Berlin Calling

Dutschke saw the world’s urban centers in revolt, West Berlin one of the fronts. His vision was to transform all of Berlin into an open metropolis, independent of both East and West Germany. All of the city’s walls would come down, not just the concrete monstrosity cutting across the city. The Free and the Technical Universities (in the west), the Humboldt (in the east), and all of the city’s other academies would be dissolved in favor of a sprawling, unstructured “learning city.” Berlin would be governed by local councils and communes; workers would take over the factories while police and bureaucracy would be abolished. Self-organization would prevail from schools to hospitals. If it worked, it could be a model for a unified Germany, argued Dutschke, who, as a former GDR citizen, was one of the few student rebels who cared a fig about uniting Germany.

Like most of the Wahlberliner, or Berliners-by-choice

the nighttime demimonde