0:00

Hey, it's PJ. Before we begin this

0:02

week, so we have a bunch of new listeners who are checking

0:04

out the show for the first time. We

0:07

are also at the end of our season. So

0:09

in case you're new, I wanted to point you towards

0:11

some of our favorite episodes from this year so you

0:13

could work backwards. You

0:15

might start with our first episode, which is called, Wait,

0:19

Should I Not Be Drinking Airplane Coffee? It's a good

0:21

one. Or some other listener

0:23

favorites, Why Are Drug Dealers

0:25

Putting Fentanyl in Everything? Should

0:27

This Creepy Search Engine Exist? And Who's

0:31

Behind These Scammy Text Messages We've

0:33

All Been Getting? Okay, this

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week's show, After Summats. I

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can confidently leave my cards at home because

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I have my iPhone. From grabbing my morning

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by Spot Pet Insurance Services LLC. I'm

2:31

not supposed to

2:33

pick favorite questions.

2:55

I claim to love all questions equally. But

2:58

about a year ago, I got a question from two friends

3:00

of mine. This question caused

3:02

a rare amount of delight over at

3:04

Search Engine HQ. So

3:06

we asked the two of them to come to the studio. OK,

3:10

OK. Do you guys want to introduce

3:12

yourselves? I'm Chris. I'm

3:15

Dan. I guess I'm also a burger.

3:17

Chris and Dan, two very successful stylish

3:20

young professionals, they had an

3:22

annual tradition going back years. These

3:24

two friends would vacation together, sometimes

3:27

to exciting nightlife destinations like Berlin,

3:29

the city they'd just returned from.

3:31

And what's the nature of these

3:33

vacations? Like, what is your form

3:35

of relaxing? I

3:37

would say our form of relaxing is

3:39

generally not relaxing. It's like partying. Yeah.

3:41

Yeah. But, you know, respectful, healthy, wholesome

3:44

partying. Yes. OK. And so

3:46

this was your second trip to Berlin

3:48

to do respectful, of whom

3:51

I'm not sure, wholesome. What was

3:53

the last thing, healthy? Respectful, wholesome,

3:55

and healthy partying. Yeah. OK.

3:57

So you guys, these are a lot of, like, daybreak.

4:00

breaker parties where you drink water and like

4:02

do yoga afterwards or whatever. Yeah, a lot

4:04

of green tea. Exactly. That's

4:06

the vibe. Chris and Dan, I should tell you,

4:09

more conscientious and buttoned up than most people

4:11

I know. Chris, who I've known

4:13

much longer, he's the kind of person where

4:16

when I invite him to a party, I can set my

4:18

watch to what happens. He and

4:20

his boyfriend show up exactly on time, bearing

4:23

a thoughtful gift, and then Chris sneaks out

4:25

the front door two hours later or half

4:28

an hour before midnight, whichever comes first. Not

4:31

a person given to unplanned improvised

4:34

fun. So it was

4:36

actually a surprise to learn he'd been drawn

4:38

to Berlin, a city that tends to attract

4:40

my more late night degenerate friends. So

4:42

you're going to Berlin and like how many days

4:44

were you going for? I think

4:46

it was like 72 hours in Berlin. Yeah, it

4:48

was a really short trip. And what was

4:51

the itinerary? There was

4:53

a very unstructured itinerary, which consisted of

4:56

absolutely nothing. We knew what

4:58

the crown jewel of the trip was supposed to

5:00

be. Yes. Keyword supposed to

5:02

be. And that was? Berghain. And

5:05

why Berghain? I guess

5:08

it has this mythical status attached to it,

5:10

which is no one

5:12

can get in, or very few people can

5:14

get in. But once you're in, it's like

5:16

this mystical palace of fun and amazing

5:19

music and God knows what else because

5:21

neither of us had ever been inside. Berghain.

5:30

At the time of our conversation, rumors

5:32

about Berghain had certainly reached me, 4,000

5:34

miles away in Brooklyn. I'd

5:37

heard the basics. A decommissioned power

5:39

plant turned into a multi-story nightclub. People

5:42

talked about this place as a kind of grimy

5:44

heaven. And like

5:46

traditional heaven, grimy heaven was also

5:48

supposedly very hard to get into.

5:52

It operated according to its own

5:54

particular value system. Berghain

5:56

selectively welcomed freaks, rejects,

5:58

the different. This

6:01

was the place where my friends had wanted to go. And

6:04

I think part of the whole allure of

6:07

the venue is because they reject

6:09

so many people. They have rejected

6:11

so many famous people

6:14

from actors and celebrities to

6:16

the Elon Musk's of the world. And

6:18

so it would be one thing if, you

6:20

know, we're not A-list celebrities, so of course, we're

6:22

not getting into this club. But even

6:25

the top of the top of society,

6:27

the top of the top of the business world,

6:30

even they are not getting into this club.

6:32

Yeah, it's savage. I

6:34

should say, according to Elon Musk,

6:37

Elon Musk was not rejected from Berghain.

6:39

In 2022, amidst a bunch of internet chatter

6:42

about how he'd not gotten in, he

6:44

posted on Twitter that it was he who'd

6:46

rejected the club. He said he'd

6:49

refused to enter. Okay,

6:52

Chris and Dan. Their recent attempt

6:54

was not their first try. They'd

6:56

also gone in 2017. Back

6:58

then, they'd done the same thing. Gone

7:00

to Berlin, headed to Berghain, waited in the

7:03

line, and ultimately been told,

7:05

nine. This

7:07

time around, they were older, they were

7:09

wiser, and they had at

7:12

least one new advantage, this thriving

7:14

corner of the internet devoted to

7:16

Berghain door policy reconnaissance. There are

7:18

Reddit forms, subreddits completely dedicated

7:21

to this. There are TikToks dedicated

7:23

to this. In English? Yeah.

