Berlin

A documentary loreline of Berlin — Prussian capital, Weimar wildness, the dark Reich years, the Wall and its fall, and the techno-soaked, art-drenched, currywurst-fuelled metropolis it became. Thematic chapters across the city’s history and culture.

A chronological documentary of 232 moments spanning 1237–2025 on Loreline.

last updated 2026-07-21

1. 1237 — Cölln & Berlin founded. The twin trading towns of Cölln and Berlin on the Spree — first documented 1237 and 1244 — that would merge into one city.
2. 1415 — Hohenzollerns take Brandenburg. Frederick I becomes Elector of Brandenburg in 1415, beginning five centuries of Hohenzollern rule over Berlin.
3. 1660 — The Great Elector. Frederick William, who rebuilt Brandenburg after the Thirty Years' War and laid the foundations of Prussian power.
4. 1685 — The Huguenots of Berlin. Thousands of French Protestant refugees welcomed after 1685 — they reshaped Berlin's crafts, language and the French Cathedral.
5. 1700 — The Berlin City Palace. The Hohenzollern Stadtschloss, baroque seat of the electors, kings and emperors of Prussia and Germany.
6. 1701 — Prussia becomes a kingdom. In 1701 Frederick I crowns himself King in Prussia at Königsberg; Berlin becomes a royal capital.
7. 1713 — Charlottenburg Palace. The largest surviving royal palace in Berlin, the baroque-rococo summer home of the Prussian queens.
8. 1730 — The Zeughaus. Berlin's grand baroque arsenal on Unter den Linden, now the German Historical Museum.
9. 1740 — Frederick the Great. The soldier-king and enlightened despot who made Prussia a great power and Berlin a capital of the Enlightenment.
10. 1747 — Sanssouci Palace. Frederick the Great's rococo summer retreat at Potsdam — the 'Prussian Versailles' of vineyards and terraces.
11. 1770 — Unter den Linden. Berlin's grand boulevard of linden trees, lined with palaces, the opera and the university.
12. 1791 — The Brandenburg Gate. The neoclassical gate of 1791 crowned by the Quadriga — symbol of division, then of unity, then of Berlin itself.
13. 1800 — Gendarmenmarkt. Berlin's most beautiful square — the twin German and French cathedrals flanking Schinkel's Konzerthaus.
14. 1806-10-27 — Napoleon enters Berlin. After Jena-Auerstedt, Napoleon marches through the Brandenburg Gate in 1806 and ships the Quadriga to Paris.
15. 1810-10 — Humboldt University founded. Wilhelm von Humboldt's 1810 university — the model of the modern research university, home to Hegel, Einstein and Planck.
16. 1818 — The Neue Wache. Schinkel's neoclassical guardhouse of 1818, now the central memorial to the victims of war and tyranny.
17. 1830 — Schinkel rebuilds Berlin. Karl Friedrich Schinkel's neoclassical vision — the Altes Museum, the Konzerthaus, the Friedrichswerder church.
18. 1837 — The Berlin beer garden. Prater, the city's oldest beer garden (1837), and the chestnut-shaded tradition of a Maß under the trees.
19. 1840 — The Tiergarten. The great central park, once a royal hunting ground, with the Victory Column rising from its trees.
20. 1848-03-18 — The 1848 Revolution. Barricades in the streets of Berlin during the March Revolution as Germans demand unity and a constitution.
21. 1850 — The Spree. The river that made Berlin — its bridges, its banks, and the beaches and bars that line it in summer.
22. 1850 — Berliner Weisse. The tart, low-alcohol wheat beer served with a shot of raspberry or woodruff syrup — "the Champagne of the North".
23. 1869 — The Rotes Rathaus. The "Red City Hall" of red brick — seat of Berlin's government since 1869.
24. 1871-01-18 — Bismarck and unification. The Iron Chancellor unites Germany under Prussia in 1871; Berlin becomes the imperial capital.
25. 1873-09-02 — The Victory Column. The golden Siegessäule in the Tiergarten — "Goldelse", a Berlin icon (and the angel's perch in Wings of Desire).
26. 1880 — Museum Island. The UNESCO ensemble of five great museums on an island in the Spree — Berlin's acropolis of art.
27. 1894-12-05 — The Reichstag rises. Paul Wallot's monumental parliament building completed 1894, inscribed "Dem Deutschen Volke".
