December 4, 2025 • 55 mins
Two Americans embark on a quest: fly across an ocean to try to get into the most exclusive nightclub in the world – Berghain. A German techno palace where the line outside can last 8 hours, and the bouncers are merciless in their judgments. The club does not explain how it makes its decisions about who can enter, but one foolish podcaster will try to explain anyway.
Find Part 2 of “Why didn’t Chris and Dan get into Berghain?” here: link.pscrb.fm/f0281/se_hw
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin, PJ, Hi, are you eating something? I feel rude
now that I don't have anything to offer you.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I've got a bullet chili.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Oh boy, did you almost have a chili accident?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Really the worst thing as well, So, PJ.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
We're here to play for the people. A very entertaining
episode of your show search Engine. Do you want to
broadly explain what search Engine is?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah, I'd love to.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
So.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Promise of our show is that we try to answer questions.
We say, no question too big, no question too small,
and we like questions that take us on a journey
if we can find them.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I always listen to the show. I think it's great.
I listen to it for your excellent writing. You're so
good at making things understandable and you know, pulling out
these really beautiful metaphors and analogies. And also the subjects
that you choose are always there's never a dull one.
I always feel like, wow, that's a really good choice
(01:13):
of subject.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Thank you. You know, it's like you're making these things,
these podcasts, and you're just trying to entertain the people
making it, and maybe like a few of your friends,
like that's the proxy for like this massive listeners who
you rarely get to see your meet. But I feel
like in just trying to make like five or six
people happy, We've had a few this year where it
felt like we were curious about something that turned out
(01:35):
lots of people were curious about without realizing it.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Can I pitch you a search engine topic?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Please?
Speaker 1 (01:42):
My eight year old son I found him in the
alley with his head buried in a garbage can, and
I was like, what are you doing? And he popped
out his head and he looks at me like with
such sincerity and asks, why is it that garbage always
smells like garbage?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
It always does. It's like there's like a couple of
flavors that can really change it. But for the most part,
garbage I smells like garbage? Yeah, why does garbage smell
like garbage? Is good because it's like it may be
you alive to something that you've always noticed but never
found strange. It takes something that is totally unpleasant and
makes it an opportunity to have wonder that question, like
(02:18):
why does garbage smell like garbage? It like hits your
brain and like whatever pre occupations your brainer says, suck on.
Now you're just there, and like, I think, what I
enjoy about the work we get to do is just
spend forty minutes.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
There before we play the episode. Yeah, if we can
have a crossover moment, yes, So my show Heavyweight is
about revisiting unresolved moments from the past. Yes, And there's
a moment from our shared past that I would like
to resolve with you.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Oh no.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I was in New York recently for a live event
and afterwards, a whole bunch of us were going to
go out for lunch, and you said you had to
go pick up eyedrops and that you'd meet us there,
and then you were never seen or heard from again.
What happened? PJ vote?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I really woke up the next day and it was like,
am I friends with job? Okay, here's what happened. I
guess I have a habit sometimes of like not taking
my contacts out when I go to sleep, and you
really shouldn't do that. I woke up one day and
my eye was like, really, it just like hurt. I
went to the emergency eye place and they were like,
to not lose your eyesight, you have to take these
eye drops every hour wherever I was, I had to
(03:29):
go into a bathroom and dump these like variosidic eye drops.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
In my It's like a Jason Staphm of film.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
That's what it felt like, but with a nerd who's
only fighting himself fighting blindness. So my great idea was
that I was going to go in between your show
and this lunch back to the pharmacy of the hospital
and get more eye drops. And I just like to
use the term that my step kids use. I I
crashed out. I'm not saying that I didn't go because
(03:57):
I was crying.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Were you Are you allowed to cry? Or would it
make you go blind?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Oh? I don't know. I was allowed to cry. I
liked the idea of adjacent Statham film Reason looks Cry.
He's on a cry, and the villains are constantly like
playing him sad and trying to him rom coms showing.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Him old long distance telephone commercials from the seventies.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Play Allied Smith bootlegs.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Okay, well that was That was a pretty satisfying explanation.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I accept it, but I'm sorry. I felt very bad.
I appreciate your accepting my apology.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, uh so, let's let's play the episode. I hope
you are dear listeners will enjoy it. I certainly did,
and if you do, check out more Search Engine wherever
you get your podcasts. Thank you, Jonathan, You're welcome, and
I want you to leave that pause in Kaylee.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
I'm not supposed to pick favorite questions. I claim to
love all questions equally. But about a year ago, I
got a question from two friends of mine. This question
caused a rare amount of delight over at Search Engine HQ,
so we asked the two of them to come to
the studio. Okay, okay, do you guys want to introduce yourselves.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
I'm Chris, I'm Dan.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
I guess Chris and Dan too, very successful, stylish young professionals.
They had an annual tradition going back years. These two
friends would vacation together, sometimes two exciting night life destinations
like Berlin, the city they just returned from. And what
it was like the nature of these vacations, like what
is your form of relaxing?
Speaker 5 (06:02):
I would say, our form of relaxing is generally not relaxing.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
It's like partying.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
Yeah yeah, but you know, respectful, healthy, whole.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yes, okay, and so this is your second trip to
Berlin to do respectful of whom I'm not sure what
was last thing?
Speaker 5 (06:18):
Healthy, respectful, wholesome and healthy partying.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, you guys, these are a lot of like daybreaker
parties where you drink water and like do yoga afterwards
or whatever exactly. Chris and Dan, I should tell you,
more conscientious and buttoned up than most people I know. Chris,
who I've known much longer. He's the kind of person
where when I invite him to a party, I can
(06:43):
set my watch to what happens. He and his boyfriend
show up exactly on time, bearing a thoughtful gift, and
then Chris sneaks out the front door two hours later
or half an hour before midnight, whichever comes first. Not
a person given to unplanned, improvised fun. So it's actually
surprised to learn he'd been drawn to Berlin, a city
(07:03):
that tends to attract my more late night degenerate friends.
So you're going to Berlin, and like, how many days
were you going for?
Speaker 4 (07:11):
I think it was like seventy two hours in Berlin.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
Yeah, it was a really sure trip.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
And what was the itinerary?
Speaker 5 (07:17):
There was a very unstructured itinerary which consisted of absolutely nothing.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
But we knew what the crown jewel of the trip
was supposed to be.
Speaker 5 (07:26):
Yes, keywords supposed to be.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
And that was Berghein. And why Berghein.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
I guess that has this mythical status attached to it,
which is no one can get in, or very few
people can get in, but once you're in, it's like
this mystical palace of fun and amazing music and god
knows what else, because neither of us have ever been inside.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Berghein. At the time of our conversation, rumors about Berghein
had certainly reached me four thousand miles away in Brooklin.
I'd heard the basics. A decommissioned power plant turned into
a multi story nightclub. People talked about this place as
a kind of grimy heaven, and like traditional heaven, grimey
Heaven was also supposedly very hard to get into. It
(08:17):
operated according to its own particular value system. Berghein selectively
welcomed freaks, rejects, the different This was the place where
my friends had wanted to go.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
And I think part of the whole allure of the
venue is because they reject so many people. Yeah, they
have rejected so many famous people, from actors and celebrities,
to the Elon Musks of the world. And so it
would be one thing if you know, we're not a
list celebrities, so of course we're not getting into this club.
(08:49):
But even the top of the top of society, the
top of the top of the business world, even they
are not getting into this club.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
Yeah, it's savage.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
I should say, according to Elon Musk. Elon Musk was
not rejected from Bergheim. In twenty twenty two, amidst a
bunch of Internet chatter about how he'd not gotten in,
he posted on Twitter that it was he who'd rejected
the club. He said he'd refused to enter. Okay, Chris
and Dan, their recent attempt was not their first try.
(09:21):
They'd also gone in twenty seventeen. Back then they'd done
the same thing, gone to Berlin, headed to Berghein, waited
in the line, and ultimately been told nine. This time around,
they were older, they were wiser, and they had at
least one new advantage. This thriving corner of the Internet
devoted to Berghein door policy reconnaissance.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
There are reddit forms subreddits completely dedicated to this. There
are tiktoks dedicated to this in English. Yeah, and it's
every language. We were kind of looking back on the
last time that we went and we were like, what
did we do wrong? And I think the last time
we went we were so ignorant to any of these rules.
We showed up in like black American apparel T shirts
(10:04):
and thought that would be adequate for the dress code.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, yeah, okay, but that's not adequate.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
Yeah, no, totally woefully inadequate.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
So now five years later, when Chris and Dan arrived
once again in Berlin, they knew they would have to
take things more seriously.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
We had a shopping module one day where we went
to Kuritsberg and which is like their sort of like
funky neighborhood with all their vintage stores, and we were like,
we are going to dress like freaks. Athletic shorts, tank tops, harnesses. Yes,
it's definitely a look.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
The outfits they decide on for Dan a black tank
top and short shorts length somewhere between eighties camp counselor
and nineties basketball player, black shoes and tube socks. For
Chris black skinny jeans, no shirt, and this black vest
that kind of looked like a taxedo vest. With their
outfits ready and mindset prepared, they head to the Burgheim
(10:57):
line for their Saturday attempt.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
There's this air through today of like we're going to
send you this like it felt that way to me.
Speaker 5 (11:08):
If it was going to be any moment, it was
going to be that day.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Got it? Okay? So tell me about the line.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
So it's always a fixture, like you show up. It's
very very long, three to four hours.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Are you talking?
Speaker 5 (11:23):
A little bit.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
From the back of the line, they could see the club,
the former power plant, looming over the horizon. It was
dark except for flashes of light and silhouettes through the
top windows. Very faintly. It emitted the throb of base.
As they stood there waiting, people would walk past them,
people who'd already been rejected, glumly leaving. Chris said the
(11:46):
sight of these people would actually inspire hope in him.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
When a bunch of people in front of you get rejected,
you feel kind of optimistic because you're like, well, they're
not going to reject everyone, you know. Just statistically, we're
probably in lark.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Way way way up ahead at the front of the
line to the bouncers. A few of these bouncers, especially
deputized to decide who got into the club, those are
called those were the people sending rejects back out into
the night. So how soon can they see you?
Speaker 5 (12:17):
You know, that's up for debate. Some people might say
they're kind of watching you the entire time.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
There's this is Santa Claus logic. There's no way they're
watching you the entire time, I hope.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
But people do come back. You see people that are
like kind of like strolling the line, and then you
see them again at the door. That happened at least once.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Oh so Santa Claus is watching you.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
Yeah, But but for the I mean I assumed, or
I felt like, for the most part, you weren't really
scrutinized until you were within like twenty to thirty people
of the door. Okay, and then they're on a pedestal,
they're they're on a literal pedestal con and they're looking
out and you could feel their eyes on you.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Okay, And and so how what what was your strategy
for how to behave in the line.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
The conventional wisdom is to be just stone faced. Now.
