Janae Byrne on the past and present of one of Neukölln’s most infamous quarters…
Despite being located between two of Neukölln’s busiest streets—Hermannstraße and Karl Marx Straße—the famously frantic ‘culture-clash’ energy them and the district seems to dissipate when entering the Rollbergviertel.
Officially one of Neukölln’s nine sub-districts, and arguably its most notorious, the blue and red window frames that adorn the collection of postwar apartment blocks feel like a desperate attempt to impose some colour and vibrancy on a neighbourhood that feels contrastively tranquil, even lethargic.
While there’s not much famous Neukölln dynamism here, there’s also not much to suggest the area’s reputation as a ‘trouble spot’ either, and even less to indicate the district’s tumultuous broader history. Hardly anything remains of the area’s pre-industrial origins, for example, when the hills—die Rollberge—that gave the area its name were dotted with windmills.
Those hills were dug out to access the useful building materials (gravel and sand) that lay beneath them; what was left behind provided the foundations for ‘modern’ Rollberg, which started life towards the end of the 19th century. As the city industrialised, workers rented apartments in the district’s newly built Altbaus and found employment at local factories and breweries like the Kindl brewery, which opened in 1872 around the corner from Rollbergstraße, and has in recent years been transformed into a centre for contemporary art.
In 1887 the Wasserturm Neukölln (Neukölln water tower) was built on Leykestraße to supply water to the area, and in 1899 the area’s first tram started to run along Hermannstraße, Werbellinstraße and Kienitzer Straße. The Arbeitsquartiere (workers’ quarters) were small and gradually became overcrowded, populated mainly by poorer families who couldn’t afford better living standards in other parts of the city. One of the most famous residents around this time was the “Captain of Köpenick“, who lived temporarily with his sister at Kopfstraße 27 in 1906.
Up to ten people shared a room in some cases, with most apartment buildings sharing toilets located on staircases or in the courtyard. The lack of sanitary facilities and overcrowding meant that diseases spread quickly, mortality rates were high and violence and crime grew prevalent.
At the same time, the neighbouring medieval village of Rixdorf, on the other side of what since 1947 has been called Karl Marx Straße, expanded into a lively hub of taverns, music halls, and entertainment sites, also gaining a reputation for rowdiness, public drunkenness, and prostitution. In an attempt to improve its public image, the authorities renamed the entire area Neukölln in 1912; in 1920, it was subsumed into greater Berlin.
By the turn of the century, the working class character of the district—in particular the Rollbergviertel—grew increasingly politicised, with many locals supporting the Soc…