Berlin, the city known in the world perhaps mostly for being the place some guy from the Alps and his buddies happened to hang out at, for a period of time. And perhaps secondly known, for being the place, where part of the city area was part of the Western bloc, and part of the city area was part of the Eastern bloc, during the years of the so-called “Cold war”, with the “Berlin Wall”.
Historically, Berlin has been and is, a lot more than that, with a history spanning back centuries. By the mid-18th century, the population of what is now an inner city area, had grown to over 100,000, by 1880 it reached over a million, by 1919 nearly 2 millions – and once the surrounding area was incorporated into the city Berlin, in 1920 by the Greater Berlin Act of the Prussian state government, the population census for 31st December 1920 says 3,879,409.
There was a bit more growth after that, to around 4.3 million by 1929, with a similar number listed for the end of 1944, and then 3 million by the end of 1945. After that, the population of both city parts combined was at 3 to 3.4 million for decades, until about 2013, and then around 3.7 million by 2022 – that is according to census (with the caveats these things have, such as a change to the approach of how to count).
Besides just the numbers, there is naturally many a story in and with all that. Such as the stories about Huguenots, who were persecuted to death in France, and of who about 20,000 arrived and settled in and near Berlin by around the year of 1685. And many other such and other stories, not all of which were nor are about fleeing for life from the counter-reformation in a number of European countries back then.
These days, there are people from about 170 nationalities in Berlin. Some of these residents come as an attachment to an embassy, but many are here for private reasons, such as to work and/or study, or have arrived as refugee, or are in Berlin as “fortune seekers”.
If you were to happen to come by or live in Berlin, you might happen to sit in the Berlin underground (U-Bahn) next to one of around 100,000 citizen of Turkey, 55,000 of Poland, 40,000 of Syria, 31,000 of Italy, 30,000 of Bulgaria, 26,000 of Russia, 24,000 of Romania, 22,000 of USA, 20,000 of Serbia, 19,000 of France, 19,000 of Vietnam, 16,000 of UK, 14,000 of Spain, 14,000 of Greece, 14,000 of India, 14,000 of Croatia, 13,000 of Afghanistan, 13,000 of China, and so on – and a number of these are permanent residents. Like a Turkish citizen, born and raised in Berlin, speaking fluent German, perhaps even with an university degree – and as such, they are arguably even more local than e.g. a company representative from Bavaria, despite being a Turkish citizen, that is, a person who holds citizenship of Turkey.
Now, as many other cities on this planet, Berlin has its share of day-to-day business, such as traffic issues, and Berlin also has its particularities. One of these particularities is, being with the European Union. That does have nice aspects to it, but also has somewhat of an impact on a communal level, when the European Union at large doesn’t seem to care much about at least some baseline, in regard to social security in member states, nor about some rules in regard to evictions.
The result of which is that homeless EU-citizen arrived in Berlin from EU-countries, partially after evictions, and this is neither a great situation for these poor souls, nor for Berlin as city – and it would now get more political about stuff like that, to find a way together to improve these matters, instead of people getting treated just as numbers, who don’t matter when Mr “I made my money during privatization, and now also take money from EU, while bulldozing flats, that are within view of my golf course, while my buddy sits in government.” is around, or whatever else may be going far and wide in the European Union.
Soo… that’s about it, for an introduction about the place I am at, Berlin.