We tried that. We also tried the approach of being like,
let's just normal. Now. Another thing that's interesting is I
think that they could tell to the point of like
scanning you for authenticity, like we actually are gay, which
works in our favor because it's it retains its roots
as a gay club. And they're they're gay at the door.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Oh the bowsers are all gay.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
The bouncers are gay. We think, yeah, they seemed to be.
They seem to be.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
After a couple hours of anxious waiting, Chris and Dan
found themselves close to the mouth of Berghem.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
There's actually like a physical demarcation, so like you get
to a certain point where like the line actually has
a railing around it.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Oh okay.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
So once you reach that point, you're like, whoa, this
is game time. Like then you're within like twenty people
of the door. You know that you're withinside of the bouncers.
That's when like you could hear a pin drop. Everyone's
just everyone's totally whiet.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
That's so funny. And what happens when you walk up?
How do you do you like straighten your posture? Absolutely?
Speaker 5 (14:06):
Yeah, okay, And so you get up and then there's
a number of calculations that are going on in your mind.
Do you look at the bouncer in the eye, do
you look kind of at the ground. Do you smile,
do you keep a straight face? Do you say anything?
And I think, on this try, this is like our
authentic's friendly selves attempt, and so you know, I smiled
(14:29):
at the guy. He asked how many people were I
said two. I was friendly. I think I asked him
how this night was going to the answer, no, of
course not. One of my calculations was whether or not
to look like I was having fun and into the music.
So I kind of like was dancing a little bit,
but you know, very like minor movements. And I don't
(14:52):
think that strategy work.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
It's hard because you're like, how do I not look
desperate after waiting in line for several hours to get
into the most exclusive night club in the world. It's
like a witch hunt where every person in line is
a witch.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
Yeah, and you're constantly making adjustments on how to not
appear to be a witch.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah yeah. So you walk up, you say, like, how's
your night? He says nothing? Is he just looking at you?
Is it he? A he?
Speaker 5 (15:20):
It's a he. There's Spen, the main bouncer. If Bergheim
itself is the epitome of what you would think of
East German old techno nightclub. Then Sven is the epitome
of what you would think of as the bouncer, the
lead bouncer for that venue. What he is like a
large man with a large number of tattoos and piercings
on his face.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
That man is.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
He's a unique individual.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Is he intimidating.
Speaker 5 (15:46):
He's extremely intimidating. And there's two others. Apparently there's some
sort of communication between the two of them, some sort
of silent.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Communication, but it is not legible.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
There's only one amount of legible communication, and that's the decision.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
And how do they communicate it to you?
Speaker 5 (16:01):
It's always one person they pull up at a time,
or a small group, and sometimes they're immediately rejected, like
they don't even get to say a word. The bounce
or just puts his hand out and they just keep walking.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Very subtle.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, and they just point towards the street.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
It's not so much a point as an open palm
out the direction that you should be going.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
So the gesture you're doing is actually the gesture you
one used to be, like welcome to my home, but
it's welcome to not my home. Like it's the the
arm goes out the palms outstretched, like, look at this,
You're not going to a night club.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
Yeah, so you're welcome to go anywhere else in Berlin.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Christen Dan did not get the gentle wave inviting them
anywhere else in Berlin. Instead, they got a verbal rejection.
The bouncer told them not tonight and to the next day, Sunday.
They tried again. They had a new plan.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
To go during the day that separately, during the.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Day and separately, okay, and the idea being during the
day less competition, separately, the bouncer might respect you more
so or is it two chances?
Speaker 5 (17:08):
The line was just as long, I would say, if
not longer actually during the day, and yeah. Our thinking
was perhaps we would attain that additional level of respect
if we pretended as if we were going separately.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
On this attempt, Chris and Dan stood in line next
to each other for hours and did not talk.
Speaker 5 (17:30):
We acted like we didn't know each other. And I
was ahead of Chris and I get up and one
of the bouncers like how many and I say one,
and then he just stares at me and stares. And
I actually thought this was the time I was getting
And I was pretty confident because it was like a
solid twenty seconds I would say before I was rejected,
But as soon as they rejected me, they looked at
(17:52):
Chris and immediately rejected him. Oh my god, So we're
pretty sure they caught us in the lie.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Yeah, it was insane. It felt like an X ray.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
But is it the same bouncers from the night before?
Speaker 4 (18:04):
Yeah, it actually was. Actually, as we're saying this, I'm like,
we're yes, yeah, obviously they we already are.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
Well, that would assume they remembered us out of the
thousands of people who are probably trying to get in there.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
But of course I can't believe we had to go
on a podcast.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Like I think you saw it into my soul.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
Yeah, I think we've figured out the answer. Well, so
why we didn't get in, We're just dumb.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
If it seems silly to you that two adult men
spent so much time and energy trying to get into
a nightclub, if it seems sillier that this reporter would
then spend a year of his life thinking about this
place that those men never got to see the inside of.
I should tell you how you feel about nightlife, which
is maybe not what you would expect. I find nightclubs
to be deeply meaningful places, borderline holy. I know that
(18:57):
sounds a little weird, but in New York, where I live,
there's a handful of these quasi underground little dance spots,
smoke machine shrouded dance floors, usually free to get in,
where you can just lose yourself for hours, dancing in
a throng of strangers. It's all very corny to talk about,
especially on a podcast, but as a person who feels
(19:19):
like a full time residence of my own mind, these
are the only places where I escape that, where, even sober,
I can just feel like a body, not a brain,
or not a body, just a part of a mass
of them. I suspect there might be a human need
to gather in a room and surrender to something, And
for me, what I discovered pretty late in life is
(19:39):
that the room should be sweaty, impact, and this render
should be to music. Berghein. Whatever the hype, the promise
was that it was the best of these rooms, built
by humans, an actual wonder of the world, not some relic.
If somebody was going to sympathize with the plate of
two Americans who had failed to pass its door, it
(20:02):
was probably going to be me At the same time, I,
like them, have found this whole situation deeply funny. Isn't
it weird that you guys went to all this trouble
to be like, I don't mean this in like the
Supreme Courts is the word, but like to just be
discriminated against.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
Yes, I don't think we'd think we were discriminated against.
I don't want to be here and say, oh, because
we're two Americans, we absolutely do what we're getting into.
And it was almost going there and getting rejected was
like in fun activity in and of itself.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Right, It's like you're participating in the thrill.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
Let me put it this way. I've gone skydiving before,
and the level of anxiety I had just as I
was stepping up to be judged was the same level
of anxiety I had just as I was about to
jump out of the plane.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Really yeah. And then what did it feel like to
be rejected?
Speaker 5 (21:02):
Almost a relief? Really you get it over with. I
wish I had gotten in, but yeah, and then when
Chris was ejected to I felt really good about myself.
Would have been devastating.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
So what is like the thing you're trying to figure
out about Burke here, Like, what is the question that
I can answer?
Speaker 4 (21:19):
So there's a few things I want to know. One
thing is say, there are some cases where it's cuspy
and they're like, we must be like on the on
the custom of decision where they're like they can't decide
when you're twenty people away whether you're a yes or
a no, and they want to get a closer look.
What are they scanning you for?
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Right?
Speaker 4 (21:39):
What are the cues that are gonna, you know, nudge
you towards getting in versus kick you to the curb?
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Got it?
Speaker 4 (21:46):
The other question that I have every time we would leave,
we would walk around the whole club. I wonder if
there's a way to.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Sneak in, Like is there just like a fire exit? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (21:58):
Like is it permeable from any other orifice than this door?
I mean I expect it to be hard, to be clear.
I don't think that there's some easy Oh just go
in the back door. I'm just like, if you jump
the fence, crawling under a bush, show Like, I'm like,
is there a way?
Speaker 2 (22:13):
And would you do it if there were? Yeah? Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (22:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Okay? What is the bouncer at Burine scanning you for
if you're on the cusp and is there some other,
perhaps secret way sneak into Berghrind. After the break, our
investigation begins. Welcome back to the show, Moon Suins. When
(23:22):
we started all this last July, all I really knew
about Berghein said it was a Berlin techno club and
that was very hard to get into. But I started researching.
The club itself maintains a very minimal footprint online. Two
hundred thousand people follow Berghin's Instagram account, but the club
has only ever posted one photo, in twenty fifteen, a
(23:43):
picture of a sign that says in all caps, taking
photos is not allowed. The sign presumably from inside the
club itself. Berghein, like Vegas, claims that what happens there
stays there, except in Berghein. That seems to actually be true.
Some information about the club, nevertheless, has circulated. The story
of Berghein, as I now understand it, begins thirty years ago.
(24:09):
In the early nineteen nineties, two Germans, Norbert Thormann and
Michael Teufela, had begun hosting a men's only gay fetish party,
sometimes at an abandoned air raid shelter. After a few years,
the party outgrew that bunker. The pair took over and
abandoned railroad depot. At the railroad depot, they started a
club called Ostgout. Ostgood was legendary, open to people of
(24:32):
all genders and sexualities, but still a space run by
and largely four gay men, a den of hedonism where
consenting adults supposedly engaged in all sorts of unusual behavior online.
At least one videos arived from inside the club, but
(24:53):
the video is pretty tame. It's from July two thousand.
Looks like cam quorder footage. A grainily shot DJ hovers
over console, twiddling knobs, while nearby a crowd of German
shadows writhes under a strobe light. Ostgot may have lived forever,
(25:14):
except the city wanted to build a big arena, so
the railroad depot was knocked down in two thousand and three.
Berghein was its reincarnation, the palace that replaced Oscot, this
time too big to knock down. A thermal power plant
originally built during the Soviet era. Four floors. On the
very bottom floor, a dedicated basement gay club for men only.
(25:38):
At the very top, a bar with big windows opening
onto a panoramic view of the city on the levels
in between, where the power turbines once sat, an enormous
dark cavern, the main dance area. The entire space governed
by its own particular rules, rules that are repeated breathlessly
by the Internet commentariat. Hurricane is not a standard posh
(25:59):
club with bottle service and make you put a sticker
over your phone, no pictures, They'll throw you out.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
There'd be a window where you could buy ice cream
and you could order smoothies.
Speaker 5 (26:07):
It's opened from Friday until Monday. Most people stayed there
for twelve hours, twenty four hours or more. Right now
it's nine am.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Berghein is best known for one weekly party, Klube nacht
Club night. Club Night is a misnomer because while the
party starts Saturday evening, it continues all the way until
Monday morning without interruption. A few books document the history
of the scene at birth this party. I've found Tobias
Raps Lost and Sound to be particularly helpful. He writes
about how when Burgin opened in two thousand and four,
(26:36):
the party was by and four berliners, but words soon
spread internationally. A European budget airline called easy Jet had
just opened a new hub in Berlin, and other Europeans
started taking easy jet flights to the city to come party.
