Rioting in Kreuzberg

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Kreuzberg stages an alternative celebration marking International Workers’ Day on 1 May 1987. What begins as a peaceful event during the day descends into rioting that night. A supermarket burns to the ground, whole streets are set on fire and 250 police officers are injured. The next morning, parts of Kreuzberg lie almost in ruins. It is the start of a cycle that will see the district erupt into violence on 1 May for many years to come.

Helmut Sarwas describes what it was like being a police officer on duty that night.

locations

Berlin-Kreuzberg (Südost 36)

showtime
18

latitude
52.500078

longitude
13.419621
U-Bahnhof Görlitzer Bahnhof, 10997 Berlin

showtime
113

latitude
52.49925

longitude
13.428

date

February 1987
Smog alert

West Berlin issues its first Level 1 smog alert of the year. Drivers are banned from using their cars, unless they are traveling between West Berlin and West Germany. It’s a fairly easy loophole to exploit... According to GDR officials, there is no smog. But whatever the politicians say, everyone knows that the problem is being caused by the lignite power plants located in Lusatia, a part of the GDR less than 100 kilometres outside Berlin. Martin Lutz, a meteorologist at Freie Universität Berlin (West), talks about the events of that February.

Contemporary Witnesses, Everyday Life, West, East

02:38
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1987
One birthday, two parties

East and West Berlin hold separate celebrations to mark the city’s 750th birthday. East Berlin spruces itself up and completely renovates the historic Nikolai Quarter. Chancellor Kohl attends the celebrations in West Berlin. Erich Honecker has been invited, but doesn’t show up. When it becomes clear that the two sides still disagree over Berlin’s divided status, the East feels cheated and promptly retracts the invitation it had extended to Mayor Diepgen.

Politics, West, East

00:54
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1987
Renovating East Berlin

As part of the preparations for the city's 750th anniversary, East Berlin decides to thoroughly renovate some of its most important buildings, including the Friedrichswerde Church and the French Cathedral on Gendarmenmarkt square. It also gets to work on the Nikolai Quarter and Sophienstrasse, a street filled with historic workshops. Kristina Laduch was an architect for the city at the time. She talks about what it was like working on the Sophienstrasse project.

Contemporary Witnesses, Everyday Life, East

02:10
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September 01, 1986
Environmental library in Zion Church

Greenpeace activists stage a protest outside the GDR’s environment ministry. They are trying to raise awareness of how East Germany is damaging the environment. Christian Halbrock was part of the group. In this film he talks about how he and his friends also wanted to bring about political reforms. They have the idea to set up an environmental library, which opens in the parish hall of the Zion Church in East Berlin. Filled with books and information smuggled in from the West, the library becomes a focal point of East Berlin’s opposition movement.

Contemporary Witnesses, Politics, Opposition, East

01:45
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August 13, 1986
25 years of the Wall

East Berlin celebrates the 25th anniversary of the closing of the border. On the Western side, 68-year-old Canadian John Runnings, whose campaigns earned him the nickname “Wall Walker”, climbs onto the Wall and takes a sledgehammer to it. GDR border guards eventually force him down and the authorities sentence him to 18 months in prison. He is released three months later and leaves Berlin.

Border, Everyday Life, West, East

01:15
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June 1987
David Bowie plays Berlin

The Eurythmics, Genesis and David Bowie are all on the line-up for a three-day festival outside the Reichstag building in West Berlin. East Berliners gather close to the Wall to try and hear the performances. Protests break out among the crowd, with people chanting things like “the Wall must go”. David Bowie talks about his visit to East Berlin.

Culture, West

00:49
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June 12, 1987
Reagan visits West Berlin

President Reagan’s visit to West Berlin in June 1987 sparks rioting in the streets and anti-American demonstrations. To mark the 750th anniversary of Berlin, Reagan gives a speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate. Two short sentences will be remembered forever: “General Secretary Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Politics, West

00:57
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January 1988
Opposition to the GDR

Mid-January sees the GDR’s leaders gather for the annual Luxemburg-Liebknecht demonstration. The politicians visit Friedrichsfelde in East Berlin, where they pay their respects at the memorial to labour leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. While this is going on, the voices of those who oppose the regime are getting louder. People take to the streets and unfurl banners bearing quotes by Rosa Luxemburg. Over 100 protestors are arrested, among them Stephan Krawczyk, Bärbel Bohley, Wolfgang Templin, Vera Wollenberger and Freya Klier.

Politics, Opposition, East

03:20
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March 1988
Lenné Triangle occupied

In 1988, a group of young people occupy the Lenné Triangle, a plot of land that lies right by the Wall, in an attempt to stop a motorway being built there. Although the site is in West Berlin, it is actually the property of East Berlin. The occupation makes a tourist attraction of what was once just a wasteland. Not long after the young people arrive, the Lenné Triangle is handed back to the West and several hundred police officers begin clearing the site. They fire teargas and use water cannons, and the squatters retaliate by throwing paving stones. A lot of the protestors manage to flee across the Wall to East Berlin, where they are given breakfast and later allowed to take the U-Bahn back to the West. Today the site is home to the Beisheim Center.

Politics, West, East

02:47
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June 16, 1988
Pink Floyd at the Reichstag

Pink Floyd are performing outside the Reichstag building in West Berlin. Fans also gather on the other side of the Wall, in the hope of hearing some of the concert. But things take a turn for the worse and the East Berlin authorities make a number of arrests.

