0:00

I can confidently leave my cards at home

0:02

because I have my iPhone. From grabbing my

0:04

morning matcha to catching a ride to the

0:06

office, or from picking up lunch with friends

0:08

to picking up the tab at happy hour.

0:10

I simply tap with Apple Pay. Easily

0:12

add your cards in the Wallet app and you're

0:15

ready, just double click the side button, smile for

0:17

Face ID, and tap to pay. It's

0:19

as easy as looking in the mirror. With

0:21

each tap, your card number and your purchases

0:24

stay secured. Pay the Apple

0:26

way with your compatible device anywhere contactless

0:28

payment is accepted. Search Engine

0:30

is brought to you by Spot Pet. Search

0:33

Engine listeners know that I love my dog more than anything

0:35

else in this world. I want to

0:37

be buried in a pyramid with him when he

0:39

dies or when I die. Whoever goes first, we're

0:41

going together. I want to share

0:43

a message from our trusted companion in helping

0:45

you be ready for any unexpected vet visits.

0:48

Spot Pet Insurance. Spot

0:50

Pet Insurance is your virtual ally against the

0:52

unexpected. With Spot Plans, you can receive up

0:55

to 90% cash back

0:57

on eligible vet bills, helping to

0:59

transform unforeseen expenses into manageable moments

1:01

of care for your cherished pets.

1:04

Spot Pet Insurance plans go beyond just offering

1:06

coverage for accidents and illnesses. Access

1:09

to a 24-7 vet telehealth hotline is

1:11

included with every policy, so you

1:13

can ask an expert all your questions. You

1:15

can also enhance your plan with their preventative

1:17

care benefit. Helping ensure routine

1:19

wellness, vaccines, and more can be covered

1:21

too. Head over to

1:24

spotpet.com for an instant quote today. I

1:27

think I'm supposed to read this part super fast, so I'm going to

1:29

read this part super fast. Ready? Disclaimer. Pay

1:31

to add from Spot Pet Insurance. Waiting

1:33

periods, annual deductibles, co-insurance, benefit limits, and

1:35

exclusions may apply. For all terms, visit

1:37

spotpetins.com/sample policy. Insurance plans are underwritten by

1:40

either Independent American Insurance Company or United

1:42

States Fire Insurance Company and produced by

1:44

Spot Pet Insurance Services LLC. Thanks

1:57

for watching. My

2:00

body thinks that it's 2.30 in the

2:02

morning but I'm on a plane landing

2:04

in Berlin where it's

2:25

7.30 in the morning. My

2:28

body does not believe that. Welcome

2:43

to Search Engine. I'm PJ Boat. You're

2:45

listening to the second part of our story,

2:47

Why Didn't Chris and Dan Get Into Birkheim?

2:52

In March, I found myself on

2:54

a tarmac in Berlin holding yet another book

2:56

about the history of German techno, cramming, I

2:58

suppose, for a very strange kind

3:00

of test. It was all

3:02

part of this crazy plan that a man named

3:04

Lutz had described to me, and which I could

3:07

not resist trying. Lutz

3:09

had said that the real way

3:11

into the most exclusive nightclub in the

3:13

world, Birkheim, famous for its four hour

3:15

plus line, was to not

3:17

wait in that line at all. It

3:20

was instead to meet people in the

3:22

Berlin techno crowd, gain a deep understanding

3:24

of what the music meant to them,

3:27

and in doing so, somehow melt

3:29

into the scene. I

3:32

am not socially adept. I don't speak

3:34

German. I'm very new even to

3:36

just dancing. Assuming this plan

3:38

could work for someone, I'm pretty skeptical it

3:41

can work for me. But

3:45

I feel like I wanted to try. As

3:48

someone who has known the joys of belonging and

3:50

the pain of not, I've

3:52

always been very curious about where I can make myself fit

3:54

in, and which places are a bridge too

3:56

far. Could a

3:59

poorly dressed American with a weird laugh,

4:01

find even a temporary home in

4:03

a severe German techno dungeon? I

4:06

had less than a week to get an answer, but for once in

4:09

my life, at least I knew it would be

4:11

a definitive one. So

4:15

on March 13th, I get off the plane, blink

4:17

in the bright, cold sunlight, and

4:20

start practicing some rudimentary German. Hello.

4:31

Hello. I'm there with my editor,

4:33

Shruti, who, by some miracle, speaks the language.

4:36

But other than that, I could not have

4:38

been a more outside outsider to the city.

4:40

This is a tag? Like, it's

4:43

our first day, and so we head to the

4:45

neighborhood everyone had told me to start with. Friedrichstein.

4:48

Friedrichstein is the neighborhood that contains Berghain.

