Last week we  talked about the long-vanished cemetery railway line which connected Berlin-Wannsee with Germany's second largest burial site, Berlin's Südwestfriedhof Stahnsdorf. This episode remains in the realm of both the dead and the ra...

What do large cities do when they run out of space to bury their dead? They go beyond their limits. Traditionally all large European cities like Paris, Vienna or London eventually established new burial sites further and further from their cent...

Many old Berlin flats in the typical 19th century apartment buildings are equipped with a curious feature: a small storage space under the ceiling, usually installed in the bathroom, the kitchen or the corridor. What makes these so curious is n...

The 1920s in Berlin were an incredible time, full both of misery and wonder. It was the time which brought both the worst and the best in people who lived there. And sometimes it helped pave way for genius. Or future classics.Episode 5 ...

We all know how annoying air traffic can be these days for those who experience it from the ground - not only is it a time-bomb just waiting to make our environment  go belly-up but it can also bring any conversation to a halt, if said con...

In April 1945, as the Red Army was closing its grip on Berlin, coming closer and closer to Hitler's last refuge under the Chancellery gardens, one of his favourite pilots managed to fly a small aeroplane into the burning capital and land it nea...

In the 1920s elegant Berliners fell in love with a scent called "Treffpunkt 8 Uhr" (Rendezvous at 8PM). Made by a legendary local manufacture Schwarzlose - which still exists today - it stood for the Exciting and the Romantic but also ...

When in April 1893 German Empire introduced new time measuring system based the Greenwich meridian, Berlin lost something big for good. It lost its own time. Here is the story behind it.Main theme for the podcast: “Assembl...

For anyone interested in history, Berlin is your playground. From old Slavic and Germanic tribes through Crusaders, alchemists and feuding houses to Prussian expansion, Emperors and world wars, including the Cold one. But next to big ev...