The legends kept growing. Eventually it grew large enough to
draw Chris and Dan two of the many Americans who
(26:56):
made the pilgrimage to Techno Mecca. It was a marvel,
a three day party, good enough to draw thousands of
people every weekend. People who would fly to Germany without
even a promise they would gain admits that was klub
knocked at Berghein. Most of what people discuss online is
not any of those. Instead, they talk about Sven, the
(27:20):
intimidating bouncer who Christ and Dan encountered and then cowered
in front of fen Markhart. Spen Markhart is a tall,
imposing man in his early sixties with giant lip rings
that look like silver fangs. His hair is slicked back
in silver. Tattoos of thorns cover much of his face.
He looks like a bad guy in a John Wick movie,
(27:41):
and he has played a bad guy in a John
Wick movie That was just a cameo one time. Though
Spen has run security at burg Hines since the club
first opened twenty years ago. Spen's backstory he grew up
in East Berlin, the Communist side of the wall before
it fell. My name as son. There's this one documentary
(28:02):
Berlin Bouncer that profiles Fen. In one scene, he gives
a talk in front of a crowd, he's wearing all
black tinted glasses. Spen discusses the early chapters of his life,
how his teenageers were defined by the feeling of being
stuck outside a much more significant kind of door.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
And I think they make fund somehow.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
This is zet Spens saying, we just wanted to see
the other side of the wall. We didn't really want
to leave home. We just wanted to find out what
were we being deprived of, what weren't we allowed to see.
Spen has said that as a young gay punk rocker
living in East Berlin was risky. He was frequently picked
(28:46):
up by the secret police. He was devoted to his
photography career, but after the Wall fell he chose to
stay on the East Berlin side and his art career
stalled there. Spen's brother was a DJ and a club organizer,
and Sven started working the door at his parties. It
turned out Sven's eye for people worked not just in photography.
But also here he had a talent for deciding who
(29:09):
should be let in. He developed a reputation. That's why
they chosen for Oscot and later for Berghin. The Fact
that this much of Sven's biography exists in public, of course,
goes entirely against Berghin's secretive ethos. But Sven has continued
to pursue his photography career, and so every few years
(29:29):
when he has a new exhibition or a photo book,
he talks to journalists questions about his photography, which he
wants to discuss, and questions about how to get into Berghin,
which he has to tolerate. Those are the terms under
which the gatekeepers at places like The New York Times
or GQ will allow Sven entry, and understanding the way
(29:49):
of these things, he obliges Sven the man with the
answer to our question, what was the bouncer at Berghin
scanning you for? I should say I emailed Sven and
requested an interview. I've never been less surprised to be ignored.
But in the documentary there's this prickly moment where the
interviewer seems to have directly asked been the rules of
(30:12):
the door. He raisky, so then responds not with helpful
tips about what shade of black to wear. Instead, he
says sternly, we don't need to question the rules that
are in place. He does allow that as a selector
his responsibility is to only let people in who, once
(30:35):
they joined the party, won't impede the freedom and self
expression of the people who are already inside dedatrinzosign cussent.
It makes sense, but it does not provide clues. And
in any situation in which official sources remain this tight lipped,
of course, speculation will rain, and it does online, as
(30:57):
Chris and Dan had seen mainly on TikTok. They're a
cottage industry of people who claim to have gotten through
the door now style themselves as helpful experts explaining what
exactly they believe. Then is scanning for when he looks
at people like Chris and Dan trying to get inside
the mind of a sixty two year old gay German
ex punk, be really casual, don't be flamboyant, don't speak
(31:20):
too much.
Speaker 6 (31:21):
Don't talk too loud in the queue, and under no
circumstances engage in law term.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Literally just basically be as casual and blending as possible
in order to get in. So we've got it's impossible
to know if any of these people are actually telling
the truth. Again, you can't record inside of Berghem, which
means you just have to take the word for it.
I promise.
Speaker 6 (31:41):
People say that you need to work black to get in,
but that's not true.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
It helps, but it's not a must.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
I know, a guy, just be yourself and if you
get in, you get in, and if you don't, try
against some other time or call it a wrap.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
When I went back, I was wearing the advice offered
by these supposed gurus. Frankly does not feel all that usable.
Try to get in, or maybe don't. We're black, but
you don't have to thin.
Speaker 5 (32:07):
It's like look sharp, also like you don't care that much.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
My favorite artifact of all the online Berghein speculation is
this website called berghind trainer dot com that will actually
drop you into a surprisingly hyra's simulation of the Burghin line.
The site takes control of your webcam and then scans
your face, analyzing your emotions through your expressions, how angry, sad,
(32:32):
euphoric your faces, giving a virtual simulation of Sven's gaze,
and then the first person video virtually walks you, step
by step up to the doors of Berghin. The music
gets louder as you get closer. The website warns you
that's Ben will ask you three questions. So I did it.
(32:54):
When I arrived at the virtual door, a German Man,
presumably an actor playing Sven, asked, is this your first
time here? I said yes, The vlchb it. He asked,
do you know who's djaying tonight? I said yes. He
asked whether I'd taken drugs? I said nine. After a
moment of scanning, the virtual bouncer told me possoidy not
(33:17):
good today, and then made the hand gesture toward the street,
the same hand gesture Chris and Dan had gotten. To
be honest with you, this rejection by a fake bouncer.
It hurt my real feelings. I'll tell you something about
myself that won't surprise you. I've never been considered cool.
(33:37):
I know cool people. I'm not against coolness. I just
don't possess it. I'm uncool enough that I have to
ask the cool people I know to explain to me
why certain things are cool. Right now, how did we
decide big pants are back in style. If you have
to ask, you're not cool. And I do have to ask,
both professionally and just because of my personality. So I'm
(33:59):
not cool, and I'm old enough to be okay with that.
But this was a little different. At Bergheim, where Sven ruled,
it seemed to me that the source of his power
lay partly in his refusal to explain himself. My job
as a journalist was the opposite, to understand and explain,
and I just couldn't resist the challenge of trying to
(34:19):
understand something that was designed to obscure itself. That was why,
even after all this internet slothing and documentary watching, we
would continue digging for the better part of a year.
We've talked to lots of people, We'd read too many
books devoted to the helmetic study of German techno, its
origins and subgenres, and in the end we'd emerge with
(34:40):
an answer. What was berg Heinz scanning for? And why
how would a place like this come to be? All that?
After the break, Welcome back to the show. In America,
(35:44):
in the circles I run in, people complain a lot
about capitalism. I don't think they're bothered by the exchange
of goods and services. I think it's their shorthand way
of saying everything here is just too driven by profit.
Even things that start out good can be squeezed to
death by our ceaseless desire to bring out every possible dollar.
In Berlin, a place where until recently capitalism and socialism
(36:07):
both operated in Berlin, it feels like something else is
going on. The nightlife industry there brings in one and
a half billion tourism dollars a year, but they're strange dollars.
The crown jewel Berghein operates by turning away thousands of
paying customers, and despite demand, it keeps it to ticket
prices pretty low, all while existing and building that is
(36:29):
thirty seven six hundred square feet in a very himp neighborhood.
And not only does this all seem to work, it's
worked for a long time. That doesn't happen in nightlife.
Clubs don't stick around. Studio fifty four was open for
less than three years. Berghin is on its twenty eth
and people attribute a lot of that success to Berghein's
strict and strange door policy. You can tell the story
(36:53):
of that door. A story about culture, about cool, but
cool we know never explains itself. So let's get inside
Berghin from a different direction. I'm going to tell you
the story not about DJs and bouncers, but about lawyers
and lobbyists, about the municipal regulation and policy that allows
this club to exist the way it does, A story
(37:15):
that begins in nineteen forty nine. Hi, can you hear me?
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Hey, Hey, hey, you will?
Speaker 2 (37:22):
How's it going over there?
Speaker 3 (37:23):
Well?
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Well, well, looks lights and ring. I'd first heard about
him from one of my best friends, k Burke, a
nightclub founder herself. People in Berlin called it's the mayor
of the city's nightlife. So did Kay explain like who
I am and what we're up to over here?
Speaker 3 (37:40):
I think she might, but it was also quite some
time a goal. So mabe, you can film me in again.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yeah. So I have this podcast called search Engine where
we just try to answer people's questions, no matter how
simple or complicated, and we do sort of like all
manner of stuff. We do like really serious stuff, like
we just did something about fentonel and the drug supply
in America, but we also do really silly stuff and
kind of like everything in between.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
And what level are we here in this conversation closer
to silly?
Speaker 2 (38:10):
I think, So we have these friends I want to
talk about who just like didn't get into Bergheid and
are confused about it. But it's sort of an excuse
to tell the larger story about nightlife. Like I think
for people the United States, it's a place you go
and you spend five hundred dollars on champagne and like,
you know what I mean, it's.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Like ten dollars on a can of beer, yes, without
a glass exactly.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Germans like loats, call this style of nightclub bottles and models,
shorthand for the economic model that drives them. Clubs like
these are what most Americans think of when you say
nightclub spots that tend to make their money by enticing
rich people to pay for tables and buy bottles of
champagne so that they can feel important. The clubs are
like little statisfactories. In Berlin, though that same word nightclub
(38:55):
describes an entirely different operation fueled by a different economic model,
and Litz's job is to protect that status quo. He's
nightlife's advocate in the offices of City bureaucrats. The spokesperson
for Berlin's club commission, I wanted the lots to tell
me how Berlin's unusual night life scene had come to be.
And that story is a story of two arguments. The
(39:19):
first argument takes place in the late nineteen forties. Argument
one is about a very specific role curfew in Berlin.
Today there is no curfew. Bars and clubs stay open
as long as they want. And can you tell me
the story of, like how Berlin came to be a
city with no curfew? Like what is the origin story
of that decision?
Speaker 3 (39:38):
The decisions is like almost eighty years old, and it
happened right after World War Two. So in nineteen forty
nine you had already a divided city between the eastern
sector and the western sector, the eastern sector controlled by
the Russians and the western sector controlled by the British,
to French and the Americans. And in the eastern part
there was a curfew at ten pm, so all the restaurants, bars,
(40:02):
hotel bars, cub right bars, so they had to close
at ten pm in the eastern part. In the western
part it was nine pm, so an hour earlier. And
there was this let's say representative, a spokesperson of the
hotels and restaurants of Berlin. His name was Heines Cellemayer
Heines Zellermayer.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
There was no club commission back then. Heines was instead
the deputy director of the Guild of Berlin Hoteliers. In photos,
Heines has an enormous smile and combed back hair. He
looks like someone who held forth at a restaurant or two.
Heines did not like the curfew. He particularly did not
like that his side of the city had an earlier curfew.