28. 1895 — Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. The neo-Romanesque church on the Kurfürstendamm, later left as a bombed ruin and memorial.
29. 1896 — The Oberbaum Bridge. The twin-towered brick bridge over the Spree, once a border crossing, now linking Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain.
30. 1898 — The Berlin Secession. The 1898 breakaway of Liebermann, Corinth and Slevogt from the academy — German Impressionism's home.
31. 1900 — Buletten and Kartoffelsalat. The Berlin meatball — pan-fried, peppery, eaten cold with potato salad or in a roll with mustard.
32. 1900 — Eisbein mit Sauerkraut. The hearty Berlin classic — cured, boiled pork knuckle with sauerkraut, peas and mustard.
33. 1900 — The Grunewald. The vast forest on the city's western flank — a Berliner's lungs, lakes and weekend wilderness.
34. 1900 — The Berliner (Pfannkuchen). The jam-filled doughnut Berliners simply call "Pfannkuchen" — a New Year's and Karneval tradition.
35. 1900 — The age of the great digs. Berlin's archaeologists bring Pergamon, Babylon and Egypt to the Spree — the museum-building fever of the Empire.
36. 1900 — Max Liebermann. The grand old man of German Impressionism, who painted from his villa on the Wannsee.
37. 1902 — The U-Bahn. Berlin's underground railway since 1902 — its yellow trains, tiled stations and the ghost stations of the divided years.
38. 1904 — The Bode Museum. The domed museum at the tip of Museum Island, home to Byzantine art and one of the great sculpture collections.
39. 1905 — Berlin Cathedral. The great domed Protestant cathedral on Museum Island, the Hohenzollern court church.
40. 1906 — The Hackesche Höfe. The interlinked Art Nouveau courtyards of Mitte — cafés, theatres and the revived life of old Berlin.
41. 1907 — The Wannsee. The great lake on Berlin's edge and Europe's largest inland lido — the city's summer escape since 1907.
42. 1907 — The KaDeWe food hall. The legendary sixth-floor delicatessen of Europe's grand department store — a temple of food since 1907.
43. 1909 — AEG Turbine Hall. Peter Behrens' 1909 turbine factory — a landmark of industrial modernism in the workshop of the world.
44. 1912 — Babelsberg Studios. The oldest large-scale film studio in the world (1912) — UFA's dream factory just outside Berlin.
45. 1919 — Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute. The Institute for Sexual Science (1919) — pioneering research into sexuality, its library burned by the Nazis in 1933.
46. 1919-01-05 — The Spartacist Uprising. January 1919 — armed revolution in Berlin, crushed by the Freikorps; Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht murdered.
47. 1920 — The Kurfürstendamm. West Berlin's great shopping boulevard — the glittering capitalist showcase of the divided years.
48. 1920-03-13 — The Kapp Putsch. Right-wing Freikorps seize Berlin in 1920; a general strike by workers brings the coup down within days.
49. 1921 — George Grosz. The savage caricaturist of Weimar Berlin — fat profiteers, crippled veterans, a society he drew with acid.
50. 1921 — The Einstein Tower. Erich Mendelsohn's expressionist observatory at Potsdam (1921), built to test Einstein's theory of relativity.
51. 1923 — Hyperinflation. By 1923 a loaf of bread costs billions of marks; Berliners burn banknotes for warmth and shop with wheelbarrows of cash.
52. 1924 — The Bust of Nefertiti. The 3,300-year-old painted limestone queen, jewel of the Neues Museum and a magnet of controversy.
53. 1925 — The Berlin cabaret. Smoke, satire and song in the Kabaretts of the 1920s — political wit and sexual freedom in a city without limits.
54. 1925 — Anita Berber. The scandalous nude dancer of Weimar nightlife, immortalized in Otto Dix's flame-red portrait.
55. 1926 — Josephine Baker in Berlin. The American star electrifies Weimar Berlin's stages; the city embraces her where others would not.
56. 1927 — Café life of the intelligentsia. The Romanisches Café and the Kurfürstendamm — where writers, painters and exiles argued over coffee.
57. 1927-09-23 — Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis. Walther Ruttmann's 1927 city-symphony — a day in the life of Weimar Berlin in pure montage.