4:51

Walking in the streets, I feel this feeling

4:53

of deja street view. I've clicked

4:55

through the same box on Google Maps for my apartment

4:57

at home. I can see

5:00

the big sports arena that replaced Ostgut,

5:02

Berghain's previous incarnation. I

5:04

can see the River Spree, which winds along

5:06

the city streets. I

5:08

have the sensation that I get sometimes when

5:10

I'm in a restaurant where a celebrity has

5:12

appeared. A little giddy. A

5:15

little on edge. Act

5:17

1. The portal. Late

5:21

in the morning, I find myself en route to

5:23

see a man named Sven von Tulin. Not

5:25

the Berghain bouncer Sven. There are many Svens

5:27

in Germany. This Sven, a

5:29

DJ and a writer. The music studio

5:31

where he asks to meet, a walk

5:34

up. A

5:37

walk up with a lot of singers. I

5:39

trail behind a truthy. Check,

5:42

check. Middle-aged,

5:52

fashionable. A short red-brown widow's peak

5:55

and a white t-shirt. Sven

5:57

dresses to my eyes, more like a rock guitarist than

5:59

a rock. he

8:00

found himself listening to techno in a different

8:02

context, in different spaces. Seeing

8:30

the places where the music was

8:32

being played and understanding that they

8:35

were underground and illegal, part

8:39

of what you were looking for as a

8:41

young punk kid, it

8:44

didn't feel so clean and commercial and

8:46

whatever? Yeah,

8:48

the DIY aspect of it. Because I

8:51

was organizing concerts and we did all

8:53

kinds of labels and fanzines and all

8:55

this stuff. So everything was kind of

8:57

DIY and in Berlin everything was DIY

8:59

as well. And it was like, basically,

9:03

we take over spaces and

9:06

do something great for

9:08

us and our friends. I

9:14

remember having the same feeling as a

9:16

teenager, but listening to punk music in

9:18

Philly. When I tried to

9:20

listen to it first as recorded music, I

9:22

couldn't hear past its roughness. But

9:25

then I went to my first shows. In

9:27

some repurposed church basement, a DIY

9:29

show where bands full of kids

9:31

played for an audience of kids,

9:33

all flying arms and spit and

9:35

sweat. There the music

9:37

came alive for me. Likewise

9:40

Sven found he loved the people

9:42

we met at the squats and

9:44

empty warehouses, where Berliners showed up to

9:46

dance to this new music. Realizing,

9:49

okay, here are all the misfits. All

9:52

the misfits of society are here

9:55

and feel, today, safe here,

9:57

welcome and all that. I

10:00

had to see and experience

10:02

that to fully, I understand that. And

10:04

now I understand the music better as

10:06

well. Sven was transformed

10:08

in Berlin from a hardcore kid

10:10

to a raver. He became

10:12

a DJ, he's actually DJ'd at Berghain. And

10:15

he's written a history of Berlin techno called

10:17

De Klang de Familia, the sound of the

10:20

family. He's now a full

10:22

participant in the techno scene. A

10:24

subculture he once thought he hated. Okay,

10:26

can you just tell me the origin story

10:29

of techno music? Where is it born? Oh

10:32

God. So, techno

10:34

music. So in

10:37

1988, there was a seminal compilation

10:39

that was released by a British

10:41

label, Ten Records. And

10:45

that was the first compilation to basically

10:48

showcase to the world the new

10:50

dance sound of Detroit, which was

10:52

techno. Why were people in

10:54

Detroit, what was happening in Detroit when the

10:56

people were like, we should make music with

10:58

synthesizers and dance to it? Like why did

11:00

that happen? Well, there's

11:02

this famous quote by Derek

11:04

May, who said techno is

11:06

like craft work and parliament

11:08

stuck in an elevator. Techno

11:12

is like craft work and parliament stuck

11:14

in an elevator? I've

11:18

always tried to understand music, any music by listening

11:20

to the lyrics. It's part of why techno is

11:22

actually hard for me to crack. It just doesn't

11:25

have many lyrics. But

11:27

I need to understand techno because I've been

11:29

told that that understanding is part of my

11:31

mission, this plan to break into burkheim. And

11:35

the stories Fen has to tell me about techno, it's

11:37

about all the meaning that gets imprinted into music

11:39

without lyrics. It's about Detroit, this

11:42

place that was in the 1970s, experiencing

11:45

all this strange and inexpressible

11:47

history. History that would

11:49

somehow be encoded into techno as

11:51

the music that was being invented here. So

11:54

here's how that happens. At the

11:56

end of the 1970s, the city of Detroit is in

11:58

some trouble. The US- auto industry

12:00

is beginning to sink, taking Motor City with

12:02

it. But

12:05

it's just the beginning of that decline. And

12:07

Detroit still has something that was rare in

12:09

American cities back then. A black

12:11

middle class. In a

12:13

Detroit suburb called Belleville, three of these

12:15

middle class kids are obsessing about music.

12:18

One of those kids is Derek May, whose

12:20

friend just mentioned, the other two, Juan Atkins

12:22

and Kevin Sonderson. They're

12:24

staying up late listening to this

12:26

very weird radio show hosted by

12:28

a mysterious DJ named The Electrifying

12:30

Mojo. Awesome. A before a

12:34

trip down prototype of

12:37

your musical future, the

12:39

sound of sounds to

12:42

come. It has

12:44

long been the desire of

12:47

the Metro to experience

12:50

advanced sounds and concepts

12:53

compatible with the

12:55

technological advances of our time.

12:59

That voice belongs to the DJ. And

13:02

the crazy thing is that all this hyped up shit

13:04

he's saying, the prototype of your

13:06

musical future, the sounds of sounds to

13:08

come. All of this

13:10

is actually true. The Electrifying

13:12

Mojo did see the future. Welcome

13:15

to Awesome 84. A

13:20

trip to the future of your

13:22

musical. Awesome 84. Awesome

13:26

84. Awesome

13:28

84. And

13:42

he makes it all up. He would play

13:44

whatever the B-52s, Prince, he

13:46

would play electronic music that

13:49

came over from Europe.

14:04

So you had Kraftwerk, obviously you had

14:06

like the Belgium stuff like Telex, Italo

14:08

Disco, and he would kind of create

14:10

these narratives and he was kind of

14:12

a mystical figure as well. So

14:16

you've got the electrifying mojo, this unusual

14:18

visionary mixing genres on the radio that

14:20

Tamer DJ has kept on separate dials

14:22

or off the air entirely. He's

14:25

playing records for five hours at a time. And

14:27

you have these three kids from Belleville who are listening

14:29

to this strange radio program. And it's

14:31

not just them, a bunch of other young

14:33

Detroiters are listening. Jeff Mills,

14:36

Mad Mike Banks, and

14:38

these listeners decide to start making their own

14:40

music, inspired by the sounds they're hearing. In

14:48

1985, Juan Atkins puts out

14:50

a track called No UFOs. He's

14:53

made it on an eight track recorder and his Roland

14:55

TR-909 drum machine. The

15:03

track is synth-y like Kraftwerk. The

15:05

beat is funky like Parliament. There's

15:08

also this doomed science fiction feeling

15:10

to it. This dance track about

15:12

UFOs over Detroit. This

15:25

music isn't just imagining a future for Detroit.

15:28

It also seems to be mourning its past. I

15:31

hear that in this track Temptation by Final

15:34

Cut. The four on the floor beats, their

15:36

construction sounds. The sounds of what

15:38

the city is losing bleeding into this music. It's

15:47

been said like many times that being

15:49

in Detroit at the time, kind

15:52

of in a post-industrial city,

15:54

the idea of the conveyor belt and the

15:56

industrialness, that it all kind of played

15:59

its role. into how

16:01

you approach making music. This

16:04

new form of music, both enabled

16:06

by technology and sometimes about technology,

16:09

it ends up with an appropriate name, Techno.

16:12

Detroit would become known as the birthplace of Techno,

16:15

a metropolis where raves were thrown in

16:18

grand, abandoned buildings in the broken down

16:20

city. Dancers entering spaces

16:22

that didn't even have working lights, dancing

16:24

while holding flashlights, catching glimpses of all

16:26

sorts of strange human behavior in the

16:29

dark. The

16:32

feature of this music that I most notice

16:35

is how it loops. It loops

16:37

in a way that sounds, to some people,

16:39

meaningless, but to others, deeply meaningful. What

16:42

can seem repetitive often isn't. The

16:44

same pattern returns, but now it's been

16:46

complicated by some change in

16:49

frequency or energy, an element added, an

16:51

element removed. This

16:53

is a stripped down, and it turns out

16:55

for many surprisingly powerful kind of music. Techno

16:59

would begin in Detroit, find homes in

17:01

small pockets of cities in North America

17:03

and Europe, perhaps most

17:05

consequentially Berlin. Berlin

17:10

in the late 80s was

17:13

still divided. It was still the

17:15

GDR and West Berlin had

17:17

a really small

17:19

scene. Like it was really just like,

17:22

I don't know, 100 people or something. Small,

17:25

small. Yeah, small, like really, everybody

17:27

knew each other by name, small.

17:30

And there were music enthusiasts and

17:32

dancers and all of that, and

17:34

the music would obviously be played

17:36

in the two and a

17:38

half clubs that West Berlin had at the time.

17:41

And then for Berlin, the catalyst for everything was

17:43

that the wall just came down. Act

17:50

Two, The Wall. So

17:53

where are we right now? Behind

18:00

us is Au Baba in Bricke, which is a beautiful bridge.

18:04

It's 3 p.m. now, and Sri and I are

18:06

walking with Gizina Kuna. Gizina

18:09

is a person we've been told to meet, because she

18:11

seems like a perfect guide. A club kid,

18:13

but also a radio reporter, who's

18:15

covered the scene here for years. And

18:18

a DJ. I'd

18:20

been picturing my stereotype of an intimidating Berghain

18:22

scene star clad in four shades of black

18:25

with an asymmetrical haircut. Gizina

18:27

instead is all smiles, wearing

18:30

a lavender sweatsuit and these big glasses. She

18:33

has the energy of an enthusiastic substitute techno teacher,

18:35

not yet burned out by the job.

18:37

We're staying in Friedrichshain,

18:40

because I wanted to show you Berghain, which

18:43

is, by the way, the name

18:45

stems from Kreuzberg and

18:47

Friedrichshain. So the Berghain from

18:49

Kreuzberg and the Hein from

18:51

Friedrichshain comes together in

18:53

Berghain. Oh, so it's just two

18:55

neighborhoods, Port Manteau, smashed up together. Exactly.

18:59

And so, blah, blah. This

19:02

is the explanation of the name. How boring, hey?

19:04

I do think it would be more something. Nah,

19:07

it's not. It's

19:10

very, very boring. Gizina tells me

19:12

Berghain is actually closed on Wednesday, so

19:15

all we can do this afternoon is study

19:17

the club's perimeter. I still have

19:19

a few days to do all my research before Klubnacht

19:21

begins on Saturday. Berghain sits

19:23

near a cluster of clubs, small,

19:26

big, discreet, not, tucked along the

19:28

banks of the river Spre. On

19:30

the right side, there is the Erävägerländer,

19:33

we call it Raup, where

19:36

is a nice flea market on Sunday

19:38

and also certain little clubs, which

19:41

are totally okay to start

19:44

clubbing, or as a tourist, actually. But

19:47

be careful. A lot

19:49

of shady drug dealers around here don't

19:52

buy from them because it's apparently

19:55

not so boring. Gizina has lived in

19:57

Berlin most of her life. She was born just

19:59

outside the city in Germany. in East Germany while the wall was

20:01

still up. We're gonna go this

20:03

way around because I want to show you the... The

20:06

death strip. The

20:08

death strip, yes. The death strip. The death

20:11

strip. The death strip. Almost.

