Berlin's Turkish Neighborhood of Kreuzberg

The heart of Kreuzberg

I’ve always been drawn to ethnically segregated neighborhoods, whether by choice or by law, these enclaves are islands unto themselves.  A unique place where a foreigners transplant their culture can and can continue to feel a sense of home.  It’s a place where the curious outsider can get a glimpse a peoples’ lives suspended between two worlds.  Often times, these neighborhoods in the bigger cities are neglected, marginalized, and experience many of the social ills associated with poverty.  Eventually, speculators and developers come in and gentrify the whole damn place.  I first witnessed this happen firsthand in the Puerto Rican neighborhood of Wynwood in the city of Miami.  I’ve seen this phenomenon happen in other places like Brooklyn’s neighborhood of Williamsburg and Manhattan’s Harlem.  I’m often torn by the consequences of gentrification.  Suddenly, a place becomes cool and hip, but also drives rents through the roof and the community is quickly transformed and pushed out. 

Earlier this summer, I decided to return to Berlin for a short visit since moving back from Germany in 2015.  I felt less like a tourist in Berlin than any other city in Europe.  The number of expats, from all walks of life, is similar to what you’d experience in a city like New York or Miami.  It was nice to just blend in.  The city never sleeps.  It’s the Europe’s NYC baby!

Berliners don’t conform like the rest of Germany.  You can be different.  You can experiment in all facades of life here.  You’ll find your community no matter what.  Weirdoes and foreigners don’t have to apologize for being weird or foreign. 

It’s a place rich in history, both painful and beautiful.  A city constantly morphing like the seasons.  Cold dark winters springing into long sun filled summers, only to fall into itself all over again.

Berlin feels diametrically opposed to my home of Miami.  Both are ethnically diverse, but mostly from other parts of Europe and the Middle East, rather than the Caribbean and Latin America.  Miami is tropical and hugs the ocean, whereas Berlin is landlocked, cold, cloudy, and wet most of the year.  Historically, Miami is considered brand new and the vibe just feels like it’s perpetually on holiday.  Plastic, posh, and well manicured.  Public transport is limited to the city center, whereas Berlin public transport connects all the neighborhoods with ease.  Berlin’s most popular neighborhoods maintain an organic edge that makes it accessible regardless of your wallet.  Although, Miami and Berlin both attract a similar demographic of hipsters, weirdoes, and techies, Miami can’t touch Berlin when it comes to being socially conscious and politically engaged.  We seem to attract those obsessed with image over substance.  Berlin is full of activists and artists, and as a result, the texture and conversations that take place Berlin are very different. 

This is SO Berlin

Second hand stores are popular and bookstores.  So many books stores.  Miami get some bookstores!

sign over Tex Mex restaurant indicating to resist gentrification

In Berlin is a hotbed for the socially conscious.
You'll find former US soldiers speaking out about their experience in Afghanistan.

Refugees Welcome flag hanging from balcony

Turkish Neighborhood of Kreuzberg

When I first visited to Berlin, all the craze was the neighborhood of Kreuzberg… a bustling ethnically Turkish neighborhood in the heart of the city.  Known for it’s good nightlife, ethnic restaurants and markets, cafes, 2^nd hand boutiques and bookstores.  If you’ve visited Berlin then you have probably passed through.  It’s a fascinating place to experience this city.  For me, Kreuzberg is the playground and artistic hub that fascinates and captivates the mind.  I enjoy staying in the eastern part of the city because in spite being a foreigner, it’s the most similar to living in a big multicultural city back home like New York or Miami.

Veiled Turkish women is a common sight

mosque

Mostly Turkish men at a local rally

Here, you can be foreign without feeling foreign.  It’s a city where English is the lingua franca.  It’s a place where expats come from all corners of the planet.  The rich and poor share the buses and subway.  The car you drive mentality doesn’t exist because everyone walks or bikes it.  It’s a space where all lifestyles, creeds, and ethnicities feel “normal”.

On this visit to Berlin, I decided to stay in Kreuzberg because I wanted to experience the living history of the neighborhood and learn about the gentrification that continues to shape this and other Berlin neighborhood.

Kreuzberg History 101

1945 - 1949

Kreuzberg apartment after the war

The relentless bombing campaign by the Allied powers, coupled with the Russian invasion destroyed nearly half the buildings in this neighborhood.  Berlin soon divided into East and West.  Kreuzberg was literally on the western edge of that dividing line.  Millions was spent by West Germany’s government to rebuild the city.

1961 - 1970

By 1961, the East German government erected what became known as the Berlin Wall to prevent East Germans from fleeing into West Berlin.  Prior to this, the western part of the city employed tens of thousands of East Berliners who worked in West Berlin.  As a result of the wall, sixty-thousand East Berliners where prevented from commuting to work.  A labor shortage followed and West Germany looked to cheap foreign labor in countries like Italy and Turkey.  West Germany never intended for these “guest workers” to stay long term.  Initially, they arrived with one year contracts and were housed in dormitories.  Most, who arrived in Germany were overwhelmingly males, but in Berlin, 40% were female. 

