STB Newsletter 2026 #2

Dear friends and valued subscribers,

A short mail to let you know we have published a new piece on Kreuzberg’s Oranienstraße, a fascinating street that dates back to the 1700s when it was partly settled by French Huguenot immigrants. Expanded in the middle of the nineteenth century, it became a bustling commercial avenue within what was then known as Luisenstadt, with the section around Moritzplatz growing into a major culture and entertainment district by the early twentieth century.

Famous Oranienstraße residents include composer Paul Lincke, computer whizz Konrad Zuse and theatre director Erwin Piscator—and a largely unknown (and unsung) hero named Hertha Kerp (Abre numa nova janela), who took incredible risks to hide resistance fighter Ludwig von Hammerstein following his involvement in the July 20 plot (Abre numa nova janela) to assassinate Hitler, as well as a Jewish woman during the war.

The postwar period turned Luisenstadt into the counterculture enclave we now know more familiarly as SO36, where immigrant guestworkers rubbed shoulders with squatters, artists and punks. Despite post-reunification gentrification, this spiky history can still be discerned in venues like the eponymous SO36 club, bars such as Roses and Franken, and the Coretex record shop—which have managed to survived amidst the street’s more recent, swankier openings such as Ora, Hotel Orania, Luzia and Voo Store.

You can read more about it all here (Abre numa nova janela).

In case you missed them, we also had articles this year on Berlin’s libraries (Abre numa nova janela) (by Laney Lenox), the work of sculptor Hans Uhlmann in the Hansaviertel (Abre numa nova janela) (by Gigi Tabatadze) and the art and life of Käthe Kollwitz (Abre numa nova janela). We have upcoming features planned on photographer Willy Römer, the city’s most architecturally interesting music venues, a profile of Wilhelmstrasse, and more.

I have also been busy developing a new cultural-historical tour of Friedrichshain that looks more closely at its industrial heritage (including the newly-beleaguered Raw-Gelände), the GDR years and the squat scene, as well as a seperate, but related, tour of Karl-Marx Allee. I have one or two other ideas lined up too—including perhaps Oranienstraße/East Kreuzberg. I will put the info for these tours online soon but if you are in Berlin—or planning to visit—and would like to try any of them, please just drop me a line.

That’s all for now. Sincere thanks again for your support, without which this project would not be posssible.

Paul