58. 1928 — The Eldorado. The famous queer cabaret of Weimar Berlin — a symbol of the city's short-lived sexual freedom.
59. 1930 — The Pergamon Altar. The colossal Hellenistic altar with its writhing frieze of gods and giants, centerpiece of the Pergamon Museum.
60. 1930 — The Ishtar Gate. The glazed-brick gate of ancient Babylon, reconstructed in blazing blue in the Pergamon Museum.
61. 1930-02-04 — People on Sunday. The 1930 docu-fiction of Berliners at the Wannsee lakes — made by Siodmak, Wilder, Zinnemann before Hollywood.
62. 1930-04-01 — Marlene Dietrich — Der blaue Engel. Marlene Dietrich becomes a global star as Lola Lola in von Sternberg's 1930 film shot at Babelsberg.
63. 1931-05-11 — Fritz Lang — M. Lang's 1931 masterpiece of a child-murderer hunted through Berlin's underworld — Peter Lorre's breakthrough.
64. 1932 — The Bauhaus. The revolutionary design school — its final Berlin home before the Nazis forced it to close in 1933.
65. 1933-02-27 — The Reichstag Fire. February 1933 — the parliament burns; Hitler uses it to suspend civil liberties and seize dictatorial power.
66. 1933-05-10 — The Book Burning. May 1933 — students burn "un-German" books on the Opernplatz; today a sunken empty-library memorial marks the spot.
67. 1936 — The Olympiastadion. The vast 1936 stadium, monument to Nazi architecture, still in use as Berlin's great arena.
68. 1936-08-01 — The 1936 Berlin Olympics. Hitler's propaganda spectacle — and Jesse Owens' four gold medals that defied the master-race myth.
69. 1937 — Käthe Kollwitz. The Berlin artist of grief and war — her "Mother with her Dead Son" sculpture sits in the Neue Wache.
70. 1938-04-20 — Leni Riefenstahl — Olympia. Riefenstahl's technically dazzling, ideologically charged 1938 film of the Berlin Games.
71. 1938-11-09 — Kristallnacht. November 1938 — synagogues burn and Jewish shops are smashed across Berlin in the Night of Broken Glass.
72. 1939 — Speer's Germania. Hitler and Albert Speer's megalomaniac plan to remake Berlin as "Germania", world capital — mostly never built.
73. 1941 — Tempelhof. The vast Nazi-era airport of the airlift, now a beloved public park — Berliners cycling down the old runways.
74. 1942 — Track 17, Grunewald. The station from which over 50,000 Berlin Jews were deported to the camps — now a haunting memorial of iron plates.
75. 1942-01-20 — The Wannsee Conference. January 1942 — in a lakeside villa, senior Nazis coordinate the "Final Solution" — the bureaucracy of genocide.
76. 1943-02-27 — The Rosenstraße Protest. February 1943 — German women protest in the street for the release of their Jewish husbands, and win.
77. 1944-07-20 — The 20 July Plot. Claus von Stauffenberg's failed 1944 bomb plot; the conspirators are executed at the Bendlerblock, now a memorial.
78. 1945 — The Führerbunker. The buried command bunker near the Reich Chancellery where Hitler spent his final days and died in April 1945.
79. 1945 — Stunde Null — the ruins of 1945. "Zero Hour" — Berlin reduced to rubble, the Trümmerfrauen clearing the wreckage brick by brick.
80. 1945 — The Battle of Berlin. April–May 1945 — the Red Army storms the capital in the war's final, devastating urban battle.
81. 1945-05-02 — Raising a Flag over the Reichstag. The iconic May 1945 photograph of the Soviet flag raised over the ruined Reichstag.
82. 1949 — Currywurst. Berlin's defining street snack — sausage, ketchup and curry powder, invented by Herta Heuwer in 1949.
83. 1951 — The Berlinale. The Berlin International Film Festival and its Golden Bear — one of the world's great cinema gatherings since 1951.
84. 1953-06-17 — The 1953 Uprising. June 1953 — East German workers rise against the regime; Soviet tanks crush the revolt in the streets.
85. 1955 — The Threepenny Opera. Brecht and Weill's 1928 premiere at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm — "Mack the Knife" conquers Berlin.
86. 1957 — Karl-Marx-Allee. The monumental "wedding-cake" socialist boulevard of East Berlin — Stalinist grandeur in tile and stone.
