Could some of them have been appropriated by high-rank Nazi officials? Quite possibly. Could all of them have been thrown into flames? This, too, is a strong option so both are uncertain.

What is certain, however, is the will of the Third Reich to annihilate everything that did not fall into the party line. Including the artists themselves…

DANCING ON BURNING COALS: FAKE NEWS

Berlin Companion — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 13:13:25 GMT

Official photo of the actress and dancer (a member of Mary Wigman’s group).

“This stunning girl [...] is no doubt striving earnestly for a place alongside the three who are taken seriously: Impekoven,…

GOLDELSE ON THE MOVE: HOW BERLIN’S SIEGESSÄULE LOST ITS FAVOURITE SPOT

Berlin Companion — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 11:34:59 GMT

Famously, Berlin’s Siegessäule (“Victory Column”) is topped with a be-winged and gilded statue of the Goddess of Victory. Who - not coincidentally at all - has the face of the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria, also named Victoria but in Prussia later better known as Kaiserin Friedrich. Or the mother of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

From 1873 until late in the 1930s she had her fixed spot not far from Brandenburger Tor. But then everything changed…

SEEING A FOREST THROUGH A TREE: TIERGARTEN RELOADED

Berlin Companion — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 18:31:02 GMT

Aerial photo of the park and its surroundings (Hansaviertel to the left) taken in autumn of 1945 by Hein Gorny and Adolph C. Byers.

On March 17, 1949 the first Governing Mayor of West Berlin, Ernst Reuter (the one of the eponymous "Ihr Völker der Welt, schaut auf diese Stadt!" speech) planted the very first gifted tree sapling in the nearly completely de-forested Berlin’s Tiergarten.

YOU ARE HERE: IN THE TENTS

Berlin Companion — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 10:19:59 GMT

A view of the area at Die Zelten sketched by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in 1810. Image via: Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, CC BY-NC-SA.

If you were to board a well-functioning time-mac…

SIEGFRIED MAYER GETS ON BOARD: THE 1908 KAISERFAHRT

Berlin Companion — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 05:45:37 GMT

On this day, March 16, 1908, German monarch, Kaiser Wilhelm II (sometimes also jokingly referred to “Siegfried Mayer” or SM, for Seine Majestät), boarded a train of Berlin’s partly-elevated-partly-underground city railway. Event though the railway opened in 1902, it took Wilhelm Zwo six years to warm up to the idea of actually going on board…

MAYORS (ON) LEAVE - TERROR BEGINS

Berlin Companion — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 11:16:37 GMT

The Vossiche Zeitung - or Tante Voss (Auntie Voss) as it was lovingly referred to - was one of Berlin’s oldest and leading newspapers. Directed first and foremost at safely middle-class liberals, it was nevertheless read by all - the paper’s reliability and thoroughness exemplified high professional standards and made it trustworthy as a source.

So when on 13 March, 1933 a small and seemingly rather inconsequential little note appeared in its afternoon edition, informing the readers that several of Berlin’s borough mayors and city councillors had just “gone on a 14-day-long leave from work”, the news could have sunk in without leaving much ripple. Some of them would not be returning to their posts, the note said. The text named:

Mayor of Lichtenberg, (Alfred) Siggel
Mayor of Weißensee, (Emil) Pfannkuch
Deputy Mayor of Weißensee, Councillor Reimann
Mayor of Kreuzberg, (Carl) Herz
Mayor of Wedding, (Carl) Leid
Mayor of Prenzlauer Berg, (Otto) Ostrowski.

But there was more to that note than it appeared to the eye. This was no coincidence. All these men had one thing in common: they no longer fitted into the new political landscape. Or, to put it crudely: the Nazis hated them…

TOTSCHICK IN BÖLLETASCHE or THE FRENCH ARE COMING

Berlin Companion — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 11:10:37 GMT

Did you know that after the 30-Years-War (wars, really) ended, Berlin had only 6,000 residents?

Caspar Merian’s portrait of Berlin around 1648 ( view from the west, along today’s Unter den Linden).

Thi…

TO VOTE OR NOT TO VOTE: A BRIEF HISTORY OF ONE REFERENDUM

Berlin Companion — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 12:12:02 GMT

Exactly a hundred years ago to the day Berlin newspapers informed their readers about the latest results of a crucial campaign running in the city: the signing of a petition for a public referendum which was to decide the fate of Prussian high-rank nobility.

Of land-, property- and factory-owners who also happened to have been born with a silver spoon - or, rather, a whole monogrammed silver cutlery set - in their mouths.

Poster for the expropriation of the Fürsten, Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-02427 / Author NN / CC-BY-SA 3.0

For the first time ever, German people were to decide what should happen to the Fürstenvermögen (“Princely Fortunes”), the vast wealth collected by the richest families in the land whose members were staunch supporters of the Kaiser and his First-World-War politics which left the country socially and economically ruined. Often, these were the people actively involved in the process, whether as top-rank military or as cabinet members, investors, etc. Now the national referendum could decide what should happen to their money and estates: should it all be returned to the super-rich or, rather, should it be nationalised without any compensation.