Kreuzberg

Kreuzberg is two-faced, just like the spies and diplomats that call it home. It consists of SO36, the notorious squatter district full of punks, low-lives and prostitutes, and SW61, a primarily residential district offering tamer fare. Kreuzberg Hill, for which the place is named, is an oasis of greenery and vineyards sitting on the edge of a region that is almost aggressively urban.

Kreuzberg is crossed east to west by the Landwehrkanal, and is bordered on the east by one of the most fortified sections of the Berlin Wall. Three checkpoints in Kreuzberg allow passage to East Germany; Oberbaum Bridge and Heinrich-Heine Strasse for the citizens, and Checkpoint Charlie, for foreigners, diplomats and Allied officials. Military jeeps and black tinted cars are waved across with regularity. “YOU ARE NOW LEAVING THE AMERICAN SECTOR,” a sign declares. The guards patrol with guard dogs and will shoot on sight; the Americans won't help you as you lay there bleeding—it is against protocol.

This district is quintessentially Berlin, with a reputation that attracts people to it like moths to a flame. Getting to it is easy; it is centrally located and serviced by the U-bahn. Its endless discotheques, nightclubs and flashing neon signs create long, unnatural shadows that don't lend well to awareness. Rockers and journalists wax poetic about it. Money can get you anything—intrigue, information, and every drug under the sun.

Kreuzberg is western decadence under guard towers of the East German regime. Once, American and Soviet tanks rolled up to Checkpoint Charlie and had a standoff for 16 hours. It was called off when both sides came to their senses. Just goes to show that anything can happen in Kreuzberg; anything less than an international event that almost sparked a third world war is just business as usual.

## **Locations**

### **Friedrichstrasse**

Friedrichstrasse runs
north to south and extends to the central Berlin district of Mitte.
It was the heart of the old government quarter before World War II.
Heavily damaged during the war, the southern part of it in Kreuzberg
was rebuilt as a housing area, with the street terminating at
Mehringplatz. Friedrichstrasse is a mixed bag—old
government offices have been re-appropriated or abandoned; lower
income people take up residences in cheap flats.

**Sites:**

* Axel Springer AG
* Cafe Adler
* Checkpoint Charlie
* U-Bahnhof Kochstrasse

### **Koepenicker Strasse**

Koepenicker Strasse runs parallel to the Spree, and hence the Berlin Wall. It runs from Heinrich-Heine Strasse to the Oberbaumbruecke, both of which are crossings to the GDR. The section of the Berlin Wall here is built extremely close to buildings, sometimes with nothing but a gutter running in between. On this street are buildings from the Grunderzeit era—residential buildings, factories and various businesses—that have been heavily damaged by the war. The residents have taken up to covering the Wall with graffiti, expressing their general sentiment of bleakness and dysphoria.

**Sites:**

* Rauch-Haus
* Oberbaum Bridge
* U-Bahnhof Schlesisches Tor

### **Kottbusser Tor**

Kottbusser Tor is the centre of Kreuzberg's SO36 district. This traffic square is hemmed in on all eight sides by social housing blocks; the main roads extend from here outwards like the arms of an octopus. The neighbourhood is occupied by cheap, crumbling apartments, kebab shops, 24-hour florists, ethnic businesses, dive bars, and gay clubs. The locals call it “Kotti”—a haven for punks, hipsters, and junkies. Crime is common and not even a cause for alarm. Vagrants and the homeless sleep on street corners. Gangs of kids roam around late at night, harassing passerbys for spare change.
**Sites:**

* Neue Kreuzberger Zentrum
* SO36
* U-Bahnhof Kottbusser Tor

### **Potsdamer Platz**

Potsdamer Platz is a wasteland smack dab in the middle of the "death strip". The Berlin Wall envelopes this traffic square almost entirely, where it was once the busy city centre of pre-war Berlin. The Allies split Potsdamer Platz amongst themselves, with the Americans and British getting the west side and the Soviets the east. The section of the "death strip" here is exceptionally wide. Buildings have been levelled and replaced with barbed wire fences and lines of anti-tank fortification. The guards have orders to shoot on sight, to anyone found on the wrong side of the wall.

Over the past decade, all the buildings have been demolished except two—Weinhaus Huth, a former winery built with a steel skeleton, and Hotel Esplanade, once the grandest hotel in Berlin. The Hotel Esplanade can still be accessed with police permission. People have used it for shows, events, or film locations. Most of the time the buildings stay empty, home to only a small community of squatters who live under the wall.

**Sites:**

* Hansa Tonstudio

### **Viktoriapark**

Viktoriapark is a 16-hectare park built around Kreuzberg Hill. Situated on its very peak is the Prussian National Monument for the Liberation Wars, made of cast iron, sixty feet tall and resembling the spire of a Gothic church. Sculptures on the monument commemorate different battles in the Liberation Wars. The spire is topped with an iron cross and its elevated height allows it to be seen from miles away. On the northern face of the hill is a man-made waterfall, constructed with boulders from the Giant Mountains. The sculpture at the base of the waterfall is of a fisherman struggling to get hold of a mermaid in his net.

The park is an oasis of green tucked away from the main centre of Kreuzberg. It has a hilly topography, rare in Berlin, and winding paths that lead visitors to various secluded spots. As a historic wine-growing region, it has a vineyard run by the city, cultivating the “Kreuz-Neroberger” wine of which 600 bottles are pressed each year.