87. 1960 — The Stasi headquarters. The vast Normannenstraße complex of the GDR secret police — now a museum of total surveillance.
88. 1961 — The Ampelmännchen. The jaunty hatted pedestrian-light figure of the East — an Ostalgie icon that survived reunification.
89. 1961 — Checkpoint Charlie. The Allied crossing point where, in October 1961, American and Soviet tanks faced off muzzle to muzzle.
90. 1961-08-13 — The Wall goes up. August 13, 1961 — overnight the GDR seals the border with barbed wire and concrete, dividing families for 28 years.
91. 1961-08-15 — Leap into Freedom. The famous photograph of GDR border guard Conrad Schumann vaulting the barbed wire in 1961.
92. 1962 — The Bridge of Spies. The Glienicke Bridge between Berlin and Potsdam, where East and West exchanged captured spies.
93. 1962-08-17 — The death of Peter Fechter. In 1962 the 18-year-old is shot trying to flee and left to bleed in the death strip — a symbol of the Wall's cruelty.
94. 1963 — Teufelsberg. The Cold War listening-station on a rubble mountain — now a graffiti-covered ruin and outdoor art space.
95. 1963-06-26 — Ich bin ein Berliner. June 1963 — JFK at the Schöneberg city hall declares his solidarity with the encircled city.
96. 1963-06-26 — JFK: "Ich bin ein Berliner". June 26, 1963 — Kennedy before 450,000 at the Schöneberg city hall, the most famous four words ever spoken in Berlin.
97. 1964 — The escape tunnels. Daring tunnels dug beneath the Wall — Tunnel 57 brought dozens of East Berliners to freedom in 1964.
98. 1965 — The Trabant. The smoky little two-stroke car of the GDR — beloved, mocked, and an icon of life behind the Wall.
99. 1968 — Neue Nationalgalerie. Mies van der Rohe's glass-and-steel temple of modern art (1968) — his last building, a Berlin landmark.
100. 1969 — Alexanderplatz. The vast East Berlin square of the World Clock and the TV Tower — Döblin's novel, the city's beating socialist heart.
101. 1969 — The Fernsehturm. The 368-metre TV tower at Alexanderplatz (1969) — the GDR's pride, its sphere catching the sun as the "Pope's revenge".
102. 1970 — The death strip. The no-man's-land of the inner border — watchtowers, tripwires, and the guards ordered to shoot.
103. 1972 — The Döner kebab. The grilled-meat-in-bread sandwich popularized by Berlin's Turkish community in the 1970s — now a national staple.
104. 1972-02-13 — Cabaret. Bob Fosse's 1972 film of decadent Weimar Berlin — Liza Minnelli, the Kit Kat Club, the gathering dark.
105. 1974 — Tangerine Dream. Pioneers of the Berlin School of electronic music — vast synthesizer soundscapes from the early 1970s.
106. 1976 — The Palast der Republik. The bronze-glass GDR parliament-and-leisure palace on the old palace site — "Erich's Lamp Shop", later demolished.
107. 1976 — Hansa Studios. The "studio by the Wall" — Bowie, Iggy, Depeche Mode and U2 all recorded in its great hall overlooking the death strip.
108. 1977 — Iggy Pop — Lust for Life. Iggy and Bowie's Berlin years at Hansa produced this 1977 classic, all hammering drums and reckless joy.
109. 1977-09-23 — Bowie — "Heroes". Recorded at Hansa Studios by the Wall in 1977 — a love song "by the Wall", the anthem of divided Berlin.
110. 1978 — Nina Hagen. The "godmother of punk" — born in East Berlin, expelled to the West, a wild and operatic original.
111. 1979 — Eurovision and Schlager. The pop and Schlager of West Germany — the lighter sound that ran beneath Berlin's avant-garde.
112. 1980 — The Turkish Market. The Maybachufer market in Kreuzberg — vegetables, cloth, olives and the sound of a dozen languages.
113. 1980 — Ideal — Neue Deutsche Welle. The West Berlin band whose "Berlin" defined the early-80s Neue Deutsche Welle.
114. 1981 — The Kreuzberg squats. The anarchist, Turkish and punk heart of West Berlin — squatted tenements and the city's radical edge.
