The flour hangs in the air like snow. Thick, white, everywhere. On the floor, on the shelves, on the hair of Stanisław Nowak, who for forty-five years has been getting up at three in the morning to bake bread for his district. He is seventy-two years old, but his hands – wrinkled, covered with burn scars – move with the precision of a surgeon.
The Pulse of a Metropolis: Berlin-Mitte on the Eve of Elections
Berlin-Mitte, a name that conjures images of the Bundestag, Museum Island, and Alexanderplatz, is far more than its iconic landmarks. Stretching from the Brandenburg Gate deep into Wedding, from the ministries along the Spree to Gesundbrunnen and Moabit, this central district is a microcosm of Germany’s vibrant, complex capital. Home to nearly 400,000 people – almost twice the population of Rostock or Chemnitz – it’s a place where diverse voices converge, each offering a unique perspective on the city’s evolving identity.
With the Abgeordnetenhaus elections scheduled for September 20th, the Berliner Zeitung took to the streets, listening to the concerns, hopes, and frustrations of its residents. What has changed? What weighs on their minds? And what do they expect from the next state government? The answers, as varied as the district itself, led us on a journey from Alexanderplatz to Friedrichstraße and into the heart of Moabit.
Visitors’ Gaze: A City Transformed
On Alexanderplatz, Rebecca and Mirko Ebert, a couple from near Munich, stroll with their dog. Both 41, he works in education, she in culture. They visit Berlin once a year to see Mirko’s brother, but also because, as Mirko tells the Berliner Zeitung, “we really like the city.”
Berlin’s state politics are a distant concern for them, yet they’re aware of the Left Party’s consistent lead in polls, finding it “sympathetic.” Their annual visits offer a unique vantage point on the city’s transformation. Over the past 15 years, Rebecca notes, Berlin has become “much dirtier,” with a noticeable increase in graffiti. Still, their affection for the city remains; they find it “fundamentally better than Bavaria.” So why not move from the so-called ‘donor state’ to the capital? “Our child is simply doing very well in Bavaria.”
It’s telling that visitors highlight the state of public spaces, reflecting Mitte’s dual identity as both a residential area and a major tourist destination. In 2025, Mitte recorded approximately 13.55 million overnight stays, nearly half of Berlin’s total of 29.4 million.
A Nurse’s Unease: Migration, Cleanliness, and the Cost of Living
Also on Alexanderplatz, we meet Dragana Simic, 45, a nurse originally from Serbia, who has lived in Berlin-Spandau for ten years and regularly visits Mitte to meet friends. She is eligible to vote and intends to do so. Why? “I am a foreigner myself, but everything has just gotten dirtier,” she states. When asked about the connection between immigration and cleanliness, she explains, “It’s just different cultures. They have a different understanding of cleanliness.” She believes nothing will change with the new state government, as “the war has destroyed everything.”
Simic refers to the Ukraine-Russia conflict and the refugees arriving in Germany. “I come from Serbia, I know what war is,” she says, before detailing her specific concerns: the streets are now filled with “too many too different people,” which she links to a sense of insecurity. She cites the CSD attack, perpetrated by a Berliner of Lebanese descent, as an example of this perceived danger. Furthermore, “everything is getting more expensive,” she shifts to her work. Nursing is no longer attractive enough, there is a shortage of staff, and the workload is high. “We are overburdened,” Simic says. At the same time, the cost of living has risen massively. “This is no longer normal.”
When she discusses politics with friends, local Berlin issues quickly blend with federal and foreign policy. Prices and inflation are topics, but the greatest concern is the war. No one wants it “to come here,” she says.
The Political Mosaic of Mitte: Beyond Simple Narratives
These initial conversations reveal the difficulty of confining the Berlin election campaign to purely state-level politics. While the ballot concerns the Abgeordnetenhaus, street-level discussions revolve around healthcare, rising prices, migration, and the fear of escalating conflict.
Mitte’s political landscape is equally complex, encompassing diverse neighborhoods like the bustling Wedding and the orderly Tiergarten. In the 2025 Bundestag election, the Left Party emerged as the strongest force with 27.1 percent, followed by the Greens (21.7 percent) and the SPD (15 percent). The CDU garnered 13.5 percent, and the AfD 8.9 percent. However, the Berlin Abgeordnetenhaus election two years prior presented a different picture, with the CDU leading Mitte with 24.2 percent, the Greens at 19.5 percent, and the SPD and Left Party each at 17.6 percent. The AfD secured 7.1 percent, and the FDP 6.2 percent.
These differing results highlight how politically diverse Mitte is, defying easy categorization into a single milieu. Even these district-wide figures mask significant variations between individual neighborhoods.
Teachers’ Fears: The Rising Tide of the Right
Anne Jesse, 41, a teacher living in Pankow, emerges from the S-Bahn station on Friedrichstraße. She calls Pankow a “dangerous zone.” She notices the election campaign because of the increasing number of AfD posters on the streets. “I find that difficult,” she says.