20:14

Almost. The

20:16

death strip. It's

20:20

a strip of death. Let's

20:22

just say the death strip. During

20:24

the Cold War, East Germany built what

20:26

we call the Berlin Wall, but which was

20:28

actually two parallel walls with a big negative

20:31

space between them. That

20:33

negative space is the death strip, patrolled

20:35

by guards with guns, dogs, surrounded by

20:38

barbed wire. It was

20:40

called the death strip because over 100 people were killed

20:42

trying to pass. The

20:44

death strip is Berlin's defining scar, but

20:46

it's also crucial to our story today, weirdly

20:49

because it's the cradle that will eventually birth

20:51

the city's techno scene. But

20:53

for Gazina, as a kid, before there's the music,

20:56

there's just the wall. Her

20:58

family lived in the Soviet controlled East, the

21:00

GDR. Gazina's father ended

21:02

up on the wrong side of the secret

21:04

police there, the Stasi, for what sounded to

21:06

me like the dumbest possible reason. When

21:09

he was 16, he was actually knocked

21:11

down by an old Stasi guy because

21:13

he said something about the GDR, like

21:16

something not even nasty, but saying, well,

21:18

in this shitty place, you can't even

21:20

get a lemonade because it was summer

21:22

and all the lemonades were out, which

21:24

happened. And so

21:26

he knew he always had this file

21:28

and he couldn't move as he wanted

21:31

to because... You guys didn't

21:33

complain about there being a lemonade that was

21:35

out. Exactly. This

21:42

stray complaint about lemonade one

21:45

time, it meant Gazina's family

21:47

would always be surveilled, targeted. Reading

21:50

about life under the Stasi gives me a deep

21:52

chill. The Stasi tortured, they

21:54

poisoned, but what they're most

21:56

famous for today is the way they surveilled and

21:58

smeared German citizens. Germany's

22:01

commitment to privacy, its suspicion of

22:03

internet companies and camera phones, I

22:06

can't help but wonder if some of that traces

22:08

back to this moment. The

22:10

Stasi and their vast network of

22:12

collaborators spied on everyone. They

22:15

used secrets and rumors to destroy anyone in

22:17

their way. Gossip, wielded

22:19

by idiots, a weapon of mass

22:21

destruction. Today Germans

22:23

talk about privacy the way we talk about free

22:25

speech. But

22:28

Gazina's family, they actually found an escape from

22:30

the East. In 1984,

22:32

this door opened for them. Some

22:37

East Germans were being allowed to go west,

22:39

the West essentially paying the East for workers

22:41

it needed. One day

22:43

Gazina's family found out they'd been selected. But

22:46

the opportunity had come out of nowhere and her

22:48

mother wasn't ready. She needed time to

22:50

prepare. So they came up with a story.

22:53

Her parents told Gazina, six years old at

22:55

the time, to pretend to be sick, to

22:58

buy the family a little more time while the

23:00

Stasi monitored them. And

23:03

we've been followed when we're

23:05

driving around with the car. We've been followed

23:07

by the Stasi all the time. And

23:10

my parents always looked to the backseat and said

23:12

to me, okay, when we arrive now, you're

23:15

going to be sick again. You have to act sick. So I've

23:18

been holding my stomach and acting all sick.

23:22

So we got, I don't know, a couple more

23:24

weeks in the GDR. So mom could

23:26

finish up whatever. She had to finish up and then

23:28

we left. But the day

23:30

you leave, they cut

23:32

your passport and you're not a citizen

23:35

of anywhere. Like, you don't have a

23:37

passport. You don't have an identity anymore,

23:39

pretty much. And the

23:41

good thing was us being Germans, when

23:43

we went to West Berlin, you're instantly

23:46

a German citizen. So that was kind

23:48

of good. But now

23:50

being 46 or 40 years

23:52

later, actually, wow. deal

24:00

with that a lot. I'm actually like

24:02

trying to work through things because we're

24:05

ripped out of our

24:07

environment and now slowly

24:10

realizing how much harm

24:12

it actually did. Gazzina's

24:17

family moved to the part of West

24:19

Berlin that was specifically for people coming

24:21

in from the east. As she describes

24:23

it, a quasi-refugee camp. Life

24:26

there would end up being challenging. Her

24:28

brother was badly bullied in school and turned

24:30

around and bullied her. Her

24:32

parents, who had been much more present in the

24:34

east, now disappeared into work, leaving

24:37

her and her brother home alone with

24:39

the television. For

24:41

her parents, life in the east was the

24:43

bad memory. For Gazzina, who left all that

24:45

so young, it's the West. This

24:48

strange new country that changed her family. They

24:50

left a bruise that stuck around. Okay,

24:53

so where are we? So this is part

24:55

of the wall which is like

24:57

now a monument east side gallery with

25:00

lots of different paintings along the wall. We're

25:03

standing with our backs to what's left of the east side

25:05

of the Berlin Wall. It's covered

25:07

in street art and graffiti now. Nearby

25:09

there's a field of grass and dirt and then the

25:11

river. Honestly, as far

25:14

as monuments go, it's not much.

25:17

The wall fell in November 89 and the

25:19

two cities that had been kept apart rushed to join

25:21

each other. It's strange to think

25:23

that this place where we're talking, anyone

25:25

standing here would have been shot. It's

25:27

just a field. This would have been

25:30

the death strip because then

25:32

the canal was also part of the

25:34

wall or of the no-go

25:36

area and then behind it is Kreuzberg on

25:38

the other side. The size of this trip

25:40

is pretty crazy. It's just so expansive. Yeah,

25:43

we can walk towards the water. So

25:47

yeah, here is where Bath 25

25:49

used to be and now it's like

25:51

Carter Blau and the whole

25:53

area. But Bath 25 was also

25:55

quite famous. Gazina starts

25:58

pointing down river to the spot. A

26:00

decommissioned soap factory turned into a club,

26:02

which closed and turned into another club.

26:05

I know exactly the feeling she's having. Like

26:08

anybody who's lived somewhere long enough, she's looking

26:10

at the city, but she's seeing all the

26:12

cities that used to be here underneath it.

26:15

Berlin in the 1990s, a decade

26:17

really of parties, many of them

26:19

technically illegal, occupying spaces for

26:22

a few years, maybe longer, before

26:24

disappearing. A good

26:26

party is typically about

26:28

celebrating something, a

26:34

birthday, a promotion, but the

26:36

truly great ones, they're almost always

26:38

about release. And

26:41

the intensity with which Germans grabbed ahold of tech

26:43

now, the height of the fire of the scene

26:45

they built here, this was

26:47

a country with decades of awful, unspeakable

26:50

history, trying now to find a way to

26:52

move forward. I'm

26:54

gonna tell you the story of the one party

26:56

that towered over all the others, a

26:59

party that somehow tied all these strange

27:01

threads of time and history together. After

27:04

the break, I'm gonna tell you the story of

27:06

Trisor. A�

27:25

A B A

27:33

A A

27:41

permit A

27:50

permit A

27:54

permit A

27:58

permit A in

28:00

just two capsules a day. I

28:02

am someone who is very concerned with

28:04

my skin health and digestion, weirdly. I've

28:07

been trying to do a better job of taking

28:09

care of my body at baby steps. Your

28:11

gut is a central hub for various pathways

28:13

through the body, and a healthy gut microbiome

28:15

means benefits for digestion, skin health, heart health,

28:18

your immune system, and much more. Probiotics

28:21

and prebiotics work best when used consistently like other

28:23

routine health habits, like getting in your daily walk

28:25

or eating enough fruits and veggies. Stay

28:28

consistent to see benefits. Seed

28:30

subscription service easily builds DS1 into your

28:32

routine. Support your gut

28:34

this summer with Seed's DS1 daily symbiotic.

