What is a berliner kneipe?

When Gereon Rath feels lonely in Berlin, he does as Berliners do: he goes to a kneipe. A kneipe was (is) a kind of pub, and there where innumerable kneipen in Berlin in the 1920s, in all districts, in noble areas or in poor neighborhoods, dark bars of fine beer palaces. Some kneipen were (are) also extended living rooms, meeting places and information points in the neighborhood. Above all, beer and schnapps are sold, and some pubs also offer small dishes: sausages, eggs in a glass or cutlets. 

Pubs were not just places to go for migrants stranded in the big city, like Gereon. Some guests just want to have a beer, relax, and call their day a day. Others escape the cramped apartments, their families or flee from the worries of everyday life. Some consciously seek company. Clubs can have their meetings in the back rooms, people discuss politics at round tables , play cards, billiards or chess.

Some people seek physical closeness: the transition to open prostitution is fluid, especially in the so-called Animierkneipen (animation bars). While all Berliners go to pubs, men are clearly overrepresented.

In episode 1 of the first season, Gereon joins in a wild charleston dance. When the American dancer Josephine Baker made her stage show in Berlin in 1926, a "Charleston fever" broke out. The rythm, the crazy movements and the American music - all this went well with the big city feeling of the 1920s.

Still, dancing wasn’t normally permitted in a bar. Dancing halls needed a special permit and those permits were rare and coveted. 

Bellmann Bar

Gereon Rath’s kneipe or corner bar, does exist. Its name is Bellmann Bar, in Kreuzberg (Reichenberger Strasse 103). While Bar Tausend, where the scenes in the nightclub Der Holländer were filmed and where we also saw Rath dance, is today a modern and chic place, Bellmann Bar is old-fashioned, homey and a tad shabby. With the looks of the quintessential Berlin kneipe, it is a favourite film location, and it has been a working class bar since the 1920s.

Info from www.rbb24.de