Back to German roots?

At first glance, Berlin stands for a metropolis with a prosperous nightlife scene, thousands of creative people - from DJ's of all music styles - to designers, painters, photographers, models and many others. A lot of those people run their own projects to keep their way of art alive and to share impacts and impressions with fellow Berliners.

These are the roots of what nowadays is known as the Berlin scene, with clubs like Watergate and Berghain and protagonists such as Dr. Motte, the founder of Berlin's Loveparade, who often serves as a Godfather of Berlin's club culture.

Such an important place to share moments of art, music and enjoyment is Köpi, a squat located on Kreuzberg's Köpenicker Strasse. In general, squats have a long tradition in Berlin, many well-known techno clubs and artists first appeared inside of such ruins.

On the night of January 12th 2007, a group of approx. hundred cops showed up the Köpi venue - not because of a loud music, noise or anything like that - they raided the venue just because of a missing permission to run a bar. Berlin's authorities usually start a paper-warfare first against the owner, not a massive police raid, like in this case.

A hundred cops against 12 people - that's one of the very same exaggerated scenes that once happened at the legendary club Tresor, when 800 cops were searching for drugs. Results? 16 arrests, 4 of them false. At the Köpi cops additionally filmed the premises, confiscated all flyers, and the box office of massive 18 Euro.

The Berlin police often acts disproportional, that's why many prominent journalists already draw a comparison to the 1920's when paramilitary troops terrorised leftist population. Let's see what happens next...

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Sources: indymedia / Dr. Motte's blog