7:26

In every language. We were kind of looking back on

7:28

the last time that we went, and we were like,

7:30

what did we do wrong? And I think the last

7:32

time we went, we were so ignorant to any of

7:34

these rules, we showed up

7:36

in black American apparel t-shirts and

7:38

thought that would be adequate for the

7:40

dress code. Yeah, yeah, okay, but

7:42

that's not adequate. Yeah, no, totally, woefully

7:45

inadequate. So now, five years

7:47

later, when Chris and Dan arrived once

7:49

again in Berlin, they knew

7:51

they would have to take things more seriously.

7:53

We had a shopping module one day where

7:55

we went to Kreuzberg, which is

7:57

their sort of funky neighborhood with all their vintage

7:59

stores. and we were like, we

8:01

are going to dress like freaks.

8:05

Athletic shorts, tank tops. Harnesses.

8:08

Yeah, it's definitely a look. The

8:11

outfits they decide on. For Dan, a

8:13

black tank top and short shorts. Length

8:15

somewhere between 80s camp counselor and 90s

8:17

basketball player. Black shoes and

8:20

tube socks. For Chris,

8:22

black skinny jeans, no shirt. And

8:25

this black vest that kind of looked like a tuxedo

8:27

vest. With their

8:29

outfits ready and mindset prepared, they

8:31

head to the Burkhine line for their Saturday attempt.

8:37

There's this air through the day of like, we're going

8:39

to cinch this. Like, it felt

8:41

that way to me. If it was going to

8:43

be any moment, it was going to be that day. Got it.

8:47

Okay, so tell me about the line. So,

8:50

it's always a fixture.

8:52

Like, you show up, it's

8:54

very, very long. Three to four hours. Are

8:57

you talking? A little bit. From

9:00

the back of the line, they could see

9:02

the club, the former power plant, looming over

9:04

the horizon. It was dark,

9:06

except for flashes of light and silhouettes through

9:08

the top windows. Very faintly,

9:10

it emitted the throb of bass. As

9:14

they stood there waiting, people would walk past

9:16

them. People who'd already been

9:18

rejected, glumly leaving. Chris

9:21

said the sight of these people would actually inspire

9:23

hope in him. When a bunch of

9:25

people in front of you get rejected, you feel kind of

9:27

optimistic, because you're like, well, they're not going to reject everyone.

9:29

You know? Yes. Just statistically, we're

9:31

probably in luck. Way,

9:34

way, way up ahead at the front of

9:36

the line is to the bouncers. A

9:39

few of these bouncers, especially deputized, decide

9:41

who got into the club. Those are

9:43

called selectors. Those were the

9:45

people sending rejects back out into the night. So,

9:48

how soon can they see you?

9:51

You know, that's up for debate. Oh, really?

9:54

Some people might say they're kind of watching you

9:56

the entire time. This is

9:58

Santa Claus logic. There's no way they're watching you.

10:00

the entire time. No, but people do come back.

10:02

You see people that are like kind of like

10:04

strolling the line. Uh-huh. And then you see them

10:06

again at the door. That happened at least once.

10:09

Oh, so the Santa Claus is watching you.

10:11

Yeah. But for the, I mean, I assumed

10:13

or I felt like for the

10:16

most part you weren't really scrutinized until you were with

10:18

him like 20 to 30

10:20

people at the door. Okay. And then they're on

10:22

a pedestal. They're on a literal pedestal.

10:28

And they're looking out and you could

10:30

feel their eyes on you. Okay. And

10:32

so how, what was your strategy for

10:34

how to behave in the line? The

10:37

conventional wisdom is to be just stone-faced.

10:40

Now we tried that. We also tried

10:42

the approach of being like, let's just be normal.

10:44

Now, another thing that's

10:46

interesting is I think that they could tell to

10:48

the point of like scanning you for authenticity. Like

10:50

we actually are gay, which works in our favor

10:53

because it's, it retains its roots as a gay

10:55

club and they're, they're gay at the door. Oh,

10:57

the bouncers are all gay. The bouncers are gay.

10:59

We think. Wait, yeah. They seem to

11:02

be. They seem to be. After

11:04

a couple hours of anxious waiting, Chris

11:07

and Dan found themselves close to the

11:09

mouth of Berghain. There's actually like a

11:11

physical demarcation. So like you get to

11:13

a certain point where like the line

11:15

actually has a railing around it. Okay.

11:17

So once you reach that point,

11:19

you're like, whoa, this is game

11:21

time. Like, then you're within like 20

11:24

people of the door. You

11:26

know that you're with inside of the bouncers. That's

11:29

when like you could hear a pin drop. Everyone's

11:34

just completely quiet. Totally quiet. That's so

11:36

funny. And what happens when you walk

11:38

up? How do you, do you like

11:40

straighten your posture? Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. And

11:43

so you get up and then there's a number of

11:45

calculations that are going on in your mind. Do you

11:47

look at the bouncer in the eye? Do you

11:50

look kind of at the ground? Do you

11:52

smile? Do you keep a straight face? Do

11:54

you say anything? And

11:57

I think on this try, this was

11:59

like our authentic. friendly selves attempt.

12:02

And so, you know, I smiled at the guy,

12:04

he asked how many people were, I said two,

12:06

I was friendly. I think I

12:08

asked him how his night was going. Did he answer?

12:11

No, of course not. One of my

12:13

calculations was whether or not to look

12:15

like I was having fun and into the

12:17

music. So I kind of like was dancing

12:19

a little bit, but you know, very

12:23

like minor movements. And

12:27

I don't think that strategy worked. It

12:30

didn't. It's hard because you're

12:32

like, how do I not look desperate after

12:35

waiting in line for several hours to get

12:37

into the most exclusive night call in the

12:39

world? It's like a witch hunt

12:41

where every person in line is a witch. Yeah,

12:44

and you're constantly making adjustments on how to

12:46

not appear to be a witch. Yeah. So

12:49

you walk up, you say like, how's your night?

