Qualla: Berlin

Berlin: Introduction

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit scan Jwnabd, Public domain. The bear on Berlin's coat of arms is a mistake. Medieval German speakers heard the city's name, assumed it came from Bär — bear — and put one on the shield, where it has stayed ever since. The likelier origin is a Slavic word for swamp. Germany's capital is named after wet ground, and it was built on wet ground, by two small trading towns facing each other across the River Spree: Berlin on one bank, Cölln on the other. Eight centuries later, the settlement in the marsh has been the seat of a kingdom, an empire, a republic, a dictatorship and, for four decades, two hostile states at once.

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Image: scan Jwnabd | Public domain

Berlin: Two Towns in the Marsh

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fridolin freudenfett, CC BY-SA 3.0. The archaeology keeps getting older. Excavations in Mitte in 2012 turned up wooden houses dated to 1174 and a wooden rod from around 1192; Spandau appears in writing in 1197, Köpenick in 1209. Cölln, the town that occupied what is now Museum Island, was first recorded in 1237, wh...

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Image: Fridolin freudenfett | CC BY-SA 3.0

Berlin: Third Largest City on Earth

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. When the German Empire was declared in 1871, Berlin became its capital and grew at a rate that alarmed people. The population went from one million in 1877 to 1.9 million by 1900, and after the 1920 annexations that created Greater Berlin it reached four million — the third large...

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Image: Public domain

Berlin: Raisin Bombers

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Paasikivi, CC BY-SA 4.0. Berlin ended the war as rubble and was divided into four occupation sectors. When the Soviets cut the land routes in 1948, the Allies supplied the western sectors entirely by air. Pilots dropped small packets of sweets on makeshift parachutes, which is how the aircraft got the na...

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Image: Paasikivi | CC BY-SA 4.0

Berlin: Poor But Sexy

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Johann Marius Friedrich Schmidt, Public domain. Berlin today holds about 3.7 million people and almost no industry. What survived the war either left the western half or was nationalised in the east and went bankrupt around 1990. The result is a capital slightly less well off than its own country's average — close to unique in...

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Image: Johann Marius Friedrich Schmidt | Public domain

Berlin: Currywurst and the Colour of the Street Lights

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fridolin freudenfett (Peter Kuley), CC BY-SA 3.0. The everyday version of all this history is cheerfully unpretentious. Currywurst — a sausage under ketchup and curry powder — costs a few euros at stands like Konnopke's Imbiss under the elevated tracks at Eberswalder Strasse, or Curry 36 opposite Mehringdamm in Kreuzberg. Berlin...

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Image: Fridolin freudenfett (Peter Kuley) | CC BY-SA 3.0