Culture, West

01:03
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location

1980
Life in Kreuzberg

1980 becomes the year of the citizens’ initiative in West Berlin. Squatters in Kreuzberg are demanding rental contracts for the nineteenth-century buildings that they have occupied in an effort to stop the senate from tearing them down. Affordable housing is hard to come by, and investment in Kreuzberg stopped a long time ago. As immigrants, artists and old-timers gather among the crumbling buildings, a colourful, vibrant community comes alive in the shadow of the Wall.

Everyday Life, West

01:09
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August 13, 1961
Light to build the Wall

There are no traces left of the border that once ran between the districts of Mitte and Kreuzberg – right along the banks of Engelbecken pond. Wolfgang Gerhardt, an electrician at VEB Volksbau, was sent to work at this location. On 13 August 1961 he is contracted to light up a big new building site on the border. In 2011, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Wall going up, the rbb interviewed Berliners to find out what the division of the city meant to them. The Wall had a profound impact on the way each person went about their daily lives - no matter what side they found themselves on. Overnight people were cut off from their friends and relatives, from their offices, factories and schools, and from places where they enjoyed spending their leisure time. The division of the city tore families apart, ruptured biographies and claimed many lives.

Border, Contemporary Witnesses, East

03:11
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1981
Squatting in Kreuzberg

Housing in West Berlin is scarce, but whole streets in Kreuzberg and Schöneberg are being cleared of tenants. Once empty, the old buildings are to be torn down and new ones put up in their place. This destructive approach to urban development makes sense because the projects qualify for government subsidies. Young families, unemployed people, non-conformists and students are hit especially hard by the lack of housing. Some decide to fight back by occupying empty buildings. Anette Schill was one of them. In 1981 she and some friends occupy an old chemicals factory in Kreuzberg. She tells us about the early days of what would become known as the Rainbow Factory.

Contemporary Witnesses, Everyday Life, Politics, West

02:16
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January 01, 1980
Teen fashion

The choice between being a popper or a punker can be a highly divisive issue in 1980s West Berlin, where fashion is a huge part of young people’s lives. Poppers haven’t really caught on in East Berlin, but clothes from the West are extremely popular. The GDR’s “teen fashion” doesn’t stand a chance against the much hipper alternatives from across the Wall.

Everyday Life, West, East

00:47
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May 11, 1975
Boy drowns in the Spree

Cetin Mert was born on 11 May 1970. He lives with his Turkish parents and two brothers in the West Berlin district of Kreuzberg. The day of his fifth birthday is a sunny one. Cetin goes outside to play with a ball, but ends up falling into the river Spree. Rescuers arrive quickly, but they aren’t allowed to intervene because they are from West Berlin and this stretch of the river is under GDR control. All they can do is watch as Cetin drowns. He is the youngest person to die at the Wall.

Border, West, East

01:35
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August 13, 1961
Cross-border business at the paper stand

Lothar Kensbock ran a newspaper stand on Oberbaum Bridge in Kreuzberg. Up until 13 August 1961 he sold papers and puzzle books to commuters from the East, who smuggled them over the border on their way home after work. In 2011, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Wall going up, the rbb interviewed Berliners to find out what the division of the city meant to them. The Wall had a profound impact on the way each person went about their daily lives - no matter what side they found themselves on. Overnight people were cut off from their friends and relatives, from their offices, factories and schools, and from places where they enjoyed spending their leisure time. The division of the city tore families apart, ruptured biographies and claimed many lives.

Border, Contemporary Witnesses, West

04:48
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June 18, 1962
GDR border guard Reinhold Huhn is shot

Ten months after the Wall goes up, the death strip winds through the city, cutting Berlin in half. West Berlin is sealed off. Windows have been bricked up, people separated by barbed wire, roads blocked by tank traps. Families have been torn apart. Escape helper Rudolf Müller has dug his way under the Wall from the West. However, GDR border guards discover the escape tunnel and one of them is shot and killed, sparking a propaganda war. The dead man, Reinhold Huhn, becomes a martyr and streets and schools are named after him.

Border, Escaping, Contemporary Witnesses, West, East

01:23
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1965
Studio at the Barbed Wire

West Berlin's authorities mount illuminated display boards on the GSW housing association high-rise near the Wall in an attempt to provide East Berliners with news from the West. The Studio at the Barbed Wire was launched by the Berlin Senate in 1961 in cooperation with the American sector's radio station, RIAS Berlin: their goal is to provide information and news across the Wall in response to the propaganda blaring out of the GDR's speaker vans. This sparks a conflict dubbed the "speaker war", which does not end until October 1965. Wolfgang Göbel was responsible for designing the display boards on the GSW housing association high-rise back then.

Border, Contemporary Witnesses, Politics, West, East

01:54
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1978
Kreuzberg nights are long

SO 36 is the name of the part of Kreuzberg that stands right in the shadow of the Wall. Kreuzberg isn’t exactly the best of West Berlin’s districts, but a lot of flats are available in its old, often crumbling buildings – and the rents are cheap. That’s what brings comedy singer-songwriter Beppo Pohlmann from Osnabrück to Kreuzberg. He and his band, Gebrüder Blattschuss, release a song called Kreuzberger Nächte (Kreuzberg nights), which celebrates life in the district and becomes a nationwide hit.

Contemporary Witnesses, Culture, West

02:00
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1986
An unusual art gallery

Artists in West Berlin are using the Wall as a canvas for their paintings. Thierry Noir, a young Frenchman, moves to the city from Lyon in the 80s and settles in Kreuzberg. He starts painting the Wall in bright colours. Perhaps his most famous works are those featuring giant, colourful heads. Their creative endeavours often brought the artists into risky situations, since even the West side of the Wall stood on East Berlin territory. Thierry talks about his experiences of the time.

Border, Culture, West

02:03
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