Society

When Berliners voted to protect Tempelhofer Feld as a public park in 2014, it was seen as a key success for direct democracy.

In the interest of reducing food waste, a Berlin initiative is connecting a system of publicly accessible fridges where people can safely drop off their leftovers in order to feed more hungry mouths.

According to a recent UNICEF report children now make up more than half of the world’s refugee population.

Once dubbed the “mother of all airports”, Tempelhof Airport is now welcoming refugees into its bosom.

“Punctual. Exact. Productive. Closed off. Careful. Inflexible. Humorless.” And some “Goethe” and “Einstein” thrown in for good measure.

I spent last Wednesday serving lunch to refugees with the volunteer group Moabit Hilft. The unmistakable sound of chanting protestors boomed towards us from the main street while my friend Lisa and I carted our tray of minestrone soups and schrippen around the park.

In Berlin they are especially visible on the U-Bahn. They wait for the subway doors to close before they address the car with a rehearsed speech: “Excuse the interruption, I am one of Berlin's annoying homeless people...”.

Understanding Schwabenhass, gentrification, and the East-West divide.