My friend Jim from Toronto is visiting Berlin, so I take him on a sightseeing tour. On Bernauer Strasse there is still a fragment of the Berlin Wall standing, while nearby there is a memorial to the people who died trying to get over it. There is a sculpture garden on a grassy strip that used to be part of the no-man’s land between the two cities. Visitors are always surprised at how unimposing the Wall itself is—when you take away the barbed wire, machine guns and attack dogs, it really does look like you could get a friend to give you a boost and make it to the other side, no problem.
Scattered around my neighborhood are columns with informational placards commemorating the Peaceful Revolution of 1989. In front of the supermarket on Fehrbelliner Strasse, there is a permanently displayed photo of the band Feeling B playing what looks like a house show. Feeling B were the only punk band to ever release an official album on an East German label, and a couple of their members went on to form the band Rammstein. Their singer lived in a squat at Fehrbelliner Strasse 7, the placard tells us. In fact, the entire street was squatted, though the commemoration stops at ’89, so we get no information on exactly when the facades were repainted and the supermarket opened. The photo of Feeling B playing an illegal show in East Berlin blows my mind, because it looks so much like any show anywhere. Down the street, by the church at Zionskirchplatz, the Peaceful Revolution plaque shows a photo of the printing press used by opposition movement members (who met in the church basement) to print their underground magazines and anti-government literature. Despite the vast difference in our social contexts (I was living in Portland then), I still find it inspirational to see the two things that I considered so subversive and revolutionary in 1989, punk bands and underground zines, now officially laminated and sanctioned as being just what I thought they were.
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As we are walking through the Mauerpark (literally: wall park), Jim asks, “What are these posters for? A puppet show?” No, I explain, these are for a protest to save the park, whose sprawling expanse of green field runs along a stretch of where the Berlin Wall used to stand. The Sunday flea market in Mauerpark is a popular tourist attraction, and on any summer day you’ll find people hanging out, playing music, picnicking, and engaging in general leisure-time activities. The park itself is the perfect metaphor for the life that blooms when totalitarian structures are dismantled. But twenty years on, the city seems to feel that there are enough plaques and commemorative sculpture gardens. The point has been made; it is time to fulfill the ultimate, true goal of German reunification, and build more condos. I would hate to see the Mauerpark go, and so I will do my part, show up at rallies, sign petitions. The future is always worth fighting for, and the past is worth remembering.
On Kastanienallee we run into a couple of people I know, sitting at a table in front of Cafe Morgenrot. We decide to order some drinks and join them. It is a balmy summer night, sitting in front of the collective cafe, one of the last vestiges of the days when Kastanienalle, too, was a nexus of squatting. Huge letters on the facade of the building next door to the cafe spell out: “CAPITALISM KILLS, DESTROYS, NORMALIZES.” This bleak message runs counter to the health food stores and boutiques surrounding it. The street does seem normalized, but not killed or destroyed. In 1989, Kastanienallee was part of a desolate area, the outskirts of East Berlin—what Hakim Bey called a Temporary Autonomous Zone. Temporary being the key word: inevitably, the march of time and exchange of currency has done its work. Things change, and you either adapt or you don’t.
A very drunk German man, in his early to mid 40’s, approaches our table and asks in slurred German if he can sit with us. He looks like one of those eternal punks who dress down, in black cargo pants, black shirt, a small black cap over a shaved head. One gets the sense he’s in it for the long haul, ready for the next political action meeting or street brawl with fascists. I’m the only German speaker at the table, and so I answer for the group: sure, take a seat, why not?
In shaky English, he attempts to communicate, asking us where we are from. We go around the table—Toronto, upstate New York, Southern California.
“Chicago,” I say, which isn’t technically true, but it is where I moved to Berlin from. “What about you?” I ask.
“I’m from this neighborhood,” he answers. “I grew up around the corner. I still live around here,” he says, then adds gloomily, “but probably not for long.”
“I live around here too,” I say. “I live right up the street.”
“Let me guess, you live in a 300 square meter single apartment,” he scowls. This is overestimating the square meterage I have available by a power of ten, but I let the barbed comment slide. Trying to change the subject to something more innocuous, I say, “Hey, maybe you could recommend a good bike shop in the neighborhood? I’ve got to get the brakes on my bike fixed.”
“Why? You’re a rich guy from Chicago, just go buy a new bike,” he snarls.
At this point I realize that the guy is not just drunk, he is wasted. So inebriated, in fact, that he has reached the point of self-annihilating behavior, the state of mind where you sleep with someone you hate or prank-call your boss. Four or five beers ago, he would have passed by our table with a judgmental grimace or a withering glance. But now he’s at the point of thinking, Fuck it, I’ll just go over there and talk to them.
“Why are you even at this cafe?” he says, pointing towards the looming anti-capitalist slogans above.
“I agree with those sentiments,” says Jim. “I’m an anarchist myself.”
The German punk begins laughing hysterically.
“So, what’s your political affiliation?” I ask him.
“I’m a communist!” he proclaims proudly.
“Oh yeah?” I say. “Things were way better back in the old days?”
“What do you know about it?” he demands.
“No personal experience to speak of,” I concede.
The conversation ends awkwardly, with the gentrifiers finishing their drinks and then moving on to another cafe. We leave the communist punk sitting alone, hopefully feeling good about his evening. He is conquering the neighborhood back, one table at a time.
