Three Great Berlin Stories You Can Listen To In English

Photo by Heye Jensen on Unsplash

While we at Original Berlin Walks love to show you the sights, there’s a lot more to Berlin than its monuments and memorials. With these three excellent stories, you can learn about Berlin’s here-and-now as well as its history from the comfort of your home, commute, bed, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

The Bottle Collector

Let’s kick off with a great podcast from one of our guides, Wouter. Between 2015 and 2019 Wouter made several cities about Berlin under the title Berlinology. When you buy a bottled drink in Germany you pay a deposit for the container it comes in. You can take your empty bottles back to the store and get your deposit back. When you’re in Berlin you may notice people all across the city collecting the bottles to get the money. How and why do they do this? Is it worth it? Listen to Wouter interview collectors and discuss the phenomenon with sociologist, Sebastian Moser.

Click here to Berlinology’s “The Bottle Collector” now

Intrigue: Tunnel 29

BBC Radio 4’s Intrigue have covered some fascinating stories. One of my favourites is their telling of “Tunnel 29”. The tunnel in question was used by 29 people to escape East Berlin in the 1960s. There are some unexpected twists and turns along the way, including US television network NBC buying the opportunity to show the escape live on TV! I’ll let you discover the rest of the ups and downs yourself.

Click here to listen to Intrigue, Tunnel 29 now

Hear all about the history of the Berlin Wall and see where the Tunnel 29 Story happened on our East Berlin Tour - relaunching this Easter!

How To F#€k Up An Airport by Radio Spaetkauf

Long-standing, humorous Berlin news-in-English podcast Radio Spaetkauf produced a one-off series a few years ago covering the fiasco that is the new airport in Berlin (well, just outside of Berlin if we’re being technical). The story is completely mind-blowing! Small spoiler: the airport did eventually open, back in 2020, and while it’s not exactly been a glowing success since then, I would argue it’s better than the two ageing airports we used to have.

Click here to listen to How To F#€k Up An Airport by Radio Spaetkauf