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Is Berlin police really that bad?
Ha… I have recently seen lots of online videos of Berlin (German) police being quite aggressive and violent.. but it's often unclear to me what the context is, of these short clips circulating online.
Has anybody dealt with them? It's honestly a little scary and makes me worried that I'll ever have to deal with them.. should I be worried at all?
Edit: didn't mean to make this an Israeli / Palestina thing.. Also hearing wildly different answers, suppose it really comes down to personal experience
The viral clips usually miss the lead-up, which is where most of the tension comes from. I've had them called on me twice for noise complaints at my flat in Neukölln and both times they just told us to keep it down and left. The one time I saw them get rough was at Hermannplatz when a guy started screaming at them over a ticket check, and even then it was just a quick takedown, not a beating. If you're not drunk and arguing at 2am or waving a Palestinian flag at a demo, the odds of you having a bad encounter are pretty low.
honestly most of those viral clips are either protests or people being really difficult with officers. i've had to deal with berlin police a few times for minor stuff like lost wallet and a bike theft report and they were professional, a bit grumpy maybe but that's just berlin energy. the reputation comes from the big demos and certain u-bahn stations late at night where tensions run high. if you're not getting into political confrontations or being aggressive with them you'll probably never have a real problem
yeah they're mostly fine for day to day stuff but they're definitely known for having a heavy hand at protests and demonstrations. if you're just living your life you probably won't have any issues, just don't film them or get into arguments if they stop you
What is the correct spelling for a street name that appears differently on multiple signs in Charlottenburg?
Worth noting that Berlin street names have official umlaut and ß rules that trip people up, so a sign showing "Strasse" versus "Straße" is not actually a spelling error, just an older transcription. Same with "ue" versus "ü" (e.g. "Kantstrasse" vs "Kantstraße"), both are considered valid renderings and you'll see the ß version on the blue Schilder and the ss version on older plaques or in databases that predate Unicode. If the difference you're seeing is between those two forms, there's nothing to fix and both are technically correct.
if the signs u mean are the old enamel ones on the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated. the binding version is whatever is in the Berliner Strassenverzeichnis plus the entry in the Liegenschaftskataster, so if u tell me the street i can point u to the right Bezirksamt Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf page. tbh the merged district thing is real but the facade signs are a separate story, theyre basically museum pieces at this point
honestly thats super common in Charlottenburg, the district offices were merged from older Bezirke and nobody ever fixed all the Schilder. if its a real street you can check the official strassenverzeichnis on berlin.de, that list is what the Burgeramt actually goes by. which street is it? some of the Kaiserdamm / Kantstrasse signs are notorious for this.
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