Turkish guest workers came to replace the loss of labor when the Berlin Wall went up.

60’s and 70’s

Massive new development projects went into effect in the heart of Kreuzberg, which most deemed failures.  The older sections of the city were designated “sit and wait” renovation zones.  Employment opportunities are dismal, which result in a mass exodus of the young, leaving behind elderly.  With cheap real estate, public housing companies bought up entire city blocks.

Within a decade, a few hundred squatters begin to occupy abandoned buildings to resist gentrification by developers.  Many of these squatters are student activists, leftists, and artists.  Kreuzberg became a unique place for experimentation and alternative lifestyles.

Turkish guest workers started putting down roots, having children born in Germany, but still not considered German.  Eventually, the government placed a ban on foreign workers from moving to Kreuzberg.  Simultaneously, the concept of cooperative flats shares, progressive preschools, leftist bars, and self-help community centers evolved.  This was the height of the Cold War, and the US Army used areas of the neighborhood to conduct close combat training exercises because of the ruined urban landscape.

Turkish businessman in his shop in Kreuzberg

US soldier during military exercises in the Kreuzberg neighborhood as two residents look on.

Activists pressured the city to offer squatters affordable leases.  More squatters followed and occupied more abandoned buildings, which led to confrontations with police.  Looting, violence, and arrests ensued.

Police clash with squaters

protesters demand the release of arrested squaters

 1980’s

protest against the Lummer Decree

By 1984, most squatters received legal status.  Guest workers streamed in, organized, and established Islamic centers.  The multicultural identity of the neighborhood grew.  The German government responded with the Lummer Decree, which required immigrant youth to leave Germany if they had not lived on West German soil for at least five years and do not have a proper job or are considered unemployed.  The environment creates a “Kreuzberg” identity that is multicultural, immigrant, and leftist.

1989

Fall of the Berlin Wall

The fall of communism and the collapse of the Berlin Wall make Kreuzberg the new “center of Berlin, where it was once on the periphery of West Berlin. Now, that East Germans can legally work in West Berlin, thousands of ethnic Germans arrived in West Berlin for employment opportunities.  “Non-Germans” are seen as competition with East Germans looking for work.  Unemployment rises to 20%.  Rightwing violence increases and led to the formation of the Turkish German street gang 36 Boys… which offers protection from the German nationalists.  Tensions force “Turkish Germans” to launch their own businesses in food and retail.  An openly hard drug scene gains momentum in the 90’s and cements Kreuzberg as a “no go area”.

Turkish street gang 36 Boys formed to protect themselves from the rise in right wing violence after the wall collapsed.

2000's

In 2002, the first MyFest is launched, which is an attempt to market Kreuzberg as a place with an alternative charm: cosmo, tolerant, creative, slick, and hip.  Tourists, investors, and speculators flocked.

2007

The housing market crash in the US hits and the global financial crisis ripples across Europe.  Public housing becomes privatized and renters find themselves under pressure while investors looked to get rich.  Community centers and factories are replaced with tech startups, design shops, restaurants, and cafes. 

Powerful and wealthy Turkish German families, such as Aygun and Hasir respond in buying up whole city blocks in the heart of Kreuzberg.  A 500% increase in buyers looking to buy from 2007 to 2012.  As a result a dense landscape of commercial and food establishments crop up throughout the neighborhood.  The local population “needs” become subordinate to the local community.  International travel guides promote Kreuzberg as a party animal destination.  Gorlitzer Park becomes a local hotbed for the drug trade.  Berlin police treat this park as a “legal” scene to obtain drugs to avoid it spilling over into other parts of the city.  It’s crazy to walk to through Gorlizter and see drug dealers, hipsters having a picnic, and moms pushing their baby strollers without anyone flinching.  There is even a petting zoo in the middle of it all.

Gorlitzer Park

2012 – 2017

Berlin Hates You is an anti tourist protest

Locals begin to campaign to push back and reclaim the city from the negative images.  Creative protest like “Berlin Doesn’t Love You” and “Screw Tourists” pops up as graffiti and corner shops around the neighborhood.  

The street art and the edginess of the neighborhood attracted more than tourists, but corporations like BMW and others who want to create a presence in the neighborhood.  Squatters moved in and occupied their construction sites.  Street artists asked activists to paint over their murals in protests, which is one of the draws for these companies to invest in the neighborhood.  Popup protests and noise demonstrations followed.

Squatters occupy a lot protesting BMW

Asylum seekers from mostly Africa flock to Kreuzberg and occupied a park along with local residents to demand the right to work and choose their place of residence. I visited this encampment back in 2013 and was amazed to learn that many of these people are prevented from working or living in a city of their choice.  They were often in isolated communities with nothing to do.  Eventually, they were forced to vacate the park. Since the arrival of Syrian refugees, Germany is doing more to integrate refugees. 

Today, the neighborhood of Kreuzerg overlaps with pockets of poverty and capitalists.  The space is in constant flux.  The social contrast only multiplies each day, with the battle for this community and for its resources.  Those with money and power going toe to toe with those foreigners who have help create the Kreuzberg neighborhood everyone has come to love.

those with capital

those without capital

RESIST!