28:37

Go to seed.com/search and use code 25 search

28:39

to get 25% off your first month. That's

28:43

25% off your first month

28:45

of Seed's DS1 daily symbiotic at

28:48

seed.com/search, code 25 search. Temp

28:51

check. What kind of summer are we having

28:53

this year? A family road trip summer? A

28:55

beach bum summer? Or a wake me when

28:57

the sun sets summer? With Instacart, choose your

29:00

own adventure and skip the shopping side quests.

29:02

Where available, you can get ice cream delivered

29:04

to your hotel, sunscreen to the pool, or

29:06

cold brew to your bed. Well, door in

29:08

as fast as 30 minutes. Wherever you find

29:11

yourself this summer, you can get the goods.

29:13

Download Instacart for free delivery on your first

29:15

three orders. Offer valid for a limited time.

29:17

Minimum $10 per order excludes restaurants. Additional terms

29:20

and fees apply. Act

29:31

3. The Vault. In

29:36

the 1910s, before the Nazis took over, the

29:39

biggest department store in Europe was a store

29:41

called Vertheim. Founded by

29:43

George Vertheim, a Jewish man, his

29:45

chain's flagship store was the one in Berlin.

29:48

There's photos of it from before the destruction. It's

29:50

worth looking them up. Honestly, store

29:52

doesn't really describe it. Usually

29:55

it's a cathedral, featuring an

29:57

enormous light-filled atrium, beautiful

29:59

frescoes, 83 elevators

30:01

somehow? In

30:03

1933, the Nazis start picketing the store.

30:05

There's a photo of them standing outside

30:07

holding their signs. Don't buy from Jews.

30:11

Wertheim is forced to hand his store

30:13

over to non-Jewish Germans. He

30:15

dies of pneumonia in 1939. The store itself

30:17

is destroyed a few years later by Allied

30:19

bombs. What's left is

30:22

raised to make more room for the

30:24

wall. The former Wertheim location, unfortunately, falls

30:26

in the death strip. In

30:29

the end, all that's left, some rubble

30:31

and the old vault that was beneath the store.

30:34

It's like every horrible decision Germany made

30:37

for 50 years, they also

30:39

made on this one building, Wertheim.

30:43

And then the wall falls. Sven

30:45

von Tüllen, the DJ techno-historian, picks up

30:47

the story of Wertheim here. During

30:50

the war, the building was destroyed,

30:54

but the wall was still there. And

30:57

then on top of the wall was like just a

31:00

kind of small bungalow

31:03

shack, whatever you want to call it. And

31:06

it was situated right at the

31:08

former death strip. This

31:10

whole area, there was nothing.

31:14

It was only like

31:16

debris, sand. It

31:20

was empty. So when

31:22

they found the place

31:24

by chance, Johnny Stiller from the east

31:26

and Achim Kolberger and Dimitri Hegeman from

31:28

West Berlin, they were driving around like

31:31

we want to open a club in

31:33

East Berlin. And basically

31:36

by chance saw this

31:38

shack. It's like, man, what's

31:40

that? So they

31:42

parked their car, went in,

31:45

and the door was open. They

31:48

kind of looked around and didn't look

31:50

so special. But then they found this

31:52

like door, like where does

31:54

this door lead? And then they opened the door and

31:56

then it was just like dark, wet

31:58

stairs going down. down into the basement

32:01

and they were like, huh, okay. And

32:05

so they had their lighters went down

32:07

around the corner and then they suddenly

32:09

stood in front of these, like

32:12

in a prison, like rusty

32:14

steel bars and

32:16

like a big vault

32:18

steel door. And

32:21

they were like, what is this? And

32:23

they all knew it was empty

32:26

for at least 30

32:31

years. There

32:34

was nothing. They basically, the air they would

32:36

breathe, like when they went down, it was

32:38

like kind of old. They

32:41

all said it was kind of like a spiritual

32:44

experience. They said

32:46

they, when they got out, they didn't talk. They

32:48

didn't talk for like half an

32:50

hour because they were like completely like in this

32:53

mixture of in awe, in shock.

32:56

They all knew this is it. This is

32:58

a place. This

33:02

place would become the site of a club called

33:04

Tresor, German for vault, the

33:06

jewel of the city's new techno scene, years

33:09

before that title was seized by Berghain. Tresor,

33:12

a nightclub, but also a portal between

33:15

Berlin and Detroit. One of

33:17

the men in the car that day, Demetri Hegemon

33:19

had already been flying to America, even signing some

33:22

Detroit DJs to his label, getting their music into

33:24

his West Berlin club before the wall fell. But

33:28

now Tresor would be where

33:30

Detroiters like Derek May, Jeff Mills, Juan

33:32

Atkins, could now fly out and spin

33:34

techno records for ecstatic Germans, sometimes quite

33:37

literally ecstatic, MDMA, a large part of

33:39

the scene at the time. These

33:42

American DJs were finding that the techno they made

33:44

at home meant something else here

33:46

in Germany. This

33:49

place that had been so stuck in its

33:51

own history loved this music, whose power lay

33:53

in how it looped. It

33:55

looped in a way that sounded to some

33:57

people meaningless, but to others deeply meaningful. The

34:00

music looped. Sometimes the stories about it

34:02

did too. One

34:04

of the Germans converted to techno in the sweaty

34:07

dungeon of Trisor, Gizina Cuna. Although

34:10

before Gizina loved electronic music, she actually

34:12

hated it. Her

34:15

association with dance music was this cloying, repetitive,

34:17

syrupy stuff that was sludging out of Europe

34:19

in the 1990s. But

34:22

then a friend of hers told her that

34:24

there were these strange new underground clubs populating

34:26

the empty parts of the city, and he

34:28

invited her to come explore them. My best

34:31

friend, Martin, who is such

34:33

a soul in all kinds of ways,

34:35

he started taking me to those places.

34:37

And one was Trisor. Trisor

34:40

was a turning point for Sven von Toulen, too,

34:43

the site of his conversion. Do you remember

34:45

just the first time you went to Trisor? Yeah,

34:47

yeah, yeah, I remember the first time I went

34:49

to Trisor. I went right down

34:52

the basement. downstairs was

34:54

super interesting with the old compartments

34:57

and the very famous style

35:01

guitar here. What would

35:03

you have in a prison? What's it called?

35:05

The steel bars, which looked

35:07

like a cell kind of thing. It

35:11

was full of fog and

35:14

the strobe was going off. And you walked

35:16

in there and there was the techno

35:18

floor, that was the Trisor floor where

35:20

techno was played. And I was standing

35:22

on the floor there and looking

35:25

around me because I felt a bit

35:27

uncomfortable because that was loud

35:29

and strobe lightening,

35:31

always a bit weird for my eyes.

35:33

And then it became all dark. And

35:36

I couldn't see anything. And

35:38

the next thing I know, I just fell

35:40

because there was like a speaker on the

35:42

ground. And I was like, oh, and then

35:44

I went to the wall kind of like,

35:47

where's the wall? Where am I? And it

35:50

took me a little bit to adjust.

35:54

And I felt something wet dripping on my

35:56

nose and I'm just like, looked up, couldn't

35:58

really see, but then there's straw was

36:00

started. I'm like, oh, that's like

36:02

sweat from the ceiling. That's

36:05

very interesting. And then the kick

36:07

drum kicked in. So

36:14

like pure bass in

36:17

my stomach and I felt in my

36:19

stomach and that was such an amazing

36:21

feeling. Like seriously, I was standing there

36:23

a bit like I had an epiphany

36:25

or maybe Jesus came to me. I

36:27

was like, oh, I understand.

36:29

I looked at my eyes and

36:31

I'm like, I understand. No. Okay.

36:33

And I didn't drink or anything

36:35

back then. I was pure, pure

36:37

energy of the music. Yeah,

36:49

I'll never forget that. Funnily enough, I kind

36:51

of started my DJing at Trissot

36:54

as well because a friend of mine,

36:57

she was cleaning Trissot at the time

37:00

and I didn't have turntables yet. So

37:02

she was like, you know what, just come over

37:04

while I clean. So I was

37:07

there quite

37:10

often on Saturday, Sunday

37:12

afternoons, basically playing and

37:14

cleaning. Okay.

