Kreuzberged: Berlin Companion: Berlin Trivia Companion

LITTLE LOVELY INGE SWIMS

Berlin Companion — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 11:06:47 GMT

Danish Olympic winner, Inge Soerensen, with her medal in its case and the most charming smile on her 12-year-old face - photo taken at Olympiastadion on 11 August 1936 right after the medal ceremony. Photo by Tage Christensen via Wikimedia, image in public domain.

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…

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…

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…