It’s always the same. You live in a city where there’s so much to do, and your list of things you want to see over the next few years actually gets longer every day. But last weekend, we managed once again to leave the dirty dishes for a bit, hand the kids over to the babysitter, and hop on our bikes. Because we wanted to learn a little more about Franz Biberkopf. Who’s that? The main character of the book that journalist Antoine Verbij is holding up here: *Berlin Alexanderplatz*. (And we were going to get some meatballs to go with it, so yeah, that’s definitely worth a little bike ride.)
I’ve never read it, but when the Berlin Evenings organized a bike tour past the sites from Biberkopf, I wanted to join. Simply because we don’t do that nearly often enough. And because I’ve wanted to read the book a hundred times over.
Mr. Biberkopf is released from prison and then boards a tram in a teeming Berlin. It’s 1929, a fascinating time in this city. The “Golden Twenties,” with an exuberant and free-spirited theater, literary, and nightlife scene, but also marked by a deep, deep global economic crisis that was already breathing down Berlin’s neck. And the first anti-Semitic slogans were already starting to appear.
The man who knows much more about this is the gentleman with the beard and glasses in the lower left, here on Münzstraße. Dirk Wissen is a librarian; he was the library director in Frankfurt (Oder) for many years and has a particular fascination with the writer Alfred Döblin. He joined us on the bike ride, read passages from the book aloud, and talked about the spirit of the times for Franz and Alfred.
And he also knows what Alexanderplatz looked like back then. A real square, with tram lines crisscrossing it; Galeria Kaufhof was called “Tietz,” and on the other side of the tracks stood “Wertheim,” now a large movie theater. Where teenagers now stock up on cheap, rubber-smelling accessories at Primark, there used to be a church—the Georgenkirche, long since gone. Only the building to the right of the Fernsehturm already existed back then: the Berolinahaus. The U-Bahn was just being built. And that’s a bit like today: After all, the U5 is being extended from here all the way to Hauptbahnhof, so it will still be a construction site for years to come.
The book may be called *Berlin Alexanderplatz*—but in a moment of madness, Dirk Wissen counted all the streets mentioned in the book (that’s what librarians do, he said with a smile) and realized that the title should actually have been *Berlin Rosenthaler Platz*. The publisher probably didn’t approve of that—after all, hardly anyone knew that square back then.
Rain, but I kept cycling. On to the Schlachthof (where the sun immediately broke through). Berlin has so many buildings and streets, but sometimes you turn a single corner and suddenly there’s a huge grassy field right in front of you—a place you could cycle past every day without ever seeing it, because to spot it, you’d have to take just the wrong turn.
I’d never taken a wrong turn here before. Now, all you really see is the skeleton of one of the old halls; next to it is the Stadler bike shop, located in the former cattle auction hall.
In the late 19th century, cows, pigs, and chickens were traded here. Many were brought in alive and came out slaughtered—to feed the four million hungry Berliners. The total area spans nearly 5 hectares; since then, many homes and shops have sprung up here. (You can read more here, via a really cool interactive map.) A fascinatingly large field where we lingered for a while and where many children were playing soccer or flying kites.
Franz Biberkopf, of course, was here as well. And its creator—Alfred—describes in the book, in minute and detailed fashion, how the animals were slaughtered. (Fortunately, we didn’t eat any Buletten—Berlin meatballs—here yet; we saved that for the end).
From the Schlachthof, it’s just a very short bike ride to Frankfurter Allee, not only the starting point of the GDR’s grand boulevard (Karl-Marx-Allee), but also the place where Alfred Döblin had his medical practice, near the former movie theater and now sort-of-event-hall Kosmos. That man didn’t just write books; he mainly treated sick people. The real reason we stopped here: beer and Buletten at Dirk’s place.
Okay, we also got to see clips from two films—the 1930 version and the 1980 version—and they were beautifully narrated by the German voice of Friko cheese. But the Buletten were definitely the highlight. With beer.
We had to be careful with the mustard: right next to it was the very first edition of the book (the latest Dutch edition now has the same beautiful cover again). And you can’t just go spilling stuff on that (I think we managed to keep it intact). We were also given some homework: to look up on which page the Buletten actually appear, because Dirk and Antoine are currently assuming that Franz Biberkopf loved them best, but they didn’t provide any proof.
It was a lovely trip. And I’m going to look into that homework. Because I’m finally going to read the book.
I think.