12:51

He says nothing. Is he just looking at you?

12:53

Is it he a he? It's a

12:55

he. There's Sven, the main

12:58

bouncer. If Berghain itself is

13:00

the epitome of what you would

13:02

think of East German old techno

13:04

nightclub, then Sven is the epitome

13:06

of what you would think of as the

13:08

bouncer, the lead bouncer for that venue. What

13:10

does he look like? A large man with

13:12

a large number of tattoos and piercings on

13:14

his face. That man is, he's

13:18

a unique individual. Is he

13:20

intimidating? He's extremely intimidating. And there's

13:23

two others. Apparently there's

13:25

some sort of communication between the two

13:27

of them, some sort of silent communication.

13:29

But is that legible? There's only one

13:31

amount of legible communication and that's the

13:33

decision. And how do they communicate it to you? It's

13:36

always one person they pull up at a time or a

13:38

small group. And sometimes they're

13:40

immediately rejected. Like they don't even get to

13:42

say a word. The bouncer just puts

13:45

his hand out and they just keep walking. Very

13:48

subtle. Yeah. And they

13:50

just point towards the street. It's not so much a

13:52

point as an open palm out the

13:54

direction that you should be going. So the

13:56

gesture you're doing is actually the gesture you

13:58

want to be like, welcome to my home.

14:00

but it's welcome to not my home. Like

14:02

it's the arm goes out, the palms outstretched.

14:05

Like look at this, you're not going to a nightclub. Yeah,

14:08

so you're welcome to go anywhere else

14:10

in Berlin. Yeah. I know. I know.

14:13

Chris and Dan did not get the gentle wave

14:15

inviting them anywhere else in Berlin. Instead,

14:18

they got a verbal rejection. The

14:21

bouncer told them, not tonight.

14:24

And to the next day, Sunday, they

14:26

tried again. They had a new plan. To

14:29

go during the day. That's right.

14:31

And separately. During the day and

14:33

separately. Okay. And the

14:35

idea of being during the day less competition,

14:38

separately the bouncer might respect you more. Or

14:42

is it two chances? The line was

14:44

just as long, I would say, if

14:46

not longer, actually during the day. And

14:50

yeah, our thinking was perhaps

14:52

we would attain that additional

14:54

level of respect if we pretended as

14:56

if we were going separately. On

14:59

this attempt, Chris and Dan stood in

15:02

line next to each other for hours

15:04

and did not talk. We acted

15:06

like we didn't know each other. And I was

15:08

ahead of Chris and I get up and

15:10

one of the bouncers was like, how many? And I say one

15:13

and they just stares at me. And

15:15

stares. And I actually thought this

15:17

was the time I was getting in. I was pretty confident

15:19

because it was like a solid 20

15:22

seconds, I would say, before I was rejected. But

15:25

as soon as they rejected me, they looked at

15:27

Chris and immediately rejected him. Oh my God. So

15:29

we're pretty sure they caught us on the line.

15:31

Yeah. It

15:33

was insane. It felt like an X-ray.

15:36

But is it the same bouncers from the night before? Yes.

15:40

Yeah, it actually was. Actually, as we're saying this,

15:42

I'm like, we're idiots. Yeah. Obviously they knew that

15:44

we were together. Well, that

15:46

would assume they remembered us out of the thousands of people

15:48

who are probably trying to get in there. But of course

15:50

they did. I can't believe we had to go on a

15:52

podcast to like. Yeah. We're

15:55

like, I think you saw under my soul. Yeah. Yeah,

16:00

I think we've figured out the answer. Yeah. Why we didn't

16:02

get in, we were just dumb. If

16:08

it seems silly to you that two adult men

16:10

spent so much time and energy trying to get

16:12

into a nightclub, if it seems sillier

16:14

that this reporter would then spend a year of

16:17

his life thinking about this place that those men

16:19

never got to see the inside of, I should

16:21

tell you how I feel about nightlife, which is

16:24

maybe not what you would expect. I

16:26

find nightclubs to be deeply meaningful places.

16:29

Borderline holy. I know

16:32

that sounds a little weird, but in

16:34

New York, where I live, there's a

16:36

handful of these quasi underground little dance

16:38

spots, smoke machine, shrouded dance

16:40

floors, usually free to get in, where you

16:43

can just lose yourself for hours dancing in

16:45

a throng of strangers. It's

16:49

all very corny to talk about, especially on

16:51

a podcast. But as a person

16:53

who feels like a full-time resident of my own mind,

16:56

these are the only places where I escape that, where

16:59

even sober, I can just feel like

17:01

a body, not a brain, or not a body, just

17:03

a part of a mass of them. I

17:07

suspect there might be a human need to

17:09

gather in a room and surrender to something.

17:12

And for me, what I discovered pretty late in

17:14

life is that the room should be sweaty and

17:16

packed and the surrender should be to music. Burgheim.

17:21

Whatever the hype, the promise was that

17:23

it was the best of these rooms built

17:25

by humans. An actual wonder

17:27

of the world, not some relic. If

17:31

somebody was going to sympathize with the plight of

17:33

two Americans who had failed to pass its door,

17:35

it was probably going

17:37

to be me. At

17:41

the same time, I, like them,

17:43

also found this whole situation deeply funny.

17:46

Isn't it weird that you guys went to all this trouble to be

17:48

like, I don't mean this in like the

17:51

Supreme Court says the word, but like to

17:53

just be discriminated against? Yes.

18:01

I don't think we

18:03

think we were discriminated against. I don't

18:06

want to be here and say, oh,

18:08

because we're two Americans, we absolutely do

18:10

what we're getting into. It was almost

18:12

going there and getting rejected was like

18:15

in fun activity in and of itself.

18:17

Right. It's like you're participating in the

18:19

thrill. Let me put it this way.

