The bear was stepping at Potsdamer Platz. High-heeled hustlers were captivating the newcomers, and the Haus Vaterland was flashing and thundering every hour. The tourists were delighted! A few meters away, it's a whole different world. Here they stood, the noble villas where art-loving people talked shop, discussed, danced, and drank. Most were free spirits, many themselves artists, fashion designers, writers, interior designers. Yeah, the money was here too. Upper middle class, millionaires, industrialists - patronage that's sorely missed these days. Many were Jewish… From January 1933, everything changed. Exile, suicide, deportations, extermination. What happened to the people? Destruction of the neighborhood, too, no, not all by bombs. Many buildings were systematically demolished beforehand to make room for Albert Speer's visions of “Germania.”

And then it was quiet for the first time, here at the end of the world, right in the middle of the city, actually. It was pretty clear. But then something happened. Excavators rolled in, and the music, the literature, the art came back. But only as institutions. And suddenly… you're right back in the middle of it, in the city, in the capital! They're digging again, and it's going international. Done?! No! We're in Berlin. We're still digging. A new museum building is being built and people are getting heated! There are still some wastelands… and when everything is built up, we'll leave again and start from scratch. And by the way, it's also about an illegal schnapps distillery, a marriage drama with a deadly outcome, a big thank you to Betonheinis and Stahlfritzen, an Indonesian with a green thumb, and last but not least, my neighbor Wolfgang.