Café Josty on Potsdamer Platz

Café Josty as seen in the TV-series Babylon Berlin

Café Josty was located on Potsdamer Platz. It had been founded by Swiss immigrants in the beginning of the 19th century.
 
In the twentieth century, the place became a meeting place for artists, especially those active in the movements of Expressionism and New Objectivity, attracted by the modernity and dynamism of the surroundings (the Potsdamer Platz).

Poet Paul Boldt (1885-1921) described the appearance of the cafe in his sonnet, « On the terrace of Café Josty ». The poem describes the Potsdamer Platz’ « eternal roar », automobiles and trams, people running over the asphalt, but also (and this sounds very Expressionist indeed) « the smoke of the night, like the pus of a plague ».

Josty had branches in other Berlin neighbourhoods too. Erich Kästner used the Kaiserallee branch as the setting for a scene in the children's book Emil und die Detektive.

The cafe closed in 1930, and the building was destroyed in World War II. In Wim Wenders' film Wings of Desire, an old man attempts to find the location of the cafe but fails. In recent years, a new Café Josty opened in the Sony-Center, some 200 meters away from the original location.

Babylon Berlin

The original Cafe Josty