18:21

I've gone skydiving before,

18:24

and the level of anxiety I had just as

18:26

I was stepping up to be judged was the

18:28

same level of anxiety I had just as I

18:30

was about to jump out of the plane. Really?

18:34

Yeah. Then what did it

18:36

feel like to be rejected? Almost a relief. Really?

18:40

You get it over with. I wish I had gotten in.

18:42

Yeah. Then when Chris was rejected

18:44

too, I felt really good about myself. Would

18:48

have been devastating. So what is the thing you're trying

18:50

to figure out about Burger King? What is the question

18:52

that I can answer? So there's a few

18:54

things I want to know. One

18:58

thing is, say there are some cases where

19:00

it's CUSPY. CUSPY on

19:02

the cusp of a decision. On the cusp of a

19:04

decision where they're like, they can't decide when you're 20

19:07

people away, whether you're a yes or a no. Yeah.

19:09

They want to get a closer look. What are they

19:12

scanning you for? Right. What are

19:14

the cues that are going to nudge

19:16

you towards getting in versus kick

19:19

you to the curb? Got it. The

19:21

other question that I have, every time we

19:23

would leave, we would walk around the whole

19:26

club, I wonder if there's a

19:28

way to sneak in. Like,

19:30

is there just like a fire exit? Yeah.

19:33

Like, is it permeable from

19:35

any other orifice than this drawer? I mean, I

19:38

expect it to be hard to be clear. I

19:40

don't think that there's some easy... Oh, just go

19:42

in the back door. I'm just like, if you

19:44

jump a fence crawling under a bush, I'm like,

19:46

is there a way? And would

19:49

you do it if there were? Yeah.

19:51

Absolutely. Yeah. OK.

19:58

What is the bouncer at birth? Berghain's scanning you

20:00

for if you're on the cusp? And

20:02

is there some other, perhaps, secret

20:05

way to sneak into Berghain? After

20:12

the break, our investigation

20:14

begins. Search

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23:19

back to the show, Unsoons. When

23:22

we started all this last July, all

23:25

I really knew about Berghain was that it was

23:27

a Berlin Techno Club, and that it was very hard to get into.

23:30

When I started researching, the

23:33

club itself maintains a very minimal footprint

23:35

online. 200,000 people

23:37

follow Berghain's Instagram account, but the club has

23:39

only ever posted one photo in 2015, a

23:43

picture of a sign that says, in all

23:45

caps, taking photos is not allowed, the

23:47

sign, presumably, from inside the club itself. Berghain,

23:51

like Vegas, claims that what happens

23:53

there stays there, except in

23:55

Berghain, that seems to actually be true. Some

23:58

information about the club now. nevertheless has

24:01

circulated. The story of

24:03

Berghain, as I now understand it, begins 30

24:05

years ago. In

24:08

the early 1990s, two Germans, Norbert

24:11

Thormann and Michael Teufelle, had

24:14

begun hosting a men's only gay fetish

24:16

party, sometimes at an abandoned air raid

24:18

shelter. After a few

24:21

years, the party outgrew that bunker, the

24:23

pair took over an abandoned railroad depot.

24:25

At the railroad depot, they started a club

24:28

called Ostgut. Ostgut was

24:30

legendary, open to people of all genders

24:32

and sexualities, but still a space

24:34

run by and largely for gay men,

24:38

a den of hedonism where consenting adults

24:40

supposedly engaged in all sorts of unusual

24:42

behavior. Online, at

24:44

least one video survives from inside the club.

24:53

But the video is pretty tame. It's from July

24:55

2000. Looks like camcorder footage.

24:58

A grainily shot DJ hovers over a

25:00

console twiddling knobs, while nearby, a crowd

25:02

of German shadows writhes under a strobe

25:05

light. Ostgut

25:12

may have lived forever, except the city

25:14

wanted to build a big arena. So

25:16

the railroad depot was knocked down in

25:18

2003. Berghain

25:21

was its reincarnation, the

25:24

palace that replaced Ostgut. This

25:26

time, too big to knock down. A

25:29

thermal power plant originally built during

25:31

the Soviet era, four floors. On

25:33

the very bottom floor, a dedicated basement gay

25:35

club, for men only. At

25:38

the very top, a bar with big windows

25:40

opening onto a panoramic view of the city.

25:43

On the levels in between where the power turbines

25:45

once sat, an enormous dark

25:47

cavern, the main dance area. The

25:50

entire space governed by its own particular

25:52

rules, rules that are

25:54

repeated breathlessly by the internet commentary.

25:57

Berghain is not a standard posh club with bottle service.

26:00

It makes you put a sticker over your phone, no

26:02

pictures, they'll throw you the f*** out. There'd be a

26:04

window where you could buy ice cream and you could

26:06

order smoothies. It's open from Friday until Monday, and most

26:08

people stay there for 12 hours, 24 hours, or

26:11

more. Right now, it's 9

26:13

a.m. Berghain is best known for one

26:15

weekly party, Klubnacht, Club Night. Club

26:18

Night is a misnomer because while

26:20

the party starts Saturday evening, it continues all

26:22

the way until Monday morning without interruption. A

26:25

few books document the history of the scene

26:28

that birthed this party. I've found Tobias Rapp's

26:30

Lost and Sound to be particularly helpful. He

26:33

writes about how when Berghain opened in

26:35

2004, the party was by and for

26:37

Berliners, but word soon

26:39

spread internationally. A European

26:42

budget airline called EasyJet had just opened

26:44

a new hub in Berlin, and other

26:46

Europeans started taking EasyJet flights to the

26:48

city to come party. The

26:51

legend kept growing. Eventually, it grew large enough

26:53

to draw Chris and Dan, two of the

26:55

many Americans who made the pilgrimage to Technomecha.

