photo: Thomas Dornfeld
For a few months now we have been mostly working out of Blogfabrik which is located in the middle of popular Kreuzberg, 5 minutes walk from Kotti, and 10 minutes by bike from Schlesi. Here the life beats very fast and when we exit our awesome office for lunch, a wide variety of international restaurants await us in the streets of Kreuzberg and there are so many opportunities to eat something delicious and special.
Kreuzberg stands for international cultures and a wild nightlife with loads of young people visiting numerous bars like the Würgeengel or Farbfernseher, clubs like Watergate or Ritter Butzke – it’s always exciting to move around in this district, because Kreuzberg is one of the places where you never get bored. One of the highlights of this vibrant area that you can experience is the big street festival on the 1st of May (labor day) where masses of happy, celebrating people make their way through the streets of Kreuzberg. If that’s too much for you, you can also spend relaxing hours at the Görli park. To keep it short: Kreuzberg is a very great and also one of the most diverse places in Berlin.
So much for today’s situation – but how was it back in 1979? How were the people and how diverse was the crowd? We want to share with you a great video that we found that sends us on a journey back in time and shows us places we know how they used to be. The area is beautiful and hauntingly silent and it shows that especially the people of Kreuzberg make the district so unique. In addition to the video we also found some photos that were taken around the same time by photographer Thomas Dornfeld who captured some street scenes of Kreuzberg. Enjoy the video and the photo after the jump.
OMG! Such a creepy landscape! I lived in a communist cunntry but if I had seen Berlin like that then, I would have never fallen in love with it!
Cool article!
What’s wrong with you it looks absolutely amazing. It looks like a place that’s alive, that’s seen splendor and glamor but is scarred by horrors. So much character and history in one place, grey facades yet it still seems colorful. I feel like it represents that eerie feeling of guilt and shame that stuck to german people just perfectly. Thanks for this beautiful video that reminded me very vividly of what this city and the people in it have seen and where they come from.
This is absolutely breathtaking… Amazing testament. Pure emptiness, rough beauty…
It scares me to see how it changed. Walking thru those streets nowadays is, hum, different…
PS: Anke, yes what is wrong with you?
This is how Kreuzberg was in the 70s. You have to remember that Berlin still had the wall. It is how Berlin was and is part of the history of the city.
Tolle Impressionen…