Hello dear ghostbusters,
the sirens off the Warntag caught me in the middle of the run, and I was thinking: “If it’s a Warntag, why didn’t I mention it in the last newsletter? How did I miss that?” before I started to think what I would do in case of REAL danger. Hide in my stinky basement? Run to the next U-Bahn stop? Ask myself why my supplies of canned beans are so low?
What would you do?
I am so grateful that we still live in peace, and that I can write that I can’t wait to see you at our autumn get-together in Impact Hub on the 2nd of October. We gon’ have some great cocktails because toastin’ makes us feel good!
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📌 Pinned
As expected, AfD easily won in Saxony-Anhalt. Algorithm on Instagram is only feeding me stuff I like, so I intentionally went to check some of the AfD YouTubers to see what they are up to. And it's wild to see how far apart we are. Listening to some of the stuff they say is outright scary. We will be voting soon, and here is how it looks in Berlin:
Source: RBB
Our friends at WahlheYmat ran a survey, StimmlosTrend 2026, which found that a vast majority (90.8%) of internationals without a German passport would vote in the elections for the Berlin parliament. 73.9% also feel they have little or no influence over Berlin's future.
You can also check a comparison of 2026 party programs by Nina and Masha.
Have you decided who you're voting for?
🗞 Berlin
Events are back on the calendar: our next Handpicked Coworking is next Tuesday and has a few spots left. We are also going to meet again for our Autumn get-together, this time at Impact Hub Berlin. I am so excited to meet so many of you again. It'll be all fun and games, and nobody's losing an eye!
Emirates (finally?) got the flight rights for Berlin, which most certainly means more direct connections from Berlin. Lufthansa and some unions hate the idea, while everyone else seems happy about it. The theory that Frankfurt-based Lufthansa is working against Berlin also has many supporters.
Berlin is special. We are heading into the September 26 vote on Germany's 2036/2040/2044 Olympic bid as the only candidate city without a referendum behind it because of constitutional reasons, while the "NOlympia" movement is collecting signatures that could eventually force one. It looks like the candidacy is dead in the water, also due to political uncertainty (Linke and the Greens are against it).
Random boat fact, because I can. Guess how much we are paying for getting rid of abandoned boats? Since 2023, Spandau alone spent €150k... €80k for 11 wrecks and €70k for an ex-pub boat. It’s (again) a problem with jurisdiction (or "who should take care of it?") between district and federal/state waterways.
Want something sweet? Go with the champions! The German Confectioners Championship was held in Berlin last weekend. Kira Egitsch from Stuttgart took Confectioner of the Year, but second and third both went to Berlin: Géna Junghans from Ganache Berlin and Vanessa Kühnemund from Der Kuchenladen. Two very good reasons to get something sweet; you deserve it. Der Kuchenladen is also a cafe.
What actually happened in the recent cyberattack and which data was stolen? Jan Kammerath explains it well. Meanwhile, the Berlin Senate prepared a support page with contacts, support services and a FAQ section. You can machine-translate it to several languages, and you're likely not affected.
Senate had €82.4M budgeted for bike infrastructure last year but only spent about a third of it in the Verkehr department (and 80% in Tiefbau). Total spending fell to €27M, down €4M from the year before, and only 21.2km of new lanes got built — the lowest yearly total since 2022's 32.4km. Papier ist geduldig: 2,400km of bike network is planned, but only about 140km (5.8%) has actually been completed since 2017. Intentional incompetence or just shifting the budget?
In brief
Cultimate Foods (Berlin, cultivated food) winds down after its insolvency and restructuring failed [more].
visitBerlin (Berlin, tourism) takes over marketing vacant commercial spaces for creative interim use [more]. You can approach them with your ideas.
Court dismisses landlady's lawsuit: Berlin districts may ban temporary furnished leases, aka "Wohnen auf Zeit" [more, €].
9.4k apartments approved in Berlin from January to July, up 28.3% on last year.
BVG (Berlin, transport) will bundle its locations at Ostkreuz. They signed a 40k m² campus lease; move starts 2028 [more].
Due to construction, trains between Berlin and Hannover will take 80 minutes longer for 14 months starting in October [more].
Somehow Berlin has a thing for messing up elections. Wrong postal ballots were sent out in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. They now need to contact 1.4k people [more, €].
Related, more than 750k Berliners have requested postal voting documents, around 28% of eligible voters.
Electronics fair: 240k visitors visited IFA [more].
Renate (Berlin, nightlife) celebrated its 19th anniversary after almost being closed last year.
The final season of Babylon Berlin is available in the ARD Mediathek.
In the middle of a busy square: man pulled a gun — ZDF camera films it all [more].
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🌿 Worth your time
Excellent video about 10 facts about the Ringbahn. I still haven’t planned a round-trip without a phone. Another one on the Ringbahn list is doing a Ringbahn hike. Who wants to join?
How to debate an idiot? You can't, especially not with reason and rationality.
How to become more comfortable with your existence? By intentionally doing nothing. Yesterday I did my second digital detox day without screens, and the feeling is something special.
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😅 Meanwhile
wait a minute…
Weekly social
Instagram: Ulrich Siegmund on the Fachkräftemangel. It would be funny if it were comedy, but it’s not.
Instagram: this Brazilian dude trained his donkey to dislike him being called Lula. I found it funny once or twice.
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