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The Needle: Berlin

The Needle: Berlin

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Berlin History

Berlin History 

Nazi Resistors: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Zionskirche

04/11/201223/06/2018 Joseph Pearson

At the age of 25, in 1931, Dietrich Bonhoeffer became the vicar of the Protestant Zionskirche in Berlin Mitte. What

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Berlin History 

Musing about Nazi Exiles in Mexikoplatz Station

27/04/201223/06/2018 Joseph Pearson

‘All the streets around here were named after South American countries, so that when their soldiering grandfathers return from exile,

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Berlin History 

Hidden Mid-Century Modernism at the Haus der Kulturen

08/02/201223/06/2018 Joseph Pearson

I am about to visit one of Berlin’s most beautiful, undiscovered and under-appreciated interiors. Take the 100 bus through the

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Berlin History 

After the Nazis, are the Wertheims Coming Home?

21/08/201123/06/2018 Joseph Pearson

The commercialisation of the former Wall’s no-man’s land progresses as fast as the cranes can haul girders. Awful, says a

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Berlin History 

The Berlin Wall at 50

13/08/201123/06/2018 Joseph Pearson

Today is an anniversary. The Berlin Wall went up 50 years ago. Imagine a family arriving at Friedrichstraße station in

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Berlin History 

Hitler’s Bloody Palace: Mohrenstraße

17/07/201123/06/2018 Joseph Pearson

Blood red, sometimes purple, the marble’s colour was signed off by Hitler himself. It decked his grandest building, the New Reich

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Berlin History 

Forcing Hitler Underground: The Führerbunker

19/06/201123/06/2018 Joseph Pearson

Their bodies were doused with petrol and incinerated in a bomb crater, here, in what is now a parking lot. Adolf

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Berlin History 

Chaos and Colour: Haus des Lehrers

12/06/201107/11/2018 Joseph Pearson

There’s a blaze of colour on Alexanderplatz. When Berlin is at its winter’s darkest, the sensation of alienation heightened by

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Berlin History 

The Changing Names of Südstern U-Bahn

06/06/201123/06/2018 Joseph Pearson

This underground station in Kreuzberg has had many names. It was born Hasenheide in 1924, it became Kaiser-Friedrich-Platz and then

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Berlin History 

A Sigh of Relief on the Death Strip

17/03/201123/06/2018 Joseph Pearson

I walk through the former death strip of the Berlin Wall and relief floods through me. I don’t miss the

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Berlin History 

Hitler and the German Historical Museum

26/02/201123/06/2018 Joseph Pearson

It’s easy to forget that Germany is a new country and that, for much of its history, the term ‘German’

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About the Author

Joseph Pearson is a writer based between Berlin and New York City. Born in Canada, he was educated at Cambridge University, UK, where he received his doctorate in history in 2001. His non-fiction portrait of Berlin was published in 2017. He is also the essayist and blogger of the Schaubühne Theatre, one of Berlin’s best known state-funded institutions. Since 2008, he has written The Needle, which has become one of Berlin’s most popular blogs. His writing has appeared widely in the press, literary and academic journals, and has been translated into German, Italian, French, Arabic, and other languages. For professional inquiries please contact:  joseph [AT] cantab.net.

What is The Needle?

The changing meanings of The Needle are the inspiration for these pages. Above Alexanderplatz is Berlin's television tower. The Needle surveilled the city during East German times like a threatening eye; then its meaning changed after the Berlin Wall fell. Berliners now think of the tower as a giant disco ball flirting with the city lights––a symbol of sex, electronic music and youth culture. This weekly documents the Berlin Renaissance today, mindful of a dramatic and terrifying history. Berlin is Europe's most exciting city, and The Needle is here to share.

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