Berlin Nightlife | History
Berlin city with 800 years of history is the best party place in Europe, you could even say one of the best party cities in the world. Berliners didn’t establish their city as “Techno Capital of The World” very easily, there were many ups and downs through different decades.
Important historical events have created the music and nightlife culture of what we see today in Berlin.
Freaky, mind blowing, disorientating, mind blowing, brutal, fun, surprising and long lasting is what describes Berlin nights. Now lets read some history of how this happened:
After World War II the people of the city were full of dark and bitter memories, although efforts to restore it began almost immediately another historical event that reshaped the culture was the construction of Berlin wall in 1961.
Initially after WWII, Berlin got divided into four different zones under the control of the United States, Britain, France and the former Soviet Union. After couple of years in 1948 the relationship of these controlling countries rapidly worsened they couldn’t work together anymore. Former Soviet Union started imposing curfew hours for the clubs and bars which was primary at 10pm:
This started a strong competition between bars managed by opposite countries in matter of no time whatever bar or club that was open for an extra hours was winning the crowd. So this curfew closing hour became 11pm then 12pm later 1AM and so on. It was finally Heinz Zellermayer the famous Berlin hotel owner who put an end to this strict measurements. He talked to other controlling countries and they all agreed to remove the curfew times. His point was that:
“Problems begin when the bar owners must kick out drinkers. That’s when they become aggressive because they can’t find anywhere else to drink.” Zellermayer
66 years later, Berlin bars and clubs are still allowed to be open all night long.
That’s how Heinz Zellermayer (Mr. Curfew) became a German idol; some even argue that June 20 should become a local bank holiday in Berlin as a tribute to the man who stood against the Allies’ restrictions.
Thats why today some nightlife places in Berlin are open straight for 48 to 72 hours.
Construction of Berlin wall in 1961 changed everything, tensions between the countries rise and Russians started building a wall with length of 112 km separating East & West. You could imagine the huge cultural impact, many people lost their family and love ones. It was hard times for german citizens, East was forced to have a communist mentality and West were forcing to have capitalist.
It was not after the fall of the wall in 1989 that people started to listen to music and dance before the fall they were mostly listing to rock music. After the fall many factories and lands got abandoned. With abundance of deserted spaces suddenly made available to people, places to release their energy with partying and dancing to music. Former factories, warehouses, shops and offices got transformed into nightclubs and bars. For a brief period, people divided by gender, race, sexuality and politics were united by their shared dedication to techno.
Gay communities and women really helped to the rise of techno in Berlin in those times. Gay people were more welcomed to be themselves and women on the other hand didn’t feel the pressure that was on them in the streets. The music was more about the heart and not in the head anymore.
After 27 years of the fall the nightlife scene has really changed although for listing to techno Berlin is the place to be but you see an exponential rise in craft cocktail bars and speak easy bars. In fact they now are very popular for having the best bar scene in Europe. People that were famous for chugging beer all the time are now drinking New York style cocktails. Downtown Berlin is full of luxury expensive brands and most people speak fluent English.
But not everything is changed you could still feel the rebellion culture when you walk in the street for example smoking is allowed inside most clubs and bars although EU has banned it(for all the smoke lovers), party like nowhere else and have a big old school winter jacket.
I guess Berlin would always stay rebellious!
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