37:16

It's also, it's so, when, when

37:18

like I've heard this week, we've spoken

37:20

to people and like, I've

37:23

thought, like I was aware

37:25

of the Bro and Woffel as a historical

37:27

event. I had not spent that much time

37:30

really like thinking about the emotional reality of

37:32

it and the strangeness of its existence and

37:34

the strangeness of its end. And

37:36

there's something, the way you talk about

37:38

that, it's a combination of

37:40

like, it's so beautiful, like as an expression of

37:43

like human freedom and joy. And

37:45

so strange, like it's so strange to

37:47

me that there would be a city

37:50

divided where two different

37:52

economic models were in competition with each other,

37:54

where people had to live these like very

37:56

constrained lives. And that when you set those

37:58

people free, it turns out the thing that

38:00

they're going to do is

38:03

have computers make music for

38:06

them and shake their asses

38:08

in like this dungeon-y, like

38:11

bombed-out buildings. It's so strange. Yeah,

38:15

I mean, it's, you cannot make

38:17

it up in a way. It

38:19

just kind of coincided perfectly. There

38:21

was this whole optimism, you

38:24

know, like the end of the Cold

38:26

War, the future is bright, like, oh,

38:28

we had impending nuclear war, like all

38:30

of that was like, oh, now it's

38:32

gone. And then you have all these

38:34

possibilities suddenly. You have the spaces, you

38:36

have zero economic pressure. You didn't have,

38:39

you didn't pay taxes. You

38:41

didn't do anything. You just,

38:43

you just did, right? It

38:45

felt like an exorcism for a lot

38:47

of Germans, like the exorcism of the

38:51

Second World War, Nazi Germany,

38:53

the separation, all of

38:55

that. Even I have trouble sometimes

38:58

finding words for the history I

39:00

have within my body and having

39:02

something like techno where everyone comes

39:04

together and people with no agenda

39:06

on both sides. There were still,

39:08

you know, conflicts and all that,

39:10

but overall, whereas in

39:13

the rest of German society, a lot of shit

39:15

went down, a lot of infighting, you know, and

39:17

a lot of like blame going back and forth

39:19

between East and West and all of that. But

39:22

it was really wasn't an issue

39:25

in the club scene at all. It didn't

39:27

matter if you're from the East or West.

39:29

It was like reunification first started on the

39:32

dance floor. For

39:38

Sven, Trisor is where the new city began,

39:40

where he learns to love techno music, where

39:43

he found a path for his life in

39:45

a former vault where sweat and chunks of

39:47

plaster routinely dripped from the ceiling into people's

39:49

drinks. And this was the scene

39:52

that would over the years draw an international crowd. People

39:54

from all over the world who had no

39:57

real feelings about a unified Germany or the scars

39:59

of the cold. but who could

40:01

recognize a good party and who wanted to join

40:03

one. Tresor would lose

40:05

its original location. A lot of those early

40:07

clubs would disappear. At some

40:09

point, the egalitarian anyone-can-join-the-party vibe

40:12

would fade, replaced with

40:14

something more exclusive. A

40:16

new, intimidating club, which drew foreigners, even

40:19

ones who didn't know very much about tech now, but

40:21

who had just heard there was a room that was

40:23

very hard to enter, a room they

40:26

now wanted to try to get into. Berghain.

40:29

Act Four. Portraits.

40:33

It's still Wednesday afternoon. Our

40:36

stroll with Gazina, the DJ and

40:38

radio reporter, continues. She's about to

40:40

show us Berghain's outside, the castle's

40:42

exterior. We leave the park

40:44

and its remnants of the old Berlin Wall, and we

40:47

walk towards our destination just a few minutes away. We're

40:49

gonna get there from the side, which

40:52

isn't maybe as cinematic as we thought it would

40:54

be. Maybe as...

40:58

Cinematic? Yeah, bombastic, but I think you

41:00

still get the gist of it. Okay.

41:03

You can already see. Is that it?

41:05

Yeah, you can already see part of

41:07

Berghain there. Oh, it's enormous. It's huge.

41:09

Like, seriously, it's so big. Berghain

41:12

takes me by surprise somehow. We're

41:15

walking down a side street when suddenly the

41:17

top of this massive building appears in the

41:19

distance. It doesn't

41:21

look like a power plant. It's

41:23

palatial, with double-height, skinny rectangular windows.

41:26

Honestly, to my eye, it looks like

41:28

an industrial version of Buckingham Palace, maybe

41:31

one occupied by squatters. For

41:33

Gazina, if Trazor was the site of her

41:36

techno conversion, Berghain is the

41:38

church she now visits most regularly. Can

41:41

you tell me the first time you went to Berghain? Yes

41:44

and no, because when I start telling those

41:46

stories to my younger friends,

41:48

when they ask you, what was your first time

41:50

to Berghain? How long? That's what they ask. No,

41:53

no. They're like, how long have you been coming

41:55

here? This is the question I got. I'm like,

41:57

you know what? I've

41:59

been going. to Osgood. This is

42:02

how long I've been coming here.

42:04

And this is where I say

42:06

grandma is starting to tell stories

42:08

from before the war. It's okay

42:10

grandma, let's get you to bed. So my first

42:15

Birken experience was not Birken, it was Osgood.

42:17

Which is the predecessor to Birken. Exactly.

42:21

Gesine said she went there to see

42:23

one of her friends DJ. The line

42:25

was short back then. But Sven Markeart

42:27

was already manning the door. Two decades

42:29

younger, his reputation already firmly established. When

42:33

Osgood morphed into Birken, it kept

42:35

the same values. Secrecy and privacy

42:37

for its guests. Walking

42:39

toward the club, Gesine explains that even today,

42:41

when you enter, your phone is taken so

42:44

its camera lens can be covered. No

42:46

photos, so you get your stickers on. Can't

42:49

take any pictures in there. It doesn't

42:51

matter what kind of performance or

42:53

whatever you're going, it's always stickers.

42:56

Here look. Oh

42:58

what's that? There's a little green sticker on the ground.

43:00

Yeah well this is. Is that a Birken sticker? Yes,

43:02

is this. Yes. Oh it goes right over

43:04

the lens. Those are

43:07

like mostly neon colored and you see there's a

43:09

yellow one. Yeah there's a bunch. There's an

43:11

orange one. There's Birken shrapnel just a couple

43:13

blocks away. Yeah. We

43:15

pass through a small park, a former

43:17

train lot, concrete and graffiti covered benches.

43:20

We pop around a corner and now Sruthi, Gesine and

43:23

I are standing by what seems to be the

43:25

side of Birken. I noticed this

43:27

unassuming metal door that looks like a service

43:29

entrance maybe. So the main line just goes

43:31

this way and then to the left. No no this

43:33

is the door. This is

43:35

the main door of Birken. We're here

43:37

already. 4 30 pm

43:39

on a Wednesday. The club is closed. No one's

43:41

outside. A gray door

43:43

sealed tight and graffitied. This

43:46

will be where the line ends on Klubnacht. In

43:48

front of the door a series of waist

43:51

high metal gates to corral that line and

43:53

overlooking it all I noticed two

43:55

prominent white security cameras. The

43:58

scene does not feel like what you'd see outside of a night It

44:00

feels like what you'd see in front of a tiny patch

44:03

of the Berlin Wall. High

44:05

security. I have a question

44:07

actually. So is there a

44:09

way to sneak in, i.e. has

44:12

anyone snuck into Percocut? Not

44:15

that I know of. Because, I

44:17

mean, look at it. You have barbed wire,

44:19

you have cameras there at

44:21

the door. Gazina says, highly

44:23

unlikely. Just given how

44:25

tight the security is here, the sheer number of

44:27

people who work the door. But

44:30

she also uses the opportunity to point out, people

44:33

sort of misunderstand these bouncers, these

44:35

doorman, these gatekeepers. Everyone obsesses over

44:37

and sometimes reviles. Let's

44:40

talk about any bouncer in

44:42

the city, not the place that

44:44

we're standing dead away from. I

44:46

know it's a very delicate

44:49

topic, very delicate, because you select.