115. 1983 — Depeche Mode at Hansa. The English synth-pop band recorded "Construction Time Again" and more in Berlin, drawn by the Hansa myth.
116. 1983 — Nena — 99 Luftballons. The 1983 global hit born in West Berlin — red balloons mistaken for a nuclear attack across the divided sky.
117. 1985 — Einstürzende Neubauten. The "collapsing new buildings" — industrial pioneers who made music with power drills and scrap metal.
118. 1987 — May Day in Kreuzberg. The annual May 1 ritual of riots-turned-street-festival — politics, sound systems and tear gas.
119. 1987-06-06 — Bowie sings to East Berlin. In 1987 Bowie plays by the Wall; East Berliners gather on the far side to listen — a crack in the regime.
120. 1987-06-06 — Bowie's 1987 Wall concert. Bowie plays "Heroes" by the Reichstag; East Berliners chant "the Wall must fall" from the other side.
121. 1987-06-12 — Tear down this wall. June 1987 — Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate challenges Gorbachev to open the Wall.
122. 1989 — Hasselhoff on the Wall. New Year's Eve 1989 — David Hasselhoff sings "Looking for Freedom" on the Wall, an unlikely reunification meme.
123. 1989 — The Mauerspechte. The "wall woodpeckers" — Berliners chipping souvenirs from the concrete with hammers and chisels.
124. 1989 — The Monday Demonstrations. Autumn 1989 — "Wir sind das Volk" — peaceful mass protests across the GDR force the regime to crack.
125. 1989-07-01 — The first Love Parade. July 1989 — 150 ravers dance down the Ku'damm; within a decade it draws over a million.
126. 1989-11-09 — Schabowski's press conference. The fumbled words "ab sofort, unverzüglich" — the press conference that accidentally opened the Wall.
127. 1989-11-09 — The Wall falls — live. November 9, 1989 — Tom Brokaw and the world's cameras at the Brandenburg Gate as Berliners pour through.
128. 1989-11-10 — Dancing on the Wall. The night of November 9 — strangers embracing, champagne, and Berliners dancing atop the concrete by the Gate.
129. 1989-11-11 — Rostropovich at the Wall. The cellist flies in unannounced and plays Bach beside the broken Wall — a moment of unscripted grace.
130. 1989-12-25 — Bernstein's Ode to Freedom. Christmas 1989 — Leonard Bernstein conducts Beethoven's Ninth in Berlin, "Freude" sung as "Freiheit".
131. 1990 — The East Side Gallery. The longest surviving stretch of the Wall, painted by 100+ artists in 1990 — the world's longest open-air gallery.
132. 1990 — My God, Help Me to Survive. Dmitri Vrubel's East Side Gallery mural of Brezhnev kissing Honecker — the "fraternal kiss".
133. 1990 — Kunsthaus Tacheles. A bombed Mitte department store turned anarchic artists' squat and gallery — a 1990s post-Wall legend.
134. 1990 — The Späti. The late-night corner kiosk — beer, snacks and conversation at all hours, an institution of Berlin street life.
135. 1990 — The radical underground. The squats, the autonomists, and the long anti-gentrification battles of Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain.
136. 1990-07-21 — Pink Floyd's The Wall in Berlin. July 1990 — Roger Waters stages "The Wall" in the no-man's-land of Potsdamer Platz before 350,000.
137. 1991 — Berlin becomes capital again. 1991 — the Bundestag votes to move the capital from Bonn back to Berlin.
138. 1991 — Element of Crime. Sven Regener's literate, trumpet-laced Berlin band — chansons for the rainy city.
139. 1991 — Tresor opens. In 1991 a techno club opens in the vault of a bombed-out department store — the cradle of Berlin techno.
140. 1992 — The great transformation. The 1990s sell-off and rebuilding of the bankrupt East — boom, bust, and the long economic reckoning.
141. 1992 — U2 — Achtung Baby at Hansa. U2 reinvent themselves recording "Achtung Baby" at Hansa as the Wall comes down — "Zoo Station", "One".
142. 1993 — E-Werk. A former power station turned 1990s techno cathedral — one of the defining clubs of post-Wall Berlin.
143. 1994 — Club-Mate. The caffeinated yerba-mate soda that fuels Berlin's coders, clubbers and all-night creatives.