26:59

It was a marvel. A three-day party

27:01

good enough to draw thousands of people

27:04

every weekend, people who would fly to

27:06

Germany without even a promise they would

27:08

gain admittance. That

27:10

was Klubnacht at Berghain. Most

27:14

of what people discuss online is not any of this. Instead,

27:17

they talk about Sven, the

27:20

intimidating bouncer who Chris and Dan encountered

27:22

and then cowered in front of. Sven

27:25

Markhart. Sven Markhart

27:27

is a tall, imposing man in his

27:29

early 60s with giant lip rings that

27:32

look like silver fangs. His

27:34

hair is slicked back in silver. Tattoos

27:36

of thorns cover much of his face. He

27:39

looks like a bad guy in a John Wick movie, and he

27:41

has played a bad guy in a John Wick movie. That

27:44

was just a cameo one time though. Sven

27:47

has run security at Berghain since Klubn first

27:49

opened 20 years ago. Sven's backstory,

27:51

he grew up in East Berlin, the communist

27:53

side of the wall, before it fell. Sven

27:55

Markhart, I'm not sure if it's in East Berlin, but...

28:00

There's this one documentary, Berlin Bouncer,

28:02

that profiles Sven. In

28:04

one scene, he gets a talk in front of

28:06

a crowd. He's wearing all black, tinted glasses. Sven

28:09

discusses the early chapters of his life, how

28:11

his teenage years were defined by the feeling

28:13

of being stuck outside a much more significant

28:15

kind of door. Sven's

28:30

saying, we just wanted to see the other side

28:32

of the wall. We didn't really want to

28:34

leave home. We just wanted to find out. What

28:37

were we being deprived of? What weren't we allowed

28:39

to see? Sven has

28:41

said that as a young gay punk rocker,

28:43

living in East Berlin was risky. He

28:45

was frequently picked up by the secret police. He

28:48

was devoted to his photography career, but after

28:50

the wall fell, he chose to stay on

28:52

the East Berlin side, and his art career

28:54

stalled there. Sven's brother

28:57

was a DJ and a club organizer, and

28:59

Sven started working the door at his parties.

29:02

It turned out Sven's eye for people worked

29:04

not just in photography, but also here.

29:07

He had a talent for deciding who should be let in. He

29:10

developed a reputation. That's why they

29:13

chose him for Osgoodt and later for Berghain.

29:16

The fact that this much of Sven's

29:18

biography exists in public, of

29:21

course, goes entirely against Berghain's secretive

29:23

ethos. But Sven has

29:25

continued to pursue his photography career. And

29:28

so every few years, when he has a new

29:30

exhibition or a photo book, he talks

29:32

to journalists. Questions about

29:34

his photography, which he wants to discuss, and

29:36

questions about how to get into Berghain, which

29:39

he has to tolerate. Those

29:41

are the terms under which the gatekeepers at

29:43

places like the New York Times or GQ

29:46

will allow Sven entry. And understanding

29:49

the way of these things, he obliges.

29:53

Sven, the man with the answer

29:55

to our question, what was the

29:57

bouncer at Berghain scanning you for? I

30:00

should say I emailed Sven and requested an

30:02

interview. I've never been less surprised

30:05

to be ignored. But in the

30:07

documentary, there's this prickly moment where the interviewer

30:09

seems to have directly asked Sven the rules

30:11

of the door. He raised the

30:13

script, he

30:16

promised to be the one who was the one who was the one. Sven

30:18

responds not with helpful tips about what

30:21

shade of black to wear. Instead,

30:23

he says sternly, we don't

30:25

need to question the rules that are in place. He

30:28

does allow that as a selector, his

30:31

responsibility is to only let people in who,

30:34

once they join the party, won't

30:36

impede the freedom and self-expression of the

30:38

people who are already inside. It

30:47

makes sense, but it does not provide clues. And

30:50

in any situation in which official sources

30:52

remain this tight-lipped, of course, speculation will

30:54

reign. And it does, online,

30:56

as Chris and Dan had seen. Mainly

30:58

on TikTok. They're

31:00

a cottage industry of people who claim

31:02

to have gotten through the door, now

31:04

style themselves as helpful experts. Explaining

31:07

what exactly they believe Sven is scanning

31:09

for when he looks at people like

31:11

Chris and Dan. Trying

31:13

to get inside the mind of

31:15

a 62-year-old gay German ex-punk. Be

31:17

really casual, don't be flamboyant, don't

31:19

speak too much. Don't talk too

31:21

loud in the queue. And

31:23

under no circumstances, engage in laughter. Literally

31:25

just basically be as casual and blending

31:28

as possible in order to get in.

31:30

So we've got that. It's impossible to

31:32

know if any of these people are

31:34

actually telling the truth. Again, you can't

31:36

record inside of Berghain, which means you

31:38

just have to take the word for

31:40

it. I promise. People say that you

31:42

need to wear black to get in.

31:45

But that's not true. It helps,

31:48

but it's not a must. I know a

31:50

guy. Just be yourself and if you get in, you get in.

31:52

And if you don't, try again some other

31:54

time or call it a wrap. When

31:56

I went back, I was wearing The advice

31:58

offered by these supposed gurus. Bruce, frankly, does

32:00

not feel all that usable. Try

32:03

to get in, or maybe don't. Wear

32:05

black, but you don't have to. My

32:11

favorite artifact of all the online

32:13

Berghain speculation is this

32:15

website called berghaintrainer.com that will

32:17

actually drop you into a

32:19

surprisingly high-res simulation of the

32:21

Berghain line. The

32:24

site takes control of your webcam and then scans

32:26

your face, analyzing your emotions

32:28

through your expressions. How angry,

32:31

sad, euphoric your face is,

32:33

giving a virtual simulation of

32:35

Sven's gaze. And

32:37

then the first person video virtually walks

32:40

you step by step up to

32:42

the doors of Berghain. The

32:44

music gets louder as you get closer. The

32:47

website warns you that Sven will ask you

32:49

three questions. So

32:51

I did it. When

32:54

I arrived at the virtual door, a German

32:56

man, presumably an actor playing Sven, asked, is

32:58

this your first time here? I said

33:00

yes. He

33:03

asked, do you know who's DJing tonight? I

33:05

said yes. He

33:08

asked whether I'd taken drugs. I

33:10

said nine. After

33:12

a moment of scanning, the virtual

33:15

bouncer told me, not good today,

33:17

and then made the hand gesture

33:19

toward the street. The

33:21

same hand gesture Chris and Dan had gotten.