44:52

And selecting people has

44:55

a very bad ring-shirt, very bad. Also,

45:00

the selector, calling it a selector, has a

45:02

very Nazi ring-shirt as well. I've always thought

45:04

that, yes. So

45:07

I don't want to say that term because

45:10

it's nasty. And given our history,

45:12

even worse. The

45:15

thing is, which makes

45:17

it so delicate, is that they decide

45:20

about you within milliseconds.

45:22

Not even seconds, but

45:25

less than that. In

45:27

a very, very short amount of time. They

45:29

look at you, they check you

45:32

out, and then decide, do

45:35

you fit tonight? Not just in general, do

45:37

you fit tonight or not? Then they might

45:39

ask questions. Hey, where

45:41

are you coming from? How old are you?

45:43

Who's playing? They ask a lot, like, who's

45:45

playing tonight? It's to

45:47

see if they're really into the music. But

45:50

they really decide how the party's going to

45:52

turn out. The thing

45:54

is, in my club life, I kind

45:56

of grew up with bouncers. It's a

45:58

weird thing to see. but I

46:01

always felt like every part of the club is

46:03

very important, not only the DJ, and I was

46:05

always very fond of the bouncers. I

46:07

always became friends with them, different

46:09

clubs in the city, and

46:12

stood there with them

46:14

and realised how

46:17

much trouble they have to go through, like

46:19

how much hate they get. And that's

46:22

why they also have to be

46:24

a bit more strict and kind of the

46:27

feel of being intimidating. But

46:30

usually they're not, and usually very, very important.

46:32

A good bouncer is a very smart person,

46:35

by the way. It's not a dumb,

46:37

whatever broad person that was just casted

46:39

out of the gym with big muscles.

46:42

No, not at all. The best bouncers are

46:45

super smart people. Standing here doesn't

46:47

look so hard. Does the

46:49

line go much, much farther back? It's just

46:51

going to lead the way to where the

46:53

line sometimes goes to. Gizina

46:56

walks us away from the door,

46:58

away from Burghain. We're now

47:00

walking down a concrete path. We

47:03

pass by a closed imbus, a German snack shop, whose

47:06

entire business seems to be selling food

47:08

to Burghain's line supplicants. We

47:11

walk, and we walk, this currently

47:13

empty path that in a few nights will

47:15

be filled with pilgrims. We

47:17

walk to the end of the road, and

47:20

then we turn around and behold the grandest

47:22

view of Castle Burghain. I

47:24

imagine for a moment the ghosts of Chris

47:26

and Dan making minor dance movements here, wondering

47:29

if the club can perceive them and, if

47:31

so, what it's thinking. So if

47:33

you were here, how many would it be, like a couple of

47:35

hours? Yeah, probably. I

47:38

mean, the longest my

47:40

husband waited with his friends was seven

47:42

hours. Seven hours? That

47:45

was the day where two guys got

47:47

rejected, and he, with his good

47:49

friend, got in. And so they

47:51

waited seven hours in line, half of their

47:53

party was rejected, and he was

47:55

like, I'm so sorry, I'll see you tomorrow? Well,

47:59

yeah. when

50:00

we say goodbye to Gazina and leave Friedrichstein. I'm

50:03

still jet lagged and a little confused. I eat

50:05

a Donor Kebab at dinner with some American friends.

50:08

They want to hit the bars. I try, but

50:10

I find myself falling asleep into a gin and

50:12

tonic. I tell myself, it's the

50:14

first night, there will be others. I

50:17

say goodbye, and my friends forge on in search of

50:19

an adventure, which for them

50:21

does not quite work out. What

50:23

happens is they go from bar to bar,

50:26

but then somewhat randomly end up outside the

50:28

KitKat club, a very famous fetish

50:30

club where the dress code runs

50:32

towards leather gear or else basically

50:34

nothing. My friends show

50:36

up at the door dressed in comfortable

50:38

American tech worker fleeces. The

50:41

bouncer is horrified. He

50:43

looks at them and says, no,

50:45

no, this is impossible. If

50:48

you're a fetish club, please go home,

50:50

read our website. The

50:52

Americans seem to find this experience completely entertaining,

50:54

a good story to take home. Through

50:57

all of this, I am asleep. Despite

51:00

visions of Berghain Dormann's Ben Marquardt,

51:03

I have no nightmares. You

51:28

know how to book flights and hotels.

51:31

All you're missing is a tool to

51:33

plan the travel experiences you'll have once

51:35

you arrive. That's why you need Viator.

51:37

Book guided tours, activities, excursions, and more

51:39

in one place to make your trip

51:41

truly unforgettable. Viator has over 300,000 travel

51:43

experiences to choose from. Everything

51:47

from simple tours to extreme adventures

51:49

and all the niche interesting stuff

51:51

in between. So you can plan

51:54

something that everyone you're traveling with

51:56

will enjoy. Real traveler

51:58

reviews give you inside scoop from. Speak

52:22

and understand a new language can be

52:24

an invaluable tool when traveling, meeting new

52:27

friends, or just even to master new

52:29

skill. But it's not always simple when

52:31

you're bogged down by textbooks and structure

52:33

classes. That's why so many

52:35

people trust Rosetta Stone. Rosetta Stone is

52:37

the most trusted language learning program available

52:39

on desktop or as an app. It

52:42

truly immerses you in the language you want

52:44

to learn, like Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese,

52:46

and more. You won't just be studying

52:48

English translations. The Rosetta Stone intuitive process

52:50

helps you pick up a language. considered

58:00

an intangible cultural heritage site. But

58:02

still, Philip says as a lawyer,

58:05

this UNESCO designation will be useful

58:08

ammunition in his ongoing battles. Because

58:11

when you have to outweigh the

58:13

interests between neighbors and club owners,

58:16

it will be a bit easier to

58:18

get the permits with this decision. And

58:21

it's a way of saying like basically all of these

58:23

things amount to the same thing, which is like the

58:26

city is constantly having to make choices about

58:29

whether to favor the needs of a resident

58:31

or a business. And what

58:34

something like this does is it lets culture make

58:36

its argument as well to say like, this might

58:38

inconvenience a neighbor in this way, or this might

58:40

prevent this other business from being here, but we

58:43

are deciding to preserve our culture. Exactly.

58:46

That UNESCO designation may

58:49

be a sign that Berlin's nightlife has won

58:51

its multi decade war for legitimacy, a war

58:53

which Philip played a role in. Philip had

58:56

been there in the 2000s, when

58:58

this new generation of Berlin clubs had

59:00

to fight against being wiped out by

59:02

a proposed new tax designation. This

59:05

was the story I'd heard in broad strokes before from

59:08

Lutz Leichsenring in the last episode, but I

59:10

wanted to hear it from Philip, who'd actually

59:12

helped put the club's legal argument together. A

59:15

refresher, just in case you need it, in

59:18

the early 2000s, underground techno clubs in

59:20

Berlin had been taxed mostly as concert

59:22

venues, which pay pretty low taxes to

59:24

the city. The tax authorities

59:26

wanted to start charging the clubs at

59:28

entertainment rates to treat them all like garden

59:31

variety disco tax, which would mean almost 20%

59:33

of all the club's

59:36

earnings went to the city. And

59:38

Bergein and other clubs like it wouldn't just

59:40

owe 20% going forward, they'd

59:42

have to pay those taxes retroactively

59:44

as well. The club

59:46

owners, was it like existential? Like

59:48

were there clubs that were worried that they would go

59:50

out of business that they had to pay this bill? Absolutely.

59:53

Yeah, we're talking about like 100,000 of

59:56

euros would have been like an

59:58

earthquake and it would have been dramatic.

1:00:01

And I think there would have

1:00:03

been some clubs that had to close the doors if

1:00:05

they had to pay back all that money. So

1:00:08

it was existential, absolutely. So

1:00:12

in 2011, Phillips Law Firm starts meeting

1:00:14

with the club commission and certain club

1:00:16

owners, you can't say which ones, but

1:00:18

let's say some key players. They

1:00:21

meet with the tax authorities to make their case.