(40:42):
The person to complain to was General Howley of the
US Army. The Americans West Berlin Commandant a meeting with
sat and Heines supposedly came prepared.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
The story is that he brought a bottle of whiskey
to that meeting. So they met and they were talking
about it, and General Howley said, yeah, the British and
the French day are not already supporting any idea of
losing this curfew. They say is a security issue. So
you have to give me an argument that I can
give to French and the British. And the problem was
(41:13):
that at that moment in the western part the people
had to go out of the bar and then they
went to the eastern sector for another hour, which was
also not really liked by the Americans, you know. So
he said, if you kicked Germans who were partying at
a certain hour, you kicked them out of the street,
you're going to have a security issue, so you have
to better find a solution for it.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
It was a well reasoned argument. The Allies did not
want drunk Westerners crossing east in search of a later
last call, and worse, there'd been an emerging Cold War
of curfews, with each side, the East and the West,
repeatedly extending an hour past each other to try to
capture all the income from drunk berliners. Eliminating curfew would
solve the security issue and win the night war. Howie
(41:55):
was sold.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
He said, okay, let's try this out for two weeks,
and since then nineteen forty nine, we have no curfew.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Berlin one of the rare cities that has no curfew
at all. In nineteen forty nine, when the city permanently
delet did its curfew. Obviously, techno music did not exist
raving with something people did in insane asylums. If anyone
was listening to music in a club late at night.
It was probably jazz, but this decision set Berlin on
a path. Nightlife is funded more than anything else via
(42:25):
the sale of alcohol. A city without a curfew can
have a legal party that runs through the night, even
that runs multiple nights. Half a century ish later, techno
will hit Berlin. People will begin to throw raves in
illegal spots without permits. This will happen in a lot
of cities at the same time, Detroit, New York, London.
(42:46):
But what makes Berlin different from those places is that
here many of those raves can actually become legitimate businesses
can find permanent homes and clubs. General Holley's nineteen forty
nine agreement is the first precondition for club knocked at Bergheim.
It sets the stage for a party that can last
for three days. But years later, as the scene starts
(43:07):
to mature, a second art even takes place. An argument
which almost kills these night clubs, argument, too, is about taxes.
In the early two thousands, Berghein was a rising young
club alongside already established spots like Trisoor and the kit
Cat Club, and Berlin's tax authority started to take a
(43:28):
closer look at these places. How much money were they
bringing in shouldn't the city be getting a bigger cut?
Government tax agents walk into Berghein, presumably without needing permission
from Spen. They're there documenting everything they see, asking a
question from a tax perspective, what is happening in these rooms?
In Germany? If you pay money for a ticket and
(43:50):
enter a venue where music is played, according to the
tax men, you may be having one of three different experiences.
You might be experiencing high culture like opera, in which
case the city will barely tax the ticket. You might
be at a concert like the Rolling Stones, in which
case the city will moderately tax the ticket. Or you
might be experiencing entertainment. This happens in casinos in peign theaters.
(44:16):
In that case the city will take a big tax bite,
almost twenty percent. Before the tax officials began to take
a closer look at the club scene, these venues had
been mostly taxed as concert venues, But now in two
thousand and eight, the city started to ask pointed questions.
Was a DJ really a musician? Was a techno show
(44:36):
really like a concert?
Speaker 3 (44:39):
The perception that people in government had says, a DJ
is not a concert. People are going there to have sex,
or to drink or to whatever, but not because of
the DJ. They even sent people to clubs and documented
that people were not facing the artists. They were talking
to each other. Oh my god, like that to kind
of prove the point that it is not a concert.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Wow, I've been a concert where people who were not
facing the artists and talking to each other exactly.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
But they said clubs is different. People go there to
meet people, not because of the artists. They don't even
know who's playing. These kind of argumentations.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Berghein was the club that actually took this case all
the way to the High courts. Burghin won. The Berghein
in the government's books was cemented as a concert venue,
a place where people went because they've loved techno music. Weirdly,
this is one part of the answer to Chris and
Dan's questions. What was the bouncer Svenn scanning for at
the door? He needed to ensure they were true techno heads,
(45:38):
not people there simply for entertainment. That consideration a funny
side effect of the argument the club had had to
make in court years ago. It may have been part
of what filtered them out. Christ and Dan not true
techno heads. Berghein's victory in court meant that any German
nightclub that could prove it was meeting Berghin's cultural standards
(45:58):
could be taxed like Berghein. Lower taxes meant they could
keep their overhead low. The lower the overhead, the less
pressure to make money. The less pressure to make money,
the more they could get continue to keep their nightclubs
dedicated to preserving Berlin's strange counterculture. Let's tell me about
another one of these battles.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
I don't know if you're aware of zoning what that
means in cities. So there are different zoning laws, which
says in certain zones of the city there are certain allowances. So,
for instance, you cannot build an amusement venue like a
leisure venue in a residential area.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
Right.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
The problem with this categorization is that you're only fully
legal in the very center of the city, where also
the prices are very high. So if you want to
do it properly, you have to be very commercial to survive.
And now that we are more flexible in what areas
of the cities we can establish music venues. We can
(46:54):
also maybe turn a form of restaurant or bar into
a club possibly which we could not before because it
wasn't a wrong zone.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
It's so interesting though, it's like, get you get the
government to classify clubs differently, that changes like where can
appropriately be in the city. Then if the clubs can
be in places where they otherwise wouldn't have been allowed,
they can have like a different profit incentive, like they
don't have to just like make as much money as possible,
And you end up with a different culture because of
(47:24):
just a change to how the government classified something that's
really interesting exactly. We're going to come back to this
strange court case and its consequences in the second part
of this story. But before I left Lutz, I wanted
to ask him specifically about Chris and Dan. What was
it about them the way they looked, the way they
dressed that it signaled they didn't belong at Berghein. Lutz
(47:46):
does not represent Berghin, but as spokesperson for the club
commission and as a Bergheim regular, I thought he might
be able to help. Can shoot a couple of photographs
and you tell me if the person seems like.
Speaker 3 (47:56):
I'm not a selector, so I can only give you
my personal opinion.
Speaker 2 (48:00):
Yeah, is it okay to ask you your opinion on it. Yeah, yeah, Sue,
of course. Okay, this is one person.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
Well, very friendly, maybe queer person, very soft happy. He's
wearing some kind of top that doesn't really say anything.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
It's like when it's too generic of a top the best.
Speaker 3 (48:24):
I think it looks authentic to him. But this person
looks very innocent. Yeah, and you also want to save
some people for you know, to getting into something that
they maybe don't expect.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
Okay, so this is the person he went with.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
Yeah, I would probably send them to Shoots. With Shoots
it's it's our oldest, best known gay club, and that's
that's the perfect vife for those two guys.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
Because they don't seem like techno guys to you. They
seem like gay guys who are going out clubbing.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
They don't look like hard you know, like standing in
the middle of a sweaty club and going for hours
and enjoying this and you know, they're standing more like
having a chad, you know, like and that's that's okay
to have some of those folks in the venue. But
it's really about getting out of your inner self and
showing your animalistic side.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Oh feerself for very good reason. We don't celebrate the
idea that you should judge people based on how they
look on the outside. Those judgments often lead us astray.
And yet Lootz from a photo could tell Chris and
Dan were after respectful, healthy, wholesome partying, not the sort
(49:40):
of darkness that occurs in Berghein's techno dungeons. They didn't
belong here. They belonged, he suspected at another place called Schwitz.
I wondered what Chris and Dan would make of that judgment,
so later I asked. Chris told me Schwitz. They loved Schwitz.
It was the club they'd ended up at after being
rejected from berg Hein, Berlin. This magical city had somehow
(50:05):
sent them to the place where they really belonged. Lutz
was not a select sure, but he did seem to
have a selector's eye. Your read is so good, Chris,
who I know better. He's a lovely He's one of
my favorite people to spend time with. If I were
having a party where it is really important that someone
dance in the middle of the dance word for eight hours,
he would perhaps not make the cut for that party.
Speaker 3 (50:26):
That's really I think the first question you have to
ask yourself are you a participant or are you a visitor?
And it shouldn't sound sophisticated or arrogant. It's just like
a club. The definition of club is being part of
a club. If you're not part of the club, why
(50:46):
should you being able to enter? I think the idea
of just buying myself in is the opposite of a club.
What it should actually be. A club should bring to
people together who have similar interests, similar preferences.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
A club should bring together people of similar interests. Absolutely,
but what if you're someone who doesn't belong but still
wants to just go check it out? Is there a
way to sneak in? Is there some other way into
Berghind that is not going through the bouncer? Lootz did
have advice about this.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
My tip that I usually give is make a plan
of exploring Berlin, maybe from the outskirts. Go to venues
that are not very known. Go to places that are
somehow interesting for you because you did your research and
you saw some artists that you want to see and
yet they're playing, So go there and you get in
(51:38):
very easy because venues that are not very known don't
have this kind of level of selection. Usually there's not
even the queue, and then you get friends with the bartenders,
you make friends with the DJs there, and you have
an amazing time in an unknown venue with unknown artists. Basically,
and the next time you're coming, you're going to reach
(52:00):
out to them, and because they liked you or they
connected to you, they will ask you to start in
their home with dinner. Maybe you go to a bar,
you make no friend, and even maybe they make sure
that you get on a guest list of some venue
that they're going at that night. But I think it's
part of that journey that you also have to make
(52:22):
to be part of the scene.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
Lutz said. The process he's describing this is the real
way into Clube knocked. Make yourself a part of the scene,
that line outside Berghein. He said, that's for people who
haven't been able to or who haven't known to try.
While Litz was saying this to me, I was nodding, yes,
furiously might nog in like a broken bobblehead. Of course,
it all made sense, and as a person obsessed with
(52:46):
belonging and exclusion, I was lapping it all up. We
finished our conversation. It's really, it's a pleasure to just
get to ask you these questions. Thank you for doing this.
Speaker 3 (52:57):
You're welcome.
Speaker 2 (52:58):
We hung up, and then, not long after, the spell
of Litz's idea dissipated. What were we talking about? If
you wanted to visit the most exclusive night club in
the world, go to Germany and start methodically befriending Germans
in the city's electronic music scene. Okay, normally that would
(53:20):
have been the end of things, and perhaps it should
have been the end of things. But not long after this,
a friend of mine, an American, asked me a question.
They were celebrating a big milestone in their life, and
they wanted to do it in Germany, in Berlin. Actually,
they wanted to spend some time there, perhaps even try
to see some of the city's famous night life. Does
(53:41):
that sound like fun? Could I make some time away
from work? Yes? It did, No, I couldn't. I bought
myself a planet against the myth, hard as it was
to believe, was that the door to Bergheim, like Excalibur's sword,
would be offered only to someone who truly understood techno culture,
who understood what the place meant. Could something like that
(54:02):
really be True next week on search Engine, the last
episode of our season technow search Engine is a presentation
(54:48):
of Odyssey and Jigsaw Productions. It was created by me
p j Vote and Truthy Penmanany and it was produced
by Garrett Graham and Noah John. Backchecking this week by
Claire Hyman. Theme original composition and mixing by armand Bazarian,
who also created the Techno remix or theme song You're
listening to right now. Armand Bazarian very talented madam Our
(55:08):
executive producers are Genoay Sperman and Lea Reese Dennis. Thanks
to the team at Jakesaw, Alex Gibney, Rich Prelo and
John Schmidt, and to the team at Odyssey JD Crowley,
Rob Mirandy Craig Cox, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchison, Matt Casey,
Mori Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney, and Hilary shopp. Our
agent is Orn Rosenbaum at UTA. Follow and listen to
(55:30):
Search Engine for free on the Odyssey app or wherever
you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. We'll see you
next week.