33:24

To be honest with you, this rejection by

33:26

a fake bouncer, it hurt

33:28

my real feelings. I'll

33:32

tell you something about myself that won't surprise you. I've

33:35

never been considered cool. I know cool

33:38

people. I'm not against coolness. I

33:40

just don't possess it. I'm uncool enough

33:42

that I have to ask the cool people I

33:45

know to explain to me why certain things

33:47

are cool right now. How did

33:49

we decide big pants are back in style? If

33:52

you have to ask, you're not cool. I do

33:54

have to ask, both professionally and just because

33:56

of my personality. So I'm

33:59

not cool. and I'm old enough to be okay with

34:01

that. But this

34:03

was a little different. At Berghain,

34:05

where Sven ruled, it seemed

34:07

to me that the source of his power lay

34:09

partly in his refusal to explain himself. My

34:12

job as a journalist was the opposite, to

34:15

understand and explain. And

34:17

I just couldn't resist the challenge of trying

34:20

to understand something that was designed to obscure

34:22

itself. That was

34:24

why even after all this internet

34:26

sleuthing and documentary watching, we would continue

34:28

digging for the better part of a year. We'd

34:31

talk to lots of people, we'd read too

34:33

many books devoted to the Talmudic study of

34:36

German techno, its origins and sub-genres. And

34:39

in the end, we'd emerge with an answer. What

34:42

was Berghain scanning for and why? How

34:44

would a place like this come to be? All

34:48

that after the break. The

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39:07

Welcome back to the show. In

39:11

America, in the circles I run in,

39:13

people complain a lot about capitalism. I

39:16

don't think they're bothered by the exchange of goods

39:18

and services. I think it's their shorthand way of

39:20

saying everything here is just

39:22

too driven by profit. Even things

39:24

that start out good can be squeezed to

39:26

death by our ceaseless desire to bring out

39:28

every possible dollar. In

39:31

Berlin, a place where until recently, capitalism

39:33

and socialism both operated, in Berlin,

39:36

it feels like something else is going on. The

39:39

nightlife industry there brings in one and a half

39:41

billion tourism dollars a year, but

39:44

they're strange dollars. The crown

39:46

jewel, Berghain, operates by

39:48

turning away thousands of paying customers. And

39:51

despite demand, it keeps its ticket prices

39:53

pretty low. All while existing in

39:55

a building that is 37,600 square feet in a very neighborhood.

40:01

And not only does this all seem to work, it's worked

40:03

for a long time. That doesn't happen

40:05

in nightlife. Clubs don't stick around. Studio

40:08

54 was opened for less than three

40:10

years. Berghain is on its 20th. And

40:13

people attribute a lot of that success

40:16

to Berghain's strict and strange door policy.

40:19

You can tell the story of that door

40:21

as a story about culture, about cool, but

40:24

cool, we know, never explains itself.

40:27

So let's get inside Berghain from a different

40:29

direction. I'm going to

40:31

tell you the story, not about DJs and

40:33

bouncers, but about lawyers and lobbyists, about

40:36

the municipal regulation and policy that allows

40:38

this club to exist the way it

40:40

does. A story that begins

40:42

in 1949. Hi, can you hear me?

40:46

Hey. Hey. How's it going

40:49

over there? Well, well,

40:51

well. Looks lights and

40:53

ring. I'd first heard about him from

40:55

one of my best friends, Kay Burke, a nightclub

40:57

founder herself. People in Berlin

41:00

called let's the mayor of the

41:02

city's nightlife. So did Kay explain

41:04

like who I am and what we're up to

41:06

over here? I think she might, but

41:08

it was also quite some time ago.

41:10

So maybe you can film in again. Yeah.

41:13

So I have this podcast called search engine

41:15

where we just try to answer

41:17

people's questions, no matter how simple or complicated.

41:19

And we do sort of like all manner

41:21

of stuff. We do like really

41:24

serious stuff. Like we just did something about

41:26

fentanyl and the drug supply in America,

41:28

but we also do really silly stuff and

41:30

kind of like everything in between. And

41:33

what level are we here in this conversation?

41:35

We're closer to silly, I think. So we

41:37

have these friends I want to talk about

41:39

who just like didn't get into Berghain and

41:41

are confused about it, but

41:44

it's sort of an excuse to tell the larger

41:46

story about nightlife. Like, I think

41:48

for people in the United States, it's a place you go and

41:50

you spend $500 on champagne. And

41:52

like, you know what I mean? It's like $10

41:55

on a can of beer. Yes. Without

41:57

a glass. Exactly. Lutz

42:00

called this style of nightclub bottles and

42:02

models, shorthand for the economic model that

42:04

drives them. Clubs like these

42:06

are what most Americans think of when you

42:08

say nightclub, spots that tend to make their

42:10

money by enticing rich people to pay for

42:13

tables and buy bottles of champagne so that

42:15

they can feel important. The

42:17

clubs are like little status factories. In

42:20

Berlin though, that same word, nightclub,

42:22

describes an entirely different operation fueled

42:24

by a different economic model. And

42:27

Lutz's job is to protect that status quo.

42:30

He's nightlife's advocate in the offices

42:32

of city bureaucrats, the spokesperson

42:35

for Berlin's club commission. I

42:37

wanted Lutz to tell me how Berlin's unusual nightlife

42:40

scene had come to be. And

42:42

that story is the story of

42:44

two arguments. The first argument takes

42:46

place in the late 1940s. Argument

42:49

one is about a very specific rule, curfew.