1:00:23

Bureaucrats and club owners in a

1:00:25

room together hashing it out. I

1:00:28

remember I was at the top

1:00:30

of the building, very

1:00:32

impressive old building. And

1:00:35

we were sitting there with older,

1:00:38

gray haired people that didn't

1:00:40

look like they would go

1:00:43

clubbing. And we sat there

1:00:45

together with the different club

1:00:47

owners. I can say

1:00:49

who was there, but they also tried to

1:00:51

dress up a bit and to

1:00:53

behave seriously in that situation. These

1:00:55

club kids in suits had to

1:00:58

defend the thing they did at

1:01:00

night as meaningful discussion

1:01:02

ensued. And that was

1:01:04

a very funny conversation because you

1:01:07

have to agree on two things

1:01:09

for the reduced taxes. First, it has

1:01:12

to be a concert. So you need

1:01:14

an artist. So we had discussion about

1:01:16

the DJs being artists. How do they

1:01:18

use instruments? What are they doing there?

1:01:21

And the tax authorities was of the

1:01:23

opinion that, no, this is not art.

1:01:25

I mean, you put on a CD

1:01:28

or LP and you just let it play as no

1:01:30

art. So that's the first

1:01:32

point of contention. Is a

1:01:34

DJ an artist? The second point was,

1:01:37

even if they are, is a DJ

1:01:39

set really like a concert? One

1:01:41

way you could define a concert would be fans

1:01:43

pay for tickets and the price of the ticket

1:01:45

is based on how famous the artist is and

1:01:48

how close to the artist the fan gets to

1:01:50

sit. The physical authorities looking

1:01:52

at a techno club did not see that

1:01:54

happening. And physical authorities,

1:01:56

they said, I know we checked it

1:01:58

and you have bars and you drink.

1:02:00

very much and you have low entrance

1:02:03

price, you make much more with drinks.

1:02:05

So this holds against a concert. And

1:02:07

what also holds against is that people

1:02:09

don't know who's playing, who's the DJ.

1:02:12

And the DJ is not like on the

1:02:14

concert on a big stage, he's maybe in

1:02:17

the corner, there's no light and people move

1:02:19

around and they don't really care who's playing

1:02:21

there. And we went

1:02:23

into all this discussion and said, okay, come

1:02:25

on, look, we have lower entrance fees because

1:02:28

we want to provide opportunity for many

1:02:30

people to enjoy club life. But at

1:02:32

the same time, the clubs pay a

1:02:34

lot for the DJs. I mean, they

1:02:36

have resident, they have international DJs, they

1:02:38

are well known. Of course people come

1:02:40

because they want to see these DJs.

1:02:42

They celebrate a DJ. If he's doing

1:02:44

a good job, then they're applauding, they

1:02:46

are cheering. So down for a

1:02:48

second, like these tax authorities

1:02:51

who you're having these conversations with, are

1:02:53

they people who are more used to

1:02:55

like rock shows? Because

1:02:57

if you just think about it, like, is

1:02:59

there any reason why when a rock band

1:03:01

plays, we all stand and watch them strum

1:03:03

a guitar, we could celebrate it by standing

1:03:06

away from the band and dancing. Like it

1:03:08

makes you think about the arbitrariness of how

1:03:10

we celebrate music together in

1:03:12

modern life. It's very strange. Yeah,

1:03:15

it is like a very old

1:03:17

school, maybe Prussian way

1:03:21

of looking at concerts, like

1:03:23

everybody has to sit in a row

1:03:25

and be quiet and do nothing else,

1:03:27

but listen. And I had a good

1:03:29

feeling after this conversation that

1:03:31

we have the better arguments, obviously. Yeah,

1:03:34

but the fiscal authorities

1:03:36

and these people didn't agree. And

1:03:38

instead they went to court. The

1:03:43

club that would fight the fiscal authorities

1:03:45

in court was, of course, Berkein, or

1:03:48

as the Germans call it, the Berkein.

1:03:50

I was very happy that it was

1:03:53

the Berkein, because it is like a

1:03:55

dead, it's still one of

1:03:57

the most famous clubs of German.

1:04:00

and if it wouldn't work here, it wouldn't

1:04:03

work for other clubs. Similar

1:04:05

arguments will be made in open court to the

1:04:07

ones Philip and his team had made behind closed

1:04:09

doors. But here, those arguments

1:04:11

seem to fall in more sympathetic ears. The

1:04:15

court agrees. DJs don't just press play on

1:04:17

CDs. They have synths and mixers and faders.

1:04:19

They change the pitch and the frequency of

1:04:21

their tracks. But

1:04:23

then the tax officials argue, don't

1:04:26

people just go to Bergen and places

1:04:28

like it to get intoxicated? And

1:04:33

here, the club lawyer concedes

1:04:36

the point. Yes, they

1:04:39

do. But he

1:04:41

had a question. Wasn't

1:04:43

intoxication so often the point of listening

1:04:45

to music? The

1:04:48

lawyer's example, what

1:04:50

was the feeling you were meant to have

1:04:53

when listening to a piece by Gustav Mahler?

1:04:55

If not, intoxication. And

1:05:09

if that was true, couldn't

1:05:11

you just as easily feel intoxicated

1:05:14

after hearing a track from planetary

1:05:16

assault systems? September

1:05:23

2016, the verdict is announced. Bergen

1:05:28

wins. The court had

1:05:30

sided with the club kids. Did

1:05:33

people celebrate? Like, did people go out? If

1:05:37

they did, I was not invited. I

1:05:39

don't know. Does

1:05:47

that mean there's a pressure on these clubs to

1:05:50

get to the point where they're not going to be able to get to

1:05:52

the point where they're on these clubs in the wake of these rulings to

1:05:57

behave artistically, whatever that would mean, or

1:05:59

behave culturally? Really, whatever that would mean. Does

1:06:05

it push people towards a kind of

1:06:07

conventions or rules with

1:06:10

an eye towards the tax authority? I

1:06:15

don't think that they changed the program

1:06:17

or the culture, but

1:06:20

what they are doing now is, of course, to

1:06:22

do their paperwork. That

1:06:25

they have scans of their flyers,

1:06:27

and maybe you realize, if

1:06:30

you go out here, they might ask you if

1:06:32

you know who's playing tonight. So

1:06:35

this is also something they do since the discussion

1:06:37

started to

1:06:40

make sure that the people come to the club because of the resident did

1:06:42

and DJ or whatever. This

1:06:45

is a story that I heard all the way in

1:06:47

New York, that if you go to the

1:06:49

door at a place like Berghain, you may be asked who the DJ

1:06:51

is. I'm sure that this was

1:06:54

partly as a result of German tax

1:06:56

law. I love a good

1:06:58

story. That seems crazy. Is

1:07:01

that true? That you can draw a line

1:07:03

from that tax decision to that question? Yeah,

1:07:06

it starts from the discussion with the tax

1:07:08

authorities, I'm sure. Act

1:07:14

6. Technoloups.

1:07:17

The story is about a dutut

1:07:19

sometimes. I

1:07:22

had first heard this story from Lutz. I liked it.

1:07:24

I thought it was funny. And I

1:07:26

guess I understood it as a tale of the club kids

1:07:28

being clever, outmaneuvering the tax people a

1:07:30

bit. Here in Berlin, it settled

1:07:33

on me differently. The conversation

1:07:35

with Philipp happened late in the afternoon. That

1:07:38

night, I had really my first sublime

1:07:40

Berlin dance floor experience. This

1:07:42

tiny spot, no bouncer, it's called

1:07:45

Sussfahr Gestern. Sweet was yesterday. I

1:07:48

don't record here. I don't record in any club. I

1:07:51

don't like to follow the rules of this place that's

1:07:53

so dead set against the casual surveillance we're all used

1:07:55

to at home. But it's

1:07:58

dingy and beautiful here. The dance floor,

1:08:00

like a living room from Alice in

1:08:02

Wonderland, maybe, someone stapled a Persian

1:08:04

rug to the ceiling. The

1:08:07

floor is crowded. People really have all ages. For

1:08:09

some reason, the room has an absurd amount of

1:08:11

couches, but the dancers just

1:08:13

clear all the furniture. I'm told that's

1:08:15

how it happens every week. As

1:08:18

I watched the DJ and the people around the DJ, I

1:08:21

found myself thinking about Philip and the court case

1:08:23

and about what's happening in this room. I

1:08:26

think about Sven von Toulen, the hardcore kid

1:08:28

turned techno DJ. Sven

1:08:31

had told me at one point part of why

1:08:33

he loved techno was the same reason he'd loved punk,

1:08:36

that it was a genre that just did not care

1:08:38

for rock stars. In the

1:08:40

early days, in particular, he'd said the people

1:08:42

dancing at the party were the main attraction.