144. 1994 — Mauerpark. The old death strip turned Sunday people's park — karaoke, flea-market, and a city at play on the former border.
145. 1994 — Marusha. The face of 1990s German rave — her "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was a techno-pop smash.
146. 1994 — YAAM and the riverbanks. The Afro-Caribbean beach-bar culture of the Spree banks — sound systems, sand, and reclaimed industrial space.
147. 1995-06-24 — Christo wraps the Reichstag. Summer 1995 — Christo and Jeanne-Claude shroud the parliament in silver fabric; five million come to see it.
148. 1996 — The Berggruen collection. Picasso, Klee, Matisse — the dealer Heinz Berggruen's gift of modern masters back to his native city.
149. 1996 — Hamburger Bahnhof. A former railway station turned museum of contemporary art — Beuys, Warhol, Kiefer under its great iron roof.
150. 1997 — Rammstein. The pyrotechnic Neue Deutsche Härte giants, formed in Berlin in 1994 from the ashes of the East.
151. 1997 — WestBam. The godfather of German techno, Love Parade anthem-maker and a defining Berlin DJ.
152. 1997 — A million on the streets. By the late 1990s the Love Parade fills the Tiergarten with techno and over a million dancers.
153. 1998 — The Gemäldegalerie. One of the world's great collections of European painting — Vermeer, Rembrandt, Dürer, Caravaggio.
154. 1998 — Potsdamer Platz. The dead no-man's-land of the Wall years, reborn in the 1990s as a glass-towered new downtown.
155. 1998 — Paul van Dyk. The Berlin trance giant who soundtracked the reunified city's euphoria and went on to global stardom.
156. 1999-04-19 — The Norman Foster dome. The new glass cupola over the Reichstag (1999) — citizens walk above their parliament, light pouring in.
157. 2000 — Haus Schwarzenberg. The last un-renovated courtyard off Hackescher Markt — a riot of paste-ups, stencils and street art in gleaming Mitte.
158. 2000 — Stolpersteine. The brass "stumbling stones" set in pavements across the city, each naming a victim of Nazi persecution.
159. 2000 — C/O Berlin. The city's great photography institution, housed in the historic Amerika Haus.
160. 2001 — The new government quarter. The "Band des Bundes" along the Spree bend — the chancellery and parliament buildings of the new republic.
161. 2001 — The Jewish Museum. Daniel Libeskind's zinc-clad zigzag (2001) — voids, the Holocaust Tower, and the Garden of Exile.
162. 2001 — "Dickes B" — an ode to Berlin. Seeed's love letter to "fat Berlin" by the Spree — one of the city's unofficial anthems.
163. 2002 — Watergate. The riverside club with the LED ceiling and floor-to-ceiling Spree views — a Berlin nightlife institution.
164. 2003-02-09 — Good Bye, Lenin!. The 2003 tragicomedy of a son faking that the GDR never fell to spare his ailing mother.
165. 2004 — Berghain. The temple of techno in a former power plant — the legendary door, the Klubnacht that runs from Saturday to Monday.
166. 2004 — Mustafa's Gemüse Kebap. The Mehringdamm institution whose vegetable döner draws queues around the block — a modern Berlin legend.
167. 2005 — Graffiti capital of Europe. Berlin's endless trains, walls and shutters — one of the densest, most storied graffiti landscapes in the world.
168. 2005-05-10 — Memorial to the Murdered Jews. Peter Eisenman's field of 2,711 concrete stelae near the Brandenburg Gate, opened 2005.
169. 2005 — Seeed. The Berlin reggae-dancehall big band whose sunny basslines became a city soundtrack.
170. 2006-03-23 — The Lives of Others. The 2006 Oscar-winning drama of a Stasi officer who comes to protect the man he is surveilling.
171. 2006-05-26 — Berlin Hauptbahnhof. Europe's largest crossing-station, a cathedral of glass and steel opened for the 2006 World Cup.
172. 2006-07-09 — The 2006 World Cup Fan Mile. A million fans on the Straße des 17. Juni — the "Sommermärchen" that showed a relaxed, reunified Germany.
173. 2007 — Modeselektor. The bass-heavy Berlin duo, pillars of the city's electronic scene and the Monkeytown label.
174. 2008 — BLU's murals. The Italian street artist's monumental Kreuzberg murals — later painted over by the artist himself in protest at gentrification.