42:52

In Berlin today, there is no curfew. Bars

42:54

and clubs stay open as long as they

42:57

want. And can you tell me

42:59

the story of like how Berlin came to be a city

43:01

with no curfew? Like what is the origin story of that

43:03

decision? The

43:05

decision is like almost 80 years old and

43:07

it happened right after World War II. So

43:10

1949, you had already a divided city between

43:13

the Eastern sector and the Western sector. The

43:16

Eastern sector controlled by the Russians and

43:18

the Western sector controlled by the British,

43:21

the French and the Americans. And

43:23

in the Eastern part, there was a curfew at 10

43:25

p.m. So all

43:27

the restaurants, bars, hotel bars, cupboard rate

43:29

bars, it's where they had to close at 10

43:32

p.m. In the Eastern part. In the Western

43:34

part, it was 9 p.m. So

43:36

an hour earlier. And there

43:38

was this, let's say representative spokesperson

43:40

of the hotels and restaurants of

43:43

Berlin. His name was Heinz Zellermeier.

43:46

Heinz Zellermeier. There was

43:48

no club commission back then. Heinz was

43:50

instead the deputy director of the

43:52

Guild of Berlin Hoteliers. In

43:55

photos, Heinz has an enormous smile and combed

43:57

back hair. He looks like someone who. who

43:59

held forth at a restaurant or two. Heinz

44:03

did not like the curfew. He

44:05

particularly did not like that his side of

44:07

the city had an earlier curfew. The

44:09

person to complain to was General Howley

44:12

of the US Army, the Americans West

44:14

Berlin commandant. A meeting was

44:16

set and Heinz supposedly came prepared. The

44:19

story is that he brought a bottle

44:21

of whiskey to that meeting. So

44:24

they met and they were talking

44:26

about it and General Howley said, yeah, the

44:28

British and the French, they're not really supporting

44:30

any idea of losing this curfew. They say

44:32

it's a security issue. So you have to

44:34

give me an argument that I can give

44:36

to French and the British. And the problem

44:38

was that at that moment in the Western

44:40

part, people had to go out of the

44:42

bar and then they went to the Eastern

44:44

sector for another hour, which was also not

44:46

really liked by the Americans. So

44:49

he said, if you kick Germans who

44:51

are partying at a certain hour,

44:53

you kick them out of the street, you're gonna have

44:55

a security issue. So you have to better find a

44:57

solution for it. It was a well-reasoned

44:59

argument. The allies did not want

45:01

drunk Westerners crossing East in search of a

45:04

later last call. And

45:06

worse, there'd been an emerging cold war

45:08

of curfews with each side, the East

45:10

and the West repeatedly extending an hour

45:12

past each other to try to capture

45:14

all the income from drunk Berliners. Eliminating

45:17

curfew would solve the security issue and

45:20

win the night war. Howley was sold.

45:23

He said, okay, let's try this out for two weeks. And

45:25

since then, 1949, we have no curfew. Berlin,

45:30

one of the rare cities that has no curfew

45:32

at all. In 1949,

45:34

when the city permanently deleted its curfew,

45:36

obviously techno music did not exist, raving

45:39

with something people did in insane asylums.

45:42

If anyone was listening to music in a club late at

45:44

night, it was probably jazz. But

45:47

this decision set Berlin on a path. Nightlife

45:50

is funded more than anything else via the

45:52

sale of alcohol. A city

45:55

without a curfew can have a legal party

45:57

that runs through the night. Even that runs

45:59

multiple nights. Half

46:01

a century-ish later, techno will hit Berlin.

46:04

People will begin to throw raves in

46:06

illegal spots without permits. This will happen

46:08

in a lot of cities at the

46:10

same time, Detroit, New York, London, but

46:13

what makes Berlin different from those places is

46:15

that here, many of those

46:17

raves can actually become legitimate businesses, can

46:19

find permanent homes and clubs. General

46:23

Halley's 1949 agreement is

46:25

the first precondition for the Klubnacht

46:27

at Berghain. It sets the

46:29

stage for a party that can last for three days. But

46:32

years later, as the scene starts to

46:35

mature, a second argument takes place. An

46:37

argument which almost kills these nightclubs. Argument

46:40

two is about taxes. In

46:45

the early 2000s, Berghain was a

46:47

rising young club alongside already established

46:49

spots like Trisor and the KitKat

46:52

Club. And Berlin's tax

46:54

authority started to take a closer look at

46:56

these places. How much money were

46:58

they bringing in? Shouldn't the city be getting a

47:00

bigger cut? Government tax

47:02

agents walk into Berghain, presumably without

47:04

needing permission from Sven. They're

47:07

there documenting everything they see. Asking

47:09

a question, from a tax perspective,

47:12

what is happening in these rooms? In

47:15

Germany, if you pay money for a ticket and

47:17

enter a venue where music is played, according

47:20

to the tax men, you may be having

47:22

one of three different experiences. You

47:24

might be experiencing high culture, like opera, in

47:26

which case the city will barely tax the

47:28

ticket. You might be at

47:30

a concert like the Rolling Stones, in which case

47:33

the city will moderately tax the ticket. Or

47:36

you might be experiencing entertainment.

47:39

This happens in casinos, in porn

47:41

theaters. In that case, the

47:43

city will take a big tax bite, almost

47:45

20%. Before

47:48

the tax officials began to take a closer look

47:50

at the club scene, these

47:52

venues had been mostly taxed as concert

47:54

venues. But now, in

47:56

2008, the city started to ask

47:58

pointed questions. Was a

48:00

DJ really a musician? Was a

48:03

techno show really like a concert? The

48:06

perception that people in government had says a

48:08

DJ is not a concert. People

48:10

are going there to have sex or

48:12

to drink or to whatever but not

48:14

because of the DJ. They even sent

48:16

people to clubs and documented that people

48:19

were not facing the artists. They were

48:21

talking to each other. Oh my god!