Pushkin, PJ, Hi, are you eating something? I feel rude
now that I don't have anything to offer you.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I've got a bullet chili.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Oh boy, did you almost have a chili accident?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Really the worst thing as well, So, PJ.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
We're here to play for the people. A very entertaining
episode of your show search Engine. Do you want to
broadly explain what search Engine is?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah, I'd love to.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
So.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Promise of our show is that we try to answer questions.
We say, no question too big, no question too small,
and we like questions that take us on a journey
if we can find them.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I always listen to the show. I think it's great.
I listen to it for your excellent writing. You're so
good at making things understandable and you know, pulling out
these really beautiful metaphors and analogies. And also the subjects
that you choose are always there's never a dull one.
I always feel like, wow, that's a really good choice
(01:13):
of subject.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Thank you. You know, it's like you're making these things,
these podcasts, and you're just trying to entertain the people
making it, and maybe like a few of your friends,
like that's the proxy for like this massive listeners who
you rarely get to see your meet. But I feel
like in just trying to make like five or six
people happy, We've had a few this year where it
felt like we were curious about something that turned out
(01:35):
lots of people were curious about without realizing it.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Can I pitch you a search engine topic?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Please?
Speaker 1 (01:42):
My eight year old son I found him in the
alley with his head buried in a garbage can, and
I was like, what are you doing? And he popped
out his head and he looks at me like with
such sincerity and asks, why is it that garbage always
smells like garbage?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
It always does. It's like there's like a couple of
flavors that can really change it. But for the most part,
garbage I smells like garbage? Yeah, why does garbage smell
like garbage? Is good because it's like it may be
you alive to something that you've always noticed but never
found strange. It takes something that is totally unpleasant and
makes it an opportunity to have wonder that question, like
(02:18):
why does garbage smell like garbage? It like hits your
brain and like whatever pre occupations your brainer says, suck on.
Now you're just there, and like, I think, what I
enjoy about the work we get to do is just
spend forty minutes.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
There before we play the episode. Yeah, if we can
have a crossover moment, yes, So my show Heavyweight is
about revisiting unresolved moments from the past. Yes, And there's
a moment from our shared past that I would like
to resolve with you.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Oh no.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I was in New York recently for a live event
and afterwards, a whole bunch of us were going to
go out for lunch, and you said you had to
go pick up eyedrops and that you'd meet us there,
and then you were never seen or heard from again.
What happened? PJ vote?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I really woke up the next day and it was like,
am I friends with job? Okay, here's what happened. I
guess I have a habit sometimes of like not taking
my contacts out when I go to sleep, and you
really shouldn't do that. I woke up one day and
my eye was like, really, it just like hurt. I
went to the emergency eye place and they were like,
to not lose your eyesight, you have to take these
eye drops every hour wherever I was, I had to
(03:29):
go into a bathroom and dump these like variosidic eye drops.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
In my It's like a Jason Staphm of film.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
That's what it felt like, but with a nerd who's
only fighting himself fighting blindness. So my great idea was
that I was going to go in between your show
and this lunch back to the pharmacy of the hospital
and get more eye drops. And I just like to
use the term that my step kids use. I I
crashed out. I'm not saying that I didn't go because
(03:57):
I was crying.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Were you Are you allowed to cry? Or would it
make you go blind?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Oh? I don't know. I was allowed to cry. I
liked the idea of adjacent Statham film Reason looks Cry.
He's on a cry, and the villains are constantly like
playing him sad and trying to him rom coms showing.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Him old long distance telephone commercials from the seventies.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Play Allied Smith bootlegs.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Okay, well that was That was a pretty satisfying explanation.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I accept it, but I'm sorry. I felt very bad.
I appreciate your accepting my apology.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, uh so, let's let's play the episode. I hope
you are dear listeners will enjoy it. I certainly did,
and if you do, check out more Search Engine wherever
you get your podcasts. Thank you, Jonathan, You're welcome, and
I want you to leave that pause in Kaylee.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
I'm not supposed to pick favorite questions. I claim to
love all questions equally. But about a year ago, I
got a question from two friends of mine. This question
caused a rare amount of delight over at Search Engine HQ,
so we asked the two of them to come to
the studio. Okay, okay, do you guys want to introduce yourselves.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
I'm Chris, I'm Dan.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
I guess Chris and Dan too, very successful, stylish young professionals.
They had an annual tradition going back years. These two
friends would vacation together, sometimes two exciting night life destinations
like Berlin, the city they just returned from. And what
it was like the nature of these vacations, like what
is your form of relaxing?
Speaker 5 (06:02):
I would say, our form of relaxing is generally not relaxing.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
It's like partying.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
Yeah yeah, but you know, respectful, healthy, whole.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yes, okay, and so this is your second trip to
Berlin to do respectful of whom I'm not sure what
was last thing?
Speaker 5 (06:18):
Healthy, respectful, wholesome and healthy partying.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, you guys, these are a lot of like daybreaker
parties where you drink water and like do yoga afterwards
or whatever exactly. Chris and Dan, I should tell you,
more conscientious and buttoned up than most people I know. Chris,
who I've known much longer. He's the kind of person
where when I invite him to a party, I can
(06:43):
set my watch to what happens. He and his boyfriend
show up exactly on time, bearing a thoughtful gift, and
then Chris sneaks out the front door two hours later
or half an hour before midnight, whichever comes first. Not
a person given to unplanned, improvised fun. So it's actually
surprised to learn he'd been drawn to Berlin, a city
(07:03):
that tends to attract my more late night degenerate friends.
So you're going to Berlin, and like, how many days
were you going for?
Speaker 4 (07:11):
I think it was like seventy two hours in Berlin.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
Yeah, it was a really sure trip.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
And what was the itinerary?
Speaker 5 (07:17):
There was a very unstructured itinerary which consisted of absolutely nothing.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
But we knew what the crown jewel of the trip
was supposed to be.
Speaker 5 (07:26):
Yes, keywords supposed to be.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
And that was Berghein. And why Berghein.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
I guess that has this mythical status attached to it,
which is no one can get in, or very few
people can get in, but once you're in, it's like
this mystical palace of fun and amazing music and god
knows what else, because neither of us have ever been inside.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Berghein. At the time of our conversation, rumors about Berghein
had certainly reached me four thousand miles away in Brooklin.
I'd heard the basics. A decommissioned power plant turned into
a multi story nightclub. People talked about this place as
a kind of grimy heaven, and like traditional heaven, grimey
Heaven was also supposedly very hard to get into. It
(08:17):
operated according to its own particular value system. Berghein selectively
welcomed freaks, rejects, the different This was the place where
my friends had wanted to go.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
And I think part of the whole allure of the
venue is because they reject so many people. Yeah, they
have rejected so many famous people, from actors and celebrities,
to the Elon Musks of the world. And so it
would be one thing if you know, we're not a
list celebrities, so of course we're not getting into this club.
(08:49):
But even the top of the top of society, the
top of the top of the business world, even they
are not getting into this club.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
Yeah, it's savage.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
I should say, according to Elon Musk. Elon Musk was
not rejected from Bergheim. In twenty twenty two, amidst a
bunch of Internet chatter about how he'd not gotten in,
he posted on Twitter that it was he who'd rejected
the club. He said he'd refused to enter. Okay, Chris
and Dan, their recent attempt was not their first try.
(09:21):
They'd also gone in twenty seventeen. Back then they'd done
the same thing, gone to Berlin, headed to Berghein, waited
in the line, and ultimately been told nine. This time around,
they were older, they were wiser, and they had at
least one new advantage. This thriving corner of the Internet
devoted to Berghein door policy reconnaissance.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
There are reddit forms subreddits completely dedicated to this. There
are tiktoks dedicated to this in English. Yeah, and it's
every language. We were kind of looking back on the
last time that we went and we were like, what
did we do wrong? And I think the last time
we went we were so ignorant to any of these rules.
We showed up in like black American apparel T shirts
(10:04):
and thought that would be adequate for the dress code.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, yeah, okay, but that's not adequate.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
Yeah, no, totally woefully inadequate.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
So now five years later, when Chris and Dan arrived
once again in Berlin, they knew they would have to
take things more seriously.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
We had a shopping module one day where we went
to Kuritsberg and which is like their sort of like
funky neighborhood with all their vintage stores, and we were like,
we are going to dress like freaks. Athletic shorts, tank tops, harnesses. Yes,
it's definitely a look.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
The outfits they decide on for Dan a black tank
top and short shorts length somewhere between eighties camp counselor
and nineties basketball player, black shoes and tube socks. For
Chris black skinny jeans, no shirt, and this black vest
that kind of looked like a taxedo vest. With their
outfits ready and mindset prepared, they head to the Burgheim
(10:57):
line for their Saturday attempt.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
There's this air through today of like we're going to
send you this like it felt that way to me.
Speaker 5 (11:08):
If it was going to be any moment, it was
going to be that day.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Got it? Okay? So tell me about the line.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
So it's always a fixture, like you show up. It's
very very long, three to four hours.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Are you talking?
Speaker 5 (11:23):
A little bit.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
From the back of the line, they could see the club,
the former power plant, looming over the horizon. It was
dark except for flashes of light and silhouettes through the
top windows. Very faintly. It emitted the throb of base.
As they stood there waiting, people would walk past them,
people who'd already been rejected, glumly leaving. Chris said the
(11:46):
sight of these people would actually inspire hope in him.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
When a bunch of people in front of you get rejected,
you feel kind of optimistic because you're like, well, they're
not going to reject everyone, you know. Just statistically, we're
probably in lark.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Way way way up ahead at the front of the
line to the bouncers. A few of these bouncers, especially
deputized to decide who got into the club, those are
called those were the people sending rejects back out into
the night. So how soon can they see you?
Speaker 5 (12:17):
You know, that's up for debate. Some people might say
they're kind of watching you the entire time.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
There's this is Santa Claus logic. There's no way they're
watching you the entire time, I hope.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
But people do come back. You see people that are
like kind of like strolling the line, and then you
see them again at the door. That happened at least once.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Oh so Santa Claus is watching you.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
Yeah, But but for the I mean I assumed, or
I felt like, for the most part, you weren't really
scrutinized until you were within like twenty to thirty people
of the door. Okay, and then they're on a pedestal,
they're they're on a literal pedestal con and they're looking
out and you could feel their eyes on you.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Okay, And and so how what what was your strategy
for how to behave in the line.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
The conventional wisdom is to be just stone faced. Now.
We tried that. We also tried the approach of being like,
let's just normal. Now. Another thing that's interesting is I
think that they could tell to the point of like
scanning you for authenticity, like we actually are gay, which
works in our favor because it's it retains its roots
as a gay club. And they're they're gay at the door.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Oh the bowsers are all gay.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
The bouncers are gay. We think, yeah, they seemed to be.