175. 2008 — Bonaparte. The anarchic Berlin art-punk circus — a wild, costumed embodiment of the city's performance scene.
176. 2008 — Paul Kalkbrenner — Sky and Sand. The Berlin producer's anthem from the film "Berlin Calling" — the sound of the city's clubland.
177. 2008 — The Boros Bunker. A WWII air-raid bunker turned private contemporary-art collection — Berlin's most striking gallery space.
178. 2008-07-24 — Obama at the Victory Column. July 2008 — candidate Obama draws 200,000 to the Siegessäule, a Berlin rally watched around the world.
179. 2008-08-21 — Berlin Alexanderplatz. Fassbinder's monumental 1980 TV adaptation of Döblin's Weimar-Berlin novel — fifteen and a half hours.
180. 2009 — We Are One. Paul van Dyk's Love Parade anthem — the sound of Berlin's open-air euphoria.
181. 2009-09-29 — Ellen Allien. DJ, producer and BPitch Control label boss — a defining voice of the Berlin techno sound.
182. 2010 — The open-air club culture. Sisyphos, about://blank and the sprawling weekend-long open-airs of post-industrial east Berlin.
183. 2010-06-22 — Nosferatu. Murnau's 1922 vampire — German expressionism's eerie masterpiece, made in the Weimar years.
184. 2011 — Apparat. Sascha Ring's gauzy electronic music — a quieter, more melancholy strand of the Berlin sound.
185. 2011-05-19 — Dr. Motte and the founding myth. The DJ who started the Love Parade as a "demonstration for peace, joy and pancakes".
186. 2012 — The 72-hour weekend. No closing time — the Berlin clubbing marathon that runs from Friday night clear through to Monday.
187. 2012 — Oh Boy (A Coffee in Berlin). The 2012 black-and-white drift through a day in hipster Berlin — a deadpan love letter to the city.
188. 2014-07-13 — World Cup champions, 2014. July 2014 — 400,000 welcome the world champions home to a roaring Fan Mile at the Brandenburg Gate.
189. 2015-06-11 — Victoria. Sebastian Schipper's 2015 thriller filmed in a single unbroken 138-minute take across nighttime Berlin.
190. 2016 — How to get into Berghain. The endlessly remade video-essay genre decoding the world's most selective club door.
191. 2016-09-21 — Metropolis. Fritz Lang's 1927 sci-fi epic shot at Babelsberg — the most expensive silent film ever made, a Weimar landmark.
192. 2017 — New Year's Eve at the Gate. Berlin's vast Silvester party at the Brandenburg Gate — one of the world's biggest open-air New Year celebrations.
193. 2017 — Babylon Berlin. The lavish 2017 series of Weimar-era crime and cabaret — Germany's most expensive TV production.
194. 2018 — Riding the U-Bahn. The cab-view and front-window U-Bahn ride videos that quietly rack up millions of views.
195. 2018 — World records at the Berlin Marathon. The flattest, fastest course in the world — where the men's marathon world record has fallen again and again.
196. 2019 — The Wall: then and now. The before-and-after video-essays overlaying 1989 footage on the streets of today.
197. 2019 — The dancing Berlin techno guy. The viral clip of an ecstatic solo dancer that became a global shorthand for Berlin club culture.
198. 2019 — Berlin street-food on YouTube. The food-vlog pilgrimage — currywurst, döner and the best Spätis, ranked for the camera.
199. 2019-06-22 — The Berlin Airlift. 1948–49 — when the Soviets blockade West Berlin, the Allies fly in coal and food; the "Candy Bombers" drop sweets to children.
200. 2019-11-08 — The night the Wall fell. November 9, 1989 — a bungled press conference, the gates open, and Berliners dance atop the Wall.
201. 2020 — The Humboldt Forum. The rebuilt Berlin Palace facade housing a new museum — the most contested building project of the new capital.
202. 2020 — Berlin from above. The cinematic 4K drone flights over the Fernsehturm, the Spree and the rooftops — a YouTube genre of its own.
203. 2020 — United We Stream. When the clubs went dark in 2020, Berlin's nightlife moved online — empty dancefloors livestreamed to keep the scene alive and funded through lockdown.