48:23

Like that. To kind of prove

48:25

the point that it's not a concert. Wow.

48:28

I've been in concerts where people were not facing

48:30

the artists and talking to each other. Exactly.

48:33

But they said clubs is different. People

48:36

go there to meet people not because

48:38

of the artists they don't even know

48:40

who's playing these kind of argumentations. Berghain

48:42

was the club that actually took this case all

48:45

the way to the high courts. Berghain

48:47

won. The Berghain in the

48:49

government's books was cemented as a concert venue.

48:52

A place where people went because they loved techno

48:54

music. Weirdly, this is

48:56

one part of the answer to Chris and Dan's

48:58

questions. What was the bouncer Sven

49:00

scanning for at the door? He

49:03

needed to ensure they were true techno

49:05

heads, not people there simply for entertainment.

49:07

That consideration, a funny side effect of the

49:09

argument the club had had to make in

49:12

court years ago. It may

49:14

have been part of what filtered them out. Chris

49:16

and Dan, not true techno heads.

49:19

Berghain's victory in court meant that any

49:21

German nightclub that could prove it was

49:24

meeting Berghain's cultural standards could be taxed

49:26

like Berghain. Lower taxes

49:28

meant they could keep their overhead low. The

49:30

lower the overhead, the less pressure to make

49:32

money. The less pressure to

49:34

make money, the more they could continue

49:37

to keep their nightclubs dedicated to preserving

49:39

Berlin's strange counterculture. Lutz told

49:41

me about another one of these battles. I

49:44

don't know if you're aware of zoning,

49:46

what that means in cities. There are

49:48

different zoning laws which says in certain

49:50

zones of the city, there are certain

49:53

allowances. For instance, you cannot build an

49:56

amusement venue like a leisure venue in

49:58

a residential area. The

50:00

problem with this categorization is that you're

50:02

only fully legal in the very center

50:04

of the city, where also

50:06

the prices are very high. So if

50:08

you want to do it properly, you

50:11

have to be very commercial to survive.

50:14

Ah. And now that we are more

50:17

flexible in what areas of the cities

50:19

we can establish music venues, we can

50:21

also maybe turn a

50:23

former restaurant or bar into a club, possibly,

50:25

which we could not before because it was

50:28

in the wrong zone. It's so interesting, though.

50:30

It's like you get

50:32

the government to classify clubs differently. That

50:34

changes where clubs can appropriately be in

50:36

the city. Then if the clubs can

50:38

be in places where they otherwise wouldn't

50:40

have been allowed, they can

50:42

have a different profit incentive. They don't have to

50:45

just make as much money as possible. And you

50:47

end up with a different

50:49

culture because of just

50:51

a change to how the government classifieds something.

50:53

That's really interesting. Exactly. We're

50:55

going to come back to this strange court case

50:58

and its consequences in the second part of this

51:00

story. But before I left

51:02

Lutz, I wanted to ask him specifically about

51:04

Chris and Dan. What was

51:06

it about them, the way they looked, the

51:08

way they dressed, that had signaled they didn't

51:11

belong at Berghain? Lutz does

51:13

not represent Berghain. But as spokesperson for

51:15

the club commission and as a Berghain regular,

51:17

I thought he might be able to help.

51:20

Can I show you a couple of photographs and you

51:22

tell me if the person seems like... I'm not a

51:24

selector, so I can only give you

51:26

my personal opinion. Is it okay to ask you your

51:28

opinion on it? Yeah, of course. Okay,

51:30

this is one person. Well,

51:35

very friendly, maybe queer

51:38

person, very soft,

51:40

happy. He's wearing some

51:43

kind of top that doesn't really say

51:45

anything. What is it? It's

51:49

too generic of a top, the vest? I

51:52

think it looks authentic to him, but

51:54

this person looked very innocent. Yeah.

51:57

And you also want to save some people.

56:00

Take yourself apart of the scene. That line

56:02

outside Berghain, he said, that's for people who

56:04

haven't been able to or who haven't known

56:06

to try. While

56:08

Lutz was saying this to me, I was nodding

56:10

yes, furiously, my noggin like a broken bobble head.

56:13

Of course it all made sense. And

56:16

as a person obsessed with belonging and exclusion,

56:18

I was lapping it all up.

56:21

We finished our conversation. It's really,

56:23

it's a pleasure to just get to ask you these

56:25

questions. Thank you for doing this. You're welcome. You're

56:28

welcome. We hung up and

56:30

then, not long after,

56:32

this spell of Lutz's idea dissipated.

56:36

What were we talking about? If you

56:38

wanted to visit the most exclusive nightclub in the world, go

56:41

to Germany and start methodically befriending Germans

56:43

in the city's electronic music scene. Okay.

56:50

Normally, that would have been the end of things. And

56:53

perhaps it should have been the end of things. But

56:57

not long after this, a friend of mine, an

56:59

American, asked me a question. They

57:01

were celebrating a big milestone in their life and they wanted

57:03

to do it in Germany. In

57:05

Berlin, actually. They wanted to spend

57:07

some time there, perhaps even try to see some

57:09

of the city's famous nightlife. Did that sound

57:12

like fun? Could I make some time away from

57:14

work? Yes, it did. No,

57:16

I couldn't. I bought myself a plane

57:18

ticket. The myth,

57:21

hard as it was to believe, was

57:23

that the door to Berghain, like Excalibur's

57:25

sword, would be offered only to someone

57:28

who truly understood techno culture, who understood

57:30

what the place meant. Could

57:32

something like that really be true? Next

57:35

week on Search Engine, the last episode

57:38

of our season, techno.

57:50

Thanks for watching.