1:08:45

The DJ conducted them, but the DJ

1:08:47

also kind of disappeared. It

1:08:49

wasn't like a concert where hundreds or

1:08:52

thousands of people stare at one person

1:08:54

in a kind of secular worship. This

1:08:57

was something older, weirder, people

1:09:00

losing themselves, becoming a mass. It's

1:09:03

happening in this room tonight. And

1:09:05

I think maybe this is what

1:09:07

the club kids were trying to say to those tax authorities,

1:09:10

that this was worth defending, valuable,

1:09:13

or at least cultural.

1:09:17

Saturday night comes, the beginning

1:09:20

of Klubnacht at Berghain. Instead

1:09:22

of going there and braving the bouncers, staring

1:09:24

down Sven, I go with

1:09:26

my friends to a different Berlin club, this one sitting

1:09:28

on the banks of the River Spree. The

1:09:31

bouncer there, a stylish woman, asked our group

1:09:33

if we speak German. The German

1:09:35

speakers in our party try to cover, saying we all

1:09:37

do, her eyes fix directly

1:09:39

on my cow-like, uncomprehending American gaze.

1:09:42

And she asks in English, do

1:09:45

you speak German? No, I

1:09:47

confess. She starts laughing. Why

1:09:49

would you lie to me? She lets us all in. Sunday

1:09:53

morning, one final dance party. We

1:09:56

show up at an old public German swimming

1:09:58

area. This is small land. lake outside of

1:10:00

the city. In a shack

1:10:02

on the water, all the windows have been covered

1:10:04

in colored gels. So when the morning light comes

1:10:07

in, it feels like you're inside a cathedral instead

1:10:09

of a lean-to. It's

1:10:11

so crushingly beautiful, so criminally

1:10:13

Instagrammable. One of my American friends

1:10:16

can't resist. He takes out his phone. Immediately,

1:10:18

a German partygoer is on top of him,

1:10:20

reacting the way someone would react if he

1:10:22

took out an actual weapon in an American

1:10:24

nightclub. Stay in the moment, she

1:10:26

yells, or something to that effect. It's

1:10:29

a little aggressive, but the phone is

1:10:31

ultimately holstered. Sunday

1:10:34

afternoon, a few hours later, a text

1:10:36

arrives. Do I want to

1:10:39

see Berghain? A person I'd met this

1:10:41

week. Their friend is DJing today,

1:10:43

so they're going to support them. They

1:10:45

can take me along if my clothes aren't

1:10:47

too bad. I'll still have to

1:10:49

pass a bouncer, but I'll have a real Britliner offering

1:10:51

me a halo. 3

1:10:54

PM, the sun is shining at morning

1:10:56

church-level strength. The line of petitioners outside

1:10:58

Berghain is as long as ever. The

1:11:01

line where Chris and Dan had found themselves, snakes from

1:11:04

the entrance of the club, maybe 100 yards back,

1:11:07

at the front, an open door guarded by two

1:11:09

men. Inside, through the black

1:11:11

rectangle of the door, Sven,

1:11:14

watching a series of security camera

1:11:16

monitors, presumably directing decisions from inside.

1:11:20

I meet my Berliner friend, and we stand near

1:11:22

the famous line. For a very,

1:11:24

very long time, we just watched the

1:11:27

line. It feels tense

1:11:29

and electric to be here observing it, like

1:11:31

I'm breaking a rule. And maybe I

1:11:33

am. A bouncer from the door asks

1:11:35

me, is everything okay? But

1:11:37

I tell him, I'm just watching. And

1:11:40

he nods. That's fine. Like

1:11:42

everything in life, the line is not what I expected

1:11:44

to be. A

1:11:47

woman in her 50s dressed for the airport, she's

1:11:50

waved in. A Middle

1:11:52

Eastern guy in his 30s alone,

1:11:54

wearing a functional hiker's backpack, he's

1:11:57

also in. Two young Euro

1:11:59

trash, generally. dressed for Ibiza, they

1:12:02

get the not tonight. Most

1:12:04

people today, though, are getting waved in. The

1:12:06

ones who don't, they walk away looking like they somehow

1:12:09

knew before they heard the words. The

1:12:11

whole thing, it feels like watching something that's

1:12:13

already happened, happen. Like the divorce

1:12:16

papers or the marriage license that shows up in the

1:12:18

mail a year later. Eventually,

1:12:20

my friend takes me to the shorter line that

1:12:23

they usually wait in, the list for regulars. It's

1:12:26

much faster than the main one. I

1:12:28

wait as people shuffle to the front for the

1:12:30

bouncer's inspection. It's

1:12:33

my turn now. I stand in

1:12:35

front of a bouncer, Natsven, one of his

1:12:37

underdormen. I stand in

1:12:39

front of the bouncer, and the bouncer looks at me,

1:12:41

his face blank, blank like an ubus.

1:12:45

My brain fills with a question that I realize

1:12:47

always hums in the background. But

1:12:49

now, it's brighter and more intense than I've

1:12:51

ever heard it. It's almost deafening. Do

1:12:54

I belong? I

1:12:57

wait to find out. Search

1:14:07

Engine is a presentation of Odyssey and Jigsaw

1:14:10

Productions. It was created by me, PJ Vogt,

1:14:12

and Truthi Pinnimineni. And it was produced by

1:14:14

Garrett Graham and Noah John. Fact-checking

1:14:16

this week by Claire Hyman. Theme,

1:14:19

original composition, and mixing by Armin Bazarian.

1:14:22

If you enjoyed this story, or if any

1:14:24

of our stories this season made you laugh,

1:14:26

or think, or gave you something to talk

1:14:28

about, please consider supporting our show. You can

1:14:30

do it at searchengine.show. It'll

1:14:32

help us plan our second season, which we are already

1:14:34

at work on. Our

1:14:36

executive producers are Jen-Aweis Berman and Leah

1:14:39

Reis-Dennis. Thank you to everyone

1:14:41

in the Koodle Moodle, and to Laura Somme

1:14:43

and Kelph Asane. Thanks

1:14:45

also to the labels, Ostko, Ton, and Trisor, for

1:14:47

letting us dip into their catalogs. We've

1:14:50

distilled our reading and homework into

1:14:52

a single techno playlist. I

1:14:54

will link to that playlist in my newsletter, which

1:14:56

you can also sign up for at searchengine.show. Thanks

1:15:00

to the team at Jigsaw, Alex Gibney,

1:15:02

Rich Perillo, and John Schmidt. And

1:15:05

to the team at Odyssey, JD Crowley,

1:15:07

Rob Miranda, Craig Cox, Eric Donnelly, Kate

1:15:09

Hutchinson, Matt Casey, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis,

1:15:11

Kurt Courtney, and Hilary Schupp. Our

1:15:14

agent is Oren Rosenbaum at UTA. Follow

1:15:17

and listen to Search Engine for free on

1:15:19

the Odyssey app, or wherever you get your

1:15:22

podcasts. Thanks for listening.

1:15:24

Take care. Bye.

1:16:00

TuneIn is the audio platform with something for everyone. News.

1:16:12

In order to secure convictions in a

1:16:14

court of law, it is essential that

1:16:16

we conclusively... Sports. The clock

1:16:18

at four. Donchich. The step back

1:16:21

three. Music. And even podcasts.

1:16:23

Whatever you choose to do. Whatever

1:16:25

you love, hear it

1:16:27

right here. On

1:16:32

TuneIn. Go to tunein.com. Or, download

1:16:34

the TuneIn app to start listening.