204. 2020 — Berlin New Year street chaos. The infamous user-shot clips of Silvester fireworks fired horizontally down Berlin streets.
205. 2020-09 — FJAAK at Spandau20. The Berlin techno trio's hometown sound — raw, hard, hometown-loyal — captured in a 2020 DJ set.
206. 2021 — HÖR Berlin. The tiled-room livestream booth that became the city's most-watched techno export — DJs playing to a webcam in a former public toilet.
207. 2021 — Snow over Berlin. The quiet, beloved winter walk videos — the city hushed and white under falling snow.
208. 2021 — A walk through Berlin. The immersive POV walking-tour video — Mitte to Kreuzberg in real-time 4K, a YouTube staple.
209. 2021-04-13 — Otto Dix — Metropolis. The New Objectivity painter's savage, dazzling triptych of Weimar Berlin nightlife and its war-crippled outsiders.
210. 2022 — Babylon Berlin (Season 4). The lavish Weimar-era crime series returns — 1930s Berlin sliding toward the abyss, rendered in feverish detail.
211. 2022 — Why everyone moves to Berlin. The expat video-essay genre — the cheap rent, the freedom, the techno, the long winters.
212. 2022 — Kleo. Netflix's revenge thriller about an ex-Stasi assassin set loose in the chaos of post-Wall Berlin.
213. 2022 — Riding the U-Bahn. The front-window cab ride through Berlin's underground — a quietly hypnotic YouTube genre all its own.
214. 2022-03-22 — Gigafactory Berlin opens. Tesla switches on its first European plant in Grünheide outside Berlin — the contested, fast-tracked factory that reshaped the region.
215. 2022-06-01 — The 9-Euro-Ticket summer. For three months Germany sold a €9 monthly pass for all regional transit — packed trains, a national experiment in cheap mobility.
216. 2022-06-14 — Wings of Desire. Wim Wenders' 1987 angels over a still-divided Berlin — black-and-white, longing, the library and the sky.
217. 2022-07-06 — The tank standoff. October 1961 — US and Soviet tanks face off at Checkpoint Charlie, the Cold War at flashpoint.
218. 2022-07-09 — Rave the Planet. Dr. Motte's spiritual successor to the Love Parade returns to the streets of Berlin — techno as a moving, open-air procession.
219. 2023 — Berlin from above (2023). A fresh 4K drone pass over the city — the Fernsehturm, the Spree, the rooftops in crisp daylight.
220. 2023-02-25 — Berlinale Golden Bear 2023. Nicolas Philibert's gentle documentary 'Sur l'Adamant' takes the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival.
221. 2023-09-22 — UFO — the first acid house club. The illegal basement club (1988) where Dr. Motte and friends first brought acid house to West Berlin.
222. 2023-09-24 — Marathon world record. Tigist Assefa shatters the women's marathon world record on Berlin's famously fast course.
223. 2024 — Walking through Mitte (2024). A real-time POV stroll through central Berlin — the contemporary walking-tour video updated for the present day.
224. 2024 — Christmas markets (2024). The Weihnachtsmärkte glowing across the city — Glühwein, lights, and the winter ritual filmed in 4K.
225. 2024-03 — Techno as cultural heritage. Berlin's techno culture is added to Germany's UNESCO-aligned intangible cultural heritage list — the dancefloor, officially, as heritage.
226. 2024-03-19 — The KitKatClub. Berlin's legendary fetish-techno club — a temple of hedonism and the city's anything-goes nightlife.
227. 2024-05-03 — Run Lola Run. Tom Tykwer's 1998 kinetic blast through Berlin — red hair, techno, three runs against the clock.
228. 2024-06-04 — German Reunification. October 3, 1990 — the two Germanys become one; the flag rises over the Reichstag at midnight.
229. 2024-07-14 — Euro 2024 final. Spain beat England 2-1 at the Olympiastadion to win the European Championship — the tournament's last night in Berlin.
230. 2025 — The cost of living in Berlin (2025). The expat video-essay grows up — rent has caught up with the rest of Europe, and the honest reckonings reflect it.
231. 2025 — Berlin HDR walk (2025). A present-day HDR walking tour — the city's streets in high-dynamic-range, the genre's latest evolution.
232. 2025 — Berlin from above (2025). The most recent aerial pass over the city — Berlin in 4K from the sky, this decade's edition.

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