A weekly round-up of news stories that piqued our interest or made us scratch our heads. This week:
Dance away the blues This Sunday, even if the skies aren't blue, the streets could be: the AfD are planning a demonstration in Mitte, with an expected 10,000 people taking part. Not to fear though, aside from the usual anti-fascist counter-protesters, around 120 Berlin clubs and other stalwarts of the nightlife scene are planning to counter the demo with the slogan "AFD wegbassen" – "bass the AfD away". You'll be clubbing anyways... might as well join!
Ostalgia on track Despite promising back in 2015 that they would be out of use by 2017, the GDR-created 'Tatra' trams will stay on Berlin's streets until at least 2020. There simply just aren't enough trams to take these ones out of commission, which may please fans of vintage transport – in this case would probably be your distant East German uncle, Horst.
Wham, bam, hello, Tram! In other tram news, a man was run over by an M6 tram in Hohenschönhausen after crossing the street while the light was red at Landsberger Allee and Genslerstraße. No word if he was your distant East German uncle, Horst.
Sliding into the dms Germans' not-so-secret affection for drugstores has been revealed by the annual Retail Index, showing the country's most popular shopping spots. dm drew with Amazon for the top spot, possibly due to its addictive range of natural care products. Another drugstore fave, Rossman, took third place, with Edeka coming top of the supermarkets, in fourth.
No friend in a coma, I know, I know An unknown man has been lying in hospital in a coma since the middle of March, and no one knows who he is. This unusual story started when a man collapsed while jogging in Volkspark Wilmersdorf. He has not yet regained consciousness, and neither relatives nor friends have come forward to report the man missing and a DNA sample also failed to give any answers. We'd say it could be a lonely expat, but what's he doing in Wilmersdorf?
It's the 1990s again Berlin's housing crisis may be sparking another squatter movement, but sadly, the squatters have been squashed. On Sunday evening, police cleared two buildings occupied only a few hours earlier in Neukölln and Kreuzberg. It is not clear how many people were involved in the action. Squatters have recently invaded several vacant buildings in protest at Berlin's housing situation.
Missing any parcels? We all have tales of the problematic postal deliveries in Germany, but here's one possible explanation: A 33-year-old former courier for Deutsche Post has been sentenced to one year and six months in prison for looting packages he was meant to be delivering. Between December 2014 and June 2015, the man is believed to have taken €35,000 worth of packages. Why'd he do it? To help his girlfriend out, he says.