Word: berg
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Sirens breaking the silence of the night, cars engulfed by meter-high flames. This is not a scene from the banlieues of Paris, but from the trendy Eastern Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg, where in recent weeks an ongoing battle against gentrification has intensified. In the past two months alone, 29 cars - mostly luxury brands like Mercedes, BMW and Porsche - have been set ablaze in Berlin (police believe left-wing extremists are to blame). In a letter published online in January, a leftist radical group called BMW (Bewegung für militanten Widerstand, or Movement for Militant Resistance) admitted...
...Prenzlauer Berg has gone from being one of the cheapest neighborhoods in Berlin to one of the most expensive, with rents increasing tenfold. At the weekly Saturday farmers market on Kollwitzplatz Square, a stand offers currywurst (sausage with curry sauce), a local specialty, with 22-karat gold leaf and a side of french fries with truffle mayonnaise. The cafés surrounding the square are crowded with attractive young people sipping macchiatos. And pretty girls in lavender outfits hand out organic apples alongside brochures promoting an "urban village" called Marthashof currently in construction nearby. "Quality of life without compromises," promises...
...says, was also directed at the Marthashof development. Sitting in a café on Kastastanienallee, Technau points to a house with a crumbling façade. "This is probably the only house on this street that hasn't been renovated yet," he says. Technau has lived in Prenzlauer Berg all his life and currently pays $400 a month for his two-bedroom apartment. He's worried that with rental prices continuing to rise, he won't be able to afford to live in the neighborhood much longer...
...group of people that local magazine Zitty has dubbed Porno-Hippie-Swabian, referring to the inhabitants of Swabia, a region in southern Germany. "It's a deliberately exaggerated negative stereotype for people who come to Berlin from the wealthy southern German states and buy expensive apartments in Prenzlauer Berg," explains Technau. Several anti-gentrification groups launched poster campaigns that got the attention of the local and national media. "Swabians in Prenzlauer Berg ... what do you actually want here?" one of the posters read...
...Hans-Jürgen Bernsee, 66, has lived in the same house in Prenzlauer Berg since 1970. The retired electrician, who now works at a local community center, has experienced the rapid change of his neighborhood firsthand. He talks about how suddenly young academics and artists, "people who like to sleep in in the morning," many of them from the West, began flocking to the formerly working-class-dominated neighborhood. Unlike Stefanel-Stoffel, he's not shocked by the recent outbreak of vandalism - despite the fact that only a few weeks ago, a car was set alight right outside...