Her concern begins not with the state elections, but in the classroom. Jesse has been a primary school teacher in Berlin since 2013, working in Mitte and Pankow. During this time, she has witnessed how the demands on schools have changed. A major issue is the inclusion of children with physical or mental disabilities. Since 2015, there has been an increase in students whose native language is not German, some of whom arrived in class with limited language skills.
Jesse speaks about this without giving the impression that everything has been successful in Berlin’s schools. On the contrary. “We are not trained to make up for and bear all these deficits,” she says. More staff and more money are needed. Many of the problems have been known for years and are still not solved, she comments on the work of the previous government.
Nevertheless, she fundamentally believes the chosen path is correct. Therefore, she is disturbed by the idea that a new political majority could abandon it. When asked, she again points to the issue of inclusion. The right-wing forces want to “simply abolish” it and “redistribute children with physical or mental disabilities more to other schools.” From her point of view, this would be the wrong answer to the difficulties. “It is at least on its way,” she says. Turning everything back now, she believes, would be wrong.
The current state government, on the other hand, has had little impact on Jesse’s professional life. When asked what the black-red coalition has changed in recent years, she says she feels “little has arrived in my industry either.” Under the previous government, she saw innovations. That does not mean that everything was done well then. “But in any case, the change was felt more strongly.” That is why Berliners like Anne Jesse are not angry about a specific, missing reform, because Jesse can hardly name one that has fundamentally changed her everyday life.
For the post-election period, she considers a red-red-green alliance likely. She herself stands “on the other side of the AfD” and views the party critically at its core. Her expectations for the new state government are practical. She talks about education, but also about bike paths, electromobility, and a lack of charging stations. As a mother, mobility issues are important to her. In education, after the experiences of recent years, she does not have overly high hopes for rapid change. Above all, she wishes that ongoing debates would continue.
“The Gap is Just Widening Dramatically”
A few meters away, near Humboldt University, another teacher discusses the same election. Marei Lutterbach, 40, from Hanover, has lived in Berlin for about 15 years. She works at a primary school in Wedding and is attending a further training course in Mitte. When asked by the Berliner Zeitung about her view on the election campaign, she replies: “Fear, actually.”
She observes a “shift to the right” and wonders “where it’s all leading.” Even within Berlin, there are areas that are now “light blue colored.” “We are actually already in a metropolis,” she says. She fears a “decreasing diversity” and that “people are being played against each other.” Should the AfD ever come to power, as a civil servant, she would consider leaving Germany.
In her daily school life, Marei experiences social conflicts directly. She previously worked in Lichtenberg, now in Wedding – and she enjoys it. “I chose that,” she says. Of course, there are problems, such as when children arrive at school without German language skills and teachers don’t know how to support them. Nevertheless: “It’s a nice situation. I like it.”
What worries her more is the development in schools. “The gap is just widening dramatically,” Marei says, “the social gap, the educational gap.” There are schools with a good mix of different income and educational backgrounds and others where certain milieus are increasingly concentrated. She also knows this separation as a mother. Her eldest daughter is currently doing her Abitur at a high school in Pankow, the middle one is likely to go to school in Wedding. The older one chose her school in the east of the city because of the language offerings. Marei describes the high school as rather privileged. Precisely for this reason, she admits, she would probably have intervened herself if she had known beforehand “how things are there.”
This blend of professional experience and personal choice illustrates the complexity of the debate surrounding Berlin’s schools. Marei desires social diversity and consciously works in Wedding, yet as a mother, she understands the reasons for scrutinizing her own child’s education.
“As I Feel Like It”: Disenchantment and a Call for Empathy
Our journey continues by S-Bahn to Moabit. Along the promenade of the former Foreign Office building, we encounter a completely different attitude towards the election campaign. It’s less about fear of a specific political development and more about the question of how much importance politics still holds in daily life. In this case: none at all.
Dirk Hein works in Moabit and lives in Reinickendorf. His interest in politics has “decreased sharply.” He has “turned to real life and realized what is actually important” and what he “can influence.” Politics is not part of that. He feels little difference between the current state government and its predecessors. Many things don’t even have to concern him, he says, “unless I decide that they should concern me.”
Although Hein has little interest in politics and dismisses questions about the ongoing Abgeordnetenhaus election with a smile and esoteric-sounding phrases, he intends to vote. He used to vote strategically. “But I don’t do that anymore.” Today, he votes as he usually votes. And how is that? “As I feel like it.”
Finally, it gets a little political. Hein is bothered by how politics deals with people whose views do not fit into their own worldview. One must “really see” the people with whom one lives in this country, instead of approaching them didactically and conveying to them: “You shouldn’t actually think that way.” With that, one will not change their attitude anyway. Instead, one must accept what is, accept the rules of the game of others, and then “make the best moves” to achieve one’s own goal. Then Hein says goodbye and returns to his everyday life.
The diverse voices of Berlin-Mitte paint a picture of a city grappling with profound changes. From concerns about rising costs and migration to anxieties about political shifts and the future of education, residents are engaged in a complex dialogue about their city’s direction. As the elections approach, these personal narratives will undoubtedly shape the political landscape, reflecting the vibrant and sometimes turbulent heart of Berlin.
Source: Own report, interviews with residents of Berlin-Mitte, archived materials from the Berliner Zeitung