They seem to be.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
After a couple hours of anxious waiting, Chris and Dan
found themselves close to the mouth of Berghem.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
There's actually like a physical demarcation, so like you get
to a certain point where like the line actually has
a railing around it.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Oh okay.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
So once you reach that point, you're like, whoa, this
is game time. Like then you're within like twenty people
of the door. You know that you're withinside of the bouncers.
That's when like you could hear a pin drop. Everyone's
just everyone's totally whiet.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
That's so funny. And what happens when you walk up?
How do you do you like straighten your posture? Absolutely?
Speaker 5 (14:06):
Yeah, okay, And so you get up and then there's
a number of calculations that are going on in your mind.
Do you look at the bouncer in the eye, do
you look kind of at the ground. Do you smile,
do you keep a straight face? Do you say anything?
And I think, on this try, this is like our
authentic's friendly selves attempt, and so you know, I smiled
(14:29):
at the guy. He asked how many people were I
said two. I was friendly. I think I asked him
how this night was going to the answer, no, of
course not. One of my calculations was whether or not
to look like I was having fun and into the music.
So I kind of like was dancing a little bit,
but you know, very like minor movements. And I don't
(14:52):
think that strategy work.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
It's hard because you're like, how do I not look
desperate after waiting in line for several hours to get
into the most exclusive night club in the world. It's
like a witch hunt where every person in line is
a witch.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
Yeah, and you're constantly making adjustments on how to not
appear to be a witch.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah yeah. So you walk up, you say, like, how's
your night? He says nothing? Is he just looking at you?
Is it he? A he?
Speaker 5 (15:20):
It's a he. There's Spen, the main bouncer. If Bergheim
itself is the epitome of what you would think of
East German old techno nightclub. Then Sven is the epitome
of what you would think of as the bouncer, the
lead bouncer for that venue. What he is like a
large man with a large number of tattoos and piercings
on his face.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
That man is.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
He's a unique individual.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Is he intimidating.
Speaker 5 (15:46):
He's extremely intimidating. And there's two others. Apparently there's some
sort of communication between the two of them, some sort
of silent.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Communication, but it is not legible.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
There's only one amount of legible communication, and that's the decision.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
And how do they communicate it to you?
Speaker 5 (16:01):
It's always one person they pull up at a time,
or a small group, and sometimes they're immediately rejected, like
they don't even get to say a word. The bounce
or just puts his hand out and they just keep walking.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Very subtle.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, and they just point towards the street.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
It's not so much a point as an open palm
out the direction that you should be going.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
So the gesture you're doing is actually the gesture you
one used to be, like welcome to my home, but
it's welcome to not my home. Like it's the the
arm goes out the palms outstretched, like, look at this,
You're not going to a night club.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
Yeah, so you're welcome to go anywhere else in Berlin.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Christen Dan did not get the gentle wave inviting them
anywhere else in Berlin. Instead, they got a verbal rejection.
The bouncer told them not tonight and to the next day, Sunday.
They tried again. They had a new plan.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
To go during the day that separately, during the.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Day and separately, okay, and the idea being during the
day less competition, separately, the bouncer might respect you more
so or is it two chances?
Speaker 5 (17:08):
The line was just as long, I would say, if
not longer actually during the day, and yeah. Our thinking
was perhaps we would attain that additional level of respect
if we pretended as if we were going separately.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
On this attempt, Chris and Dan stood in line next
to each other for hours and did not talk.
Speaker 5 (17:30):
We acted like we didn't know each other. And I
was ahead of Chris and I get up and one
of the bouncers like how many and I say one,
and then he just stares at me and stares. And
I actually thought this was the time I was getting
And I was pretty confident because it was like a
solid twenty seconds I would say before I was rejected,
But as soon as they rejected me, they looked at
(17:52):
Chris and immediately rejected him. Oh my god, So we're
pretty sure they caught us in the lie.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Yeah, it was insane. It felt like an X ray.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
But is it the same bouncers from the night before?
Speaker 4 (18:04):
Yeah, it actually was. Actually, as we're saying this, I'm like,
we're yes, yeah, obviously they we already are.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
Well, that would assume they remembered us out of the
thousands of people who are probably trying to get in there.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
But of course I can't believe we had to go
on a podcast.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Like I think you saw it into my soul.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
Yeah, I think we've figured out the answer. Well, so
why we didn't get in, We're just dumb.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
If it seems silly to you that two adult men
spent so much time and energy trying to get into
a nightclub, if it seems sillier that this reporter would
then spend a year of his life thinking about this
place that those men never got to see the inside of.
I should tell you how you feel about nightlife, which
is maybe not what you would expect. I find nightclubs
to be deeply meaningful places, borderline holy. I know that
(18:57):
sounds a little weird, but in New York, where I live,
there's a handful of these quasi underground little dance spots,
smoke machine shrouded dance floors, usually free to get in,
where you can just lose yourself for hours, dancing in
a throng of strangers. It's all very corny to talk about,
especially on a podcast, but as a person who feels
(19:19):
like a full time residence of my own mind, these
are the only places where I escape that, where, even sober,
I can just feel like a body, not a brain,
or not a body, just a part of a mass
of them. I suspect there might be a human need
to gather in a room and surrender to something, And
for me, what I discovered pretty late in life is
(19:39):
that the room should be sweaty, impact, and this render
should be to music. Berghein. Whatever the hype, the promise
was that it was the best of these rooms, built
by humans, an actual wonder of the world, not some relic.
If somebody was going to sympathize with the plate of
two Americans who had failed to pass its door, it
(20:02):
was probably going to be me At the same time, I,
like them, have found this whole situation deeply funny. Isn't
it weird that you guys went to all this trouble
to be like, I don't mean this in like the
Supreme Courts is the word, but like to just be
discriminated against.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
Yes, I don't think we'd think we were discriminated against.
I don't want to be here and say, oh, because
we're two Americans, we absolutely do what we're getting into.
And it was almost going there and getting rejected was
like in fun activity in and of itself.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Right, It's like you're participating in the thrill.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
Let me put it this way. I've gone skydiving before,
and the level of anxiety I had just as I
was stepping up to be judged was the same level
of anxiety I had just as I was about to
jump out of the plane.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Really yeah. And then what did it feel like to
be rejected?
Speaker 5 (21:02):
Almost a relief? Really you get it over with. I
wish I had gotten in, but yeah, and then when
Chris was ejected to I felt really good about myself.
Would have been devastating.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
So what is like the thing you're trying to figure
out about Burke here, Like, what is the question that
I can answer?
Speaker 4 (21:19):
So there's a few things I want to know. One
thing is say, there are some cases where it's cuspy
and they're like, we must be like on the on
the custom of decision where they're like they can't decide
when you're twenty people away whether you're a yes or
a no, and they want to get a closer look.
What are they scanning you for?
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Right?
Speaker 4 (21:39):
What are the cues that are gonna, you know, nudge
you towards getting in versus kick you to the curb?
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Got it?
Speaker 4 (21:46):
The other question that I have every time we would leave,
we would walk around the whole club. I wonder if
there's a way to.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Sneak in, Like is there just like a fire exit? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (21:58):
Like is it permeable from any other orifice than this door?
I mean I expect it to be hard, to be clear.
I don't think that there's some easy Oh just go
in the back door. I'm just like, if you jump
the fence, crawling under a bush, show Like, I'm like,
is there a way?
Speaker 2 (22:13):
And would you do it if there were? Yeah? Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (22:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Okay? What is the bouncer at Burine scanning you for
if you're on the cusp and is there some other,
perhaps secret way sneak into Berghrind. After the break, our
investigation begins. Welcome back to the show, Moon Suins. When
(23:22):
we started all this last July, all I really knew
about Berghein said it was a Berlin techno club and
that was very hard to get into. But I started researching.
The club itself maintains a very minimal footprint online. Two
hundred thousand people follow Berghin's Instagram account, but the club
has only ever posted one photo, in twenty fifteen, a
(23:43):
picture of a sign that says in all caps, taking
photos is not allowed. The sign presumably from inside the
club itself. Berghein, like Vegas, claims that what happens there
stays there, except in Berghein. That seems to actually be true.
Some information about the club, nevertheless, has circulated. The story
of Berghein, as I now understand it, begins thirty years ago.
(24:09):
In the early nineteen nineties, two Germans, Norbert Thormann and
Michael Teufela, had begun hosting a men's only gay fetish party,
sometimes at an abandoned air raid shelter. After a few years,
the party outgrew that bunker. The pair took over and
abandoned railroad depot. At the railroad depot, they started a
club called Ostgout. Ostgood was legendary, open to people of
(24:32):
all genders and sexualities, but still a space run by
and largely four gay men, a den of hedonism where
consenting adults supposedly engaged in all sorts of unusual behavior online.
At least one videos arived from inside the club, but
(24:53):
the video is pretty tame. It's from July two thousand.
Looks like cam quorder footage. A grainily shot DJ hovers
over console, twiddling knobs, while nearby a crowd of German
shadows writhes under a strobe light. Ostgot may have lived forever,
(25:14):
except the city wanted to build a big arena, so
the railroad depot was knocked down in two thousand and three.
Berghein was its reincarnation, the palace that replaced Oscot, this
time too big to knock down. A thermal power plant
originally built during the Soviet era. Four floors. On the
very bottom floor, a dedicated basement gay club for men only.
(25:38):
At the very top, a bar with big windows opening
onto a panoramic view of the city on the levels
in between, where the power turbines once sat, an enormous
dark cavern, the main dance area. The entire space governed
by its own particular rules, rules that are repeated breathlessly
by the Internet commentariat. Hurricane is not a standard posh
(25:59):
club with bottle service and make you put a sticker
over your phone, no pictures, They'll throw you out.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
There'd be a window where you could buy ice cream
and you could order smoothies.
Speaker 5 (26:07):
It's opened from Friday until Monday. Most people stayed there
for twelve hours, twenty four hours or more. Right now
it's nine am.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Berghein is best known for one weekly party, Klube nacht
Club night. Club Night is a misnomer because while the
party starts Saturday evening, it continues all the way until
Monday morning without interruption. A few books document the history
of the scene at birth this party. I've found Tobias
Raps Lost and Sound to be particularly helpful. He writes
about how when Burgin opened in two thousand and four,
(26:36):
the party was by and four berliners, but words soon
spread internationally. A European budget airline called easy Jet had
just opened a new hub in Berlin, and other Europeans
started taking easy jet flights to the city to come party.
The legends kept growing. Eventually it grew large enough to
draw Chris and Dan two of the many Americans who
(26:56):
made the pilgrimage to Techno Mecca. It was a marvel,
a three day party, good enough to draw thousands of
people every weekend. People who would fly to Germany without
even a promise they would gain admits that was klub
knocked at Berghein. Most of what people discuss online is
not any of those. Instead, they talk about Sven, the
(27:20):
intimidating bouncer who Christ and Dan encountered and then cowered
in front of fen Markhart. Spen Markhart is a tall,
imposing man in his early sixties with giant lip rings
that look like silver fangs. His hair is slicked back
in silver. Tattoos of thorns cover much of his face.
