Nothing, like something, happens anywhere. Philip Larkin

Berlin, October 2023

Returning from dinner at the wonderful Berlin restaurant Tulus Lotrek, we get into a taxi. The driver is Urban, 63 years old. He recounts to us the events of the night the Wall fell. At some point I ask him about what happened in Germany after the war and about how much the German people suffered.

His answer is disarming, and the tone of his voice leaves no room for doubt:
“That’s how it had to be. Too many things had happened.”

Germany’s postwar generation carried the mistakes on its shoulders. There was no future without catharsis.
Urban — a simple taxi driver, a supporter of Hertha Berlin.