He looks like a bad guy in a John Wick movie,
(27:41):
and he has played a bad guy in a John
Wick movie That was just a cameo one time. Though
Spen has run security at burg Hines since the club
first opened twenty years ago. Spen's backstory he grew up
in East Berlin, the Communist side of the wall before
it fell. My name as son. There's this one documentary
(28:02):
Berlin Bouncer that profiles Fen. In one scene, he gives
a talk in front of a crowd, he's wearing all
black tinted glasses. Spen discusses the early chapters of his life,
how his teenageers were defined by the feeling of being
stuck outside a much more significant kind of door.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
And I think they make fund somehow.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
This is zet Spens saying, we just wanted to see
the other side of the wall. We didn't really want
to leave home. We just wanted to find out what
were we being deprived of, what weren't we allowed to see.
Spen has said that as a young gay punk rocker
living in East Berlin was risky. He was frequently picked
(28:46):
up by the secret police. He was devoted to his
photography career, but after the Wall fell he chose to
stay on the East Berlin side and his art career
stalled there. Spen's brother was a DJ and a club organizer,
and Sven started working the door at his parties. It
turned out Sven's eye for people worked not just in photography.
But also here he had a talent for deciding who
(29:09):
should be let in. He developed a reputation. That's why
they chosen for Oscot and later for Berghin. The Fact
that this much of Sven's biography exists in public, of course,
goes entirely against Berghin's secretive ethos. But Sven has continued
to pursue his photography career, and so every few years
(29:29):
when he has a new exhibition or a photo book,
he talks to journalists questions about his photography, which he
wants to discuss, and questions about how to get into Berghin,
which he has to tolerate. Those are the terms under
which the gatekeepers at places like The New York Times
or GQ will allow Sven entry, and understanding the way
(29:49):
of these things, he obliges Sven the man with the
answer to our question, what was the bouncer at Berghin
scanning you for? I should say I emailed Sven and
requested an interview. I've never been less surprised to be ignored.
But in the documentary there's this prickly moment where the
interviewer seems to have directly asked been the rules of
(30:12):
the door. He raisky, so then responds not with helpful
tips about what shade of black to wear. Instead, he
says sternly, we don't need to question the rules that
are in place. He does allow that as a selector
his responsibility is to only let people in who, once
(30:35):
they joined the party, won't impede the freedom and self
expression of the people who are already inside dedatrinzosign cussent.
It makes sense, but it does not provide clues. And
in any situation in which official sources remain this tight lipped,
of course, speculation will rain, and it does online, as
(30:57):
Chris and Dan had seen mainly on TikTok. They're a
cottage industry of people who claim to have gotten through
the door now style themselves as helpful experts explaining what
exactly they believe. Then is scanning for when he looks
at people like Chris and Dan trying to get inside
the mind of a sixty two year old gay German
ex punk, be really casual, don't be flamboyant, don't speak
(31:20):
too much.
Speaker 6 (31:21):
Don't talk too loud in the queue, and under no
circumstances engage in law term.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Literally just basically be as casual and blending as possible
in order to get in. So we've got it's impossible
to know if any of these people are actually telling
the truth. Again, you can't record inside of Berghem, which
means you just have to take the word for it.
I promise.
Speaker 6 (31:41):
People say that you need to work black to get in,
but that's not true.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
It helps, but it's not a must.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
I know, a guy, just be yourself and if you
get in, you get in, and if you don't, try
against some other time or call it a wrap.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
When I went back, I was wearing the advice offered
by these supposed gurus. Frankly does not feel all that usable.
Try to get in, or maybe don't. We're black, but
you don't have to thin.
Speaker 5 (32:07):
It's like look sharp, also like you don't care that much.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
My favorite artifact of all the online Berghein speculation is
this website called berghind trainer dot com that will actually
drop you into a surprisingly hyra's simulation of the Burghin line.
The site takes control of your webcam and then scans
your face, analyzing your emotions through your expressions, how angry, sad,
(32:32):
euphoric your faces, giving a virtual simulation of Sven's gaze,
and then the first person video virtually walks you, step
by step up to the doors of Berghin. The music
gets louder as you get closer. The website warns you
that's Ben will ask you three questions. So I did it.
(32:54):
When I arrived at the virtual door, a German Man,
presumably an actor playing Sven, asked, is this your first
time here? I said yes, The vlchb it. He asked,
do you know who's djaying tonight? I said yes. He
asked whether I'd taken drugs? I said nine. After a
moment of scanning, the virtual bouncer told me possoidy not
(33:17):
good today, and then made the hand gesture toward the street,
the same hand gesture Chris and Dan had gotten. To
be honest with you, this rejection by a fake bouncer.
It hurt my real feelings. I'll tell you something about
myself that won't surprise you. I've never been considered cool.
(33:37):
I know cool people. I'm not against coolness. I just
don't possess it. I'm uncool enough that I have to
ask the cool people I know to explain to me
why certain things are cool. Right now, how did we
decide big pants are back in style. If you have
to ask, you're not cool. And I do have to ask,
both professionally and just because of my personality. So I'm
(33:59):
not cool, and I'm old enough to be okay with that.
But this was a little different. At Bergheim, where Sven ruled,
it seemed to me that the source of his power
lay partly in his refusal to explain himself. My job
as a journalist was the opposite, to understand and explain,
and I just couldn't resist the challenge of trying to
(34:19):
understand something that was designed to obscure itself. That was why,
even after all this internet slothing and documentary watching, we
would continue digging for the better part of a year.
We've talked to lots of people, We'd read too many
books devoted to the helmetic study of German techno, its
origins and subgenres, and in the end we'd emerge with
(34:40):
an answer. What was berg Heinz scanning for? And why
how would a place like this come to be? All that?
After the break, Welcome back to the show. In America,
(35:44):
in the circles I run in, people complain a lot
about capitalism. I don't think they're bothered by the exchange
of goods and services. I think it's their shorthand way
of saying everything here is just too driven by profit.
Even things that start out good can be squeezed to
death by our ceaseless desire to bring out every possible dollar.
In Berlin, a place where until recently capitalism and socialism
(36:07):
both operated in Berlin, it feels like something else is
going on. The nightlife industry there brings in one and
a half billion tourism dollars a year, but they're strange dollars.
The crown jewel Berghein operates by turning away thousands of
paying customers, and despite demand, it keeps it to ticket
prices pretty low, all while existing and building that is
(36:29):
thirty seven six hundred square feet in a very himp neighborhood.
And not only does this all seem to work, it's
worked for a long time. That doesn't happen in nightlife.
Clubs don't stick around. Studio fifty four was open for
less than three years. Berghin is on its twenty eth
and people attribute a lot of that success to Berghein's
strict and strange door policy. You can tell the story
(36:53):
of that door. A story about culture, about cool, but
cool we know never explains itself. So let's get inside
Berghin from a different direction. I'm going to tell you
the story not about DJs and bouncers, but about lawyers
and lobbyists, about the municipal regulation and policy that allows
this club to exist the way it does, A story
(37:15):
that begins in nineteen forty nine. Hi, can you hear me?
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Hey, Hey, hey, you will?
Speaker 2 (37:22):
How's it going over there?
Speaker 3 (37:23):
Well?
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Well, well, looks lights and ring. I'd first heard about
him from one of my best friends, k Burke, a
nightclub founder herself. People in Berlin called it's the mayor
of the city's nightlife. So did Kay explain like who
I am and what we're up to over here?
Speaker 3 (37:40):
I think she might, but it was also quite some
time a goal. So mabe, you can film me in again.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yeah. So I have this podcast called search Engine where
we just try to answer people's questions, no matter how
simple or complicated, and we do sort of like all
manner of stuff. We do like really serious stuff, like
we just did something about fentonel and the drug supply
in America, but we also do really silly stuff and
kind of like everything in between.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
And what level are we here in this conversation closer
to silly?
Speaker 2 (38:10):
I think, So we have these friends I want to
talk about who just like didn't get into Bergheid and
are confused about it. But it's sort of an excuse
to tell the larger story about nightlife. Like I think
for people the United States, it's a place you go
and you spend five hundred dollars on champagne and like,
you know what I mean, it's.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Like ten dollars on a can of beer, yes, without
a glass exactly.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Germans like loats, call this style of nightclub bottles and models,
shorthand for the economic model that drives them. Clubs like
these are what most Americans think of when you say
nightclub spots that tend to make their money by enticing
rich people to pay for tables and buy bottles of
champagne so that they can feel important. The clubs are
like little statisfactories. In Berlin, though that same word nightclub
(38:55):
describes an entirely different operation fueled by a different economic model,
and Litz's job is to protect that status quo. He's
nightlife's advocate in the offices of City bureaucrats. The spokesperson
for Berlin's club commission, I wanted the lots to tell
me how Berlin's unusual night life scene had come to be.
And that story is a story of two arguments. The
(39:19):
first argument takes place in the late nineteen forties. Argument
one is about a very specific role curfew in Berlin.
Today there is no curfew. Bars and clubs stay open
as long as they want. And can you tell me
the story of, like how Berlin came to be a
city with no curfew? Like what is the origin story
of that decision?
Speaker 3 (39:38):
The decisions is like almost eighty years old, and it
happened right after World War Two. So in nineteen forty
nine you had already a divided city between the eastern
sector and the western sector, the eastern sector controlled by
the Russians and the western sector controlled by the British,
to French and the Americans. And in the eastern part
there was a curfew at ten pm, so all the restaurants, bars,
(40:02):
hotel bars, cub right bars, so they had to close
at ten pm in the eastern part. In the western
part it was nine pm, so an hour earlier. And
there was this let's say representative, a spokesperson of the
hotels and restaurants of Berlin. His name was Heines Cellemayer
Heines Zellermayer.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
There was no club commission back then. Heines was instead
the deputy director of the Guild of Berlin Hoteliers. In photos,
Heines has an enormous smile and combed back hair. He
looks like someone who held forth at a restaurant or two.
Heines did not like the curfew. He particularly did not
like that his side of the city had an earlier curfew.
(40:42):
The person to complain to was General Howley of the
US Army. The Americans West Berlin Commandant a meeting with
sat and Heines supposedly came prepared.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
The story is that he brought a bottle of whiskey
to that meeting. So they met and they were talking
about it, and General Howley said, yeah, the British and
the French day are not already supporting any idea of
losing this curfew. They say is a security issue. So
you have to give me an argument that I can
give to French and the British. And the problem was
(41:13):
that at that moment in the western part the people
had to go out of the bar and then they
went to the eastern sector for another hour, which was
also not really liked by the Americans, you know. So
he said, if you kicked Germans who were partying at
a certain hour, you kicked them out of the street,
you're going to have a security issue, so you have
to better find a solution for it.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
It was a well reasoned argument. The Allies did not
want drunk Westerners crossing east in search of a later
last call, and worse, there'd been an emerging Cold War
of curfews, with each side, the East and the West,
repeatedly extending an hour past each other to try to
capture all the income from drunk berliners. Eliminating curfew would
solve the security issue and win the night war. Howie
(41:55):
was sold.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
He said, okay, let's try this out for two weeks,
and since then nineteen forty nine, we have no curfew.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Berlin one of the rare cities that has no curfew
at all. In nineteen forty nine, when the city permanently
delet did its curfew. Obviously, techno music did not exist
raving with something people did in insane asylums. If anyone
was listening to music in a club late at night.
It was probably jazz, but this decision set Berlin on
a path. Nightlife is funded more than anything else via
(42:25):
the sale of alcohol. A city without a curfew can
have a legal party that runs through the night, even
that runs multiple nights. Half a century ish later, techno
will hit Berlin. People will begin to throw raves in
illegal spots without permits. This will happen in a lot
of cities at the same time, Detroit, New York, London.
(42:46):
But what makes Berlin different from those places is that
here many of those raves can actually become legitimate businesses
can find permanent homes and clubs. General Holley's nineteen forty
nine agreement is the first precondition for club knocked at Bergheim.
It sets the stage for a party that can last
for three days. But years later, as the scene starts
(43:07):
to mature, a second art even takes place. An argument
which almost kills these night clubs, argument, too, is about taxes.
In the early two thousands, Berghein was a rising young
club alongside already established spots like Trisoor and the kit
Cat Club, and Berlin's tax authority started to take a
(43:28):
closer look at these places. How much money were they
bringing in shouldn't the city be getting a bigger cut?
Government tax agents walk into Berghein, presumably without needing permission
from Spen. They're there documenting everything they see, asking a
question from a tax perspective, what is happening in these rooms?
In Germany? If you pay money for a ticket and
(43:50):
enter a venue where music is played, according to the
tax men, you may be having one of three different experiences.
You might be experiencing high culture like opera, in which
case the city will barely tax the ticket. You might
be at a concert like the Rolling Stones, in which
case the city will moderately tax the ticket. Or you
might be experiencing entertainment. This happens in casinos in peign theaters.
(44:16):
In that case the city will take a big tax bite,
almost twenty percent. Before the tax officials began to take
a closer look at the club scene, these venues had
been mostly taxed as concert venues, But now in two
thousand and eight, the city started to ask pointed questions.
Was a DJ really a musician? Was a techno show
(44:36):
really like a concert?
Speaker 3 (44:39):
The perception that people in government had says, a DJ
is not a concert. People are going there to have sex,
or to drink or to whatever, but not because of
the DJ. They even sent people to clubs and documented
that people were not facing the artists. They were talking
to each other. Oh my god, like that to kind
of prove the point that it is not a concert.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Wow, I've been a concert where people who were not
facing the artists and talking to each other exactly.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
But they said clubs is different. People go there to
meet people, not because of the artists. They don't even
know who's playing. These kind of argumentations.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Berghein was the club that actually took this case all
the way to the High courts. Burghin won. The Berghein
in the government's books was cemented as a concert venue,
a place where people went because they've loved techno music. Weirdly,
this is one part of the answer to Chris and
Dan's questions. What was the bouncer Svenn scanning for at
the door? He needed to ensure they were true techno heads,
(45:38):
not people there simply for entertainment. That consideration a funny
side effect of the argument the club had had to
make in court years ago. It may have been part
of what filtered them out. Christ and Dan not true
techno heads. Berghein's victory in court meant that any German
nightclub that could prove it was meeting Berghin's cultural standards
(45:58):
could be taxed like Berghein. Lower taxes meant they could
keep their overhead low. The lower the overhead, the less
pressure to make money. The less pressure to make money,
the more they could get continue to keep their nightclubs
dedicated to preserving Berlin's strange counterculture. Let's tell me about
another one of these battles.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
I don't know if you're aware of zoning what that
means in cities. So there are different zoning laws, which
says in certain zones of the city there are certain allowances. So,
for instance, you cannot build an amusement venue like a
leisure venue in a residential area.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
Right.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
The problem with this categorization is that you're only fully
legal in the very center of the city, where also
the prices are very high. So if you want to
do it properly, you have to be very commercial to survive.
And now that we are more flexible in what areas
of the cities we can establish music venues. We can
(46:54):
also maybe turn a form of restaurant or bar into
a club possibly which we could not before because it
wasn't a wrong zone.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
It's so interesting though, it's like, get you get the
government to classify clubs differently, that changes like where can
appropriately be in the city. Then if the clubs can
be in places where they otherwise wouldn't have been allowed,
they can have like a different profit incentive, like they
don't have to just like make as much money as possible,
And you end up with a different culture because of
(47:24):
just a change to how the government classified something that's
really interesting exactly. We're going to come back to this
strange court case and its consequences in the second part
of this story. But before I left Lutz, I wanted
to ask him specifically about Chris and Dan. What was
it about them the way they looked, the way they
dressed that it signaled they didn't belong at Berghein. Lutz
(47:46):
does not represent Berghin, but as spokesperson for the club
commission and as a Bergheim regular, I thought he might
be able to help. Can shoot a couple of photographs
and you tell me if the person seems like.
Speaker 3 (47:56):
I'm not a selector, so I can only give you
my personal opinion.
Speaker 2 (48:00):
Yeah, is it okay to ask you your opinion on it. Yeah, yeah, Sue,
of course. Okay, this is one person.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
Well, very friendly, maybe queer person, very soft happy. He's
wearing some kind of top that doesn't really say anything.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
It's like when it's too generic of a top the best.
Speaker 3 (48:24):
I think it looks authentic to him. But this person
looks very innocent. Yeah, and you also want to save
some people for you know, to getting into something that
they maybe don't expect.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
Okay, so this is the person he went with.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
Yeah, I would probably send them to Shoots. With Shoots
it's it's our oldest, best known gay club, and that's
that's the perfect vife for those two guys.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
Because they don't seem like techno guys to you. They
seem like gay guys who are going out clubbing.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
They don't look like hard you know, like standing in
the middle of a sweaty club and going for hours
and enjoying this and you know, they're standing more like
having a chad, you know, like and that's that's okay
to have some of those folks in the venue. But
it's really about getting out of your inner self and
showing your animalistic side.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Oh feerself for very good reason. We don't celebrate the
idea that you should judge people based on how they
look on the outside. Those judgments often lead us astray.
And yet Lootz from a photo could tell Chris and
Dan were after respectful, healthy, wholesome partying, not the sort
(49:40):
of darkness that occurs in Berghein's techno dungeons. They didn't
belong here. They belonged, he suspected at another place called Schwitz.
I wondered what Chris and Dan would make of that judgment,
so later I asked. Chris told me Schwitz. They loved Schwitz.
It was the club they'd ended up at after being
rejected from berg Hein, Berlin. This magical city had somehow
(50:05):
sent them to the place where they really belonged. Lutz
was not a select sure, but he did seem to
have a selector's eye. Your read is so good, Chris,
who I know better. He's a lovely He's one of
my favorite people to spend time with. If I were
having a party where it is really important that someone
dance in the middle of the dance word for eight hours,
he would perhaps not make the cut for that party.
Speaker 3 (50:26):
That's really I think the first question you have to
ask yourself are you a participant or are you a visitor?
And it shouldn't sound sophisticated or arrogant. It's just like
a club. The definition of club is being part of
a club. If you're not part of the club, why
(50:46):
should you being able to enter? I think the idea
of just buying myself in is the opposite of a club.
What it should actually be. A club should bring to
people together who have similar interests, similar preferences.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
A club should bring together people of similar interests. Absolutely,
but what if you're someone who doesn't belong but still
wants to just go check it out? Is there a
way to sneak in? Is there some other way into
Berghind that is not going through the bouncer? Lootz did
have advice about this.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
My tip that I usually give is make a plan
of exploring Berlin, maybe from the outskirts. Go to venues
that are not very known. Go to places that are
somehow interesting for you because you did your research and
you saw some artists that you want to see and
yet they're playing, So go there and you get in
(51:38):
very easy because venues that are not very known don't
have this kind of level of selection. Usually there's not
even the queue, and then you get friends with the bartenders,
you make friends with the DJs there, and you have
an amazing time in an unknown venue with unknown artists. Basically,
and the next time you're coming, you're going to reach
(52:00):
out to them, and because they liked you or they
connected to you, they will ask you to start in
their home with dinner. Maybe you go to a bar,
you make no friend, and even maybe they make sure
that you get on a guest list of some venue
that they're going at that night. But I think it's
part of that journey that you also have to make
(52:22):
to be part of the scene.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
Lutz said. The process he's describing this is the real
way into Clube knocked. Make yourself a part of the scene,
that line outside Berghein. He said, that's for people who
haven't been able to or who haven't known to try.
While Litz was saying this to me, I was nodding, yes,
furiously might nog in like a broken bobblehead. Of course,
it all made sense, and as a person obsessed with
(52:46):
belonging and exclusion, I was lapping it all up. We
finished our conversation. It's really, it's a pleasure to just
get to ask you these questions. Thank you for doing this.
Speaker 3 (52:57):
You're welcome.
Speaker 2 (52:58):
We hung up, and then, not long after, the spell
of Litz's idea dissipated. What were we talking about? If
you wanted to visit the most exclusive night club in
the world, go to Germany and start methodically befriending Germans
in the city's electronic music scene. Okay, normally that would
(53:20):
have been the end of things, and perhaps it should
have been the end of things. But not long after this,
a friend of mine, an American, asked me a question.
They were celebrating a big milestone in their life, and
they wanted to do it in Germany, in Berlin. Actually,
they wanted to spend some time there, perhaps even try
to see some of the city's famous night life. Does
(53:41):
that sound like fun? Could I make some time away
from work? Yes? It did, No, I couldn't. I bought
myself a planet against the myth, hard as it was
to believe, was that the door to Bergheim, like Excalibur's sword,
would be offered only to someone who truly understood techno culture,
who understood what the place meant. Could something like that
(54:02):
really be True next week on search Engine, the last
episode of our season technow search Engine is a presentation
(54:48):
of Odyssey and Jigsaw Productions. It was created by me
p j Vote and Truthy Penmanany and it was produced
by Garrett Graham and Noah John. Backchecking this week by
Claire Hyman. Theme original composition and mixing by armand Bazarian,
who also created the Techno remix or theme song You're
listening to right now. Armand Bazarian very talented madam Our
(55:08):
executive producers are Genoay Sperman and Lea Reese Dennis. Thanks
to the team at Jakesaw, Alex Gibney, Rich Prelo and
John Schmidt, and to the team at Odyssey JD Crowley,
Rob Mirandy Craig Cox, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchison, Matt Casey,
Mori Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney, and Hilary shopp. Our
agent is Orn Rosenbaum at UTA. Follow and listen to
(55:30):
Search Engine for free on the Odyssey app or wherever
you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. We'll see you
next week.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com